Make Seriously | Design and Life

It’s been too long between posts, so I thought I’d pop in a few words. (Posting has been on the backburner with the million things I have to get done as well as the broken A/C in the house this week, going on day 4 of 90+ heat with no relief!)

Yesterday was the staff retreat for the agency I work at. This year we had a bit of fun with social media at the Indianapolis zoo. Instead of a traditional scavenger hunt, we had our resident pregnant lady sending us tweets for clues from back at the Riverhouse (she couldn’t do the walking, so she got the joy of being home base). The team leaders each were subscribed to her (protected) feed, and as they got clues remotely the teams were to take photos to match the clue and then upload them to flickr. All in all it was a very fun experience.

At the end of the day, my colleague working home base commented that it was fun to be back at control because she got to see what was happening in next-to-real-time as we uploaded and tagged our photos. She knew where we were and what we were doing, and got to watch the search unfold as we completed it. While I’m sure the scavenger hunt idea using social media isn’t new by any means, I think it serves as a great example of how social media can be used.

For instance, suppose you have multiple reporters in who agree to set up a single flickr account and then individually post to sets. Now you get to watch the story unfold from three different angles as it happens, and something that would otherwise be missed by a lack of personell or cooperation can be caught. Or maybe you’re lost and need help. You can send out images of where you are and can get immediate feedback if anyone can identify the landmarks. It’s very, very powerful when used creatively.

Twitter is not Statistically Sensible

If you’re in the business of marketing, or if you work with marketers, or if you read blogs done by marketers you may have noticed a new game that’s gotten wildly popular: Statistic Says. It’s an exciting new game that takes Twitter to a whole new level by finding statistics relating to the demographics and use of Twitter, then making up stories about it’s future boom or bust. While it’s a lot of fun, it’s about as useful as looking to Hollywood for accurate depictions of history.

The unfortunate reality of the situation is that most of the competitors in Statistic Says don’t actually know how to read, or use, statistics. Tossing fuel on the fire, Harvard Business released a set of statistics that examine who is using Twitter and who they follow. The real trick to going through this report is interpreting the data.

Watching this hit, I noticed a general reaction to a particular statistic: Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.

It seems that there are two camps on this.
1) Nobody actually uses Twitter! If most people only post once, it shows that it’s pretty useless!
2) Twitter isn’t about posting, or Tweeting. It’s about other people Tweeting and gleaning information.

What Harvard Business did, instead of trying to interpret the data alone, was look at trending from other “social media” sites. They compared contribution rates from users of Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook and noticed that Twitter was far more like Wikipedia than Facebook. As a user of all three, I can’t say I find the trend surprising.

During a day of using Twitter, I find that there are several kinds of people, including those that never tweet. The catch, however, is that they still use Twitter. Compare me to Guy Kawasaki for instance. You’ll notice a small (read: enormous) disparity in our posting rates. Me: 826 updates, 66 followed, 107 following. Guy: 25,411 updates, 122,767 follwed, 127,137 following. We may not use Twitter equally. I have 3.2% of his total posts and only follow .05% of the total number of users he does.

However, this follows the exact trend that Harvard Business points out: the top 10% of active users account for 90% of the content. It’s just like Wikipedia. Most of the people who use Wikipedia (and Twitter) don’t actually go there to push content. They don’t have a whole lot to say. Maybe nothing. Instead, they find value in watching it and listening. A few examples of my own use include following the Indianapolis Star’s shopping feed on Black Friday to find out where the lines and sales were. Or following RedBox to get a free rental every Monday. Maybe it’s following Mike Massimino to find out how the Hubble repair mission is going. It could be following the Yankees to get scores on my phone without having to pay for a subscription.

Whatever the case may be, Twitter users aren’t always “users” in the sense that they contribute content. To see the tweeting rate and take it to mean the usage rate is to ignore some very common sense facts about statistics. With that, I leave you with one more thing to think about: lurkers. If you participate on message boards, you likely have noticed the large number of people who never post as well as the very few people who post a lot. The same is true of a very public, very real time message board.

Oh, hello…

Hello world wide web. hyper text transfer protocol. Web 2.0 - whatever you want to call it, really. It’s me, Dane Benton, and I am a new contributor to this wonderful conglomeration known as Make Seriously. I suppose at some point you may have expected it, with all of the recent mentions Josh has made of me in recent weeks. But now I’m an official contributor, and since I’ve already been referred to as the ‘hostest with the mostest’, I suppose it’s my turn to show you something I like.

For those of you who may not know, I am a student at Anderson University, graduating NEXT SATURDAY, May 9. This last semester has been an absolute blur, and as I prepare for the things that lie ahead, I don’t really have a lot of downtime. When I do have downtime, however, I am usually comfortably perched upon the red couch in my living room watching either 1.) The Biggest Loser or 2.) LOST. While these are two completely different shows (which both ironically deal with ‘losing’…) they are my solace from the hectic life of a senior in college.

Most of the advertising that occurs during both of these shows is awful, and since I don’t have the luxury of DVR, I suffer through it. But one night while watching one of these shows, I saw an ad that made me stop and actually pay attention because it caught my attention in a new way. You may have seen it - you may have not… but don’t fret, because the awesome(ness) that is YouTube has allowed me to post it here.

It really puts things in perspective, and made me think — I’m pretty sure that’s why I like it. As a designer (and human) I like to make people think and do things that are different in some way. There’s nothing like challenging the status quo - so do something different today (and why not leave me a nice little comment while you’re at it?!). I wish you a happy weekend, readers. I will try my hardest not to disappoint. And—many thanks to josh for rendering my hair almost perfectly — that’s why he’s paid the big bucks I suppose.

The End of an Era

Last night, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) did something remarkable. He showed the world (or at least the developed world) a truth. It’s no secret that the newspapers are dying. Blogs have become the standard source of media for millions, and news outlets moved their print articles online to stay relevant. The problem they’re finding, however, is that there is no viable business model if they want to maintain their business the way it was run before the online takeover.

Take the New York Times, for instance. Most of it’s content is completely free via the web, but consumers still have to pay for a print version. So what do even loyal customers do? Keep the content, ditch the bills. It’s great for the mass market, and it’s improved readership. But what this move can’t do is pay the bills for the reporters around the world who contribute to the Times. In other words, these businesses can’t keep their models and still hope to compete, much less thrive.

So what amazing thing did Mr. Kutcher do last night? For free, via video, competing against one of the largest media outlets, he streamed live video of himself to thousands of people across the world to declare victory in a competition for market share. Mr. Kutcher had one million followers before CNN. What’s so big about that? For one, Ashton doesn’t have a television station, video producers or a worldwide network to help him get followers. He has Lil’ Kim on YouTube, he has PDiddy on Twitter, and he has the know-how to use social media to create an enormous following without having to spend a dime. He showed that he, as a single person, can hold more clout than a media conglomerate.

So what does this mean for the media? It means their business model is threatened. I would even go as far as to say it was obliterated last night. If we were to look at the cost of production for battle between the two, there would be a huge discrepancy. CNN has to pay contributors, staff, camera men, writers; they have a whole lot of people working to push for the win. Ashton Kutcher had himself, a bunch of free software and a lot of community influence. He’s not the only one. Of the top ten Tweeters, seven are individuals and two are media outlets. In case you’re not convinced, here’s the whole list. The crazy thing is, it’s not just major celebs on the list, there are up and coming stars in their own right littering the top fifty influencers. That’s hundreds of thousands of followers for relative unknowns. And they’re competing with the likes of CNN, The New York Times and NPR. Did I mention for free?

So the business model is bust. Kutcher declared “check!” last night, and now it’s up to the media to decide how to respond. Wave a white flag? Bonzai rush down the hill? Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll rethink the strategy all-together.

Now: Pay Attention Class:

Things have been crazy at the MakeSeriously headquarters lately (located, appropriately, inside my skull). But fret not, there will be content coming as well as a new feature I’m hoping to do monthly. The plan, anyway, is to do an artist profile and this month’s will be featuring designer Dane Benton, who’ve I’ve mentioned before. So do stay tuned, and if you’re interested in being profiled in future months, let me know. Now for the regularly scheduled programme:

There’s a fellow in Britain by the name of Charlie Brooker. He writes for The Guardian and is one of those funny guys across the pond who can approach something very American and in a dry, curious way reveal that it’s completely absurd. Of course, this is America so we have lots of the absurd. About 40% of the Stumbles I make are popular primarily because they are absurd. Sure, it’s amusing and well worth seeing. But it’s neither useful in any utilitarian way, nor is it practical. What’s a bit frightening, however, is when people actually listen to the absurd as though it’s sane or rational. Unfortunately, the prime-time American media fits the “absurd” category pretty well, and here’s the humorous Mr. Brooker to raise an eyebrow at it:

It goes without saying that we should be paying some attention to the way things are presented to us as well as listening to the content. Marshall McLuhan is a name tossed around a lot lately because of his 1967 work “The Medium is the Message”. One of the ideas of the medium being the message can be summed up like this: the way an idea is presented, the medium that it is messaged through, is more important than the actual content. It’s something I think we all can understand in a visceral way, and that’s part of what makes the media so absurd. And dangerous. Think about the most passionate speakers you’ve heard. As they get moving, you don’t just hear and agree with them, nodding your head in silent assent. You begin to feel something. And that something is the result of the medium, the presentation itself rather than the words. To compare, it’s like a religious experience where the devotee must enter a state of emotions through worship. The medium of worship helps create the connection, it develops the visceral reaction.

The danger is when we confuse the visceral reaction for reality. There are times when it is real, when the passion is good. When Dr. King gave his “I have a dream” speech, I think few would call it inappropriate to feel passion for that speech. But the thing to consider is that Hitler spoke with a similar passion. The difference in the two was the message, not the medium and the danger is to confuse those two. That’s where Brooker’s commentary should make us all pause: are we hearing the message or are we confusing it with the medium? It’s called the news, but is that what they’re actually presenting? Are they pulling on our emotional side in hopes of persuading us to do something for them? They are good questions to ask, especially as the increasingly absurd television news media becomes more profitable and popular despite a decrease in quality and content.

Oh, and Brooker is hilarious.

New Charlie the Unicorn!!!

This is FilmCow’s Part 3 to the Charlie the Unicorn series. In case you missed them (and it’s very unfortunate if you have) here are part 1 and part 2. And, if you’re particularly awesome, you may be interested in some Charlie merch. (I don’t even know this fellow, but the Charlie clips are too good not to pimp his stuff…) Personally speaking, I want this.