I get Google+, I really do. But I also think it's unimportant, unneccesary, and a little bit inconvenient. Trust me, I love Google. Their search engine, Maps, and Places features are applications that I literally couldn't live without. Their social networking features from Buzz to Wave, to Groups just haven't caught on with me. In fact, I'm actually utilizing Groups for a freelance gig with a local designer and it's almost unusable as a source to share work, inspirations or ideas. I think Google+ is going to fall down by the wayside too. Why? Because the experience isn't friendly, the design isn't pretty, and the idea isn't innovative. In fact, I'd argue it's taking Facebook and Twitter backwards, using "privacy" and "circles" as excuses to jump into the social business sphere one additional time.

Now that I've got that out of way, I'll touch on the technology. Google is by far one of the smartest companies in the world.  If anyone brings us into the "Minority Report" millenium, it will be the minions at Google.  I agree with the ideas inside Google+.  I'll also agree that they have one hell of a marketing team. If the actual experience matched up to the point-of-views portrayed in the videos below, we would all be interacting in ways only seen in Steven Speilberg movies. But we're not there yet. 

My mom is the master of Facebook. She's not quite into Twitter. She wouldn't go near Google+.

That, therein, lies the problem.

Well Google...will you prove me wrong?

Here lately, all I see is spam on my Facebook wall. The most popular? Probably "See a girl have an orgasm while riding a rollercoaster". I have a hard time believing that 20-30 of my friends clicked the link, but then again, you never know. Either way, I think the most important word in advertising today is relevancy. It's ditching the production model of the past- having an idea, and executing it as soon as possible to capture a relevant audience at a relevant time. This is especially true in digital.

Ed Relf, CCO of Mind Candy says it best:

"I have worked in places where it takes as long to sign off the bugdget as it does to create the campaign. It's a broken model that doesn't work. If I have an idea in the morning, we execute it by the afternoon. It's the only way it can work in the online space."

For all I know, Webroot could've been working on this for months.  Regardless, it's simple, relevant, and smart. 

Still, my advice for not getting a virus?  Go buy a Mac.

Monetary incentive for checking in.

There's something intrinsically wonderful about receiving a magazine in the mail. Oftentimes it's a status symbol. If you read Wired, you're on the edge of innovation. If you read Elle, you're on the forefront of fashion. It's also sort of enchanting. You have to wait for it, it only comes once a month, and there's weeks of anticipation between every issue. Every other form of content is instant, immediate, or delivered daily. In my own opinion, the digital editions of Men's Health, Wired, or GQ don't hold a candle to their print counterparts. Then again, I see why advertisers are ready to move past print. It's interactive, allows for links, videos, and social networking/sharing functionalities. More importantly, it eliminates the unnecessary step of reading the magazine, opening up a computer, and typing in a url. It's instant, therefore, to advertisers, it's immaculate.

I like separating my forms of media and in some cases, digital does win out. I read the USA Today on my iPad every morning, but haven't once considered subscribing to print. Books are another form that I prefer to read digitally. It's a new medium, much more entertaining, and much more convenient. It's strange how much I appreciate the digital bookshelf, but steer clear of the digital mag rack. I think the rich content of magazines make it harder to appreciate online.

Time will only tell if technology surpasses the magazine. There will be more engagement, but the line between professional editorial that's worthy of a subscription and online content that can be accessed with the click of a button will blur and blur into a period of publication panic. For all of us in advertising, this could get exciting. For the publishers out there, let's reaccess the value of print before we turn immediately to digital. The latter, while in its infancy, still leaves much to be desired.

Check out AdWeek's column on this subject titled, "Reading Ads" for a great video from Michael Wolff, two-time National Magazine Award winner and contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

Recently I joined the leadership team at REBUS, the young professional arm of the St. Louis Advertising Club in an effort to improve the content and visibility of their blog.  For the past year or so, I've been a contributing writer offering up insights on "How to Land an Ad Gig", "The Importance of Social Media in the Workplace", and "Deadlines- The Ultimate Inspiration" as well as some recaps for local events that took place at agencies like Rivet and Hoffman Lewis.  It's been a fun excercise that's allowed me to appeal to a wider audience as well as a more targeted audience- young advertising professionals looking for advice from people within the industry.

I think REBUS is an advertising network with a lot of potential, and although it's getting more mature (the group just celebrated it's 5th birthday in March), it feels as though it's still in its infancy.  I originally got involved in an effort to land a job at an agency.  The reason I stick around is because in the advertising industry, it can't hurt to continue to be in the know.  Each REBUS event takes place at a different agency, with presenters who showcase new and innovative thinking year after year.  Yes, there have been some roadblocks (an opinion from an outsider looking in), but I think the group has a leadership team with a vision for a successful now and a successful future, and I'm excited to be a part of it.

I encourage you to keep an eye on the content over at the REBUS blog.  It's not all my writing (in fact most of the articles are submitted by REBUS members and contributing writers) but I think the content is really compelling, educational, and most importantly- original and specific to our intended audience.  It will be growing throughout the year, and I look forward to sharing the vision with you as we move forward.

For those who aren't familiar with REBUS and want to know more, shoot me an email or check out thier page on the St. Louis Ad Club site.

At last, there's incentive. 

I've written articles calling foursqure a "Social Media Playground for Internet Addicts."  I've accumultaed 215 checkins at a variety of different venues.  I've recieved foursquare promotions from resturants like Robust Wine Bar.  Hell, I've even written about what the brand needs to do to stay relevant in the always changing industry.  What do I have to show for it?  Nothing.  In fact, I'd now refer to Foursquare as one of two things: a.) a budding community for the laggard tech crowd or b.) the occasional app for social discoveries.  I think in a few years, it will simply be a graveyard of wasted potential (aka MySpace).  I really hope that I'm wrong.

So there's a not so new app (new to me) called "Get Glue" that allows you to check in to TV shows and movies (among other things). It's fun and movie studios, television studios, and advertisers are getting in on the game by allowing you to recieve stickers with every twenty checkins. The idea is a little cheesy, and I don't think it's destined for suceess, but I'd be lying if I said  I haven't been checking in relentlessy in an effort to get my "Your Highness" sticker set by Friday.  (P.S.- the stickers are real, physical stickers, not to be confused with fake foursquare badges).

Below is a video.  If you have an iPad, I suggest you check this out.  For those that have...thoughts?

I think this Seth Godin guy is pretty cool.  I’m not a big fan of his nor have I ever read his books, but with nearly 70,000 Twitter followers, numerous speaker series with TED, and 13 books in his media arsenal, I’d imagine he’s a pretty smart dude. 

One of my new year’s resolutions was to read more books.  Well, actually, that’s not really accurate.  My resolution was actually to read books, the word “more” would’ve hinted at the fact that I read books now, which I don’t.  That said, the new Rise to the Top video titled, "The Future of Books, Bookstores, and Publishing" couldn’t have come at a better time. 

I encourage you to watch the video, but at about 15 minutes I realize that might be more of a chore than anything.  So I’m going to talk about what I agree with and disagree with in regards to the video below.

Here we go:

So Seth Godin wrote a new book called “Poke the Box”.  It sounds like a self-help/personal development book about making the most out of your professional experience.  More importantly, Godin has created “The Domino Project” a sort of publishing company that focuses on the following three ideas:

1. The customer is not the bookstore, it’s the reader
2. Books are too hard to share
3. Distribution channels need to change

Here’s what makes a lot of sense:

The competition for books isn’t other books.  It’s blogs, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.  Why?  Because these mediums are free.  If you want to sell your book, you’ve got to structure your price accordingly.  Distributing digitally at say $1.00, guarantees you lose a lot of money.  It also guarantees that more people read your book, and hopefully, more people spread the word.

What I don’t necessarily agree with is Godin’s philosophy of “I want to fail, I want to fail often.”  I want to believe that being nimble, experimenting, and ultimately failing is the way of the future, but for normal companies under normal circumstances, I don’t see how this can happen.  Sure, Godin, who’s being backed by Amazon, can ultimately try new publishing tactics and distribution channels in an effort to change how the system works.  Amazon has the money to do that.  But ordinary companies don’t.

If you want to apply this to an the ad world, it’s as simple as looking at the following quote:

Omnicom CEO John Wren said that clients need to give their agencies the “Permission to fail.”

None of us strive to or want to fail, but because our business is changing so fast, it’s paramount that we as creators and inventors experiment and try new and different things.  If clients give us that ability to fall down once in a while without repercussions, I believe we’ll see more innovation and inspiring work (and we’ll make you famous).  What’s great is that with the fluidity of the digital age, we can do things more efficiently and invent new things.  It’s one thing to develop a $1,000,000 traditional campaign vs. $50,000 or $100,000 program or platform that lives digitally.  So, to all of you Fortune 500 CMO’s, it’s ok to fall down everyone once in a while.  I’ve been telling my kids for years that “Complacency is a four letter word.”

While I love this idea, think it’s amazing in every way, shape, and form; there’s no way it will work unless you’re a Google, Amazon, or multi-billion dollar corporation where marketing dollars can be allocated towards failure. 

I believe in Godin’s experiment in book publishing and I soon hope to be a member of the e-reader generation upon getting an iPad in April.  I want to share books with friends, pay $1.00 for fresh entries, and talk to authors directly through mediums like Facebook and Twitter.  Do I think I’ll ever step in a bookstore?  Probably not.  And that’s the reason I think Godin is on to something.

At the same time, do I ultimately think it will be a success in lieu of the intent to fail?  I'm still not sure where I stand on it.

I typically try to stay off Twitter during the weekend.  This isn't a strategic move, simply a time management move.  I need some time away from the Web.  The most prominant graphic in the below image begs the bigger question, "Are we becoming socially antisocial through social media?" 

At times, I would argue yes.

Image courtesy of Oglivy Notes, a collection of handwritten infographics from SXSWi.

A short while back, most likely near the beginning of January, I printed out a document titled, "Social Media Measurement 2011:  Five Things to Forget and Five Things to Learn.  I most likely came across the article as I was determining my own predictions for the upcoming year.  It's written by "metricsman" or after a quick Google search, Don Bartholomew, VP of Digital Research at Fleishman Hillard. Let's see what he had to say.

First, Don tells us to forget about impressions.  Historically, success has been reported through the lens of quantity vs. quality.  I would add that advertising measures successes in much the same way.  You could easily generate millions of impressions without seeing one result.  Then again, there's something to be said about general awareness and branding rather than measuring against a strict figure such as sales results. 

Don goes on to say that we also need to worry less about fans and followers.  Once again, I'd agree with his point. It's great to measure fans/followers as a benchmark for influence, but I don't think it can be a catch-all resource for measurement.  For instance, if someone says they are a social media superstar or "very active" on Twitter but they only have 37 followers, most likely they don't have a good grasp on the platform.  Flip the switch to a recent ad campaign that I worked on, and things are quite a bit different. One of the fan pages that we created only generated 53 followers over a 12-week period.  However, those followers generated roughly 539 clicks through Facebook. That's more clicks than we had on a banner ad that ran on a high-traffic site targeted at the audience we were aiming for.  There, I would argue that the number of followers becomes meaningless in regards to the measurable results.

Where I agree with Don the most is in regards to his stance on impact, measurement, and attribution of media in the social space.  First, he offers insight that ROI comes in two forms: financial- a percentage of dollars returned for a given cost, and impact- awareness, engagement, and influence that will eventually create value between a consumer and a brand.  For instance, the ROI of a coupon is pretty simple.  You determine how much it costs to print/produce/distribute the coupon,  the amount of money you spend actually lowering the cost of your item and ultimately compare it to sales numbers after the coupon period expires.  It's a short financial gain/loss that is easily measurable.  For something like social media, things could often take a while.  A tweet about toothpaste could spark a dinner table conversation that leads to a purchase decision two weeks down the road.

Don also goes on to talk about the PESO model his firm uses.  In the age of digital, social, and traditional, it's important that agencies remain wide in scope and integrated across all platforms.  Earning media alone often isn't enough.  Paying for it isn't always enough either.  By expanding through as many consumer touch points as possible through paid advertising, earned media, shared content (often created by consumers) and owned online properties (Web sites, microsites, blogs, social media profiles) you truly can increase the liklihood for consumer conversions. 

Now onto the only piece of the editorial that I don't neccesarily agree with: the hypothetical ROI model.  Don states that through logic, we can come up with data that could essentially determine the value of social media engagement.  For instance, if you push out a tweet to "x" amount of people, "x%" will see it, "x%" will share it, and "x" percent will change thier behavior when they come across it.  I believe you can use these metrics and make them sound believable, but if a company is so on-the-fence that they have to resort to determining the price point of a single tweet, the outreach is probably plagued to begin with.

You don't have to be a math major to get this social media stuff.  But it does help if you have a foundation to measure your media outreach.  The metricsman is on to something, it will just take time to see if his predictions continue to come to life.

In case you missed the link above, check out my 8 Trends for 2011 post from way back when.  I'm still confident that I'm on to something.

One of the best quotes on content strategy I've ever come across.

“If your goal is to keep your customers engaged, then you better be sure that you are engaged as well.  You can plant the prettiest garden in the world, but unless you water and tend it, it will end up dead or feral.  Freshness and frequency count, both in the customer’s mind, and to search engines that are judging what’s relevant.  But beyond the fear of failure, the exciting promise is that if you maintain your reliability and pertinence, you can create an ongoing relationship with your customers on topics that matter to you both.  Demonstrating reliability earns trust, and publishing on a regular schedule can turn that first customer visit into a habit, whether it’s for video, news bits, white papers, or other compelling reasons to return.  Whatever you deliver it’s important that there is someone in charge who understands both your messaging priorities, and what keeps customers coming back.”

John Alderman, Creative Director- The Barbarian Group