Show me the way

From the "I-have-too-had-girlfriends!" department, Japan's Information Architects released and delivered straight to my door their latest Web Trend Map, an ongoing series mapping the Internet to various public transport systems. Version 4 which has just been released is the Internet mapped onto Tokyo's Metro System. If I'm at Wired and I want to get to Digg, I have to take the News Line to The Huffington post, get on the Domain Train to Google, then switch onto the Filter Line to wind up at Digg.

One part document of how far we've come, one part time capsule for us to look back and say "Remember when...?", the poster is shipping now, and even the most laid back of hipsters in the agency have swung by my office, stood back and said "...that's actually quite cool."

At just under 3' by 4', it is a fine addition to, well, any surface you care to put it on.

Get yours today.

Let's give them something to talk about

So while waiting for Toronto's subway system to get its act together this morning, I caught Clay Shirky's latest online lecture, given as part of the TED series. The title, "How Twitter, Facebook and cell phones can make history" does a lousy job of conveying the depth of information and the ideas contained within. Back in November I touched on issues around social media and the gross misunderstanding of what was important in this new revolution, making the following statement:

It is a period that will forever be known as a time where it became as easy to create content as it was to consume it. THAT is the important part of what is going on.

Now, I'm on the record as being a fan of smart people agreeing with me, and in this case, Clay's latest talk is bang on the money.

The moment we're living through is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history.

He says it far more eloquently than I, granted, and the rest of his talk is loaded with fantastic insights and examples of how technologies, once ubiquitous, develop interesting uses (and not the other way around). The TED Talk is below. Enjoy, then go change the world.

[ted id=575]

Don't believe the hype

Image via CrunchBase

I just finished working my way through a series of lectures given by Rupert Murdoch late last year on the future of media, something my good friend Jeremy Smart put me onto. The six-part series reveal a far more insightful and aware captain of industry than I think even Murdoch’s biggest fans would give him credit for. Waxing lyrical on everything from the impact of Craig’s List on newspaper classifieds to the educational needs of his birth country (Australia), Murdoch’s lectures show a man not wearied by age, instead acutely aware of where his media empire stands and thoroughly steadfast in his vision for a strong if dramatically altered future for news media, and for Western civilization itself.

Those not from Australia can perhaps skip the introductory lecture as it is fairly antipodean in focus; the remaining five though are candid and incredibly insightful, and will turn even the most hardened cynic into something of a believer in the boy who began his media career in Adelaide, one shoulder carrying the local paper, the other his father’s coffin. Do yourself a favour, and check them out.

It's all about them words

A few years back I did a consulting gig on a print directory service everyone is familiar with. The project looked at how digital media was changing the landscape they existed in and they were interested in finding out how they could continue to be profitable while these changes happened. In the end the recommendation was to ensure migration from the offline service to the online one, and involved a strategy for doing so. Having delivered the final report however, the response came back stating their print directory represented X-million dollars of revenue so they expected it to still be a thriving business in years to come, regardless of what we had to say.

No prizes for guessing how that turned out.

I was reminded of this when I got home one day last week to see the below in the lobby of the building I'm living in at the moment.

Now, Yellow Pages wasn't the company so desperate to display their desire to stick their head into the sand, however they must, at some point, have had someone have a similar conversation with them. Three years ago when I was doing that project I stood in the middle of my agency and asked the entire office who had used a print directory in the last 6 months. Unless I was willing to accept "door stop" as an appropriate use, I had nothing.

It used to be if you weren't in the Yellow Pages you didn't have a business. Now it's a matter of being on Google's pages, and you best make sure its the first one. If I was advising a company still advertising in the Yellow Pages, I would tell them to take that spend and invest it in SEO, optimising its site for core competancies and locality.

Understand I don't think it is a good thing that a once proud business is dying, but few things are more Darwinian than business itself; ignorance should not be rewarded, nor should an inability or unwillingness to change with the times.

And we definitely shouldn't invest in delaying the inevitable.

All I wanna do is to thank you

Readers who recall my 5 step marketing mantra will remember point 5 stated the most remarkable thing you can have is exceptional customer service. We're sadly still in a place where a number of organisations don't get this, due in large part to the customer service departments being seen as a necessary evil, a cost of doing business. As a result, the people staffing these roles are not empowered to simply solve problems and instead are hamstrung by rules designed to elicit the bare minimum of support; enough to keep the customers at the table but not nearly enough to actually make them happy to be there.

The contrast between the great and the not so great was rammed home for me recently thanks to a lousy experience with one of the world's largest magazine publishers and one of the world's smallest cafes. Those who know me know my love for coffee is wholly unbridled, bordering on obsessive. They will also know the outright contempt I hold for the Starbucks of the world, suffice to say North America is not David-friendly when it comes to my dark master.

[caption id="attachment_714" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Reach out and touch somebody"][/caption]

Thankfully here in Toronto I have found Balzac's, an independent coffee house which roasts its own beans and makes, quite simply, the best coffee I've had here so far. Having fallen in love with the store-bought goods I began ordering online, and when the first batch showed up, I was greeted with a hand-written card, offering up a 15% off code for my next order and a note about their Facebook application.

Let's review that people:

• I already love the product


• They're making it cheaper for me to get


• AND they're offering me another way to interact with their brand.

Contrast this with Conde Nast, who told me, when my issue of Wired failed to appear (while my co-workers waltzed around with their's) that I needed to wait 2 weeks before they could fulfill a missing order. Having waited patiently, I contacted them at the appropriate time to be told:

We are sorry to inform you that the issue you requested is no longer available.

To be fair, they then told me my subscription would be extended by an issue, but this is not the point. I understand magazines are having a hard time of it lately.

Can I suggest though the ways to innovate in your business model are not to deprive people of the thing they desire in the interests of saving a couple dollars.

I hope that someone gets my, I hope that someone gets my...

My Gmail inbox was out of control. I had over 1300 unread emails in it. Part of that is due to poor email handling habits on my end, but it's also due to a lot of people sending me information I don't want or need.

My Google Reader is also overflowing, but it's full of content I have asked for, stuff I want and, very occasionally, need. in catching up on my feeds over lunch just now though, I came across the below video from Gary Vaynerchuk.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.838623&w=425&h=350&fv=]

posted with vodpod

I have a lot of friends working in PR, I hope they watch the video. More than that I hope their clients do too.

The best around - June 12th, 2009

So this week I tweeted about an agency website which both had me giggling and marveling at its inventiveness. The agency in question, Boone Oakley is leapfrogging the notion an agency needs to have an impressive corporate site with not having a site at all. Instead, they have a video on YouTube which they have taken the time to build specifically for the platform, leveraging it in a way that is custom tailored to the site; it is not only a uniquely digital execution, it adheres to still fringe ideas around the distributed web and making your very presence as distributed as possible.

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elo7WeIydh8"]

Plus it is very, very funny, and at 300,000-plus views, I imagine not only a bunch of disgruntled agency employees agree, but a host of disgruntled clients. To the companies out there who for some reason think they can get away witha  mediocre presence online and "let the work speak for itself", think again.

While we're on the work though, Goodby & Silverstein have a lovely piece up for telco Sprint. It is an execution unique to YouTube as far as I'm aware, following on from the brilliant Wario execution Nintendo had - I imagine this sort of thing will occur more and more as Google attempt to plug the US$500 million hole in the ship that is the world's most popular video sharing site. Users upload videos of themselves making a number via the ad and then are inserted into the appropriate spot in a banner that takes the idea of a digital clock to a new level. Check it out at BannerBlog.

Last but not the least, the biggest shift online this week is coming courtesy of Facebook. They're falling inline with most social networks and services and allowing personal URLs to be registered (e.g. http://Facebook.com/DavidNGillespie). This has previously only been open to brands at a cost, the indomitable Gary Vaynerchuk has more:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.837622&w=425&h=350&fv=]

more about "Gary Vaynerchuk - Why Facebook fan pa...", posted with vodpod

Take care everybody, and please let me know if you come across something during the week that simply has to be seen.