Roger Wilco. The Tenets of Digital Strategy.

Juni 10th, 2010 • View Comments Strategy
Tags: Diagram, Ideas, Philosophy, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Truth, We like, World

After trying to define the difference between traditional and digital strategy (if there is any) I still have no perfect answer. This sketch by Mike takes us at least one step closer to a solution of the problem.

Thanks to Mike Arauz, Via We are Social.

Purpose. The stuff that drives Motivation.

Juni 7th, 2010 • View Comments Work
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Motivation, Philosophy, Presentation, Truth, visual, Work, World

I have to admit I am not too much into motivation coaches. There simply are too many prophets out there. Dan Pink is one of them. But he has a clear vision of what motivation is all about. davaidavai.com definitely is no blog about motivation or working efficiency. But it revolves around a dynamic world whose companies have to find new ways to keep track of what happens outside. E.g. how people realize stuff. Pink’s presentation about the stuff that drives us is clear and intelligent (thanks to the toolblog). It takes 10 minutes to watch it. But simply do it. Eye candy is included.

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World Domination. We like.

April 24th, 2010 • View Comments Business, Social, Tech, Tools, Trends
Tags: Business, Facebook, Future, I like, Open Graph, Philosophy, Social Graph, Social Networks, Strategy, Tech, Tools, Trends, World

With about 420 million active users (more than 50% of them logging in every day) Facebook really is a James Bond villain’s dream come true. And no, it is not just successful. Facebook is killing it’s competitors. It has simply buried Myspace, Orkut and others and won’t stop growing. I don’t know what is going to be the No 1 social network 2020. But currently I bet it still might be Facebook.

What was once google, is – in parts – about to become our favourite Evil Empire. google may still rule everything Pull but Zuckerberg works hard to turn its business into a Push Superpower. If you search for the Large Hadron Collider you choose google. But Facebook is your choice for the restaurant around the corner and your fave sneaker brand. And since wednesday things are on the move again…

One Graph to Rule them all

In case you haven’t heard the term Social Graph before – it will either become important or obsolete in the future – simply because Facebook wants to own or dominate it. In his 2007 article ‘Thoughts on the Social Graph‘ Brad Fitzpatrick talked about the Social Graph as ‘the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related‘. Basically it is the people you know, the stuff you listen to, read, tweet, and tag, and what you put on maps – and the question how you access and distribute the information to your friends. By now there wasn’t one but many disperse social graphs. But the more we are intertwined on Facebook as the one connector, the better the platform’s chances to become the knot of earth’s social graph. Now, after some technical adjustments last week Facebook is de facto trying to nothing less than that.

Well, world domination looks a little bit different, I have to admit. Mark Zuckerberg’s tools for world domination are so unobrusive that nobody understand them who is not part of the industry. What Facebook delivered on its F8 conference looked…well…small…but may have more than significant outcomes.

• Cornerstone of Facebook’s conquest is the Open Graph Protocol -  basically a techn0logical extension of the social network that treats the free web (the artist formerly known as Not Facebook) as Facebook entities.
• This can be studied through Facebook’s well known ‘I like’ button (plus many more new social plugins) which is now available for every web page (look up). Facebook will treat blog posts (which are part of the system) just like Facebook posts – and of course draws data from them.
• Facebook Fanpages and ‘Fans’ do not exist anymore, get replaced by ‘I like’
• Facebook Connect as a quasi-brand will be dumped
• And a couple of other revisions. Facebook did not go too much into details but it will soon finish off all other competitors in the economy by offering its own currency and geo-location solutions.

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Digital Creative. The Anatomy of Persuasiveness.

April 20th, 2010 • View Comments Display
Tags: Ads, Advertising, Agencies, Banner, Creativity, Display, Ideas, Philosophy, Presentation, Trends, Truth, visual

Even though I don’t agree with the premise of this deck by Soap (“display rocks”), it contains a couple of very true thoughts about digital. Or, to be more precise, six foundations of what turns digital superior to more than a challenger of traditional advertising.

Media. The Anatomy of Digital Platforms.

April 11th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Brainfood, Cool, david armano, Diagram, edelman, Media, Microsoft, Philosophy, Presentation, Strategy, visual, World

David Armano seems to stay true to his roots as the social web’s best info visualizer. His endless stream of useful sketches about the web has explained the terms paid, owned and earned media earlier. But I really like this graphic from his new employer Edelman Digital…simply because it’s very easily understandable and I will now use it in my own decks.

Via Visual Loop

Big Ideal. Ogilvy’s Brand Platform Revisited.

März 30th, 2010 • View Comments Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Big Ideal, Cool, Ogilvy, Philosophy, Planning, Prediction, Presentation, Strategy, Tools, We like

On my way to explore the best of both worlds (traditional vs digital) I have – once again – come across Ogilvy’s ‘Big Ideals’ concept. And I think it’s a philosophy worth taking a look at, if you’re a (non-Ogilvy) Planner.

It is a planning platform defining an overarching aspirational thought. The objective is obvious – to provide consistency in brand positioning and tone by defining what a brand strives for. Basically in how it wants to make the world a better place. This is a meta objective which is pretty free for all concepts and ideas supporting the Big Ideal. And indeed it may be even a good planning platform to build upon in a more stressful, social, 24/7 marketing environment. Simply because it is free, even though it stages a clearly defined, hypothetical, final condition for a brand.

Thanks to Giles for the video link.

Agencies. Thank God It’s Doomsday.

März 23rd, 2010 • View Comments Business, Trends
Tags: Ads, Agencies, Business, Funny, Future, Ideas, Philosophy, Prediction, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Trends, World

Nowaday’s challenges for ad agencies worldwide are closely connected with a grown up customer. Personally I am not a fan of agency bashing. I am convinced most agencies are not well prepared for today’s world. But I think most of them will reinvent themselves.

Nevertheless I found this little clip remarkable. It tells a good story as starting point to stress today’s Ad Agency’s Public Enemy #1 – substantial Change. It was produced for FITC, Toronto, a digital tech & storytelling conference. I want to go there – unfortunately I won’t be able to .

>Via Fischmarkt

The Truth. God and Tufte hate your ugly Charts.

März 22nd, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Diagram, Funny, kittens, Philosophy, Powerpoint, Truth, visualization, World

Twenty years after the invention of Powerpoint and two weeks after Edward Tufte has been appointed to become Obama’s Presidential advisor there is only one thing left to say…and I hope you remember it before you merge Comic Sans Headlines and Smart Art next time. Understand it as a warning.

Thanks to Mark Goetz for the idea. I found the link via Flowing Data.

How True. It’s not about Digital, Stupid.

März 7th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Agencies, Cool, Philosophy, Prediction, Trends, Truth, World

I found this convincing mission statement by Sidekick Studios UK on Neil Perkin’s (fantastic) blog. It’s just a well written piece of PR for a digital conference in the first place. But it is so right.

Audi’s Green Police. Didn’t They say Hitler?

Januar 30th, 2010 • View Comments Ads, Brands
Tags: Ads, Audi, Brands, Fail, Germany, Ideas, Philosophy, PR, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy

Let’s start an intellectual experiment.

Think about e.g. an ex-spouse in your life and now think about any object in your appartment. Can you associate it with him or her somehow? You probably can. Take the old vase in your living room and you will probably find a connection to your ex who loved flowers so much. Most likely you will be able to link the TV set to her preferences for ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and so on…But why should you do that? Especially since you will be able to link pretty much anything to pretty much anything after thinking about it for a while. Plus, simply put, while you actually might not want to think about your ex-spouse anymore at all?

Well, that’s what self-proclaimed guardians of Political Correctness do on the web 24/7. They love to think about all kinds of connections because there is not one thing which makes them as happy as making up a good old PR disaster.

One information in advance: I am German and I work for a digital agency with Audi International on the client list (not PR, not Audi USA). This is just accidental and not the rationale behind this article. I am professionally not at all engaged in any Audi project even though I like the cars. I simply react on this article by Danny Brown, entitled “Audi and the Super Bowl Social Media Shit Storm“.  This is the story: In an attempt to spearhead a social media intiative, Audi USA (keep that in mind, it is important) had invented the so-called ‘Green Police’. It comes with a Super-Bowl ad, a Youtube channel and the inevitable twitter account. This is the more or less entertaining ad:

Did you realize it? No? Audi has just committed a major act of Political Incorrectness, according to Danny.

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