PSFK: Posts:36, Comments: 57 (Avg. # comments per post: 1.58)

Brand Autopsy: Posts: 30, Comments: 192 (Avg. # comments per post: 6.4)

Influential Marketing Blog: Posts 10, Comments: 36 (Avg. # comments per post: 3.6)

Murketing: Posts 15, Comments: 7 (Avg. # comments per post: .47)

Grant McCracken: Posts 14, Comments 65 (Avg. # comments per post: 4.64)

Eyecube: Posts 10, Comments 7 (Avg. # comments per post: .7)

Online Marketer Blog: Posts 5, Comments 24 (Avg. # comments per post: 4.8)

Again, this is a rather arbitrary analysis. I think all of the above are super smart people who all have a different approach and style.

Let's take a look at the Top five blogs on the AdAge Power 150 to see what that looks like under the same litmus test:

Seth Godin: N/A, doesn't host comments on site.

Search Engine Land: Posts: 20, Comments: 8 (Avg. # comments per post: .4)

Copyblogger: Posts: 6, Comments: 241(Avg. # comments per post: 40.17)

Search Engine Watch: N/A

Adrants: Posts: 25, Comments: 34 (Avg. # comments per post: 1.36)

So it seems that having a robust comment system isn't a particular help nor hindrance.

Now, as a contrast I'm going to take a look at two websites I really enjoy that aren't directly related to marketing/branding/PR/Advertising:

The Sartorialist: Posts: 40, Comments: 3477 (Avg. # comments per post: 86.92)

Arsenal America: Posts: 10, Comments: 800 (Avg. # comments per post: 80.00)

*Note - I'm the founder of Arsenal America.

Pretty striking difference, huh? Now, obviously this doesn't take quality of comments into account, but let's assume all of the above have their fair share of dross as well as intelligent commentary. Is the online marketing community missing something here?

Would a marketing blog consisting only of photos engender more community-based dialogue? 

Would a blog focusing on the marketing of a specific sports team generate robust, passionate discussion?

Are we all so busy blogging ourselves that we don't have the time to fully engage in online conversation with our peers?

Lots of questions, I'd love to hearing your thoughts, so please leave a comment!

Aaron Dignan, Alexandru Rosu, Allan Benamer, Amber Finlay, Azita Houshiar, Bernard Leibov, Bryan Fuhr, Bud Melman, Charles Rosen, Colin Nagy, Dallas Penn, David Art Wales, Dipti Bramhandkar, Doug Jaeger, Faris Yakob, Gaurav Mishra, Grant McCracken, Hillel Cooperman, Irving Slesar, James Cooper, Jeff Tuller, Jennifer Wright, Joel Johnson, Kevin Slavin, Mark Baltazar, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Morgan Friedman, Nick Parish, Noah Brier, Scott Ballum               

By any reckoning that is an awesome list of thoughtful, dynamic and 'interesting' people. At $35 a ticket it's about $1.20 per speaker.

Major kudos to David Nottoli for putting this program, and event, together.

Grant McCracken is an Interesting alum, having previously spoken at Interesting London. I'm excited to see him because, as an avid reader of his blogs and books, I know he's going to bring a unique perspective on whatever he speaks about. His topic for Interesting New York? Let's let Grant explain:

“My wife says I have it. I feel quite strongly you have it. So that makes everyone. We all have Asperger’s Syndrome. Right?”

See what I mean? Didn't see that coming, did you?  You should definitely check out his blog by the way, he's working on a very cool tool that allows you to search his blog posts related to brands.

Now that you've read it, you agree there's so much good stuff in it, that it's hard to know where to start. But I picked this place, late in the article, because it's something I've been thinking about:

"Yet Ahan knows that she cannot simply walk away from her online life, because the people she knows online won’t stop talking about her, or posting unflattering photos. She needs to stay on Facebook just to monitor what’s being said about her. This is a common complaint I heard, particularly from people in their 20s who were in college when Facebook appeared and have never lived as adults without online awareness. For them, participation isn’t optional. If you don’t dive in, other people will define who you are. So you constantly stream your pictures, your thoughts, your relationship status and what you’re doing — right now! — if only to ensure the virtual version of you is accurate, or at least the one you want to present to the world."

Last week, in my first installment of social media rules, I wrote that the social costs of silence for a brand were large. When I read the paragraph above, I kept placing Brand in the place of Ahan.

A brand can't simply walk away from its online life. It needs to be continually monitoring what is said about it. Some brands do a really good job at that.

The second thing that I took from the article is the notion of "passive updating." This is a meme from another Canadian writer and thinker named Grant McCracken called Status Casting. This is the notion that someone’s status is a critical thing to promote to people.

This is especially true for younger people who are emerging brands. And it’s obviously true of brands.
The goal of a brand is ‘ambient awareness’. It’s not one that is easily achievable, but it’s certainly a goal. If a people were ‘ambiently aware’ of a brand, when a purchase decision comes along, they will more than likely think of the brand.

Think of status casting as a non-interruptive, passive way of updating fans on what's going on with the brand. it doesn't matter what tool a brand uses, it matters that it stays true to the brand, it entertains, and it engages.

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Fan fiction. Brand hijacking. Copyright misuse. Sheer devotion. Call it what you will, but we call it the blurred line between content creators and content consumers, and it's not going away. We're your biggest fans, your die-hard proponents, and when your show gets cancelled we'll be among the first to pass around the petition. Talk to us. Befriend us. Engage us. But please, don't treat us like criminals.

This site exists to catalogue the conversation around AMC's Mad Men and its fanbase across the social web. But it's just the beginning. 'We are Sterling Cooper' is a rallying cry to brands and fans alike to come together and create together.

This is a casestudy in Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe (DINU) behaviour. I'm sure Henry Jenkins, Grant McCracken and others are seeing this and nodding their heads.

Frankly, if the job is being left to PR people, it’s usually not a good solution. If you come up through the ranks of PR you do tend to have a skill-set/knowledge base focused on external audiences. There are PR people talented enough to turn their hand to internal matters, but it’s not something automatically successful.

Indy's point on skill-set and knowledge base didn't immediately come to mind when I wrote my original post.  But that helps explain the blind spot when working internally -- PR is "hidden" by the brand or spokespeople during external campaigns, PR's involvement is much more transparent to internal audiences.

Finally, the last paragraph makes an essential point -- cascaded strategy and change must have multiple communication channels.  As Indy notes:

It is true that people trust and accept messages more when they come from peers and line managers. However, it’s also true that those groups of people can be “blocking filters” who do not transmit certain things.

Ceris62 (no blog link) suggests that social media has potential for mediating these discussions without internal messengers (or at least not formal or "approved" messengers).  I believe that's true, but with a caveat: many of these initiatives are also driven by marketing-focused colleagues as well.  The association with marketing/PR does contribute to skepticism, especially at start-up.  However, that barrier is much lower and weaker in my experience, validating Ceris62's general direction.

That makes sense on one level: public relations and marketing groups should communicate to the wider world about company culture, sustainability programs, community service initiatives, etc.  However, that statement prompted a question: why are PR departments so often the voice and face of the corporate culture to internal audiences? 

I can get that you'd like experienced and strong communicators to craft and deliver the message.  However, I wonder if executives behind such initiatives realize that when marketing/PR is the face and voice of change, most employees believe (or feel) that it is all for show.  This risk would be particularly high in sectors where the marketing culture would not traditionally be close to the culture of line management.  Perhaps it is a limitation of my experience, but I've found that the most effective corporate cultures had messages that were transmitted and reinforced via line management or peers, not professional communicators.

Would any of my PR-savvy readers care to share some tips/examples on mitigating these risks?

I also gained an appreciation for the insights of all disciplines, which brings me to a Scott Berkun interview (here) with the anthropologist Grant McCracken (blog here).  

No real comment other than to say that the interview and the links therein are well worth a read.

So it's been a long while since I sat at the Innovation Journalism conference (two days after quitting my job as a PR lady at a boutique agency that handles tech clients) and madly transcribed various panelists talking about innovation, journalism and Innovation Journalism to log what turned out to be my last blog entries for some time. Yes, a long while indeed. Since then, I took a job at a new PR agency -- a bigger agency with much bigger clients and a higher degree of hubub -- and also quit that job. Two weeks later.

The amount of hubub and email (156 in one day) seemed a little over the top for me seeing as I wasn't sure whether I even wanted to be in PR or not and exactly how I ended up there in the first place. OK, to be fair to myself, I know how I ended up in PR. It had something to do with the day that I was driving to my job as a tech reporter and upon spinning off the road and winding up in a ditch thought, "maybe if I get hurt just enough, I won't have to go to work for a while." I went home, logged on to Craig's List, found the PR job and applied. It was great while it lasted and a fun education in and of itself. And really, isn't that what we all hope for with our jobs? The chance to learn something new? 

But there has been this nagging feeling, little voice, whatever you want to call it, that has been telling me that this is just not it. So at this point, I'm career hunting. I'm sitting here with a pile of books, including Cool Careers for Dummies and The Anti 9 to 5 Guide and an issue of Outside that I stole from my therapist's office for the article, "The 50 Best Jobs: Recession-Proof, Adventure-Packed Careers" and wondering how to begin this process of finding what it is that will make me want to get up every morning and bound out into the world. 

So far, I've been creatively unemployed since June 30. I've been avoiding the blog because that's what you do when your life takes an unexpected turn. Or at least, that's what I do. Stop blogging just when things get really interesting. Today's plan: Finish Culture and Consumption II by Grant McCracken. He is a brilliant cultural anthropologist who I found via his blog: CultureBy: This Blog Sits At The Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. And then start in on a second Anthro book that I ordered from Amazon.

Cultural anthropology is a term thrown around by marketing types, but I'm not sure it is completely understood (I don't know that I would be able to accurately define it). But I do know one thing: Grant McCracken is one and he knows what of he speaks. He was recently asked by someone how to get into his field and Grant's response (posted here) was epic. Highly recommended reading.

In related Grant McCracken news, Wordpress Marketing Blogger Network member Ray Cha has a great look at Grant's recent book, Transformations that is also worth a read.

You can read my interview with Grant McCracken here on another of his terrific books, Flock & Flow.

With the successful opening weekend of The Dark Knight, the Batman franchise has returned with both popular and critical acclaim.  Perhaps the memories of the final Joel Schumacher-helmed, George Clooney-starring Batman & Robin can now be safely tucked away. It's been a rollercoaster ride for The Batman to be sure. An iconic comic book that became a campy TV show, only to be resurrected in the mid-80s by Frank Miller and his seminal Dark Knight graphic novel. Yes, let's remember that it was Frank Miller's genius that set the stage for the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson movie.  But Batman soon found himself the object of scorn once again as the movies became charicatures.

Now Batman seems to have returned to its darker side, a more serious, more violent persona. This character/franchise arc reminds me of another iconic hero - James Bond.

Bond started out as a truly unique character that defined a genre, and an era. But as the Roger Moore-Bond faded into the sunset the franchise seemed done. It bounced back with Pierce Brosnan, only to once again lose its way as the gadget and stunts overwhelmed what had always been the real source of the Bond franchise's strength - the villains (and sidekicks). Blofeld, Jaws, Odd Job, Pussy Galore, Goldfinger. All more memorable than Timothy Dalton's Bond (or George Lazenby's for that matter).

But once again Bond is back thanks to Daniel Craig and a return to a grittier, more violent Bond.

Which brings us to Superman. Every bit as iconic as Batman and Bond, if not more so. For many (most?) people in the world, if they were asked to name one superhero, it would be Superman. The Christopher Reeve-Superman reintroduced the character (much like the Keaton-Batman) but it too devolved into camp and parody (Richard Pryor?), again much like the Batman movies of the 80s/90s and the Bond films of the late-90s/early 00s.

But here's where Batman and Bond made a critical choice. Those franchises were reimagined to be grittier, more real and more authentic feeling. Perhaps it is because these two characters are human and could therefore return 'to their roots.' The change was dramatic. When you see the Dark Knight or Casino Royale you realize you are seeing something clearly different from what you had seen before.  With Superman Returns the change wasn't great enough. It wasn't that it was a bad movie, but you don't hear anyone talking about the Superman movie franchise. What could they have done? Well, it wouldn't work now because of Hancock, but what about making Will Smith Superman? Here's a guy who is box office gold internationally and could have completely re-invented the character. That would have been a really bold move and totally broken away from all the baggage of the Superman character.

Another example: Star Wars.  The three prequels made money, but in many ways hurt the creative integrity of the franchise.  I'm very interested to see how the animated Clone Wars movie will be received. This is a dramatic change and clearly a departure from the previous theatrical efforts.  Grant McCracken posted today about the X-Files movie (yet another example of a franchise with a challenge). He sees the history of the X-Files as a burden that has stultified the creativity and freshness of the franchise.  I agree with him and would have like to have seen a dramatic change for the new movie.

One of their current ad campaigns features 'regular Geico customers' who have their stories told by paid celebrities.  What if they used the Geico Gecko as the paid celebrity? Or, what if the 'regular Geico customer' was one of the Cavemen? 

This "meta" approach would be perfectly in keeping with Geico irrereverant approach and a knowing wink to their own place in popular culture. I'm sure guys like Henry Jenkins, Grant McCracken and Jason Mittell would have interesting thoughts about this sort of thing.

In fact, those days are more likely to have already died a welcome death.

That is according to Grant McCracken, author of Flock and Flow, who is interviewed on the EyeCube blog - part of the Wordpress Marketing Bloggers Network.

We will always have the NBT to mull over - Plurk anyone? - but hopefully what we will start seeing more of is big brands interacting more effectively with consumers and coming up with something innovative themselves.

This might enable clever ideas that have previously fallen by the wayside - as all the focus was on the NBT - to be nurtured and realised more effectively.

Trend-spotting will still be vital, but we should see an end of the hopping from one bandwagon to the next.

Or, as McCracken puts it: "Any one of these little trends could rise up to be a major player. And these days it will happen fast....Edge finding is the name of the game. Having a rough idea of what’s 'out there' helps us understand what it is we’re facing...".

eyecube: Growing up in California in the early 80s, the "Preppy" look wasn't huge, but at around the same time the skateboard culture was. And in New York the hip hop culture was also just on the verge of exploding. Clearly these were three trends, all coming out at around the same time, that would have massive influence on pop culture. So, if two decades ago it would have been tough to pick just one trend to ride, can a company do so today or must they hedge their bets?

Smirnoff uses the cultural shorthand of the Preppie - Green Tea Partay

Grand Master Flash signals the dawn of rap/hip hop – The Message

Skateboard culture begins in SoCal with the original Z Boys of  Dogtown 

Grant: Hedging bets is the name of the game.  The corporation should be tracking all of these.  Hip Hop has come and gone, waxed and waned, all of this should have been captured by the big board [a company’s internal tracking mechanism].  As these trends demonstrate, the days of one big trend are over.  It's now about managing the perfect storm of contemporary culture as best as possible, and getting early warnings of change as soon as possible.

eyecube: In the book you talk about the music industry and looking for signs of the next trend, which is often a rejection of previous trends. What does the music industry do now with the emergence of mash-ups? If I can listen to a song, produced by someone outside the music industry, that blends 80s hair metal stalwarts Motley Crue with current UK grime princess Lady Sovereign, how can the music industry possible know which way to go? It seems like the traditional swing of the pendulum is gone, in fact the whole pendulum has been blown up.

Southern California 80s hair metal meets 21st Century UK Grime - Lady Sovereign v. Motley Crue

Grant: More evidence that the days of one big trend, “just-go-ask-the-temp-what's-cool” are over.  And this makes a good listening system all the more important.  Anyone of these little trends could rise up to be a major player.  And these days it will happen fast. So early warning is the name of the game.  Edge finding is the name of the game.  Having a rough idea of what's "out there" helps us understand what it is we're facing when the Nor-easter comes ashore.

This question also raises the issue of content creation and relay, and the brand as a content creator and relay system.  It's essential for brands to take both parts.  They need to create content that consumers can repurpose.  This is one way to remain in the game, to be part of that when consumers take content and use it for their own purposes, there will still be characteristic grammars or signature for how things can be "repurposed."  And brands can't do this unless they have their ear to the ground. 

eyecube: I’m a big believer in that concept of brands laying the foundation for consumers to build upon. You say what Jay-Z did with releasing an a capella version of The Black Album which allowed Danger Mouse to create The Gray Album.

eyecube: Many of the people who read your blog as well as this one are freelancers or consultants. I thought the concept of the Kauffman continuum had an interesting application as it relates to an individual creating their own brand. At the leading edge you might speak to someone using Twitter. A little further down, maybe Facebook. Continue down the continuum and you have your own blog. Then at the far right you have a hard copy book. So you can speak to potential clients all across the continuum. Is that the way to go, or should you focus in one area of the continuum?

Grant: I think at least for the time being, as regards personal relationships and networks, real world events and real world objects open the relationships, and Facebook and Twitter help sustain them.  This will change, but for the time being things start in the real world before they go digital. On the other hand, you and I know one another without the benefit of face to face contact.  And if I may say, it feels like we're friends.  So I guess things are changing faster than I think (as usual).

eyecube: You make a compelling argument in the book for brands to ride the flow along the Kauffman continuum. Should, or can, they also act as "Flow Blockers" to prevent competitors from doing the same thing?

Grant: I think the best way for a brand to leverage a trend is to treat both as open source.  If we let the world run through the brand, we encourage the brand to run through the world.

A big thank you to Grant for taking the time to chat. For anyone interested in consumer behaviour, marketing, pop culture or trends, I recommend picking up Flock and Flow.

Rohit Bhargava's *Personality Not Included

Wall St. Journal writer Stefan Fatsis' A Few Seconds of Panic (I highly recommend Stefan's Word Freak)

Grant McCracken's Transformations (I just finished Grant's Flock and Flow, which was terrific)

There are probably a dozen more worthy reads out there, any suggestions?

As an example, he related a story from Johan Peretti of the Huffington Post and their 'Mullet Strategy.' Was this 'Mullet Strategy' a new Intellectual Appliance, Grant asked?

Grant went on to say, "Indeed, this may be, metaphorically speaking, a good way to speak about many models now emerging as capitalism is renovated by the disintermediating effects of the new technologies.  Once established as one of the ideas we have "on call," the mullet strategy may serve for many purposes."

Now, here's where it gets a bit meta: As I read the above, the word 'disintermediating' stuck out for me. I wondered if a related concept/term for Grant's 'Intellectual Appliance' could be, 'disintermeditation', defined as the act of thinking about the effects of new technologies and their effect on the consumer-brand relationship.  

Disintermeditation is something smart marketers are already doing. But yet we all see examples every day of brands that haven't taken the time to really explore the ramifications and opportunities presented by new technologies like Twitter, Flickr or even YouTube (which now seems about as new as sliced bread).

If nothing else, being a consultant and having the title 'Disintermeditation Expert' on your business card would be an interesting conversation starter. When asked what that means, you can say, "I help build and service Intellectual Appliances." My guess is you'd be busier than another service repair man.

Related Links:

http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2008/03/curator-birth-o.html

http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2008/03/pattern-recogni.html

http://www.psfk.com/2008/04/mccracken-the-clockwork-american.html

Even the very best companies struggle with the new realities of the marketplace where category dominance can last for years, or even months, rather than decades.  Consumer loyalty has shifted from brands to less ownable concepts like quality or innovation. Sure brands like BMW or Coach or Apple can claim those attributes, but they don't have a monopoly on them. Success comes from constantly delighting the consumer with the unexpected. Unexpected experiences, products and messages.

I guess the term came up a bunch at this week's PSFK conference, enough so that Grant McCracken brought it up in his blog a couple of days ago:

"Having been a curator once, my ears always perk up at the mention of the term  I am pleased that the term has taken on new meanings and new currency, that it has escaped the dusty corners of a museum and gallery world.  It and me, both.  Still, I wonder what this term is now being asked to mean, and why we should now find it now so compelling and fashionable."

He makes some very interesting points and his perspective as a classic curator is great.

I like smart people, especially people who are smarter than me. Not smarter than me in terms of ties and slacks, but smarter (not that I've got some quantitative stick in my pocket) than me in that sense of, when you read their writing or hear them speaking, you feel like drowning your PhD in a case of Beck's. Sometimes it happens when I watch a great TV show (The Wire, Kalifornication, that hidden motel room show) or read a great book (Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes, Norman Stolzoff's Wake The Town, anything by Victor Turner). I'm writing this ode to the wise because, recently (and since being hired on by two dudes who have me deep in Bremen's finest), I signed up for Twitter. Put my non-early adopter status down to a flair for the social reluctance of many anthropologists (sometimes we get so hooked on other's sociality that we ignore our own. Don't expect the regular updates on What I'm Doing). In doing so (thanks, again, to a brother) I came across the new fact that Mark Ury has a blog. Check it here. Mark works as an Experience Architect at Blast Radius in Toronto. I had the pleasure to work in a room with him last year for two days. I hope some of his mojo rubbed off on me, because he is, for lack of accoladed wording, smart. (He can probably do Ikea furniture with his eyes closed). Just read his posting on why Apple is successful. And no, it's not design. In scrolling through Mark's blogroll I was reminded to catch up on postings by Grant McCracken. I hope his middle-ageness doesn't flinch in referring to him as one of the granddaddies of anthropology for business (?, I flinch at 'consumer anthropology'), but there's rarely a post that goes by in his musings on work, ethnography etc. that doesn't have those of us less jet-setting-than-he looking to get some game. Needless to say, he's smart - and his recent post aimed at ethnographic pretenders must have stung many.

That's all, that's it. Just looking to big up the smart.