Apollo Gonzales

Groupthink - Lite

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:30:01 -0500

Interesting piece from the NYT Opinion section this weekend. I’ve spent the last five years working in a creative environment alone, and I have to agree that is where my brain works best. I relish the idea of sitting quietly with my headphones on, because that is when my brain can wander and create connections that didn’t exist. I remember being part of a big brainstorming session at my last job, and it was a total failure. It was about something that I cared deeply about, was well funded, and was something that could really have created a great deal of name recognition inside and outside of the institution. The problem was we all just sat there staring at each other, with nothing to say. I was brought to the meeting because I was the idea guy, and all I could do was sit and stare blankly, and wish I were back at my desk thinking about this on my own.

The problem of course, is that total isolation puts us in a vacuum, where we have nothing to feed the creative beasts. People’s feedback is important to making creative ideas a reality or shutting them down before they get too far down the road of maturing into a bad idea.

I’m at this new job where I think the balance exists. Time will tell, but I love the ability to be creative, to think beyond the boundaries of conventional technology in my own quiet little world. But there are also these moments where we all spontaneously stop what we are doing and share our ideas, and I’m excited about that too.

Anyway, I think Cain takes too long to get to that part of the piece, but I think how this Groupthink works best. The Lite version is for me.

I wonder it the Bud Lite “Tastes great…less filling” campaign was a product of groupthink or just one guy in his cubicle?

REPORT: The 100 Most Engaging Brands On Facebook

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:52:23 -0400

REPORT: The 100 Most Engaging Brands On Facebook:

viaJackie Cohen

The Best SEO, Social + Content Strategy: Thought Leadership

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:52:23 -0400

The Best SEO, Social + Content Strategy: Thought Leadership:

viarandfish

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/A8FEr4pdn7Q/

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:11:24 -0400

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/A8FEr4pdn7Q/:

Nice overview of some of the platforms we’ll be hearing more about this election cycle. Interested to see Ruffini’s work since I’ve been dreaming about that type of system for a while.

Charity:Water Launches Dollars to Projects

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:35:02 -0400

Charity:Water Launches Dollars to Projects:

via Mashable! Absolutely brilliant and inspiring new effort from Charity Water. Imagine if you could get this level of detail from all the people you donate your money to. Would you be willing to give more? I’ve never given to Charity:Water, but I think I will tonight.

Infographic: 40% of Facebook Users Ditch Brand Pages

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:20:11 -0400

Infographic: 40% of Facebook Users Ditch Brand Pages:

via ReadWriteWeb This seems like a pretty good justifiction for building your brand audience through more organic means. Contests end, campaigns end, and even specific issues can come to an end. But if you are consistantly creating good and useful content, then people are likely to stay.

Skewed Results: The Filter Bubble and SEO

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:15:00 -0400

Skewed Results: The Filter Bubble and SEO:

One bit of instant gratification in meetings is to Google a particular set of key words like “fracking” and “new york” to see whether my orgs blog posts are getting a good ranked return. Recently I’ve been amazed at how often our posts actually ARE showing up a the top of the results. Turns out that “filter bubble” Eli’s book is about is probably responsible for that.

Blowing Bubbles

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:13:00 -0400

I’ve only just picked up Eli Pariser’s much lauded Filter Bubble and I haven’t really had the time to crack the spine yet, but I was reading an interview he did with Andrew Keen over at Tech Crunch this morning and one particular passage struck me as totally absurd.

“Google and Facebook, sure. And they have a lot of the same, you know, dynamics that are driving what they show people and what they hide from people as the old media did. And so, it’s not quite as much of a free for all as a lot of us hoped. It’s you don’t go direct, you don’t talk to a friend directly on line, you talk to them via Facebook and you don’t, you know, go find a small business, you go through Google.”

Pariser’s makes two points here, that we are not talking directly to our friends and that Google is acting like some kind of big box store filter.

I communicate with most of my friends via Facebook at this point, but where does his filter bubble apply here? I use the Facebook email function the same way I use my gmail or hotmail or enterprise exchange account. The only difference is that my Facebook inbox isn’t cluttered with spam or misapplied reply all messages. AND most of my friends are checking that email box more often than their “regular” address. I’m eager to hear exactly what Pariser hoped for when he envisioned the future of the internet, because unless we’re talking to one another in meatspace, we need some sort of service to connect us.

The second point needs some data behind it, maybe Pariser presents some data in his book, but I find this point wrong in two ways. Personal example time. I recently decided I want to start wearing a watch again (I want my son to know what a watch is) but the battery in my very old watch is dead. I know I can probably go to the nearest mall and go to a Jared and they’ll replace my battery dirt cheap. Or, as a DYI kind of guy, and can get online, use Google, and find the battery I need and probably some tools to do the replacement myself. Instead, I used Google Maps to find the nearest Jeweler. Turns out there is one a block from my office. It’s a tiny little mom and pop shop and it’s probably been there 20 years and I’ve never noticed it before. At lunch I strolled over and had a great chat with the owner, he told me he can replace the battery in 5 minutes, and I spent some time shopping for earrings for my wife. I can apply this to all sorts of things I’ve shopped for, from HDMI cables to a certain Duplo toy I wanted for my son. So In fact, i go to MORE small businesses than ever before. The second argument here is that this is somehow the same as how old media would have kept things hidden from me. The truth of the matter is the old media, the Yellow Pages, would have given me 200 jewelers in DC, and a personal recommendation from a friend would have yielded a single result likely not convenient to where I work. Google actually gave me what I needed AND gave me the opportunity to explore far beyond that filter.

So what exactly are Facebook and Google hiding from me in these instances? The spam from a Nigerian prince and the directions to my nearest Mall? Ok, fine I’ll take it, but you can’t argue that this is just as bad as how things once were.

I think Eli is a wicked smart guy, and lots of people I really respect are saying wonderful things about his book, and to be fair this is one tiny part of an interview about a whole book, but I hope Pariser has more solid arguments than this.

The Games Nonprofits (don't) Play

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:15:00 -0500

Confession, I have never played any of the Facebook games people love so much. Most notably FarmVille or the recently released CityVille. I imagine if I decided to play the game, I’d probably get hooked, but I detest the requests and updates that end up on the my wall, and I don’t want to do that to my friends. I guess I’m a curmudgeon like that.

I was a little amazed today when I read that CityVille reached 6 million users in 8 days, a feat that took FarmVille 46 days to achieve. Clearly, in it’s third major outing Zynga has a pretty good formula under it’s belt. Even more astounding is this stat that indicates that FarmVille, which is a little long in the tooth at this point, is still out performing television giants like Sunday Night Football and Glee. Impressive numbers for sure, but nowhere near Activision’s Call of Duty:Black Ops which moved 5.6 million units in it’s first day, grossing $360 million in sales. But despite it’s massive online audience (400,000 people playing as I write this post on the Playstation Network, and probably the same on XBox Live and PC) Black Ops is missing a key ingredient - social connectivity. FarmVille and CityVille offer social mechanisms that let you help your friends and your friends help you build better farms and better cities in an ongoing game, not 10 minute episodes of mayhem.

As this Mashable post points out, advertisers are salivating at the prospect and opportunity to get into the social gaming market. The non-profit world isn’t quite there yet, but like Facebook and Google Ads before it, I’m sure we’ll be jumping into the fray before long.

Missing from the conversation about social gaming though are the opportunities for non-profits to participate in the development with big game houses. What could a non-profit who works on sustainable development achieve in terms of public education to a non-core audience in CityVille alone? My assumption is that contributing to the development of the gameplay design instead of virtual billboards, a non-profit’s message would be better assimilated. A virtual PSA about LED lighting in your real home seems less compelling than earning a reward for using LED lighting in the city you are building. Add to those personal rewards the socialcasting nature of these games, and a non-profit couldn’t ask for a better “tell a friend” feature.

There is a bigger discussion about whether or not gaming changes behavior - as a gamer that discussion seems riddled with slippery slopes - and whether the impact of that investment can be measured. But I’ve gone on long enough.

There is a great opportunity here for the non-profits and game houses to partner to create something better and more meaningful.

[Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by jami0821]

I’m in the process of writing a post about today’s...

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:48:08 -0500

I’m in the process of writing a post about today’s session at Rootscamp National in DC and on a whim decided to do a tweet cloud. After correcting for a few words that were throwing the cloud off (can someone please make a word cloud generator that can be tweaked?) this is what the result was. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Serendipity, Right in Front of You.

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:58:59 -0400

In today’s New York Times, Damon Darlin writes a piece about how social media is killing serendipity. Once again, when talking about social media the traditional media bastion shows it’s disdain for a medium it claims to embrace. Damon’s thesis is bull shit. There is no way he uses Facebook or Twitter or any other social media tool then wrote this piece and didn’t think to himself “This is bull shit.” It’s an intriguing premise carried through to a bull shit conclusion.

Recommendation engines, whether mechanical or those ubiquitous re-tweet bots (who are flesh and blood, yet continue to act like machines) are a poor substitute for human exploration into literary, musical or visual adventure. The echo chamber of Twitter or Amazon or Facebook or any other digital machination are no different than the hype spewing, too loud talking, must-see-this crowd at a party or on the Metro. The ability to shut them out or turn the up applies in both worlds.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aedes/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

On line, as in meatspace, your adventure (and thus discovery) is limited only by your ability to follow serendipitous clues to discover that which brings delight. My friend’s bookshelves or CD racks are just as accessible to me on-line as they are when I am in their home - that is, available to the extent they wish to share. Darlin’s claim that CD collections have disappeared into the iPod is only a half truth. Open up iTunes on your office or hotel network and allow it to share and search for shared libraries, your world of music choices will explode. I share 1500 CD’s across my office network, at any given moment of the day all 5 connections (iTunes limits the number of people who can share your library) are in use.

Darlin claims that “Many software developers are trying to recreate serendipity.” If that is the case, there are lots of developers who’d better get used to failure. You can’t re-create a human experience with an algorithm. The best you can do is create mechanisms to allow SHARING of the human experience and let the HUMANS find their way.

In the end serendipity doesn’t know the difference between analog and digital, it only knows a mind receptive to adventure.

Which [blank] are you?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:45:00 -0400

I hate nearly every Facebook application I’ve ever met. There I’ve said it. I hate Poke, Super Poke, Little Green Patch, Bumpr Stickr, Pirates v. Ninjas, Mafia, the list goes on and on. I know I shouldn’t, I know I should look for the good in these things, but they all seem like such a waste of time. Facebook apps are the Minesweeper and Solitaire of this era of the Internet. I’ve spent the last month killing (hiding) everyone’s 5 favorite things like I’m playing a game of whack-a-mole.

[Photo Credit: Kenneth B. Moore, under this Creative Commons License]

Now, hot on the heels of that scourge comes the onslaught of “Which [insert banality here] are you?” and variations on the theme. Philosopher, Super Hero, Movie Director, Religious Figure, blah, blah, blah.

I am fascinated by the application, or flavor of application that becomes ubiquitous in Facebook. I think the common thread is that we simultaneously love and hate them. It is a perfect digital representation of meatspace social activities. You love or hate Karaoke. You love or hate Dancing. You love or hate sitting around playing board games with friends. This is not just a gut feeling, take a look at the Apps Stats section over at AllFacebook. The Which Are You apps occupy the majority of the top 10 Fastest Growing and Worst apps categories.

So, Which Kind of Social Media Professional are you? Evidently, I’m the the anti-social kind.

Use iGoogle like a Celeb

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:32:00 -0400

Google is showcasing how some celebs are using the iGoogle home page. My immediate gag reflex aside, I think I can see some value for NPOs here. Quite a few larger NPO’s have celebs as their spokespeople or their issue advocates, and those names have been inextricably linked.

For example, people who care about Cancer generally (as opposed to, say, Breast Cancer specifically), may follow Lance Armstrong’s every move. While LiveStrong may be a small portion of what Lance does from day to day, one would imagine that the cause permeates everything he does. How does this Ace advocate for Cancer research look at the web, and as an advocate myself, can I learn from it? For those of us doing work on Climate Change we can already get Al Gore’s iGoogle theme (in whole or in part). I think it’s a pretty good model for creating an advocacy theme.

The audience is probably small, but we are always trying to court our super activists right? For those who find themselves at least partially defined by the causes they advocate for, I can see this step by Google as a good thing for NPO’s and for the celebs who are always looking to highlight the work they do with NPOs.

On Listening

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:08:00 -0400

I’ve heard every version of the “social media is all about listening” talk at this point. I have, admittadly, given the speech a few times myself. I try to practice it every day, but sometimes other things get in the way. I’ve recently recommited to spending a good solid hour a day scouring lots of sources for conversations about various brands associated with the campaigns I’m running. Below is a great blog post from Toby over at the Diva Marketing blog, with a link to her white paper on listening.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogs/hJyu/~3/0zFaQaK3Uzw/butterfly-moment.html

Facebook Begins Publicly Testing Payments Platform

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:07:00 -0400

Facebook Begins Publicly Testing Payments Platform:

I am mostly posting this so I can test Tumblr’s email to post functionality, but Facebook’s payment function intrigues me. Allfacebook wonders about the maturation of micro purchases, but I wonder if we haven’t already seen that with the Apple App Store and the growth of the Android and Blackberry stores? I wonder how micropayments is going to impact Causes, who has the donation market cornered for the NPO market? Will Facebook create multiple service fee tiers for commercial, NPO, or individual transaction accounts? Stay tuned, I imagine the answers are on the way.

How to Make Bing Your Default Search Engine

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:46:16 -0400

How to Make Bing Your Default Search Engine:

Ok, so I don’t think this post from ReadWrite web is telling us anything we don’t know. Changing your default home page or search enging is a pretty simple thing to do. However, many of us have been using Google for so long we may need a bit of a helping hand.

I’ve added Bing to my Firefox search bar, and I’m giving Microsoft a week, maybe two. So far I’ve been pretty pleased. My Xmarks plugin (one of the few I use) doesn’t work with Bing, but it looks like Bing provides a good summary on it’s own. I can’t image all of the ways I use Google Seach in a single day, let alone a whole week, so this will be an interesting experiment.

As far as what this search means for my orgs web properties, it’ll be interesting to see how this impacts our SEO techniques.

There is lots of buzz coming out of Google I/O today about Wave....

Thu, 28 May 2009 11:13:00 -0400

There is lots of buzz coming out of Google I/O today about Wave. Silly name aside (Wave is used in place of terms like conversation, or thread), this product is really going to improve the way people work collaboratively. Real time collaboration combined with unlocked authorship and contribution to a discussion is something we’ve been doing with multiple tools for some time now. It’s nice to see it all in one spot, and despite the early bugs I think the Google crew has done a really good job.

In the raw it is a pretty powerful tool, but if you are like me you’ve become accustomed to using desktop applications. I rarely visit the Google Mail page, and I spend all of my time in Twitter via TweetDeck. So I’m most excited about the AdobeAir apps and iPhone apps that going to come from the developers at I/O.

Now if they figure out a way to migrate by Basecamp projects over, I’ll be a happy man.

#fixreplies: A lesson for us all

Wed, 13 May 2009 15:26:33 -0400

Ok, everyone is talking about this. And the #fixreplies has tag is the #1 trending topic over at Twitter. It seems that the answer from Twitter is “we can’t fix it”, and that they are looking for new solutions to provide the same sort of service.

This change and the reaction really speaks volumes about a couple of things, institutional forsight and user creativity. Changing the way the service fucntions was bound have a negative impact on the user experience, Twitter should have known that. The issue is not about whether the engineers thought this was a sustainable function, it is about whether they thought about a mechanism that could replace the function. The Twitter blog now says that they are “brainstorming” ideas to fix the issue, but shouldn’t they have done that before they made the changes?

As for user creativity, all services whether it’s Twitter or Facebook or someone just providing a bunch of data openly over the web should really be listening and watching the diverse ways people are using their service. Don’t just monitor the way it was “meant” to be used, monitor the way users have discovered to use it. Collectively they are far more creative than your creative team, or your engineering team ever could be.

25 Social Media Marketing Tips from Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil | Online Marketing Blog

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:53:42 -0400

25 Social Media Marketing Tips from Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil | Online Marketing Blog:

Ok, this is going to take me all week to read. This post pulls together all the socail media Jedi and cuts to the chase. With just a quick overview I can see that this asks all the questions I’m asking myself as I struggle to create a social media strategy for my organization. From thinking about how to measure ROI, to selling social media to the gatekeepers in your organization. This is by far the most valuable post I’ve seen in a while.

Google Analytics Gets an API - ReadWriteWeb

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:37:07 -0400

Google Analytics Gets an API - ReadWriteWeb:

Oh…hell yes. The ways to cross reference data…my head is asploding with the possibilities. This my friends is geek heaven.