Brett Macfarlane

What I Got Out of Northern Voice 2009

The prior two days were an amazing experience.  I attended the 5 year old conference Northern Voice for the first time.  What started out a blogging conference has grown and morphed along with the entire sea of media, content and business of the past five years.

Frankly, I was very concerned that at some point I'd be outed as a ad man and burned on a stake made of retired 386's fueled by spit of social media trolls as chants of "TV is dead, newspapers are dead, advertising is dead, now you die!"  While I knew a few people there, I knew of many more, but knew very few.

These fears proved unfounded.  This proved to be one of the most thought provoking and fruitful couple days of thinking I've enjoyed in a while.  While my ticket was $60 is was worth twice as much as other conferences costing thousands that I've attended.  

The collections of backgrounds, professions and experiences was fantastic.  It was a spastic couple days listening to the likes of the founder of Flickr (pictured above) to hard core photo tech sessions to a stand up comedy routine/speeech debating whether Teh Internet is Funny to a curated discussion of contemporary and classic punk rock photography with Kris Krug and Bev Davies.

I am also glad to have jumped right into the first with a Moose Camp session, trying to bridge what I do, brand building, and blogs.  The discussion was so much fun jumping around with attendings bouncing from branding within the context of an ADD coach to the stylish fellow from Sub Pop records (who I've worshiped for everyone of their 20 years) the director of CBC Radio 3 and self proclaimed creator of the world's worst radio station.

Kudos to the organizers and everyone who attended. Hope to see you again at either Interesting Vancouver or the inaugural YVR PSFK Good Ideas Salon next month.

Here are a couple of my favorite thoughts from Northern Voice.

1. Acceptance of Humility

When you have the publisher of one of Canada's largest metro dailies sitting on a panel with the founder of leading citizen journalism property you expect some fireworks.  What amazed me was the lack of tension and more the humble discussion of lessons learned over the past couple years and the identification of issues to address.  I loved the humility of the old world baron acknowledging it is a work in progress, not likely a couple years ago, and the new world aspiring baron acknowledging work to date hadn't gone as planned and nobody is "dieing."

Takeaway, we've finally moved beyond the flippant "death of..." rhetoric and everybody is figuring out how to do what they do better.  This was observed in a number of sessions, most notably this one.

2. Moving beyond the echo chamber

Obviously if you work in social media, you want to evangelize social media as much as you can.  What is fascinating is the next generation of social media-ites who come from different worlds and are using the social media tools not to replace legacy mediums and business models but build new once that couldn't exist without.  Best example was the civic news site that is investigating and breaking stories previously overlooked by both media and government. 

Takeaway, the story of social media itself is rather tired but the story of new businesses emerging and people "doing" meaningful and original things with it is really fresh.  We also have no ideas which ones are actually going to survive/thrive.

3. Too busy to worry about the recession

The only time "recession" emerged in a conversation was when speaking with a fellow corporate warrior, there were a few of us but not many.  Everyone else had far too much work going on aparently for it to be much of a focus.  That's awesome.

Takeaway, Not only are more and more individual ways of making a living emerging so to is fresher and less investment dependent innovation.  This isn't new, the VC's on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley noted this a while ago but the ability for anyone to become an innovator or business creator is truly being realized.  What's stopping you from starting a business off the side of your desk part time or on the kitchen table.  Not much anymore.

4. Talent matters

Now that the newness of social and "new" media, which has been around quite a while, is wearing off, we are moving past the interest in the simple novelty of what is possible and getting down to making actually good stuff.  The story that anyone can now be a dj or host their own radio show as a podcast is no longer very interesting.  What is interesting is when someone has a great radio show, or whatever, and it happens to be in social media.  We can focus on the content again.

This reinforces a couple things I've been saying not here, but in the real working world, often feeling a bit silly because of the crossed eyed blank stares that come back, but "all media is social" and "all media is digital" in today's world.  With the one important caveat - if it is good.  No matter what the medium, if you create something interesting, people will talk about it.  It is so easy to treat digital and social media as "things" which are reinforced by agency departments and specialist divisions.  There is no point being on Twitter if you don't have anything interesting to say, or at least say something uninteresting in an interesting way.  Just like there is no point being on prime time TV if you don't have anything interesting to say, or at least say something uninteresting in an interesting way.

Takeaway - focusing on ensuring everything a brand does is interesting and done great is more important than ever.  That should be priority one, then figure out where to say it and adapt accordingly for the context.

So that's what I got out of it, or at least as much as my patience can withstand typing.  More great thoughts around the 2010 Independent Media Centre, whether social media actually helped Obama and beyond are floating about.  So much good stuff.

 If you were there, what were you main takeaways?

Good Blogs. Naughty Brands

Despite fears of being burned at the stake, thanks folks at Northern Voice 2009 who cam to my talk and the great questions/dialog.  As promised, here's the visuals and here's the Brand Tags tool referenced. Shoot me a note if you have any questions we were able to discuss.

Nothern Voice 09 - Around You a Brand? Do You Want to be?

View more presentations from macfarbt. (tags: edintity blogs)

Terry Talks & Things to Avoid When Speaking Publicly

A few weeks following Interesting Vancouver is Terry Talks on November 22 at the University of British Columbia.   Dr. and professor David Ng, who oversees the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at UBC is a co-leader behind the event that seeks to bridge conceptual gaps between arts and science audiences. Terry Talks features UBC's most engaging and fascinating students giving the talk of their lives.  Unfortunately, due to a conflict we'll have to wait till next year for Dave's talk on  science literacy. 

We have released a block of tickets for students so hopefully some of the Terry Talks presenters can join us for a bit of inspiration.

Though judging by this promo video for Terry Talks they have a good handle on some of the most important, though rarely followed, basics of good presentations.

Digtial storytelling

Attended a wonderfully refreshing presentation this morning on digital content.  It was called the Multi Platform Content Incubator hosted by the local New Media association. Billed as some of the finest examples of cross platform entertainment the globe has to offer.

It was great because there was no dogma about the internet being a big deal.  Nobody was trying to convince anyone to spend more online or that everything not digital is doomed.  It was focused on content, how it's being created and how it's being applied to different platforms - some old and some new.  Here's what some of the speakers covered and my thoughts below.

Brent Friedman - Electric Farm Films - "Afterworld"
afterworld.tv, a 2.5D animated episodic Sci-Fi web series. 
- Net distribution is fraught with technical problems.
- And because online delivery has promise of immediate delivery, viewers are livid when technical problems/delay occur.  Even though it's free.
- Portals like YouTube and MySpace they are many limitations.
- CAA actively looking for sponsorship of content with major brands (danger danger agency people!!!)
- It all starts with a good script, but creating all the content proves much harder.

Nathan Mayfield - Hoodlum Interactive "PS Trixi"
Comes from soap opera background, now producing original content firstly in Australia and now for BBC and ITV in UK.
- 1 human year = 17.5 internet years
-With multiplatform content, technology is the bane of existence.
- As content falls outside talent union norms, negotiate early.
- **start with script, then identify story points that can pool out to different online platforms/portals that best tell the story
- Audiences are intelligent and want to suspend disbelief, but don't try to be too clever because they will see through it.
- find815 - coporoduced with Lost team next big show
- Though online, still pushed in a "series" type model of 8-12 weeks of promotion and release of series at regular intervals.

Dan'l Hewitt, Director of Development, Bebo / "KateModern
Most technologically advanced social network. 
- Doesn't claim social networks will take over the world, or that aren't a trend but as they reflect in an online world what we do in the real world they will exist in some format.
- For now Bebo is a great multimedia delivery platform.
- Consumers accepted of product integration when organic to the storyline and characters.  They understand that it covers the cost of production.

What I thought was really interesting was talking to content producers, film makers, the folks from VBS.tv is that in a way all these new websites, tools and applications are really tertiary elements.  What still rules is the idea.  The story.  And whether you use email, blogs, widgets, gaming like content, expanded content, traditional posters, TV ads or events all depends on what the idea is and whether those things tell the story better.

It was also interesting talking to talking to content funders, Telefilm and entertainment lawyers, as they all acknowledge that the new "model" of how deals are done and more importantly what the content looks like is being developed on the fly.  In a few years it will more or less be figured out. 

For advertisers, this means ensuring you really understand what your story/brand is all about and ensuring you have a compelling idea to tell it.  From there you can develop and choose the right touchpoints to tell it.  And the really smart companies will be the ones who recognize this is an interdisciplinary affair.  Digital agencies, that make websites and banner ads probably aren't going to do very well in this more robust space.  Likewise, broadcast agencies that specialize in hard sell weak idea TV ads won't do too well either.  But those who can marry great ideas with technical expertise (or at least production networks) are poised to be the next great generation of story tellers.

For a brand maybe this means looking at your marketing function as a marketing department, but as a media company.  A company that generates media ideas wrapped around you brand that are intriguing enough for people to watch.  And you will get the hard number results to prove whether you have something interesting to say.  Some of the viewership numbers for things like KateModern are approaching levels of top level network programs.  To make this possible some of the old sacred cows are going to have to give.  We're seeing that in Hollywood with the writers strike.  Which to me appears to be good thing.

While that's all great to say.  It's going to be a heck of a lot of work to figure out and there are sure to be loads of lessons along the way.  But boy it's going to be fun.

Actions speak louder than words

A nice presentation of the idea the brand actions speak louder than brand words.

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Flickr of a thought

Looking at the Flick stats got me thinking on a tangent.  I like how it gives some scale and scope into one window of what people do online in a very tangible way.  I was amazed to see some groups are in the millions of images.  This interests me because I am often shocked by just how bad most of the metrics are for the web.  Not bad as in low numbers, but in unreliable, inconsistent and plain uncertain numbers.  Despite the fact the digital industry prides itself of metrics and ROI.

Page views and site visits are about as reliable as GRP numbers (though at least GRP or TRP have an agreed standard of measurement ).  It's good to know people are watching, and that helps you sleep at night, but so what.  Recently I attended presentations from the likes of Yahoo, MSN and a digital marketing association and none of them could either agree on their metrics or provide and definitive link to ROI for the campaigns.  For companies who claim to sell hard results their results were very flimsy and the simple difference between correlation and causation was not understood.

The biggest anchor dragging the digital discipline is the metrics.   And to be fair, it's just not them as a discipline.  Awareness generated by a TV ad is about as useful as awareness generated by page views.  They both mean people are paying attention, which is nice, but say nothing as to whether they actually like you.  Did you make them laugh?  Smile?  Think?  Stand up and care?  Will they talk favorably about you?  Make them proud to purchase/use/wear your product?  Or are they just paying attention because of how much they dislike you?  Did pretty pictures/animation just remind them you're irrelevant?  Reinforce your lack of understanding?  Drive them to a competitor?

 

Richard Hunnigton made a very interesting observation recently at the lack of emotion and feeling in the best online work these days.  And the digital planners at Wieden are similar in their views, as seen on ouroboros (which happens to be penned by their Global Director of Digital Strategies,) which give credence to view that digital needs more humanity.  We mustn't forget that a click through is transactional not emotional - they don't measure how you feel, whether you actually like the product or if you'll buy in three months from now when you have the money.  They don't persuade me to like you more or gain my attention.

A further words from Ouroboros cut from a great post on insights gleaned from a US military counterinsurgency manual:

Give my world context.  Inspire me.  Strike me dumb with awe.  Help grab hold of this crazy squirrelly bloody poetry we call life.  Search helps you find, and it's beautiful for that: type "dreams" into Google and you'll get 174 million results in 0.10 second.  But we have to be vigilant to ensure this global interactive transformation doesn't take away our mysteries.  My mysteries are my hopes, dreams, fears and desires...they are why I wake up.  Why I get out of bed.  Butterflies in your stomach?  we LIKE those.

The next great brand land grab in digital will be using them medium with more emotion.  The great news is the discipline is so young.  Online now is probably about the same state as TV in 1960.  Lots of folks making money doing it but a world of creative potential yet to be realized.

 

Punch

Last night, content aside (more on that in a subsequent post) I witness two of the best presentations in my life.

Al Gore was in town with his much ballyhooed Inconvenient Truth slide show.  The opening act was scientist, broadcast icon and planet champion Dr. David Suzuki.

The are two men with very differing lives and motivations but one common interest.  And a very complicated on at that, saving our planet.

Dr. Suzuki is one of the world's most outspoken leaders in the scientific community on climate change.  And has been for decades. 

Al as we all know comes from politics and policy.

Each spoke with incredible conviction on the issue from their perspective out of their core knowledge base (science for Suzuki and policy for Gore) and brought to life the fact of a very complicated issue and debate in clear language with fantastic use of visuals.

Most presentations one attends, the speakers have an underlying self serving agenda, be it the fee they were paid, an objective like getting voted into office or trying to sell you something.  That was not the case for either speaker.  They were straightforward, honest, and factual.  They we speaking for what is in our best interests.   And that honest came through in their conviction and some well timed humour by each avoided it feeling like a preach in.

As advertising professionals, we all know all to well and undoubtedly have seen and even been victims of trying to over rationalize or sell a point.  Be it through complex logic chains, heavy rational or fancy buzzwords.   And we see the desire for better ways to present, well.  At the end of the day, simple facts presented well, with the right intentions succeed. Quite simply they play to our common sense.

More on the actual content to come in subsequent posts.

In case you are wondering who previous were my top presentations - its a tie between Kareem Abdul Jabar on life as a black man gowing up in harlem and Jean Bertrand Arastide during one of his exiles on the importance of personal connections in a community to endure peace.

 

Here's a little taste of Dr. Suzuki: