A Thought Mess

Well, I haven't done this in over a year, since the last time I wrote a list of what I was interested in, I ended up starting a project that became a nonprofit. Since then I've done some commercial work I'm super proud of, I started a company, I put an offer on a house in Detroit (fingers crossed - that just happened), and I've seen Donald Trump elected, and a division in the country where showboating incivility has become a norm.

Lots to be curious about, and this doesn't really scratch the surface, but it's a restart on an old habit...

1. Grand Master Editor. 

Have you been watching HBO's The Defiant Ones? WATCH IT!!! Even if you don't care about music history... or culture... the editing in this 4-part documentary is amazing. Never has an L cut met a J cut with such mastery. I've been fan-girling on the editor, Doug Pray, ever since about the 20 minute mark of Episode 1 when we paused the show so I could find out WHO DID THAT, and so help me God I will find a way to work with him. Genius! Anyway, here are some tips to his brilliance that he shared a few years back, which I found in my "research" (and by that, I mean "moderate stalking"):

1. The more organized and meticulously planned your documentary production is, the more time you’ll have to play, be free and discover genuine spontaneity and cinema verité beauty.
2. Research is essential, but pre-interviews with your subject can kill good interviews.
3. Short, simple questions in interviews are much better than long, rambling ones(which tend to be more about you, than your subject). The best question of all time is “why?”
4. Don’t ask your interviewees to “repeat the question in their answer.” Besides stressing them out and making them do your job for you, it leads to boring answers. When they give you one word, un-editable answers, just act stupid and ask them what they’re talking about, as if you forgot. Repetition is fine.
5. When editing dialog in documentaries, edit sound first, then picture. Sound is the secret weapon of most documentary scenes–if you build a sonically believable sequence (whether dialog, music, or insects chirping), it will work.
6. If you are debating whether to leave a scene in or out of your film, 99% of the time it should go out. Editing documentaries is less about collecting and putting together… it’s about omitting and throwing away.
7. Be grateful if you are able to get meaningful distribution for your film, and remember than distributing documentaries is a thankless, difficult chore in a nearly impossible market with a terrible, horrible history of financial success. You don’t have to love your distributor or agree with all of their suggestions; you do have to respect them, and be willing to let go.

2. Gentrification.

I'm thinking about this a lot as I spend more and more time in Detroit, where we're looking for a house (and an eventual HQ for Citizen, our new company). How can a city revitalize an area while including the existing community, and if you are the existing community, how do you benefit from gentrification? This is a hot topic in areas like Detroit that are experiencing pockets of revitalization (and mayoral elections). Communities like Brownsville in Brooklyn are protecting themselves by anticipating, planning for, and embracing the investment from locals and outsiders who relocate to the community so that when it happens, it happens by their design.  One interesting view prescribes that communities drop restrictive zoning laws that have been proven to force displacement as they limit density and building types, even as it prescribes new laws that incentivize density in new developments. I’d like to find a case for the free market out there.

3. Detroit Techno. 

I know nothing about it, other than the fact that one of my brothers pilgrimages to Detroit every year to pay homage to the techno gods at Movement. But some people think techno tourism could encourage economic revitalization across Detroit, much as the embracing of country music has done so for Nashville and New Orleans. The problem is, according to this article, most native Detroiters are no longer listeners of techno, so the local roots have been replaced by imports. I’ll be visiting Exhibit 3000 at Submerge next week to learn more about the local history, and why the movement faded locally as it grew internationally.  

If you're interested in some origin points to Detroit's techno sound, check out this MOCAD Conversation with the Belleville 3, where they talk about how Detroit’s experimental radio opened their eyes to different kinds of music starting in junior high, and how Detroit Techno was created from there. 

4. Craft. 

NYC's Garment Center is all but lost, but a market resurgence in the interest of quality has lead to the relocation of London tailors to NYC. Perhaps we'll see a resurgence in quality makers after all!

5. State of the Union. 

Much as I'd like to think of anything other than this, something to consider after watching news of Charlottesville this past weekend - The New Yorker has a piece on the possibility of a "new kind" of Civil War in the USA, and how to identify the messengers of a weakened Republic.  But before everyone grabs their guns and bayonets, read this counter piece from Business Insider that makes a strong case for what’s happening out there (all the while extinguishing some of the inflamed rhetoric in the New Yorker piece), which is more likely a conflict of common national identity and a violent response to that. In other words, same ol’ same. Both pieces have the same message: PAY ATTENTION and don't let history keep repeating. This NYT piece has a good summary of events from Charlottesville and DC, along with a 20 minute special segment from VICE that is horrifying. 

I do think the indicators of weakness in the Union (from The New Yorker) are important to keep in mind, as well:

1. entrenched national polarization, with no obvious meeting place for resolution; 
2. increasingly divisive press coverage and information flows; 
3. weakened institutions, notably Congress and the judiciary; 
4. a sellout or abandonment of responsibility by political leadership; 
5. and the legitimization of violence as the “in” way to either conduct discourse or solve disputes.

I'm looking for more thoughts on how business is replacing government as a moral arbiter and policy maker. Lemme know if you've read anything good, friends.

Thoughtline Bling: Links to Make a Basic Social Media Primer

Because more people are waking up to the fact that social media has the most disruptive communications potential since the printing press, and because I lead a brand publishing department at an ad agency, I'm often asked to recommend resources where people can learn the basics of social media marketing. Since I recently put this list of articles together again, and since I didn't write a proprietary word of the content, I thought I'd put it up here as a general resource for anyone needing a basic primer in Social Media Marketing. 

While there are a ton of tools out there to help people become more proficient, I think there are also some good readings to get the basics down. These are all articles. Good information on social media publishing is almost never in a book format - by the time the book is published, the social medium has shifted or the way it's used has changed. Below are some great online publications that will keep you up-to-date, plus some articles that cover the foundation.

NEWSLETTERS TO FOLLOW:

1. Social Media & Marketing Daily: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/social-media-marketing-daily/ 
2. Ad Age Digital Updates (scroll to the bottom for the sign up): http://adage.com/channel/digital/20 
3. Luxury Daily (beyond social/content, but provides and exceptional range of information on telling a robust story): https://www.luxurydaily.com/ 

The articles serve as a background primer for the state of social media and content marketing today, covering “right time/right place” storytelling. Note that this is a statement of where we are today, but that successful brands are adjusting the dial to create a culture-based platform from which all subsequent content will come.

ARTICLES TO INFORM:

1. The building blocks of a content strategy: https://hbr.org/2016/05/your-content-marketing-strategy-doesnt-have-to-be-complicated
2. On the current state of the world’s largest community, and how Facebook is impacting every industry: http://www.recode.net/2016/5/9/11610100/the-facebook-papers-part-1-the-great-unbundling 
3. On the Facebook algorithm and why you don’t see everything your friends see: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/opinion/the-real-bias-built-in-at-facebook.html
4. Most social audiences watch videos, but 85% of them do it without volume. This should inform one's approach to social video: http://digiday.com/platforms/silent-world-facebook-video/
5. This is why we should look to engagement as the key metric in identifying social content: http://gawker.com/internet-video-views-is-a-100-percent-bullshit-metric-1774349561 
6. Entrepreneur’s take on navigating authenticity and the new etiquette for businesses in social media: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160 
7. Entrepreneur, on the content hub and targeting: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254245 
8. A Content 101 oldie from Huffington Post, but it covers some basics: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-nagy/content-marketing-101-an-_b_4576992.html 
9. An oldie from Forbes, but still relevant in terms of what social can do (The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing): http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/#1b388a1c2a4d 
10. Ad Age, on the golden rule of social & branded content: http://adage.com/article/digital/content-budgets-rise-measurement-advances/300836/ 
11. Ad Age, on the current state of getting the right content to the right audiences as a marketing best practice, and measuring results: http://adage.com/article/digital/content-budgets-rise-measurement-advances/300836/ 

 

In Other News:

I've been thinking a lot lately about what's going on in the world, and how we can move beyond just talk and get into positive action that's impactful. I do think the most powerful social movements start with a conversation, though, and nowhere is that more easy to start than in social media. I want to help as many people as possible to use these channels effectively.

In the coming weeks I'll begin compiling resources to help individuals use social media to find networks and build coalitions for social change.

Let me know if you have any Social Media 101 articles to add to the list, or if you have any to add to a "social media for social change" list.

Until then... thank you, Drake.

Thought Flashes: May 22, 2016 Week in Links

It's been one of those weird weeks where the tangled mess of politics and media rises to the surface in new and even more perplexing ways. I happened to be in Nevada for Inc's GrowCo conference while the "contested" primaries were going on (John Oliver had some great things to say about that tonight). I met some incredibly inspiring social entrepreneurs out there, but everyone on my return flight to NYC seemed abysmally upset. I guess what happens in Vegas doesn't actually stay there, after all.

Here's what caught my eye this week:

1. The social medias are ruling our lives. Still.

I mentioned this last week, but Facebook creates an echo chamber. Here's the point: your viewpoint is essentially fed back to you, making it seem like your opinion is a majority view. That's comforting if you like the safeness of your own perspective, but it's terrible for democracy when people get their information from platforms instead of newsrooms (it's also terrible for media companies). The WSJ published a really cool infographic showing the difference between red and blue social feeds, in an effort to make this reality more clear. On this note, there's a great new article that ran in the Times today with amazing resources to learn more about modern American fragmentation, including a shout to "The Righteous Mind" which breaks down the ways we try to find and do what's right. (It's an amazing book, but TED talks are here). 

In other related news, Facebook's trending topics are not news, but Facebook's algorithm makes it seem so, since many news story aren't "likeable" and therefore have a harder time surfacing. Here's everything you wanted to know about how it works. 

And speaking of Facebook, did you know that 85% of viewers watch those billions of videos without sound on? And that Facebook charges you for a "viewed video" after 3 seconds? (I wish I could make good content in under 3 seconds!) The numbers aren't as good as they seem unless you create content specifically for Facebook, which their rep teams are trying to encourage, but they also seem to be building their own ad agency, so I'm sure all will soon be revealed, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist...

In the podcast world, PRX created RadioPublic to help podcast creators reach the right audience, tapping into their substantial analytics platform. I love a good feedback loop between data, strategy, and creative, and this seems like it will help advance the audio community with data that's been greatly lacking.

Finally, Twitter is about to drop photos and links in the inclusion of the 140 character count, making life SO MUCH EASIER for anyone who is writing social copy non-stop, or who lacks an editor in their head (I fit both buckets). Rejoice!

And Medium realized that the flat managerial system of Holacracy isn't scalable.

2. But that may soon be trumped by another ruler... (#dadjokes)

The New Yorker took on what accepting Trump means to our nation. I can't bare to synthesize this just yet, but if you take nothing else from this, here's your key takeaway:

If Trump came to power, there is a decent chance that the American experiment would be over. This is not a hyperbolic prediction; it is not a hysterical prediction; it is simply a candid reading of what history tells us happens in countries with leaders like Trump. Countries don’t really recover from being taken over by unstable authoritarian nationalists of any political bent, left or right—not by Peróns or Castros or Putins or Francos or Lenins or fill in the blanks. The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal. Ask Argentinians or Chileans or Venezuelans or Russians or Italians—or Germans. The national psyche never gets over learning that its institutions are that fragile and their ability to resist a dictator that weak.

The Post also took on the topic of Trump bringing us Fascism.

...What he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the “mobocracy.”

Happy Monday?

3. High-Low comes to political journalism.

In a content business deal that's kind of like when Karl Lagerfeld did a collection for H&M, the Washington Post is collaborating with Mic to bring the youth voice together with an authority on politics. In the form of a newsletter, it will run through the election. Plus Cory Haik is leading it at CSO. She's the one who brought Snapchat to the Post, and needless to say is a total badass in the content world.

4. TV is booming, and that means diversity to some and quality-dilution to others.

That may sound counter to the principles of competition, but think of it like fashion expanding beyond tailors and couturiers, and transitioning to factories, sweatshops, and unskilled temp workers. This dramatic surge in TV production has touched nearly every aspect of the industry, from actors and showrunners to those responsible for production logistics for all of the new programming ordered from an ever-expanding roster of networks. The upside is that more voices get a shot at having their story produced because we need the content volume. But to rise above the noise, the big stars get giant contracts for their ability to draw market attention, and the lower-level actors get a budget slash, while writers content with shorter seasons that makes the work more disposable because we're already on to the next thing by the time it's on demand. Just like fashion, I tell ya!

5. Help is coming!

The Knight Foundation and Columbia University are launching the First Amendment Institute to promote free expression in the digital age. Which is awesome, until you go back and read #1.

6. These writers want to have a Paris Climate Talks for food policy, and it's pretty brilliant. Here's the idea, in a nutshell:

"Global commodity markets, while delivering broad benefits, are fickle: opaque, distorted by subsidies, and increasingly prone to price spikes and crashes. Farmers struggle to figure out what to plant, when to plant it, and how much to charge for their wares, and when prices crash, they can be left destitute. Poor consumers face the opposite problem: price spikes can mean the difference between going to bed hungry or not." 

What happened in Paris with emissions, after years of limitations and impasse, was nothing short of a miracle. Instead of countries being forced into emissions reductions, "they agreed to a global aspiration of slashing emissions and invited countries to offer their own contributions toward achieving that goal. That triggered domestic efforts within each country to develop emissions-cutting plans (some better than others) that they thought they could make work politically at home. The leaders also agreed to a global system that would monitor each country’s progress, subject it to regular international scrutiny, and require new and stronger efforts every five years." It made the whole system workable for countries like the US and BRIC countries, enabling participation on a much larger scale. And that's the whole point.

This approach lets countries participate in reaching a global goal in their own way, without a uniform policy, potentially resulting in freer markets where farmers and consumers are taken care of equally.

7. Finally, some photo-worthy events. 

Did you go to the Met to see MANUSxMACHINA yet? If you like fashion and technology, it's aces.

It's almost Memorial Day, which means it's Fleet Week in NYC. This is especially great for photographers because everyone knows how well sailors photograph. So get out there with your bikes (it's Bike Month!) and your cameras. After all, winter is coming.

Thought Sauce: May 15, 2016 week in links

Hard knocks in content marketing, lady-investor digital weaponry... and basically the week that Facebook got a wakeup call.

1. Influencer marketing is so 2014. I was just having yet another conversation about how the size of an influencer's audience is now much less relevant that the extent of their expertise. As social platforms continue to reinforce a pay-to-play model that requires brands to fork out extra money to reach not just new audiences, but the audiences who already follow them, influencers actually become much less relevant. Still good for PR on some level (possibly?) but brands are seeing diminishing returns on the extra production money required for these individuals since you can't reach their audiences without a media budget anyway. That said, the expertise of the "influencer" in content for luxury brands or for the more progressive audience has always been fairly important. People aren't stupid - they know when they are being sold to, and instead of feeling like someone's trying to dupe them into buying something, they really want a trusted voice to help guide them, or they want a unique story or experience to make their own. It seems that this reality is starting to trickle down into mass-market advertising and now youth marketing, as well.

No sooner did I finish my latest debate-meeting on this topic, than this article about the influencer market-collapse appeared in my inbox. I laughed because I actually do work in one of the converted loft spaces they mention (among other similarities), but also because I've been backing away from influencer marketing adamantly since the price-to-quality ratio became so absurdly weak. I'd rather work with great talent - experts - and audiences would rather see their work, as well. Quality content has legs. What works well is talent who knows the publishing channel well, who has a great relationship with the audience, and whose primary objective is to make great content that suits both. Popularity without talent is limited. The charlatans looking to make a quick buck are getting booted off their free ride.

That said, every social platform now seems to have its own influencer agency (accessible at a premium - like Niche for Twitter), and on the other side, independent influencer networks are now maturing into media companies. Fullscreen just rebranded as Fullscreen Media, and is offering subscription services and a branded content studio now, with the caveat that their work must create "real value" for brands. Hopefully quality becomes a key tenant in content development (and an understanding of brand briefs wouldn't hurt), because there's a lot of great emerging talent being hidden in the noise out there...

2. Internet video views is an absolute bullshit metric. The analytics are wildly unstructured to paint an astronomically large picture that just doesn't reflect reality, and it isn't rated like TV, making comparisons misleading at best. If BuzzFeed's best content-view metrics were counted as they are on TV, their NewFronts pitch (which was last week) would be laughable.

Did you know that Facebook counts a video view at 3 seconds of play, even though Facebook videos auto-play in your feed? It's really fun getting stuck in a feedback loop that tells you your view-rate is amazing, when people are really just trying to scroll away from your content as quickly as possible without missing the next post on whatever Trump did today.

Although, you might not see that on Facebook's Trending Topics...

3. This was a really interesting week at the intersection of social platforms and the world of journalism because a former Facebook "editor" came forward (via Gizmodo) to report that Facebook's editors suppress conservative trending topics. After the report, conservatives went wild, Zuck said "whoa, let's talk about this," and released a 28-page document of guidelines for the Facebook Trending Topics team, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee (R-SD) demanded answers, and then the public began to realize that - holy shit - social platforms have human editors. Which means there could be editorial impartiality. As the NY Times put it:

Last week’s debate surrounding Trending Topics gave users and critics a chance to analyze the Facebook platform, which has established significant reach, in new ways. Social networks like Facebook have been widely seen as impartial systems that reflect users’ ideas, preferences and relationship back at them. But suddenly, the companies were viewed not just as tech companies, which the public is broadly endeared to, or as media companies, which are regarded with deep skepticism by much of the public, but also as something in between. 

This might not be such a big deal if Facebook wasn't the modern master of media distribution, but it is. And that implies a level of ethics in impartiality and transparency over how we get our information. A public that has access to free and unbiased information is a key component to democracy.

So the conversation is important. But the impact will also be important, and the answer is not in relying exclusively on the algorithm and voiding human guidance. Humans love an echo chamber that feeds back their own opinions and beliefs. Who doesn't like affirmation? The problem is that we tend to cluster around people who enable our beliefs, so an algorithm would reinforce the "echo chamber" because (of course) Facebook's model is built to serve you the content you're most likely to LIKE. 

As usual, Ezra Klein puts it best:

Behind the panic over echo chambers are three simple observations. First, people like news that confirms the opinions they already hold. Second, the internet makes it easier for people to find news that confirms the opinions they already hold. Third, the algorithms running in the background of Google's search engine and Facebook's News Feed are constantly trying to serve users content — which includes news — they will like, and that will mean serving them news they already agree with.

4. In other news, Google is readying for a major push into VR next week. What's cool about their approach is that they are going to make VR accessible in their existing products (think about VR in Maps or Search... so cool), but the biggest point is that they are opening the doors to VR that Facebook has not. Google is positioning their VR products to make it accessible to view AND to make. Where Facebook (Oculus) has selected apps to play its curated content, Google is pushing to build a library that can scale as YouTube did with video. The end goal from both angles is that we will interact with VR in the real world, but along the way, Google is giving amateurs a chance to participate in the revolution.

5. Speaking of the revolution, Sallie Krawcheck is leveraging her hefty resumé to bring us a robo investment tool designed specifically for women: Ellevest. For all the information, including the depressing details of women's finance that this roboadviser takes into account, see this Money article. I currently use Betterment, but will be taking this system for a test drive. I'll report back.

6. Speaking of lady cash, there appears to be one legit way for women to earn on par, or even MORE than men... HBR just published a piece reporting that "high potential women" working in organizations with diversity goals can earn anywhere from 100-120% the salaries of their male counterparts. Guess who is making a major commitment to diversity? The ad industry, starting with JWT! Line up, high potential ladies. 

7. Actually, maybe start networking? That word sends shivers down my spine, but I'd like to start enjoying it. Here are tips to make networking easier from HBR:

• Focus on learning, not schmoozing
• Identify common interests (might require some advanced research or Google-stalking)
• Think broadly about what you can give (you'll be more confident if you know you can give mentorship, advice, access, etc)
• Find a higher purpose for what you're trying to achieve for your team, clients, or community

8.  And, ladies, once you get those jobs, and you're no longer walking around in your tiara, your bridal veil, or painting your nails, you might have a use for these new emojis that show not just men, but women in professional situations. I hope they have a lady firefighter one. I have a special use for that. You know it's real when gender equality impacts emojis.

9. If you're not fashion-obsessed, don't bother reading this. But if you are, so behold! Rocket scientists are coming together to construct high heels that are actually comfortable, AND NOT HIDEOUS. They are going to be pricey, but probably cheaper than a surgery for bunions (and not much more than Jimmy Choos)! This Atlantic article explains everything from the origin story to the semiotics of heels, to the contradictions in perception of women who wear/don't wear them. 

10. The food industry is so exciting right now! Two things from this week: Whole Foods is starting a new grocery model called 365 to stay ahead of the competition. It will feature fewer, more exclusive foodie products but will keep prices down by optimizing for pre-packaged products (ie, no butchers) and using more robots. Also, Eco Practicum just finished training their third annual crop of food activists in NYC (I really wish this program was online and scalable). This is coming up as a new report emerged last week challenging the efficacy of urban farming plans, so we definitely need more people out there working through these problems.

11. Beautiful things can happen when the human touch is combined with technology, and I guess that's the theme of the week. Beyond journalism's evolution and the state of modern urban farming, the Met is hitting on a timely topic with ManusxMachina ("man and machine"), documenting the evolution of haute couture with technology. It's on through August 14.