Video Games versus the Outdoors

My letter to the editor of the Washington Post was published today! Here's the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501301.html?referrer=emailarticlepg

In it, I basically make the argument that electronic gadgets aren't inherently bad for us. In fact, many people use them as tools to manage the increasing chaos of their lives. Too many social critics like to suggest that playing outside or interacting personally with other human beings is always good, while playing video games or watching TV is inherently bad. I'm just not willing to buy that.

In fact, if you do agree with that sweeping statement, you're going to be a pretty miserable person. Electronics are here to stay. We can either continue the "pitched battle" with them or we can recognize their benefits in helping us manage our own lives. Your choice.

Engagism and the "Push/Pull" Paradigm

Dr. Doolittle discovered a wonderful beast called the "push me, pull you" -- a two headed llama whose two ends (or heads) had to come to an agreement before moving anywhere. The push-me-pull-you concept has long been discussed in the context of "push" versus "pull" communications (i.e., communications that are pushed out to the target via snail mail, e-mail, static advertising or the like) and communications that compel the target to be pulled in (like sticky websites and even old-fashioned town meetings).

The Washington Post's recent article on this topic ("Advertising's New Idea: Don't Push the Product; Pull the Customer Instead") outlines how these ideas are being applied in the advertising venue. For years, advertisers had a pretty unsophisticated approach -- "we simply bludgeoned consumers into submission," according to Bob Isherwood, creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi.

Now, however, those that are understanding the "brave new world" are starting by "analyzing how consumers live and get information and working backward to create messages most appropriate for those channels." Essentially, rather than bombarding them with advertisements, they are figuring out how to get consumers to choose to be advertised at! The approach might center around creating a video game, launching a youTube or MySpace campaign, or writing a catchy song that can be downloaded on to one of the nation's 18 gazillion MP3 players.

What is most striking about these new approaches is how they recognize the "engagist" attitude of consumers. As the article points out, "[t]hese days . . the power has shifted from marketer to consumer . . . consumers decide what information and entertainment they want. Rather than simply pushing messages on consumers, the trick is to get consumers to pull them." As Bob Greenberg, founder of R/GA one of New York's hottest interactive advertising agencies puts it "Traditional agencies are set up as factories to produce advertising, which is a dying industry . . . we're in the business of stimulating consumer engagement, which is where things are going."

I swear I didn't put those words in his mouth :)

As you review this article, I hope you'll consider how you can you adopt these principles to better engage your targets -- whether customers, students, employees or the general public.

The dark side of engagism

The Sheraton Chicago hotel actually has a program to pry crackberry addicts from their devices. The hotel manager will lock up your voluntarirly surrendered Blackberry until you want it back. After several days without your blackberry, would you want it back?

USA Today ran an article today questioning whether "friending" on a social cite makes the friendships real. The article asks important questions like "How many friends should one have? What kind of friends should they be? Does seeking friends through MySpace help boost self-esteem, or might it be harmful?

Umm, did any of these people go to high school?

I don't know about you, but the where I went to high school the popular people (not me) collected people (and tossed them) with little consideration of whether they were "real" or not. I just had to laugh at the quote from a truly imminent (and I'm sure truly thoughtful) expert on the subject who stated "[f]riending really appeals to the ego, where friendships appeal to the conscience."

High school students? Egotistical? Call the "duh" police!

I'm not condoning the practice, I'm simply pointing out that it's nothing new. Whether it's ten friends or 100, high school students have been making "non-substantive" friendships since the beginning of time. It's what they do. They're in high school!

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Leapfrog?

There was a thoughtful article in the 9/17 edition of the Post entitled "Mom vs. the Machine" (at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600107_pf.html)

The article really highlighted what I like to refer to as the "Chicken Little" approach to technology. Social critics love to hate iPods, Blackberries and other similar gadgets -- and now they are instilling that fear into their children!

Technology doesn't have to be a necessary evil. It can be a useful tool for engaging in our life and the world around us. Don't fear the leapfrog -- embrace it!

I'm hoping to have a letter to the editor in the Post on the this subject soon -- I'll keep you posted!

Marketing and Engagism

Last month, I received a note from a friend of mine about a recent survey of Americans. The survey demonstrated that more people can name the seven dwarves and the three stooges than the nine Supreme Court Justices. Is this because the dwarves and stooges are inherently more memorable than the Supreme Court? Possibly. But I tend to think it's because the traditional avenues that government and civic institutions use to get their message out just don't work as well in an engagist society.

This prespective applies to pretty much any marketing problem you can think of. Recently, I was struck by how this applies to the political realm. Here in DC (where the primary was over yesterday, thank goodness), we had what seemed like a gazillion candidates for various offices. And every single one of them did all the traditional campaign things -- signs, doorbelling and those annoying taped messages that are left on your voice mail (on the day before the primary we had 13 such messages). Of course someone won, but in my opinion no one stuck out in the crowd. And I doubt anyone on the street could name all the candidates if you paid them.

I think that ESPECIALLY in the civic and governmental arena, promoters of candidates and ideas tend to think that if it's a "good cause" or the "right thing to do" or "important to society" (like the Supreme Court) it will be naturally memorable. Really, not so much. These individuals need to adopt a more engagist mindset.

What does that mean? Well, in the DC primary example above, how much more memorable would it have been if one of the candidates paid one of DC's poor starving musicians to write a jingle -- or better, had a jingle writing contest on their website? Then they could have used that for their pre-voting day phone messages. I sure would have remembered that. Or what about developing a "get candidate X to the mayor's office" video game that people could play on the website or that could be delivered on CD to people's houses when doorbelling? Or online wiki that would allow citizens to make realtime edits and suggestions to a candidate's platform?

These engagist techniques would not only appeal to a group of people that expect to interact -- they would be memorable! Sure, some people might not respond well. None of these ideas are the "safe" option. But the "safe" option is almost always the "gee, who is David Souter?" option...

E-scapism

I've been toying with new ways to present the ideas of Engagism, and one that's really starting to stick with me is E-scapism. What is E-scapism? E-scapism describes how we use technology to temporarily shut out the "real world" so we can focus on our own.

It's important to think of this as a temporary "shutting out". Most of the time, whether we use our iPods to avoid an annoying fellow commuter or catch up on our favorite shows via Tivo, we aren't permanently retreating from reality. We're simply refusing to accept the reality that would be imposed on us and creating our own. We are, in fact, engaging.

E-scapism is positive. It doesn't deserve the pejorative "mere" (as in "mere escapism"). No, it is an important tool we use to focus on who and what is important to us. Sometimes it's entertainment, but sometimes it's using our Blackberries to keep our business running while we attend a conference.

In fact, E-scapism is the antidote to road rage. It's how an entire generation learns. It's a way for us to remain sane in a world filled with sirens and metal detectors. And, perhaps most important, it has become integral to our way of life. Everyone practices e-scapism. What implications does that have for how you run your business, do your job or manage your relationships?

Changethis.com

A friend of mine turned me on to www.changethis.com, another one of those web 2.0 sites that actually gets real live human beings involved in the process of developing thought-provoking and / or useful content online.

Changethis combines some of the most pointed features of the new web (people submitting contents, users rating submissions, etc.) with a pointed desire for social change -- of any kind. Here's how it works -- you submit an idea for a manifesto and other users of the site decide whether they want to know more. If enough people want to see the whole manifesto, you'll be asked to draft and post it. Fame for you, thought-provoking content for the site developers. Sounds like a win, win.

Perhaps what's most interesting about the site is the fact that it's not just, umm, wackos. There are a ton of interesting looking BUSINESS manifestos up there -- like business lessons learned from Starbucks. Sure, some of them are pushing the definition of "manifesto" (like the many "how to" pieces up there) -- but the fact that they're high up on the "hit list" indicate that people are finding them useful.

Real live authors as using it as well -- for example, Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor at Wired Magazine has a piece up there on Hollywood Hits. Seth Godin had his Bootstrapper's Bible up there. In fact, it's becoming yet another marketing outlet for anyone reaching out to business and creative types.

Just think -- you could be the next Karl Marx. Check it out at www.changethis.com

MySpace Becomes Even MORE Engaging

Hopefully by now we've all heard that Myspace is going to allow independent bands to sell MP3s from their myspace pages. If you haven't, there's a good overview in the Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/03/AR2006090300275.html

Of course, the main reason MySpace is leaping into this market with its 106 million users is to try to compete in some small way with iTunes. Perhaps more important, though, MySpace is responding to that indy music trend of musicians going their own way. Rather than be relegated to CDs and the corporate behemoth of iTunes, musicians are seeking ways to reach out directly and personally to their bands. Having the ability to sell MP3s directly from their myspace profiles offers bands that direct connection they're looking for.

Some musicians are taking these connections a step further in a phenomenon that Wired Magazine is referring to as "The Rebirth of Music" (see the article at www.wired.com) Leading musicians like Beck are experimenting with new ways to release music to the public (online, on CDs and in other formats). Some, like Bare Naked Ladies, are releasing all the individual tracks of their songs and inviting fans to remix however they want.

It's all part of a growing trend encouraging consumer involvement and definition of the products they use. In other words, of engaging customers in the process of creating widgets and processes that they actually like and will use on an ongoing basis.

What lessons can we learn about making our products or services more engaging? Can we use MP3s for training, for example, for those individuals that like to have someone walk them through a process verbally? Can we ask them to rate what’s most useful (and not useful) about our products and services, as myriad social network sites do? What other lessons can we learn from the indy music scene to engage our own “fans” from the get go?