content vs object - short version.

When digital information storage and transfer became the norm, businesses (really, almost all of us) made the same, erroneous assumption: that the content was the value, and the object was waste.

As in, music = product, CD = trash.  Or book = trash, story = product.  The problem with this, however, is that purchase is about the transfer of ownership.  People like to buy things they can gain ownership of.  It's hard to feel like you own a digital file, even as you enjoy the text or the music.

Most of us bought into the glorious lie of the internet age, the belief that production costs would plummet, that even at reduced prices income would skyrocket.  We forgot that the cost of a book included a durable, attractive copy on your shelf for as long as you like.

In the past, the only way to transfer information without physical form was a mixture of senses and memory.  The only way you could charge for this, was to charge for the time of the person re-telling.  Charging for performance, you will note, still works.

Digital information equates to augmented memory.  Charging for it is counter-intuitive, if you think about it.

look to the webcomics.

I've been reading webcomics for about a decade, now, and every year I get more convinced that no one has figured out the new economic reality better than webcomic creators.  And I'm not talking about the Penny Arcade level death-star goldmine webcomic creators.  I'm talking about the one-and-two person operations, and the 'collectives'.

I'm not arguing it's an endless goldmine.  I'm just saying that a notable number of hardworking, talented artists are making a living on their creativity.  I'm not an expert or an insider, but I am impressed.

Business models I've observed include donations, subscriptions, advertising, sponsored content, but mostly a mixture of some of the above with merchandise sales (books, tshirts, tote bags).

All of this comes down to three stages: Make something good. Give it away. Offer the people who care about it a way to support you, and to own a piece of something they have come to love.

This can be merchandise sales (the Topatoco army wins at this, in my opinion), or donations (which have supported Something Positive for a couple of years now, if I'm not mistaken), or most recently, beautiful handcrafted books, sold at a well-justified premium (a la Dresden Codak.)

The important thing is the understanding of the new model of business.  It works the same as a new relationship - you give something of value, because you want to.  Because you love it.  Not with an expectation of return.

If you give something that enough people value, then they will give back, not only to support you, but to own a piece of what you've created.  To pull a little more of something they love into their lives, whether as a status object, or as a reminder that this thing they love exists.

The best part? Commerce has another layer of separation from the art.  The art is created to be art, to build a following, and to show something of value.  When the art is created to build a connection, there's no need to water it down - you want something that people will be connected to, not just unoffended by.  Selling tshirts doesn't diminish the art of a cartoonist, web or otherwise.  It separates the art from the product.

[Seriously, read webcomics.  The quality, humour and consistency of these people is clearly the biggest element of the success they've had thus far.  You will not regret it.]

the worst biz model in the world.

I've been noticing the continued popularity of the worst business model in the world.  (No, this is not a joke-post about twitter.)

The worst business model in the world is conceptually very common, but rarely implemented.  It goes something like this: "A successful company (or industry) has a point of contact with our business, and we think they should have to pay us, because we are not successful, and, well, there is a point of contact."

The most recent example, of course, is newspapers and Google.  Ignoring the fact that Google, by pointing people to the source of information, is increasing traffic to newspapers, Google doesn't sell news as a products, and Google's major sources of revenue have more or less nothing to do with news.

The record industry has tried this, arguing that a chunk of ISP income should be given to them, or that internet connections should come with a levy.  Which would make sense, if the internet was only useful for downloading records.

Note my earlier description: "point of contact" doesn't mean "incorporate someone else's technology or IP of value and then sell it".  It means two businesses cross over slightly, but not in a profitable way, and the less successful one takes a good look at the success and sees dollar signs.

It's the worst business model in the world.  Worse than buying patents to sue companies that actually create things.  Those lawsuits at least have arguable merit on paper.

social media consultants are people too.

A short word in defence of social media consultants:

When the record companies ignored the way filesharing technology had changed the relationship between music and consumers, we mocked them.  We continued mocking them as sales waned, as they got more aggressive with legal tactics, and as we mocked them as their business model collapsed around them.

We're still mocking them now.

Meanwhile, social media is changing the way everyone does business.  And our immediate reaction is to mock those who are trying to help companies in nearly every industry ride out the transition better than the music industry did.

Not every social media specialist is a "guru" with 12,000 Twitter friends, and spam on the brain.  A lot of people are professional communicators who understand this new space, and would like to help companies understand it.  Don't insist that every attempt to introduce business to the new realities of communication is inherently crooked.

[completely inspired by this post at itellstories.org, which is always a good source of inspiration and mood improvements.]

[edited due to truly embarrassing typo]

question two: over-hyped social media service.

What social media / social networking service do you think is the most over-hyped?

For me, the only answer is LinkedIn.  I understand it's importance, I have a profile myself, and I do my best to keep it updated.  But for me, LinkedIn fails on the 'social' element, and that keeps me from making it part of my day to day usage.  I don't have relationships on LinkedIn, (and I fully admit this is my fault) I only have information there.

LinkedIn serves a particular niche, in my eyes - People who see the power of social media, and are still unnerved it.

Twitter has conversations, which lead to being exposed.  Facebook has history and context, which lead to being exposed.  Blogs have content, which paired with context, leads to being exposed.  LinkedIn seems designed to avoid exposure at all costs, and feels like it is based on the premise that your work life, and work social ecosystem, should be kept separate from your personal one.  To me, this feels like a service designed for people who like the idea of social media, but are terrified of incorporating it into their lives, and dealing with the exposure related to that.

Again, I understand the appeal of LinkedIn.  But for me, it feels as though it was designed for a subset of the current generation of employers, the people who think an embarrassing picture on Facebook, from five years in the past, is an accurate indicator of an individual's ability to contribute to an office environment.

So, I don't think LinkedIn in the future.  I think it serves a specific missing link between the people who have no interest in using social media, and the people who will soon be the only target market that matters: those who live in social media.

[This is the second in a series of posts where I answer the questions I suggested people ask potential media hires.]

five questions for potential media hires.

[This is inspired by a line in this article on the things newspapers could do online, which I found via Mathew Ingram on twitter.]

Five simple interview questions that I think should be part of the interview process for any job in PR, Social Media, or Journalism, if you plan on hiring people who are legitimately savvy as to how people ramble at one another online.

What is the most interesting thing being done with an API in the services you use online?

What social media / social networking service do you think is the most overhyped?

What different services have you used to publish online?

What are the benefits of both full RSS feeds, and truncated feeds with links to the original page.

List the 5 books most influential to your view of communication.

There are all fairly vague questions, but they are the ones I'd ask.  The first four mostly because a blank look indicates you're talking to the completely wrong person, a stumbling answer indicates some kind of familiarity, but not fluency, and a long, sprawling answer makes it clear that they not only use social media tools as part of their normal communication, but also that they thought about it.

The last question is in there for two reasons: firstly, to weed out the people who haven't read more than five books (dead-tree or ebook) in relation to the subject matter, and secondly to weed out the people who don't source any information from offline or traditional media outlets.  Social media is an echo chamber, sometimes, and the last thing you want to do is hire someone incapable of an original thought, and ignorant of traditional media and communications.

[If anyone would like, I've be happy to write my own ideal answers to these questions.]

object vs content: direct conflict.

Intellectual Property companies (Recording Industry, Film Industry, etc) want to have their cake and eat it too.  At the core, they only really have two options: they can argue that the content they sell is worth money (digital information), or they can argue the format they sell is the element with value (CDs, DVDs, Theatre tickets. etc).  

They have been, unilaterally, claiming both.

If the value comes from the intellectual property, there is almost an argument for the criminalization of filesharing.  Said criminalization would still be horribly detrimental to both culture and business, but at least an argument could be made.  Frankly, I could almost live with this: if purchasing a CD meant I was allowed to play with the content in any way, in any format I wanted, as long as I did not create a rival (key word) commercial offering that hurt sales of the original intellectual property, I would buy a lot more music and movies.

If the value comes from the format the information is presented in, then any claim on infinitely copyable digital information is ludicrous - a downloaded mp3 isn't in competition with a CD, which will always be infinitely more 'real' and 'complete', incorporating the form, packaging and information that the creator intended.  Similarly, no one who argues that the object / experience is the value should care about bootlegged theatrical releases - the product is the theatre experience, not a poorly shot digital capture of the film.

You can believe one of these things, but not both.  Someone who argues that intellectual property is a protected right, and the source of all value can't justify trying to charge you 5 times for the same song, in CD, mp3, ringtone, FLAC, and Pro Tools formats.  Someone who argues that the packaging, the formatting is the key element of value shouldn't care if you interact with the content independent of it's format.

The fact that the IP obsessed industries have been doing both is a clear indicator that they either haven't thought this through in the least, or, as I assume, that they are grasping as straws to keep the stock value up until the current crop of executives can retire.

on social media specialists.

I saw this gapingvoid cartoon today, and immediately came to a gut reaction.

The concept of a social media specialist is one of those transitional holdovers that will seem almost embarrassingly quaint in the not-too-distant future.

Most 'social media experts' have about the same level of skill with social media as the average western teenager, but usually lack the same fluency, the same level of intimacy.  The difference is, they see it as a new frontier, and interesting realm of communication to study and hopefully leverage effectively.  But social media isn't an interesting quirk of how young people talk - it's an essential part of communication for the internet generation, and it's only going to get more integral as it shifts to mobile.

Having a social media expert will very quickly be like having a telephone expert: essential only when your company is staffed with people who clearly do not understand that the world has changed.

We are heading quickly to the point where everyone has to be a social media expert.  We are already at the point where anyone who gets labelled as part of a company's younger generation should already be one, and should know that bragging about it is like claiming proficiency with email.

lessons in human failings.

The main thing I learned in the last month is that no matter what I am dependent on a mixture of my memory and my hearing.  This is one of the reasons my preference is for email, or another form of written communication.

I am addicted to having a paper trail.

The problem is, that having a paper trail in many cases demands repetition.  And people (myself included) have very little tolerance for repetition, especially in cases where technology is involved.

The solution is fairly simple - I would pay through the nose for a service that delivered automated transcripts of my phone conversations, or even of face to face conversations, to my email inbox.  Being able to point to the exact moment of communication breakdown would be essential, especially since it has become unavoidable that I conduct fairly important conversations over several media.

An increased dependence on technology means an increased demand for accuracy.  unfortunately, the rust between the gears is always human falliability.  Plan accordingly.

five signs of fail: customer relations.

1. It takes more than ten minutes to speak to a human, and identify the problem.
2. Customers can google your flowchart, and  talk the CSR to the correct conclusion, more efficiently than they would actually be helped by the customer relations reps.
3. A customer needs to be escalated to a higher level representative more than twice.
4. There are more than five automated menus, in any circumstance, before speaking to a human.
5. There is no direct communication between the customer service department, and people who can 1) make decisions, or 2) authorize refunds, repairs or replacements.

Five signs of fail for Customer Relations.  It's worth noting that around 95% of customer relations departments have all five of these problems.

open standards vs. proprietary formats.

I don't buy clothes online.  I love clothes, and buying things online is cheaper and more efficient, generally.  But, sizes aren't standard, and I need my clothes to fit me properly.  So, generally, I buy things in person.  Sizes could easily be standard, but a mixture of appeals to vanity, and lack of rigorous agreed-upon meanings, is the current system.

It's the same deal with web browsers, as came up in a recent conversation.  They don't all read the same code in the same way.  A page might be programmed to say one thing, but when you get there, you see another.  On a wider scale, you can see why this would appeal to some companies - a closed process, or a proprietary one, combined with other market advantages (popularity, some unmatched feature) can equal dominance.  This is the same logic as one retailer making size 40 jeans labelled 34.

But when everyone does it, and there is a wide marketplace of comparable products each using the same system with different meanings, the industry in question is inherently fragmented.  This can result in greater brand loyalty, but only as a form of stockholm syndrome.

Proprietary systems make you, and your competitors wrong at least some of the time.  There's no incompatibility that doesn't go both ways.

So I have to go into the store to buy my pants.  Which means I keep buying my pants from the same places, because there is less inscentive to find new places, and have to learn the meanings behind each label there.

Open standards only seem like a bad idea if you can't understand the basic tenet of enlightened self interest - making your entire industry / ecosystem / world better inevitably makes things better for you.  It also lets you compete on something other than entrenched market position, which is always transient.

the bare minimum is insufficient.

No one is ever going to appreciate a person who just does exactly what they are supposed to do.

I don’t mean to suggest that completing tasks on-time, and competently is inherently insufficient.  I’m just saying that good enough doesn’t really warrant praise.  Praise is for exceeding expectations.

Some people, and many companies, deal with this fact by habitually under-promising, so they can guarantee over-delivering.  This works fine, but has the effect of underwhelming clients during a crucial phase, when you’re still trying to hook them.

The solution I aim for is to use the approach, and the creativity and strategy behind it, as a way of creating the interest, hooking the people I work with, and over-promising without committing to results that aren’t reasonable.

Of course, I will still under-sell the potential results.  The last thing anyone wants is a client expecting a best case scenario, and not getting it.  But if I’m going to impress someone with my pitch, it’s bad strategy to attempt to impress them preemptively with the results, rather than with the ambition and beauty of the strategy.

The more important part, though, is that a strategy or approach that impresses a client is more likely to bring intense work and dedication out of people on the implementation side - you don’t get people to work harder than they intend to by telling them they need to achieve impossible results.  You do it by giving them a process that is interesting enough to care about.

Alternately, you can under-promise, get people to do nothing more than what is expected, and then complain about your reputation, or lack thereof as ‘okay’.

starbucks, personalization, and brand as signal.

Starbucks is, to put it lightly, in a wee bit of trouble.

What they have on their side, is a rabid customer base, who sees the brand as a reflection of their own taste and sophistication.  Lots of people who love starbucks would argue with me about this, but I’d bet the majority of them take some form of pride in being able to order their quad long non-fat venti no-foam caramel macchiato.

Starbucks should draw attention to this type of customer, and this specific skill, in it’s promotions.

A simple idea:

Run a contest inviting customers to submit their own drink modifications, combinations, etc.  The things you can do when you actually know the Starbucks menu and ordering process are pretty interesting.  Let people enter a drink of choice, or if you really want to go overboard, create a Facebook application that makes the ‘signature drink’ a badge on their profile.

Get some big wigs at Starbucks headquarters, or some high profile Starbucks fanatics (there are a lot of them out there) to test out 10 selections, and pick a winner.  Prizes are fairly easy, maybe a trip for 2 to Seattle, your signature drink added to the menu at the Pike Place location for the duration of your trip, and your chosen ‘home’ Starbucks location for a year.

This wouldn’t cost much, but considering the amount of press it could generate based on 1) the number of people addicted to Starbucks in some capacity or another, and 2) the celebrity connection Starbucks has developed, it seems like a solid investment with a probable high return.

The key points here are recognizing the potential for personalization in the brand, and recognizing the need for each location to serve as an anchor point for its customers.  I fully admit that’s why I was at Starbucks last night, and will probably be there tonight.

six misconceptions about the future of music.

I had a great conversation with a friend from school today, and the following misconceptions about the future of music came to mind:

1. Piracy has ruined the business for everyone except the massive acts.  Actually, the massive acts were generally the only ones making lots of money (for the recording industry).  Piracy has cut back on that, so labels can no longer offset the losses from other projects with the massive income from a few hit records.
2. The label system / the recording industry is dead.  No way in hell.  What's dead is that entire engine existing to create recorded music, and make money off recorded music.  What's coming is a label system that focuses on it's ability to break acts, broker cross promotions, and generate income from it's network of merchandising partners.
3. Independent artists will suffer.  Independent artists always suffered, if we're defining independent as 'not a major act'.  If we're defining independent as 'mainstream but angrier', please go read a different blog.
4. 'Real Fans' will pay for music.  Music, now that it is available in unrestricted (and infinitely copyable) digital files, isn't worth money.  Real fans will pay for an experience, or a collectible, or a memory.
5. Fans will pay for ease of use, or a simpler experience.  Piracy is, for a notable segment of the population, easier than having a credit card.  Therefore, piracy is not going to be trumped in terms of ease of use, or user experience.
6. NIN / Radiohead / Livenation will figure it out.  These entities are going to figure out how established names continue to make large amounts of money in a changing marketplace.  But, this has no real bearing on discovering how to freshly establish names, and then make large amounts of money, in this new marketplace.

Keep this in mind while you consider how to change this industry.

ratings systems are terrible.

While perusing potential sources of new information on tumblr, I came across a post which included this tidbit:

I know it’s impossible, but it would be interesting to see how much more money this movie is going to make because it’s not rated R.

This caught my attention because rating systems are (always) a negative thing for creative products.  Frank Miller (creator of 300, Sin City, etc) has had a lot to say about this, but I can summarise his argument fairly well in two points; rating dictates audience dictates money, and people should be media literate enough to know what’s appropriate.

Any R rated movie has a smaller audience.  This is fair, not everyone is mature enough to see the things in an R rated film.  At the same time, attaching an arbitrary age range further limits the number of people who will see it.  The real problem, though, is that films (as the most prominent rated medium) are written, filmed, and edited to the desired rating – meaning as a creative product, the rating outranks all artistic concerns.

Think about your favourite book.  Now consider if it wouldn’t have been published unless it was edited either 2 hollywood ratings up (i.e., from G to PG-13), or 2 hollywood ratings down.  Would it still be your favourite book?

The second point is that ratings don’t really protect anyone.  The people who care, or want to protect their children, should be able to tell from the title, posters, and trailer, which movies are appropriate.  The people who don’t care will take their kids no matter what the rating is.

I’d like to live in a society that assumes people are smart enough to entertain themselves appropriately.  I realize how absurd it is to have to say that, but here we are.

why are you trying to sell music?

The majority of discussion when it comes to music and new media is the creation of new business models. This would be fine, except for one core problem; every innovation worth watching has been a product from an artist who was already well known (Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams), or at the very least associated with someone well known.

I’ve talked ad nauseum about NIN, but the important thing to figure out isn’t how to monetize the music business at a time when digital files are free to the majority of consumers, but instead how to develop an interest and fan-base for an artist, and then transition it into income for that artist, without ANY DEPENDENCE ON THE ESTABLISHED SYSTEM. Why does the argument always include some method of selling recorded music?

That last sentence excludes every MySpace band that developed a following DIY style, and then signed to a major and sold a pile of albums. The prior ones discount anything innovative we’ve seen in distribution, because those moves have been made by famous refugees from the label system, who are inarguably still indebted to that system.

If we’re talking about someone who isn’t part of the system, won’t be part of it any time soon, and is well known, the only name that comes to mind is Girl Talk. And it’s impossible to say whether he’s avoided working with major labels, because the complicated pseudo illegality of his mash-ups (which are insanely great) means they wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole.

The short version? The money, from now on, is probably in performing. The money has always been in performing, to a certain extent. I wouldn’t focus entirely on how to sell music in light of our new digital reality. I’d focus on how to distribute music to the largest number of potential concert attendees / merchandise buyers. Your album is now a non-rival good, something that can be replicated endlessly for no cost. This makes it hard to argue it’s worth money. But if 1) music is a great promotional tool, and 2) it promotes rival goods, like a concert seat, a tshirt, or a poster, I don’t see the music industry falling apart, just the CD and mp3 selling industry

It just moves recorded music another level away from the money.

five things to learn from nine inch nails.

1. When selling a product, offer options that will appeal to your different types of consumer.  One offer, at one price point, is a massive number of potential consumers disappointed.
2. Offer an experience that goes beyond just the music – the music is essentially a digital file, a non-rival good.  It’s hard to convince people to pay for something that is infinitely copy-able, and therefore objectively valueless.
3. Offer both instant gratification AND a reward for investing.  If you’re competing with instant gratification (piracy), then that is your bare minimum offer.
4. The most mainstream products are both the most important from a promotional standpoint, and the most likely to be pirated.  Accept this, and use the mainstream product as a promotional tool, and the experimental product as the collector’s item.
5. Adapt your business model not to the differences in distribution, but instead to the differences in consumer behaviour and interests that those changes have enabled and created.

These points are examined at length in posts here, but I figured a quick refresher would make everyone stop and think about Trent Reznor’s recent contribution to figuring out how established acts can make money in a digital music marketplace.

increasing complexity of identity management.

I think it’s been established that people are now brands, especially if they decide to participate actively in social media. It’s not a binary ‘brand / not brand’ thing, it’s an issue of success and ubiquity, mom and pop vs. walmart. This, however, has complicated identity management beyond what any previous generation has to deal with.

I have two jobs, and as such am a representative of those brands. My publicly accessible actions, photos, profiles, etc., have been (to an extent) constructed to exclude content that would be harmful to the brand I represent. Basically, I’m censoring myself in several instances, because I have to make sure that my actions, even in online manifestations of my personal life, maintain the decorum that my work life demands. Lots of people I know deal with this issue by locking away their online profiles, forcibly (and incompletely) segregating their identity.

I’ve decided not to go that far, because my social / online identity is at time useful currency in work related situations, and I’d throw away the chance to get to know more about people who are initially work contacts.

I also write this blog, and therefore have to carefully watch what I do and say, as that is the sum total of control I have over the perception of the broken gentleman as a concept. I put the ideas out there, and people decide what they mean. You’ll notice I more or less keep my personal life off this blog, and I intend to continue to do so.

I’m the only person responsible for the Jon Crowley social brand online, and it has, more or less, been subjugated to the benefit of the work life / blogging brand values.

The reason I, and I assume many of you, use social media is the benefit in creating a trackable past, both for yourself and those you encounter, as well as connecting to others without having to worry about time or location.

As a transition generation, I think the ‘why’ of using social media is going to suffer in service to offline life, professional life, etc. This will probably continue until we decide that seeing evidence of something happening isn’t all that different from knowing it’s happening but ignoring it for propriety. Until values shift, social media is going to suffer as we try to put the genie of transparency back into the lamp.

Letter to my Member of Parliament

June 13, 2008



The Honourable Bryon Wilfert


House of Commons


Dear Sir,

I'm writing as a constituent to let you know that I am strongly opposed to the amendments proposed to Canadian copyright legislation on June 12, 2008. While I understand many Canadians, voters or otherwise, don't understand the technical implications of these changes, I find them a direct infringement of my liberties as a Canadian citizen.

By criminalizing workarounds for Digital Rights Management technology, this Bill allows any company to essentially determine the bounds of copyright law - destroying fair dealing options such as time or location shifting of content, with no legal recourse for users.

Most importantly, to enforce this legislation, the entire concept of a right to privacy would have to go out the window; any actual enforcement would require monitoring and inspecting the usage history of every Canadian with an internet connection, and likely allowing companies to do so.

My privacy, as a Canadian citizen, does not outrank essential concerns such as the safety and security of my fellow Canadians. However, I must insist that my right to privacy comes before the rights of entertainment industry conglomerates that seem to have dictated the content of Minister Prentice's Bill.

I ask that you stand against this legislation.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Crowley


time and space bias, dead and dying

chartreuse examines time bias, or more bluntly, declares time dead.

I agree, but was kinda hoping this much was obvious by now. Then again, watching most media outlets makes it clear that obvious doesn't really mean a change in operations. I'm more interested in space bias - and the idea that most content owners have, that owning something in one form, shouldn't justify ownership in several formats, each suited to a location (meaning, a device, a file format, and a set of permissions and interactions tooled to that medium).

Time bias is more or less dead, and all it took was storage, compression and bandwidth. Space bias falling apart will be more of a cultural shift, and an eventual understanding that consumers are only willing to pay for something useful. Useful, very soon, is going to be defined as unilaterally useful. In other words, people might be willing to spent 15 bucks for an album again if it means they can get a physical copy, get a digital copy, and get enough context with it that the experience is tailored to each tool they use to enjoy it, from ipod to computer to car.