the real (short) meaning of mobile's rise.

Most web applications are about fitting themselves into people's computer using routine.  Whether this is embodied by RSS feeds fitting blog reading around the workflow of other tasks, or about fitting social interaction into computer time at work and home through instant messaging or social networks, tying an application to a computer meant tying an action to a location or mindset.  I didn't think of it this way at the time, but IM probably helped me get more homework done in high school, because it added an incentive to sit in front of the computer and enough distraction that actually doing the work didn't seem arduous.

Mobile applications remove the location bias from these activities.  So, Facebook and IM and GReader, etc etc etc are now fitting into my actual living routine, and the adjustment is notable.  Email is not something I check when I get to work, when I get home, etc.  Email is a way of reaching me at any time, suitable not to a location or time, but to a type of message.  Same thing with Facebook and IM.

This isn't a huge difference to the people who are spending 8 hours a day in front of a monitor anyways, but I start to feel it when I spend more time out in the city, or on location for work.  The change is notable enough that even my laptop is starting to feel cumbersome, which I would have found absurd a year ago.  My social and work information flow / social actions are becoming tied only to the flow of information, and the way I choose to connect to people.

What does this mean?  It means that it's no longer enough to make something seamless in integration with the way people work, or the way people use a machine.  It's becoming necessary to make something that seamlessly integrates with the way people want to connect.  Tying your service to a work-station, or a single machine, isn't a good idea.

If I'm going to be mobile in terms of space, you need to be mobile in terms of platform.

the unrestrained data shadow.

A discussion with Angus of Ghostrazor about the point of Halo novels got me thinking. I support brand extension, and building a larger history to interact with, but do I support the creation of stand-alone consumables that exist expressly for this purpose? I'm still trying to figure out where I stand.

The example that came up was Star Wars, and how the expansion of the universe through games, comics, novels, action figures, etc, is what kept the brand strong until Lucas released episode one - three, and ruined all of it. Unquestionably, there was a lot of crap involved in that endless stream of product, but it served a purpose - films that were decades old remained relevant, discussed, and in possession of a fandom that is hard to argue with. That fandom is a pretty solid justification for why most sci-fi or action films immediately have a companion novel, video game, and graphic novel waiting on store shelves at release.

The part that I'm not so sold on is the apparent irrelevance of quality, or 'fit', to the benefit of this enterprise. I'd argue that Halo doesn't have enough plot, or character depth, for a novel to be of real value. I think webisodes, or ARG, or even comics could make an excellent extension of the brand, but I assume a Halo novel ignores the only non-character of note the franchise created (Master Chief) and sets up a completely separate group of characters, dealing with alien war on ring-shaped worlds. There's nothing inherent in the book that makes it connected to Halo, other than the cover. There's not really justification, excepting the value of brand extensions in building a dedicated fandom.

What depressed me, is that brand dilution isn't really a worry with creative properties like video games, because everyone already accepts and expects the cash-grab extensions like novels, regardless of how crappy. The quality of the core property carries it, as long as the fandom is 1) slightly underground, and 2) not too critical.

I include those caveats because, well, Tom Clancy. The man has written several solid books, but now his name (and brand) is pasted on anything, because someone will buy it. In my circles, at least, this has made Tom Clancy a joke. I'm wondering how much longer until brand expansion is something carefully considered, because any sub-par offering, anything done only for the financial return, will discredit an entire product line.

I think we've already reached this point in music, because there is an (absurd) expectation of authenticity in that medium. When will crap like the 24 magazine, the Lost magazine, the Heroes Magazine, novels, etc, be abandoned, because the potential influx of cash isn't worth the risk of the brand becoming more known for it's endless desire for easy money, than for the creatively viable core product.

Context is great and powerful, but injecting crap into the mix to increase the data shadow is, to me, the same as re-writing the core product to make it worse.

if people care, they matter. treat them that way.

My instinct is that this is a generational thing, but I rarely think of phones when I think of outreach, interaction, etc. Phones, to me, inherently mean sloppy, delayed, and often impersonal, when used in connection with products, services or brands. However, I just read something on Seth Godin's Blog that got me thinking:

Shouldn't every single inbound call be answered in one ring? Shouldn't there be as much spent on self-service customer support as is spent on the design of the selling part of your website? Shouldn't you be tracking in the finest detail what people have to say when they call in? Shouldn't you be rewarding call center operators by how long they keep people on the phone, not how many calls they can handle a minute? Shouldn't there be an easy, fast and happy way for an operator to instantly upgrade a call to management (not a supervisor, I hate supervisors) who can actually learn something from the caller, not just make them go away?

This more or less dovetails a lot of what I was saying when I wrote about social media relations. A phone is a tool like anything else, but my own little fishbowl skews towards the digital, I often forget that this is a simple thing that can be done better. I feel like the entire industry does, too.

One of my core tenets is that information is precious, and it should be held on to for the good of everyone, on either side of the transaction. If you leave it on the table, whether through less-than-stellar CSR service on the phone, or by ignoring online communities, I immediately wonder how seriously you take your customers.

People who care enough to pick up the phone are the same as people who care enough to contribute to an online community. They keep the lights on at your company, because people who care are people who pay. Keeping them happy isn't always cheap, but it is almost always worth it. Learning from them is priceless.

Why do we assume that interacting with the people who care is something that belongs at the bottom of the ladder, when interacting directly with corporate clients, and keeping them happy would never be outsourced, or left to the inexperienced.?

engagement as facilitation.

While working on the last 2 posts, and considering how to generate engagement, I realised that my core point wasn't the focus on issues, per se, but rather creating a tool to facilitate action. This is a pretty simple rule for whether or not something will generate engagement in a user base, so I thought it should be made explicit.

Content, or Information, or even Distraction don't guarantee engagement, and if they do, they can only do so for the short term. People talk about the value of Facebook as a 'social graph'm but I find I can only explain the value to non-users as a means of keeping in touch with people I would otherwise lose track of. Facebook is filled with information, and things to do, but the engagement comes from it's use to facilitate events, or friendships, or contact.

Wikipedia works the same way. It's not naturally engaging to the majority of users - we show up, get the information we want, maybe click a link or two, and move on. But to those who see Wikipedia as a way to facilitate explaining their expertise, and sharing it with others, it becomes an addiction. These superusers are the ones who keep the project alive.

I use Tumblr because it facilitates sharing short bursts of information with my friends. There are other ways I can do that, but Tumblr also facilitates interaction with the information my friends post. It gives me a dead easy way to take someone else's content, respond to / remix it, and repost it on my own account. This is then shared with anyone following my account.

This is obvious, and should be fairly intuitive. You can't just offer something, you have to offer a means to action, to actually engage users. So, there's the short version of how I need to consider any changes to anything in my life - what action am I facilitating, and what am I trying to shore up with nothing but content?