The things we make, make us – Jeep

We realized a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make – BMW

Think about it. That’s it.

I’ve been noticing a theme in television commercials. This theme transcends product. It plays on our yearning for heritage, many times specifically referencing ideas of Americana. Here are a few examples.

Miller High Life — Alternative Fuels from Michael Williams on Vimeo.

Can anyone think of any other good examples? Throw ‘em up into the comments section.

UPDATE:

Here are a few more. They carry less of the thread that unites the others, but perhaps still connected…

And I guess this is nothing new – The pride is back…

Foursquare is awesome. I love it. I use it virtually daily. For those unfamiliar, the platform describes itself thusly:

People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, we’ll tell your friends where they can find you and recommend places to go & things to do nearby.

I enjoy thinking about the connections between real-world items and their digital service/platform/network manifestations. What exactly am I referring to? A basic example might be a rolodex and the Contacts app on an iPhone. These real-world objects served as precursors to the programs that contrive our digital existence.

So anyway, I recently ran across analog Foursquare.  I was staying at a bed and breakfast in Virginia (yes, bed and breakfasts are cool and if I have anything to say about it they’ll be making a comeback among young people, but that’s for another post…).

Upon arrival to our private cottage, we found this kitschy guest book. It was littered with comments from previous visitors. Some relayed their thanks to the proprietors. Others left activity recommendations for the surrounding area.

In the foursquare world, you might say multiple people had ‘checked-in’ to this place, via the guest book. These people had left laundry list of tips and to-do’s.

That’s basically it. No earth shattering insights. Just something I found interesting.

Anyone else run into any real-world items that serve as the basis for favorite digital services?

On another note…
Analog4square is a name I thought up for my friend Ronan. Ronan lives in Bushwick, likes irony and was looking for a unique, cheeky way to participate with Foursquare (in a very indirect capacity) via his feature phone.

Note: This is simply Ronan employing a Foursquare-esque tweeting strategy.

Another great find by PSFK.

The personality infographic generator creates a data visualization of your individual personality and habits. Answering several questions (click the UK flag at the top right corner for English language interface) allows the tool to analyze unique characteristics of your personality and behavior – ranging from what you like to eat, to how long you’re online per day, to your preferred mode of transportation, as well as your online persona/s.

So check it out. Customization is minimal, but I still enjoyed it.  It produced no earth-shattering self-realizations or insights into my life, but not everything needs to be life changing. There’s value in a 2 minute distraction from an otherwise hectic and stressful day.

Here is mine below.

1. Click to enlarge.
2. Enjoy.
   

Why? Because life is awesome and this is an amazing time in which to be alive.

Apple vs. Adobe – Steve Jobs told the world exactly what he thinks about Adobe and Flash this week. I’ll let the man speak for himself. (Apple)

For some different perspectives, check out Apple or Adobe: Who’s Right in the Flash Debate?, Microsoft Agrees With Apple And Google: “The Future Of The Web Is HTML5? and Steve Jobs tells the world just what he thinks of Flash

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Why Twitter Is the Future of News – An unprecedented analysis reveals that the micro-blogging service is remarkably effective at spreading “important” information. This is a pretty intense study and I suggest blocking out an hour of your time, reading through it and thinking critically about what it all means. (Technology Review)

For more, see What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media?

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The Run for the Roses, Past and Present – Secret Forts has a great pictorial recap of the illustrious Kentucky Derby. Another post this week that speaks for itself. (Secret Forts)

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Real Time Social Baby Births – I love personal, anecdotal evidence of the real time impact and effects of social media/networking. Jon Steinberg feels this posts lacks insights with novelty. Perhaps. I personally think the key to getting mid and late-adaptors to embrace social networking is to share tangible experiences, which this post does. To me, there’s great value in that.

We’re at a point where ethnography is going to play a key role in the continued evolution and adoption-rates of social technology. I’m also still trying to convince my Mom to start using Facebook. This post offers some powerful ammunition for that conversation. (Jon Steinberg)

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10 Favorite Android Apps – PSFK picks their favs. For all you Android-heads out there, how accurate is this? Do you agree? I found this list to be shockingly not shocking. (PSFK)

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And the rest…

A Practical Guide to Creating foursquare Events
Iron Man 2 Is Allegorical To Gates Vs. Jobs, Says Reader
The wind man who beat Cape Cod’s elite
(Future Of Retail) New RFID Tags Could Reduce Lines At Grocery Stores
10 Dos and Don’ts for Brands on Twitter

Short post, kids.

I told you so!

The five (5) people who read this blog may recall my last post, in which I said:

I predict that, America The Story of Us, will be the highest rated History Channel show EVER.

Hmmm. Somebody was right.

Check this out:

Airing Sunday night from 9 to 11 p.m., “America” averaged 5.7 million total viewers, becoming the most-watched special in network history.

It drew 2.7 million adults 25-54 and 2.6 million 18-49s, more than half of them men, an audience the network has been targeting for some years.

Clearly this wasn’t all because of Foursquare, but you can’t ignore all the ancillary press History Channel gained from simply deciding to embrace social media marketing strategies.

Anyway, I’m going to be brushing dirt off my shoulder for the next few days. Cheers.

Four Tips for Mobile Marketing to Kids – Whether we like it or not, brands are going to gear aspects of their marketing efforts towards children (some more so than others). Luckily, there’s Shira Simmonds, President of Ping Mobile. In this article, she explores some refreshingly creative ways for marketers to use the mobile channel to reach teens.  More important, her suggestions “support good parenting while teaching kids how to be responsible, discerning consumers.”

I really enjoyed this article and think that its a must read for any company even considering using mobile to reach a younger demographic. (Adlaw By Request)

Those interested may also want to check out Teens + Mobile + Retail = $.

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Mobile Checklist for Brands – Is this the year of mobile? Sigh. I really hoped we’d moved past that question. Mobile is here (IMHO). How do you plan to utilize it?

Though he may still be wondering if this in fact the year of mobile, John Bell provides some important information for those ready to make their foray into the medium. The charts come courtesy of the people at www.jouleww.com, a WPP Company. Read this stuff, people. Learn it.   (Digital Influence Mapping Project)

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Tweet Tweet Boom Boom – NY Mag takes a look at the people shaping the NYC Tech scene, and potentially the future of the world (okay, that may have been a slight exaggeration, but these companies are doing great things).

A new generation of tech entrepreneurs in the city is trying to overthrow old media and build a better New York—with the help of their iPhones. Are they dreaming? Definitely. But in a good way.

This is a comprehensive article that profiles some familiar (to me) and well deserving faces.  I’m hoping this piece serves as a precursor to something akin to the rebirth of Silicon Alley. That said, I’m looking for this ‘scene’ to innovate and create a mythology of its own. This would be preferable to a rehash of the past or a community modeled as a Silicon Valley East. Either way, a must read. (NY Mag)

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History Channel Launches Foursquare Campaign and a New Badge – This is actually slightly older than this week but I’d be remiss not to mention it. Just read the article people. This promotion is a great example of welcome, contextual engagement. I say this having experienced it first hand. After forgetting that I was ‘friends’ with the History Channel on Foursquare, I received this wonderfully informative ping upon checking into Union Station in DC last weekend.

I predict that, America The Story of Us, will be the highest rated History Channel show EVER. At least the first episode, that is. You heard it here first people.  (Mashable)

For different perspectives on this story, check out History Helps Turn Foursquare Into a One-Player Game and History Channel Turns Foursquare Into A Real World Pop-Up Video.

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Mobile Barcodes Are Going Nowhere Unless The Big Players Start Using Them – I agree. That’s only half of the issue though. Yes, big brands need to begin using them in highly visible, actively promoted campaigns. Beyond that, we need to see massive amounts of consumer education.

“What are these funny little symbols and what am I supposed to do with them?”

If mobile bar codes fail to take off in the US, it won’t be because of a culture gap or poor technology that is difficult for consumers to grasp. No my friends, it will simply be due to a lack of consumer education. (Mobile Marketing Watch)

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Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia – Maria Popova provides us with an in-depth look at “prison storytelling, subcultural anthropology, and the allure of darkness.”

Actually, this piece is more of a review of Danzig Baldayev’s work on the subject, cataloging more than 3,600 inmate tattoos. A guard at St. Petersburg’s notorious Kresty Prison, Baldayev began releasing this archive in 2003. While the images are visceral, his work reveals “a rich and eerie intersection of art and violence” (Brain Pickings)

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And the rest…

Innovative Church Branding
Credit cards losing ground to mobile technology
Mobile Users Respond To Location-Based Ads, Coupon Biz To Hit $57 Billion in 2014
Faux MTA Signs Urging Politeness
Delaware: The MUSICAL

I recently came across a post on the always interesting PSFK describing the creation of a visual coding system for London’s homeless population. These analog communications allow the homeless to relay information to one another.

Understanding the need to deliver information beyond the confines of the publication to a population with virtually no access to mobile technologies, in 2007 the Pavement enlisted the help of designer Emily Read. The end result was the development of a visual code – printed inside each issue – that anyone could use to communicate messages with their fellow community. By leaving simple, chalk symbols on the side of buildings and sidewalks, the ad hoc city guide informs a niche group of users about things like neighborhood safety, places to sleep and the availability of free food.

There’s nothing new about the homeless using symbols to pass along knowledge. How do I know this? I watch too much TV.

Read’s symbols immediately reminded me of the Mad Men episode The Hobo Code (and subsequently the comprehensive A Continuous Lean post on the actual hobo code as it existed in the US during the late 19th/early 20th century – worthwhile read to be sure).

Please note that I’m in no way trying to compare modern homelessness to the hobo/vagabond wanderers of yesteryear. That said, I think there’s a fascinating string that connects Pavement/Reed’s work with the Hobo code.

See for yourself -

Its telling how the concept of a hobo/homeless ideographic system has descended both time and space. This makes me think back to a course I took in college – Anthropology and Human Nature, in which we learned:

It is arguable that all creatures have culture, if culture is equated with environmentally acquired knowledge, or shared learning.

What distinguishes human culture from that of other creatures, and makes of culture the specialized adaptive niche of the primate Homo sapiens sapiens, is that human culture is mediated by symbols (symbol: a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed by those who use it), that is, by language.

Symbols have made possible the creation, accumulation and transmission of infinitely greater quantities of knowledge in the species as a whole than are found in other animals.

But symbols are not reality; they constitute the labels we confer on those aspects of reality of which we become or are made aware, as well as our sense of the relationships among those aspects.

- Dr. Ackerman

This post seems to be spiraling out of control, off-topic and into the nether-regions of my mind so I will abruptly end it. The End.

I recently conducted a small experiment. My company was attending the CTIA trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center last week. I was interested to see if I could successfully use a platform like Foursquare to drive traffic to a location within a location.

What does that mean? I added our booth as a location on Foursquare. Even though most people checking in would already be in the venue (the convention center), perhaps the mere fact that they saw our booth # as a nearby venue would pique their curiosity and have them stop by for a visit.

This didn’t really work, as we only had 3 total check-ins (even though I promoted this to my co-workers,  and gave instructions for sign-up and usage to those without Foursquare accounts ). I still need to check with the attendees to see if anyone mentioned it verbally at the booth and conduct a more formal assessment of what happened and what I might have done differently.

Failure aside, I think that with some more promotion and employee participation, this raw idea could actually develop into something more successful.

Let’s take a step back. I think its important that the focus not be on Foursquare but on the idea of “Location” as the next evolution of the web. Twitter has already incorporated geo-location into its platform and Facebook will likely follow suit.

SXSW
Foursquare wasn’t the only geo-locationservice on display at SXSWi. Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Burbn, MyTown, CauseWorld, and Hot Potato (among others) also factored into what people are referring to as the “Location Wars.” It seems as though location-services are in the same place social media was a decade ago. Each startup is fighting for the position of dominant platform.

Check-ins and point accumulation are nice features, but they’re simply the first phase of location. We’ll have a much better idea of what a location-centric web looks like when smartphones and data plans become ubiquitous (as laptops and internet are now).

Preparing for the future
Until that time, its important for companies to experiment with these services. See what sticks and remember, its okay to if your initial effort doesn’t find the success you hoped for. If we aren’t failing, we aren’t doing.

As for Foursquare, its possible that it may go the way of the buffalo, like Friendster before it (and in my opinion, the inevitable end of Myspace). But that’s a different conversation, and frankly one that I’m not interested in having.  As for location itself, its safe to say that its gone beyond buzz, and will eventually be the next iteration of the web.

My advice is to not be overly focused on the platform itself, but on the plumbing (the concept of location!). Figure out how to your outreach efforts could be adopted to geolocation. Platforms will come and go and its likely you’ll have to maintain a presence on multiple networks (e.g. Twitter and Facebook today).

Also remember that geo-location extends beyond these platforms. You could incorporate it into a branded app for example (e.g. A bank could add a “where’s my nearest ATM?” feature to its online banking app).  There are a great many possibilities for how you might want to incorporate the ability for a phone to determine someone’s location into your own marketing activities.

As we’ve seen with social media marketing, the key will be in finding an overarching location strategy that is not a means to itself, but an extension of your overall efforts.

Hello faithful readers (all 5 of you!). I wanted to give you a short update on how the ‘Nordstrom Credit Card‘ situation was resolved. Please note that I’m using the term ‘resolved’ for lack of a better harsher word.

After waiting a week for a call back, I once again called Nordstrom customer service to inquire about this issue and to see whether the fraudulent charge had been removed from my statement.

The representative looked up my account and sure enough, the charges had been removed.

I asked why I had not received a call from someone to apprise me of this resolution, as promised. She said that she didn’t know.

I asked her if she was able to tell me what happened. Why was this fraudulent charge reposted to my account? Was it human error? A technical glitch? Why should I continue to trust you, Nordstorm? There were no notes on the account. She had no answers. Disturbing correlation.

Useless.

The situation was successfully resolved in that the fraudulent charge had once again been removed from my statement. My experience with Nordstrom customer service left much to be desired. The only time during this process that I was able to speak to a helpful representative was when I ran my mouth on Twitter. Even she was unable to meet the expectations she herself had set (a call back to let me know she had resolved the issue and an explanation as to why this happened again).

The Alternative
Early this week I saw a friend’s Facebook status recounting a very positive customer service experience she had with a service named Groupon. I would post a link but can’t seem to locate one.

Anyway, when I inquired about Groupon and what made their customer service so great, she responded:

Check it, kid. It’s good stuff. Today, they *proactively* emailed to see if I was having problems with some spa Groupons — all because a few customers had complained about the spa. I replied, “Now that you mention it…” and ta da, instant refund. (Of a vast sum of money.)

This experience had been so positive for her that she was essentially engaging in social media/word of mouth marketing efforts on behalf of this company – up there on her Facebook wall, for all to see.

I, on the other-hand, still have nothing positive to say about Nordstrom customer service.

These parallel events with drastically different outcomes only serve to reenforce my belief that when handled properly, good customer service is the best form of marketing.