Social Media hidden truths

Here’s an interesting presentation by Prof Mark Ritson which Nic pointed me to. A compelling talk in which Mark debunks some of the commercial numbers of social media, especially as a channel with organic reach. The basic premise is simple – you want reach, you’re gonna have to pay for it. That said, while he talks up the hours people watch TV, he fails to break down the attention given in those hours – are people really watching? My advice is to watch this with an open mind and investigate his premise. It’s a great starting point to demystify the fragmented media world we are now living in. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAEbirIByc

The problem with 'How To' advice

How to Advice

The internet is filled with How To advice. Which proves how important it is in building the life you want. But it has a simple flaw we ought remember:

How to advice is disposable.

How to’s are a set of tactics which need to change as the world around us changes. This means we need to constantly re-assess what we know, and ask if it is still relevant. With the pace of technological change today, this is a question we need at the top of our list.

This is why philosophy is always greater than tactics. Philosophy is enduring, and tactics and temporary. If we have a guiding philosophy on what we are doing and why, finding the best tactic for the day becomes infinitely easier.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Why experiences are the new consumerism

The Experience Economy

It’s not surprising that ‘consumerism‘ emerged as a thing in the post World War 2 era. The last 50 years of the 20th century was a time when we quickly homogenised under the influence of the TV Industrial Complex. We all drifted into a suburban symmetry with little variety in the western world. People had to find a way to display their worth to their tribes and wider community. As many of us entered administrative jobs (think white collar clerk work) which literally looked like we were doing the same things, we needed to find a way to show our position in the hierarchy. And boom – hello consumer land. The more people had, a better car, better clothing, more expensive toys, better furniture, the more successful people would think we were. It was an unwritten ground rule we all abided by. And it was a very effective way to show people that we were creating ‘economic value’. Someone’s consumption patterns told the story of where they sat in society.

I’m starting to wonder if the ‘experience economy’ has the same underlying driver. Sure, we all claim that we’ve moved beyond shallow consumerism, that experiences are more valuable and worthy, but it could be that they provide the same emotional benefit and are just different tactic.

For me it’s more than a coincidence that the experience economy is emerging at a time when people now have the tools to show off their experiences. In the past, our experiences were invisible to all but those who viewed a photo album in our home or heard our story first hand, face to face. Now our experiences are only matched by our desire to share them on every social tool we use. The shift to the experience economy has come at a time when it’s finally possible to share what we do, in ways we never could. Just like conspicuous consumption, experiences can now be shared with strangers, loose associates and colleagues. Even the profile pic is best suited to a tropical locale, or the burning man festival. It sends a message just like a fancy automobile can.

I don’t know if this idea resonates with anyone else, but I do now that a great deal of our human drivers have not changed in 200,000 years – just the ways we express them does.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Why on line prices can mislead

Cars for sale

On line markets where people sell peer to peer – think eBay sellers, or used cars on line –  can trick our perception of the price of things. Here’s why:

This is the advertised price, not the price it sells for.

When we compare similar items on line, we are more likely to see the price of things that haven’t sold yet. The price people actually buy at, is often not advertised long enough for comparisons. This means the real value of something is often much less than we think. Especially when we are looking to sell something we own. We are weirdly programmed to think items we own are worth more than they are. 

You might notice a car like yours is advertised for $20,000. There may even be multiple advertised at this price.  Other sellers also see the most common price and follow the market. But we need to remember these are the cars which ‘haven’t sold’ – those that sold probably did so at $17,ooo and are no longer listed. It’s the overpriced stock that creates our price perception.

Why does this matter? Because it is counter intuitive, the opposite of what we’d expect. It’s the filter bubble in action. The more we see homogeneous products with price X on line, the more we should remember it’s the price people hope for.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

You're too early for the market – so what

Screen Shot 2016-01-18 at 2.17.57 PM

So you’re a bit early… maybe you startup, or whatever project you have a deep need to undertake is far more important than that. Maybe it’s a gift to humanity.

When Gutenberg built his moveable type printing press around 1440 the market looked like this:

  •  7% of the population in Europe could read.
  • Reading glasses hadn’t been invented. (people didn’t know their eyes couldn’t focus that small!) 
  • There were no public libraries .
  • Schools for the public didn’t exist yet.
  • There were exactly zero bookshops.

Maybe he should’ve waited for Amazon to come along….. he did it anyway.

When Karl Benz built his first combustion engine car around 1882 the market looked like this:

  • No one knew how to drive an automobile
  • It was illegal to drive
  • There were no roads
  • It was slower than a horse
  • It was many thousands of times more expensive than a horse

Maybe he should have waited for the Autobahns to be built….. he did it anyway.

We can focus on what the market wants. Build them houses, sell them packaged food, and provide entertained where the good guy wins, or we can do a project for ourselves. When we do it for ourselves we only need to finish it to satisfy who it is for. And we might just make something the market really wants as well.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

The simplest brand building tool of all

black mercedes

Building a brand with meaning is a difficult thing to do. But there is one hack which tells us more than any other signal, and it takes less than a second to give that signal.

The price.

If it’s super cheap or outrageously expensive, it tells a stronger story than any other feature immediately.

It tells us where it sits in the scheme of things, the consideration set of where I could cast my dollar votes. It tells me if this is option is in my range or not for me. Sometimes the price is most important feature, we want people to know how much we paid. The story I tell myself has already began. I make a decision based on the price which tells me I’m being smart and frugal, or I deserve this most expensive option. In some categories like apps and software, these days there’s an expectation of no price at all.

If our price stands out, then even before our product or service has been trialled we have a brand perception. The only challenge of course, is making sure that after consumption the experience lives up to what was expected.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Yes, we know Uber has no cars, but what do they really sell?

So by now everyone knows that Uber has exactly zero cars and Airbnb has zero hotel rooms. But this shouldn’t really be that surprising given it has been the playbook of the internet since like Altavista was a thing. So we can stop putting it in presentations as though it is a surprise. The web is a connection device, those who make the most useful connections win. It’s all about access, not ownership. While these two tech companies don’t own the assets they rely on, we ought remember some older examples from the ‘Connection Playbook’.

  • Apple have 800,000+ app developers they don’t pay.
  • Alibaba has 4.2 million factories they don’t own.
  • Facebook has 1.2 billion content creators.
  • Amazon sells almost every author in the world.
  • WordPress has 75 million journalists writing for them.
  • eBay doesn’t own any good it sells.

The web has always been about leveraging cognitive surplus and idle assets. Owning stuff and paying creators is so Industrial era.

Now let’s consider what people are really buying when they get an Uber: Certainty & Transparency.

Uber time to arrival

For me the thing that makes Uber valuable isn’t the nice black vomit-less cars, or the random risky strangers who drive them. It’s knowing the car will be at my house in 6 minutes. It’s far superior to whenever I order a taxi – they still to this very day have the gall to tell me they’ll send the ‘Next Available’ – which does not help me get to the airport in time. I’m also a fan of just leaving the car without having to waste like 7 seconds swiping a credit card to pay. Yes, human laziness knows no bounds. Interestingly, the key features that make it work could all have been done by the taxi industry. But heck, why would they do that in monopoly conditions?

As for Airbnb, I’d much rather stay in a hotel when travelling on business. Hotels are far more convenient and have a number of services that matter when travelling for work – like late night burgers and concierge. But whenever I hear someone talk about their Airbnb experience, it’s never about convenience and amenities. And it’s not always about price. Most often it is about the story of where they stayed and how authentic it was. Airbnb sell the story of accommodation. They localise the experience for strangers.

Yes, it’s quirky that many big businesses connect things rather than own them, but it’s more important we understand what their customer advantages really are.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.