Portfolious

Yesterday I spoke at Marketing Week’s TV Advertising conference in London. BBC, ITV, MTV, UKTV and Thinkbox were there, alongside Fallon, Qmedia, RSA, Royal Mail, Co-operative, Premier Foods, Nike & Boots.

You can take a look at my presentation but it’s loads of pictures without many words so dunno how much sense it’ll make:

What struck me with a sledge hammer over the head, was the fact my presentation was deemed ‘brave’, ‘ruffling a few feathers’ etc. To be honest, I’d toned it down. Quite a lot. I talked about the various revolutionary stages in communications (printing press, phone, TV and radio… then internet); and how the internet is a vehicle for all other media, so they’re all shifting over to the web (the cloud) and sitting alongside one-another in a way that’s enabling people to listen to stuff, watch stuff, make stuff, then gather around and talk about it.

Nothing particularly new or contentious about that.

But even on that point there seemed to be a level of denial, as apparently ‘broadcast will be around forever’ and there was mention of ‘internet-centricity’. Hilarious!

I showed some breathtaking figures… such as the 8.9 billion videos watched online in the US last month… and the fact it would take the big three US networks, working together, 4,500 years to create and air original content that matched the volume of YouTube (thanks Michael Rosenblum for great insights). Maybe I did get a little bit contentious with the mention of scribes – the fact they weren’t considered slow when they were the only means of producing books.

BUT… what perhaps did ruffle feathers was that I dared mentioned the astounding levels of ad avoidance; and the fact younger folk are sacrificing TV time in favour of social media (which was fiercely denied – as ‘WE HAVE PROOF PEOPLE ARE WATCHING MORE TV THAN EVER!!’). Okay. Whatever.

Anyway, stepping back from stats, pointless arguments about whether the internet is everything or not (duh) etc etc… isn’t it truly bizarre that you could hold a conference on ‘the future of TV advertising’, that solely consists of broadcasters and related companies bigging themselves up, talking about how fabulous everything is and congratulating one-another on their success ??? !!!! ?? !

It wasn’t brave of me to stand up and mention the obvious.

If that’s considered courageous, or maverick, or ‘out there’ in any way, what the bloody hell is industry coming to? Not only that, but where is it going to go?

I talked about bureaucracy and hierarchy Vs fluidity (or starfish / spider analogy you might be familiar with). My point was really that brands, agencies and broadcasters should open their doors to the people. That they should view the people of the world as their ultimate creative resource, production resource and distribution mechanism. That half of all the crap organisations do is solely as a result of lack of trust (imagine the expenditure); and we can solve the bulk of our problems through open collaboration.

It’s just common sense.

It isn’t that controversial.

If it is, how dull, backward and old hat is this game? How much cash are they prepared to chuck down a black hole, reinforcing the legacy and exhibiting what are very clearly the Kubler-Ross stages of Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Acceptance. I thought we were nearing the bargaining stage at the very least, but yesterday I saw anger from 2 or 3 key people. Obvious where their pay cheques come from – and that they might just manage to retire and die before having to change their psychological outlook.

Most of the crowd loved a shake-up. Or at least more people found me to say well done, rather than to berate my crazy ways. They welcomed some home truths. They wanted debate and new learning and fresh thinking.

What are people so afraid to loose, that it’s virtually impossible to stick your neck out and say what’s blatantly obvious to anyone who has bothered to understand what’s going on, without seeming like some sort of zealot?

I’m finding this all very weird.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in… marketing, music, film, publishing, media… we’ve got to face up to the fact that open and transparent services are the future. So hand over control to the people, earn trust, have conversations as opposed to indulging in monologues / broadcasting / messaging and promote enablement, not prevention / hindrance.

Thumbs up:

Gerd Leonard: http://www.mediafuturist.com/
Radiohead: http://www.radiohead.com

Thumbs down:

Hakan Roswall, IFPI: http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-day-10-calls-for-jail-time-090302/
Feargal Sharkey, UK Music: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7722340.stm

Duh!

As Bob Dylan said:

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

I had a fascinating chat with Ogilvy Group UK Vice-Chairman Rory Sutherland the other day. We talked about the need for advertising to understand psychology and behaviour, rather than focusing on proposition alone.

On that note, it’s always useful to be reminded of how our heads really work; and how our biases affect belief formation and decision-making. Here are some examples:

* Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behaviour.

* Bias blind spot — the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.

* Choice-supportive bias — the tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.

* Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.

* Congruence bias — the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.

* Contrast effect — the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other measurement when compared with a recently observed contrasting object.

* Déformation professionnelle — the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own profession, forgetting any broader point of view.

* Denomination effect — the tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g. coins) than large amounts (e.g. bills).

* Distinction bias — the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.

* Endowment effect — “the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it”.

* Experimenter’s or Expectation bias — the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.

* Framing — Using an approach or description of the situation or issue that is too narrow. Also framing effect — drawing different conclusions based on how data is presented.

* Hyperbolic discounting — the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are.

* Illusion of control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.

* Impact bias — the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.

* Information bias — the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.

* Irrational escalation — the tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken.

* Loss aversion — “the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it”.

* Mere exposure effect — the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.

* Moral credential effect — the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.

* Need for closure — the need to reach a verdict in important matters; to have an answer and to escape the feeling of doubt and uncertainty. The personal context (time or social pressure) might increase this bias.

* Neglect of probability — the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.

* Not Invented Here — the tendency to ignore that a product or solution already exists, because its source is seen as an “enemy” or as “inferior”.

* Omission bias — the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).

* Outcome bias — the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.

* Planning fallacy — the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.

* Post-purchase rationalization — the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

* Pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.

* Reactance — the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.

* Restraint bias – the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.

* Selective perception — the tendency for expectations to affect perception.

* Semmelweis reflex — the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts an established paradigm.

* Status quo bias — the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same (see also loss aversion, endowment effect, and system justification).

* Von Restorff effect — the tendency for an item that “stands out like a sore thumb” to be more likely to be remembered than other items.

* Wishful thinking — the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.

* Zero-risk bias — preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

40 years ago, Toffler said, ‘It will be a long time before the last bureaucratic hierarchy is obliterated. For bureaucracies are well suited to tasks that require masses of moderately educated men to perform routine operations.’

Bureaucracy makes sense where no radical change is taking place, but it stands to reason that a startling increase in change in the environment around us calls for a shorter life span of organisational forms. Likewise, hierarchy becomes inefficient when we need more info, more interaction, quicker decision-making, rapid action.

There are all sorts of psychological and social consequences of ditching traditional hierarchy and opting for a meritocratic society. For example, if you really believe in the idea that those with the talent and skill will get to the top, by default do you believe those who deserve to get to the bottom will sink and stay there?

Thanks to my fab friend Steve Moore, I sneaked into the Reboot Britain conference last week. To cut a long story short, the premise was along the lines of ‘we’re all screwed up – economically, politically etc – what we gonna do about it’, focusing on digital means of mending our broken society.

MPs, journos, activists, corporate folk, entrepreneurs and all sorts were there. There was a sniff of revolution in the air… BUT… what’s with the incessant harping on about ‘Digital’? Digital revolution. Digital age. Digital solutions. Come on guys… get with the program. Yes, you can and should stream MP’s debates live over the net; yes, you can and should use twitter if you find it useful; but all that is a given. It has been a given for ages. Get over it. Quit the reframing, accept the now and take some action. LIVE ACTION.

Witnessing the clamoring awe surrounding digital, as if it were a tangible entity and lifeforce, is a bit like watching your dad dancing. My outrage culminated in a posh panelist shouting ‘tweet that on the hash tag’. Er… yeah man.

There’s a distinct danger of increasing numbers of folk (often those who’ve had an epiphany while reading Wikinomics or Here’s Comes Everybody) disappearing up their own digital asses. Don’t get me wrong, those books are fab, but borrowing catchphrases and concepts without changing behaviour is futile.

Let’s stop talking about as if there’s a divide between digital and non-digital. Let’s stop focusing on technology. It’s about PEOPLE. What are people going to do to make things better. What can we each, as individuals, do RIGHT NOW that’ll have a micro or macro impact on the world and others around us.

If there’s one thing I hope everyone takes away from Reboot Britain, it’s that whatever you do, don’t wait around for institutions to change things. Start. Now.

Knock on every door on your street and ask your neighbours if they’ve ever thought how bonkers it is that there are 40 lawns and 40 lawnmowers… then set up a lawnmower sharing club. Start a global tribe of like-minded passionistas around something that matters. Fed up with a crappy council service? Crowd-source an alternative. Chip in and take it upon yourself. The technology is a given.

If you’re stuck, ask your kids.

People live, then they die. Get over it. We all die and life is short. This is the fundamental fact of life that causes us to seek meaning… to crave it (so as not to feel pointless – hence religion… and brands).

Marketers sussed this out. Roll on the brand campaigns that attach meaning to things they want us to buy… mass marketing and broadcasting (human standardisation). So we buy stuff. It differs according to our environment (e.g. I’m a London business dude so I really can’t possibly be a non-failing happy person without a flash car, expensive new boots and a crazy-priced flat). We buy loads of stuff. Our impact bias, influenced by the marketing bombardment (though not as much as they’d like to think!) causes us to overestimate how happy the stuff will make us. Conversely, the same bias causes us to overestimate how crappy we’ll feel if we take a risk and it all goes wrong. Hmmm.

Imagine accepting your lifespan and making the most of it. What’s the most useful thing I can do in my short window of opportunity, that’ll make me the most fulfilled? What would contribute most to the overall progress of the human race? What would be of most value to others? Do I care? Do I just want to pursue pleasure and to hell with the rest of them?

Whatever we decide to do, hopefully it isn’t on auto-pilot, with fear-clipped wings and hangups about stupid shit like the credit crunch, piracy, predetermined life-paths and hierarchies.

Leading on from the previous post about the coolness of chaos…
 

Have you ever had to deal with a big lumpy piece of complex old software that was written years ago, then updated countless times, new bits added on, a new guy adding another bit, bolt-ons, sticking plasters and fixes… until it’s a big slow cumbersome piece of crap nobody can change or work with?
 

That’s pretty much industry as it stands – and other big systems for that matter (e.g. government, education). Since the industrial revolution, we’ve built up this massive ball of crap. Now nobody can do a damn thing with it.
 

The most obvious example that’s hurting right now is the whole free thing. We can listen to music for free. We can watch TV shows for free. We can read books for free. This of course screws record companies, publishers, broadcasters… oh yeah, and then there’s the whole fact that we don’t pay a blind bit of notice to advertising. The big massive balls of crap are stuffed because they’re prisoners within their own structures – too slow, too fat, too inflexible. They’re waiting to die, with their fingers in their ears, screaming ‘lah lah lah!’ as nimble network-based businesses spring up under the radar, taking over the world at lightning pace.
 

At the end of the day, all a business traditionally does is ensure people get paid. That’s it, when you think about it. Traditionally the big boys get paid much more than the little boys, but it’s just a bunch of individuals getting paid.
 

Now, think about the overhead in a big-lump-of-crap business. Big shiny offices, management structures, HR departments, blah blah blah. Think about MARKETING BUDGETS… zillions and squillions… to make sure you sell LOADS to make sure you can pay the overheads and pay the individuals (staff, bosses, shareholders etc). So we pay more to make more to sell more to pay more.
 

And it ain’t just the hippies who know sustainability is an issue. We need to stop producing so much crap. Reuse, reduce, recycle and all that jazz. Yet still we need to make people want more so they buy more so we sell more to pay individuals.
 

What if we scrapped all the crap?

What if there were no management structures?

What if there were no multi-million advertising / marketing budgets?

What if there were more or less no overheads?

Answer? We wouldn’t need to sell as much, so we wouldn’t MAKE as much. Sweet! It isn’t rocket science.
 

And could we do business without these business-as-usual / this-is-business stuff that costs so much? Hell yeah. It’s already happening. It’s soooo easy to change from ground level, as a bunch of individuals, with no management, a pinch of leadership and a sprinkling of magic dust – in comparison to attempting change from the ‘top’. It’s no surprise that people feel pretty darn good when they’re an individual within a collective, creating profit through good growth, without all the psychologically, environmentally (and every other ‘ally’) damaging self-fulfilling prophecies inherent in business as we know it.
 

I mean, we all know we went a bit crazy over the past few years (decades). We all got a bit carried away. It’s like full on raving in the 80s/90s (or whatever equivalent!). Bloody hell what a blast. Dance your face off – time of your life. But after a few years everybody starts to feel like crap, go nuts and realise it’s no fun any more and life’s better when you feel good. The individuals-formerly-known-as-consumers are just started to ease off the uppers. They’ve been turning your brain cells to mush and it’s much nicer to be wide awake.
 

So what now? Sit back and wait until the chaos period is over and this network-based commerce phase kicks in and emerges as the new status quo?
 

Err… that would be pretty boring.
 

Instead you could join a tribe. Or you could start one. Soon it’ll pay way more than your job (if that’s what you care about)… and really when you get into the swing of the new way you won’t give a toss.
 

Take it a leap beyond ‘markets are conversations’ into the realms of DOING, not planning. ACTION IS THE NEW FORECASTING.

I feel pretty chuffed to be around in this whole chaos phase in the world. It’s the best time to be alive, given that (if you choose to open your eyes) you can peak over the event horizon and not only see change, but make it happen – the creation of the new and higher status quo.

This is the Virginia Satir Change Model. There are four basic steps:

1. Status quo – from which point change is inevitable and necessary. It’s just a matter of recognising that the status quo needs to change and that we can influence it.

2. Introducing the foreign element (something outside the status quo putting pressure on the status quo).

3. Chaos – the result of the status quo being interrupted by the foreign element, causing disorientation. When things are no longer the same as that which we’re comfortable with, chaos emerges.

4. The new status quo – which requires new learning; new behaviors and new skills. Gradually, we integrate those skills into our lives as the norm.

I haven’t blogged in any great depth about Scrmblr (’scrambler’), so thought it was about time.

Scrmblr is a global network of content producers (Scrmblrs) who create anti-ads (Scrmbls).

Marketing used to be about advertising, but advertising is often expensive, fake and dumb. What remains important is the act of telling stories about the things we trade – stories that sell and stories that spread.

Scrmblr gives power to the people – the talented people of the world, enabling creators of great content to reap fair rewards, while enabling organisations who couldn’t dream of affording video ads the opportunity to air Scrmbls (much better!). Cheaper, better, faster.

Scrmblr removes the unfair, prohibitive supply-chain mess that sits between talented people who make stuff and people who buy great stuff.

Fair trade.

The Scrmblr website has just been launched here. 20% of profits will be donated to microcredit projects, in a drive to do something good. The first scrmbl created was for UK charity ShelterBox, by Tel Aviv scrmblr Danny Aronson.

Scrmblr already has a presence in UK, ISA, Israel and Canada… and is on the lookout for more talent (filmmakers, producers, animators, designers, creatives etc).

Let’s compare for a moment. You can compare in terms of pretty much anything: efficiency, effectiveness, happiness…

Some brief examples:

Communications

C: Spread from the top down
T: Spread from anywhere to everywhere, via the centre

Growth

C: Recruit from the top, hiring below
T: Recruit from anywhere, hiring everywhere

Innovation

C: Creation from the bottom, managed from the top
T: Creation from everywhere, no management needed

Bliss

C: Everyone spends their time inside the company’s expensive box, developing ideas with others from the same company
T: Everyone works from anywhere, developing ideas with a diverse range of people they like to spend time with

I know which one I’d rather join, or start.