Thursday, November 19, 2009
Social Business Design: Web 2.0 NYC
Social Business Design: Web 2.0 NYC
View more documents from David Armano.
The Bikery's Jackson Meadow Cyclocross 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
USGP Cyclocross Trenton 2009
Bio Picture
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
For the last few centuries, we have been living in an era of broadcast media, but we have been switching to an era of networked media.
I had to print this word by word because it is brilliant
"Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media"
danah boyd
Web2.0 Expo
New York, NY
17 November 2009
[This is a rough unedited crib of the actual talk]
Citation: boyd, danah. 2009. "Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media." Web2.0 Expo. New York, NY: November 17.
LIVING IN STREAMS
In his seminal pop-book, Csikszentmihalyi argued that people are happiest when they can reach a state of "flow." He talks about performers and athletes who are in the height of their profession, the experience they feel as time passes by and everything just clicks. People reach a state where attention appears focused and, simultaneously, not in need of focus at the same time. The world is aligned and it just feels right.
Consider what it means to be "in flow" in an information landscape defined by networked media and you will see where Web2.0 is taking us. The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere. To be peripherally aware of information as it flows by, grabbing it at the right moment when it is most relevant and valuable, entertaining or insightful. Living with, in, and around information. Most of that information is social information, but some of it is entertainment information or news information or productive information. Being in flow with information is different than Csikszentmihalyi's sense, as it's not about perfect attention, but it is about a sense of alignment, of being aligned with information.
As of late, we've been talking a lot about content streams, streams of information. This metaphor is powerful. The idea is that you're living inside the stream: adding to it, consuming it, redirecting it. The stream metaphor is about reaching flow. It's also about restructuring the ways in which information flows in modern society.
Those who are most enamored with services like Twitter talk passionately about feeling as though they are living and breathing with the world around them, peripherally aware and in-tune, adding content to the stream and grabbing it when appropriate. This state is delicate, plagued by information overload and weighed down by frustrating tools.
For the longest time, we have focused on sites of information as a destination, of accessing information as a process, of producing information as a task. What happens when all of this changes? While things are certainly clunky at best, this is the promise land of the technologies we're creating. This is all happening because of how our information society is changing. But before we talk more about flow, we need to step back and talks about shifts in the media landscape.
FROM BROADCAST TO NETWORKED
For the last few centuries, we have been living in an era of broadcast media, but we have been switching to an era of networked media. This fundamentally alters the structure by which information flows.
Those who believe in broadcast structures recognize the efficiency of a single, centralized source. There's some nostalgia here. The image is clear: 1950s nightly news... everyone tunes in to receive the same message at the same time. There are the newspapers, the radio stations, the magazines… all telling the same news-y story. Centralized sources of information are powerful because they control the means of distribution. There is also the town gossip, the church, and the pub. These too were centralized channels for disseminating information.
Broadcast media structures take one critical thing for granted: attention. There is an assumption that everyone will tune in and give their attention to the broadcast entity, even though that was never true in the first place. As TV channels and publishing brands proliferated, we've seen that attention can easily be fragmented. Over the last few decades, increasing numbers of entities have been fighting for a smaller and smaller portion of the pie. Even gossip rags started competing for attention.
The opportunities for media creation have been rising for decades, but the Internet provided new mechanisms through which people could make their own content available. From blogging to social network sites to media sharing sites to sites that provide social streams, we are seeing countless ways in which a motivated individual can make their personal content available. There were always folks willing to share their story but the Internet gave them a pulpit on which to stand.
Internet technologies are fundamentally dismantling and reworking the structures of distribution. Distribution is a process by which content creators find channels through which they can disseminate their creation. In effect, they're pushing out the content. Sure, people have to be there to receive it, but the idea is that there are limited channels for distribution and thus getting access to this limited resource is hard. That is no longer the case.
As networked technologies proliferate around the world, we can assume that there is a channel of distribution available to everyone and between everyone. In theory, anyone could get content to anyone else. With the barriers to distribution collapsing, what matters is not the act of distribution, but the act of consumption. Thus, the power is no longer in the hands of those who control the channels of distribution, but those who control the limited resource of attention. This is precisely why YOU were the Person of the Year. Your attention is precious and valuable. It's no longer about push; it's about pull. And the law of two feet is now culturally pervasive.
While we're dismantling traditional structures of distribution, we're also building out new forms of information dissemination. Content is no longer being hocked, but links are. People throughout the network are using the attention they receive to traffic in pointers to other content, serving as content mediators. Numerous people have become experts as information networkers.
To many of you, this seems like old news. Isn't that the whole point of Web2.0? Isn't that what we've been living? Sure, of course. But now that we're seeing Web2.0 go mainstream, we're seeing all sorts of folks get into the game. What they're doing often looks different than what early adopters were doing. And the business folks are all trying to turn the Internet into a new broadcast channel. (Don't worry, they're failing.) But we need to talk about these shifts so we can talk about what innovation needs to happen.
If folks are going to try to get in-flow with information, we need to understand how information flows differently today. Let me highlight four challenges, points where technological hope and reality collide.
FOUR CORE ISSUES
1) Democratization. Switching from a model of distribution to a model of attention is disruptive, but it is not inherently democratizing. This is a mistake we often make when talking about this shift. We may be democratizing certain types of access, but we're not democratizing attention. Just because we're moving towards a state where anyone has the ability to get information into the stream does not mean that attention will be divided equally. Opening up access to the structures of distribution is not democratizing when distribution is no longer the organizing function.
Some in the room might immediately think, "Ah, but it's a meritocracy. People will give their attention to what is best!" This too is mistaken logic. What people give their attention to depends on a whole set of factors that have nothing to do with what's best. At the most simplistic level, consider the role of language. People will pay attention to content that is in their language, even if they can get access to content in any language. This means Chinese language content will soon get more attention than English content, let alone Dutch content or Hebrew content.
2) Stimulation. People consume content that stimulates their mind and senses. That which angers, excites, energizes, entertains, or otherwise creates an emotional response. This is not always the "best" or most informative content, but that which triggers a reaction.
This isn't inherently a good thing. Consider the food equivalent. Our bodies are programmed to consume fat and sugars because they're rare in nature. Thus, when they come around, we should grab them. In the same way, we're biologically programmed to be attentive to things that stimulate: content that is gross, violent, or sexual and that gossip which is humiliating, embarrassing, or offensive. If we're not careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity. We'll find ourselves consuming content that is least beneficial for ourselves or society as a whole.
We are addicted to gossip for a reason. We want to know what's happening because such information brings us closer to people. When we know something about someone, there's a sense of connection. But the information ecology we live in today has twisted this whole thing upside down. Just because I can follow the details of Angelina Jolie's life doesn't mean she knows that I exist. This is what scholars talk about as parasocial relations. With Facebook, you can turn your closest friends into celebrities, characters you gawk at and obsess over without actually gaining the benefits of social intimacy and bonding.
Stimulation creates cognitive connections. But it is possible for there to be too much stimulation. We don't want a disconnected, numb society. Or a society of unequal social connections. So driving towards greater and more intense stimulation may not be what we want.
Of course, there's money here and people will try to manipulate this dynamic for their own purposes. There are folks who put out highly stimulating content or spread gossip to get attention. And often they succeed, creating a pretty unhealthy cycle. So we have to start asking ourselves what balance looks like and how we can move towards an environment where there are incentives for consuming healthy content that benefit individuals and society as a whole. Or, at the very least, how not to feed the trolls.
3) Homophily. In a networked world, people connect to people like themselves. What flows across the network flows through edges of similarity. The ability to connect to others like us allows us to flow information across space and time in impressively new ways, but there's also a downside.
Prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, and power are all baked into our networks. In a world of networked media, it's easy to not get access to views from people who think from a different perspective. Information can and does flow in ways that create and reinforce social divides. Democratic philosophy depends on shared informational structures, but the combination of self-segmentation and networked information flow means that we lose the common rhetorical ground through which we can converse.
Throughout my studies of social media, I have been astonished by the people who think that XYZ site is for people like them. I interviewed gay men who thought Friendster was a gay dating site because all they saw were other gay men. I interviewed teens who believed that everyone on MySpace was Christian because all of the profiles they saw contained biblical quotes. We all live in our own worlds with people who share our values and, with networked media, it's often hard to see beyond that.
Ironically, the one place where I'm finding people are being forced to think outside their box is the Trending Topics on Twitter. Consider a topic that trended two weeks ago: #thingsdarkiessay. Started in South Africa, this topic is fundamentally about language and cultural diversity but, when read in a U.S.-context, it reads as fundamentally racist. Boy did this blow up, forcing a lot of folks to think about language and cultural differences. Why? Because Trending Topics brings a topic that gained traction in a segment of the network to broader awareness. Unfortunately, it's hard to actually get meaningful dialogue going even if trending topics trigger reactions.
In an era of networked media, we need to recognize that networks are homophilous and operate accordingly. Technology does not inherently disintegrate social divisions. In fact, more often then not, in reinforces them. Only a small percentage of people are inclined to seek out opinions and ideas from cultures other than their own. These people are and should be highly valued in society, but just because people have the ability to be what Ethan Zuckerman talks about as xenophiles does not mean that they will be.
4) Power. When we think about centralized sources of information distribution, it's easy to understand that power is at stake. But networked structures of consumption are also configured by power and we cannot forget that or assume that access alone is power. Power is about being able to command attention, influence others' attention, and otherwise traffic in information. We give power to people when we give them our attention and people gain power when they bridge between different worlds and determine what information can and will flow across the network.
In a networked culture, there is also power in being the person spreading the content. When my colleagues and I were examining retweets in Twitter, we saw something fascinating: a tension between citationality and attribution. In short, should you give credit to the author of the content or acknowledge the person through whom you learned of the information? Instinctually, many might believe that the author is the most important person to credit. But, few ideas are truly the product of just one individual. So why not credit the messenger who is helping the content flow? We found that reasonable people disagreed about what was best.
In a broadcast model, those who control the distribution channels often profit more than the creators. Think: Clear Channel, record labels, TV producers, etc. Unfortunately, there's an assumption that if we get rid of limitations to distribution, the power will revert to the creators. This is not what's happening. Distribution today is making people aware that they can come and get something, but those who get access to people's attention are still a small, privileged few.
Instead, what we're seeing a new type of information broker emerge. These folks get credit for their structural position. While the monetary benefits are indirect, countless consulting gigs have arisen for folks based on their power as information brokers. The old controllers of information are losing their stature (and not happy about it). What's emerging is not inherently the power of the creators, but the power of the modern day information brokers.
MAKING IT WORK
As our information ecosystem evolves, we will see some radical changes take place. First, I believe that information spaces will get more niche. We will see this in where people direct their attention, but we will also see this in terms of the success of new enterprises. Successful businesses will not be everything to everyone. That's the broadcast mentality. Instead, they will play a meaningful role to a cohort of committed consumers who give their attention to them because of their relevance.
To be relevant today requires understanding context, popularity, and reputation. In a broadcast era, we assume that the disseminator organized information because they were a destination. In a networked era, there will be no destination, but rather a network of content and people. Topic won't be a given. We're already seeing this in streams-based media consumption. When consuming information through social media tools, people consume social gossip alongside productive content, news alongside status updates. Right now, it's one big mess. But the key is not going to be to create distinct destinations organized around topics, but to find ways in which content can be surfaced in context, regardless of where it resides.
Making content work in a networked era is going to be about living in the streams, consuming and producing alongside "customers." Consuming to understand, producing to be relevant. Content creators are not going to get to dictate the cultural norms just because they can make their content available; they are still accountable to those who are trafficking content.
We need technological innovations. For example, tools that allow people to more easily contextualize relevant content regardless of where they are and what they are doing and tools that allow people to slice and dice content so as to not reach information overload. This is not simply about aggregating or curating content to create personalized destination sites. Frankly, I don't think this will work. Instead, the tools that consumers need are those that allow them to get into flow, that allow them to live inside information structures wherever they are, whatever they're doing. The tools that allow them to easily grab what they need and stay peripherally aware without feeling overwhelmed.
Finally, we need to rethink our business plans. I doubt this cultural shift will be paid for by better advertising models. Advertising is based on capturing attention, typically by interrupting the broadcast message or by being inserted into the content itself. Trying to reach information flow is not about being interrupted. Advertising does work when it's part of the flow itself. Ads are great when they provide a desirable answer to a search query or when they appear at the moment of purchase. But when the information being shared is social in nature, advertising is fundamentally a disruption.
Figuring out how to monetize sociality is a problem. And not one new to the Internet. Think about how we monetize sociality in physical spaces. Typically, it involves second-order consumption of calories. Venues provide a space for social interaction to occur and we are expected to consume to pay rent. Restaurants, bars, cafes… they all survive on this model. But we have yet to find the digital equivalent of alcohol.
As we continue to move from a broadcast model of information to a networked one, we will continue to see reworkings of the information landscape. Some of what is unfolding is exciting, some is terrifying. The key is not be all utopian or dystopian about it, but to recognize what changes and what stays the same. The future of Web2.0 is about information flow and if you want to help people, help them reach that state. Y'all are setting the tone of the future of information. Keep it exciting and, please, recognize the power that you have!
Thank you and enjoy the rest of the conference!
"Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media"
danah boyd
Web2.0 Expo
New York, NY
17 November 2009
[This is a rough unedited crib of the actual talk]
Citation: boyd, danah. 2009. "Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media." Web2.0 Expo. New York, NY: November 17.
LIVING IN STREAMS
In his seminal pop-book, Csikszentmihalyi argued that people are happiest when they can reach a state of "flow." He talks about performers and athletes who are in the height of their profession, the experience they feel as time passes by and everything just clicks. People reach a state where attention appears focused and, simultaneously, not in need of focus at the same time. The world is aligned and it just feels right.
Consider what it means to be "in flow" in an information landscape defined by networked media and you will see where Web2.0 is taking us. The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere. To be peripherally aware of information as it flows by, grabbing it at the right moment when it is most relevant and valuable, entertaining or insightful. Living with, in, and around information. Most of that information is social information, but some of it is entertainment information or news information or productive information. Being in flow with information is different than Csikszentmihalyi's sense, as it's not about perfect attention, but it is about a sense of alignment, of being aligned with information.
As of late, we've been talking a lot about content streams, streams of information. This metaphor is powerful. The idea is that you're living inside the stream: adding to it, consuming it, redirecting it. The stream metaphor is about reaching flow. It's also about restructuring the ways in which information flows in modern society.
Those who are most enamored with services like Twitter talk passionately about feeling as though they are living and breathing with the world around them, peripherally aware and in-tune, adding content to the stream and grabbing it when appropriate. This state is delicate, plagued by information overload and weighed down by frustrating tools.
For the longest time, we have focused on sites of information as a destination, of accessing information as a process, of producing information as a task. What happens when all of this changes? While things are certainly clunky at best, this is the promise land of the technologies we're creating. This is all happening because of how our information society is changing. But before we talk more about flow, we need to step back and talks about shifts in the media landscape.
FROM BROADCAST TO NETWORKED
For the last few centuries, we have been living in an era of broadcast media, but we have been switching to an era of networked media. This fundamentally alters the structure by which information flows.
Those who believe in broadcast structures recognize the efficiency of a single, centralized source. There's some nostalgia here. The image is clear: 1950s nightly news... everyone tunes in to receive the same message at the same time. There are the newspapers, the radio stations, the magazines… all telling the same news-y story. Centralized sources of information are powerful because they control the means of distribution. There is also the town gossip, the church, and the pub. These too were centralized channels for disseminating information.
Broadcast media structures take one critical thing for granted: attention. There is an assumption that everyone will tune in and give their attention to the broadcast entity, even though that was never true in the first place. As TV channels and publishing brands proliferated, we've seen that attention can easily be fragmented. Over the last few decades, increasing numbers of entities have been fighting for a smaller and smaller portion of the pie. Even gossip rags started competing for attention.
The opportunities for media creation have been rising for decades, but the Internet provided new mechanisms through which people could make their own content available. From blogging to social network sites to media sharing sites to sites that provide social streams, we are seeing countless ways in which a motivated individual can make their personal content available. There were always folks willing to share their story but the Internet gave them a pulpit on which to stand.
Internet technologies are fundamentally dismantling and reworking the structures of distribution. Distribution is a process by which content creators find channels through which they can disseminate their creation. In effect, they're pushing out the content. Sure, people have to be there to receive it, but the idea is that there are limited channels for distribution and thus getting access to this limited resource is hard. That is no longer the case.
As networked technologies proliferate around the world, we can assume that there is a channel of distribution available to everyone and between everyone. In theory, anyone could get content to anyone else. With the barriers to distribution collapsing, what matters is not the act of distribution, but the act of consumption. Thus, the power is no longer in the hands of those who control the channels of distribution, but those who control the limited resource of attention. This is precisely why YOU were the Person of the Year. Your attention is precious and valuable. It's no longer about push; it's about pull. And the law of two feet is now culturally pervasive.
While we're dismantling traditional structures of distribution, we're also building out new forms of information dissemination. Content is no longer being hocked, but links are. People throughout the network are using the attention they receive to traffic in pointers to other content, serving as content mediators. Numerous people have become experts as information networkers.
To many of you, this seems like old news. Isn't that the whole point of Web2.0? Isn't that what we've been living? Sure, of course. But now that we're seeing Web2.0 go mainstream, we're seeing all sorts of folks get into the game. What they're doing often looks different than what early adopters were doing. And the business folks are all trying to turn the Internet into a new broadcast channel. (Don't worry, they're failing.) But we need to talk about these shifts so we can talk about what innovation needs to happen.
If folks are going to try to get in-flow with information, we need to understand how information flows differently today. Let me highlight four challenges, points where technological hope and reality collide.
FOUR CORE ISSUES
1) Democratization. Switching from a model of distribution to a model of attention is disruptive, but it is not inherently democratizing. This is a mistake we often make when talking about this shift. We may be democratizing certain types of access, but we're not democratizing attention. Just because we're moving towards a state where anyone has the ability to get information into the stream does not mean that attention will be divided equally. Opening up access to the structures of distribution is not democratizing when distribution is no longer the organizing function.
Some in the room might immediately think, "Ah, but it's a meritocracy. People will give their attention to what is best!" This too is mistaken logic. What people give their attention to depends on a whole set of factors that have nothing to do with what's best. At the most simplistic level, consider the role of language. People will pay attention to content that is in their language, even if they can get access to content in any language. This means Chinese language content will soon get more attention than English content, let alone Dutch content or Hebrew content.
2) Stimulation. People consume content that stimulates their mind and senses. That which angers, excites, energizes, entertains, or otherwise creates an emotional response. This is not always the "best" or most informative content, but that which triggers a reaction.
This isn't inherently a good thing. Consider the food equivalent. Our bodies are programmed to consume fat and sugars because they're rare in nature. Thus, when they come around, we should grab them. In the same way, we're biologically programmed to be attentive to things that stimulate: content that is gross, violent, or sexual and that gossip which is humiliating, embarrassing, or offensive. If we're not careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity. We'll find ourselves consuming content that is least beneficial for ourselves or society as a whole.
We are addicted to gossip for a reason. We want to know what's happening because such information brings us closer to people. When we know something about someone, there's a sense of connection. But the information ecology we live in today has twisted this whole thing upside down. Just because I can follow the details of Angelina Jolie's life doesn't mean she knows that I exist. This is what scholars talk about as parasocial relations. With Facebook, you can turn your closest friends into celebrities, characters you gawk at and obsess over without actually gaining the benefits of social intimacy and bonding.
Stimulation creates cognitive connections. But it is possible for there to be too much stimulation. We don't want a disconnected, numb society. Or a society of unequal social connections. So driving towards greater and more intense stimulation may not be what we want.
Of course, there's money here and people will try to manipulate this dynamic for their own purposes. There are folks who put out highly stimulating content or spread gossip to get attention. And often they succeed, creating a pretty unhealthy cycle. So we have to start asking ourselves what balance looks like and how we can move towards an environment where there are incentives for consuming healthy content that benefit individuals and society as a whole. Or, at the very least, how not to feed the trolls.
3) Homophily. In a networked world, people connect to people like themselves. What flows across the network flows through edges of similarity. The ability to connect to others like us allows us to flow information across space and time in impressively new ways, but there's also a downside.
Prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, and power are all baked into our networks. In a world of networked media, it's easy to not get access to views from people who think from a different perspective. Information can and does flow in ways that create and reinforce social divides. Democratic philosophy depends on shared informational structures, but the combination of self-segmentation and networked information flow means that we lose the common rhetorical ground through which we can converse.
Throughout my studies of social media, I have been astonished by the people who think that XYZ site is for people like them. I interviewed gay men who thought Friendster was a gay dating site because all they saw were other gay men. I interviewed teens who believed that everyone on MySpace was Christian because all of the profiles they saw contained biblical quotes. We all live in our own worlds with people who share our values and, with networked media, it's often hard to see beyond that.
Ironically, the one place where I'm finding people are being forced to think outside their box is the Trending Topics on Twitter. Consider a topic that trended two weeks ago: #thingsdarkiessay. Started in South Africa, this topic is fundamentally about language and cultural diversity but, when read in a U.S.-context, it reads as fundamentally racist. Boy did this blow up, forcing a lot of folks to think about language and cultural differences. Why? Because Trending Topics brings a topic that gained traction in a segment of the network to broader awareness. Unfortunately, it's hard to actually get meaningful dialogue going even if trending topics trigger reactions.
In an era of networked media, we need to recognize that networks are homophilous and operate accordingly. Technology does not inherently disintegrate social divisions. In fact, more often then not, in reinforces them. Only a small percentage of people are inclined to seek out opinions and ideas from cultures other than their own. These people are and should be highly valued in society, but just because people have the ability to be what Ethan Zuckerman talks about as xenophiles does not mean that they will be.
4) Power. When we think about centralized sources of information distribution, it's easy to understand that power is at stake. But networked structures of consumption are also configured by power and we cannot forget that or assume that access alone is power. Power is about being able to command attention, influence others' attention, and otherwise traffic in information. We give power to people when we give them our attention and people gain power when they bridge between different worlds and determine what information can and will flow across the network.
In a networked culture, there is also power in being the person spreading the content. When my colleagues and I were examining retweets in Twitter, we saw something fascinating: a tension between citationality and attribution. In short, should you give credit to the author of the content or acknowledge the person through whom you learned of the information? Instinctually, many might believe that the author is the most important person to credit. But, few ideas are truly the product of just one individual. So why not credit the messenger who is helping the content flow? We found that reasonable people disagreed about what was best.
In a broadcast model, those who control the distribution channels often profit more than the creators. Think: Clear Channel, record labels, TV producers, etc. Unfortunately, there's an assumption that if we get rid of limitations to distribution, the power will revert to the creators. This is not what's happening. Distribution today is making people aware that they can come and get something, but those who get access to people's attention are still a small, privileged few.
Instead, what we're seeing a new type of information broker emerge. These folks get credit for their structural position. While the monetary benefits are indirect, countless consulting gigs have arisen for folks based on their power as information brokers. The old controllers of information are losing their stature (and not happy about it). What's emerging is not inherently the power of the creators, but the power of the modern day information brokers.
MAKING IT WORK
As our information ecosystem evolves, we will see some radical changes take place. First, I believe that information spaces will get more niche. We will see this in where people direct their attention, but we will also see this in terms of the success of new enterprises. Successful businesses will not be everything to everyone. That's the broadcast mentality. Instead, they will play a meaningful role to a cohort of committed consumers who give their attention to them because of their relevance.
To be relevant today requires understanding context, popularity, and reputation. In a broadcast era, we assume that the disseminator organized information because they were a destination. In a networked era, there will be no destination, but rather a network of content and people. Topic won't be a given. We're already seeing this in streams-based media consumption. When consuming information through social media tools, people consume social gossip alongside productive content, news alongside status updates. Right now, it's one big mess. But the key is not going to be to create distinct destinations organized around topics, but to find ways in which content can be surfaced in context, regardless of where it resides.
Making content work in a networked era is going to be about living in the streams, consuming and producing alongside "customers." Consuming to understand, producing to be relevant. Content creators are not going to get to dictate the cultural norms just because they can make their content available; they are still accountable to those who are trafficking content.
We need technological innovations. For example, tools that allow people to more easily contextualize relevant content regardless of where they are and what they are doing and tools that allow people to slice and dice content so as to not reach information overload. This is not simply about aggregating or curating content to create personalized destination sites. Frankly, I don't think this will work. Instead, the tools that consumers need are those that allow them to get into flow, that allow them to live inside information structures wherever they are, whatever they're doing. The tools that allow them to easily grab what they need and stay peripherally aware without feeling overwhelmed.
Finally, we need to rethink our business plans. I doubt this cultural shift will be paid for by better advertising models. Advertising is based on capturing attention, typically by interrupting the broadcast message or by being inserted into the content itself. Trying to reach information flow is not about being interrupted. Advertising does work when it's part of the flow itself. Ads are great when they provide a desirable answer to a search query or when they appear at the moment of purchase. But when the information being shared is social in nature, advertising is fundamentally a disruption.
Figuring out how to monetize sociality is a problem. And not one new to the Internet. Think about how we monetize sociality in physical spaces. Typically, it involves second-order consumption of calories. Venues provide a space for social interaction to occur and we are expected to consume to pay rent. Restaurants, bars, cafes… they all survive on this model. But we have yet to find the digital equivalent of alcohol.
As we continue to move from a broadcast model of information to a networked one, we will continue to see reworkings of the information landscape. Some of what is unfolding is exciting, some is terrifying. The key is not be all utopian or dystopian about it, but to recognize what changes and what stays the same. The future of Web2.0 is about information flow and if you want to help people, help them reach that state. Y'all are setting the tone of the future of information. Keep it exciting and, please, recognize the power that you have!
Thank you and enjoy the rest of the conference!
Cyclocross has jumped the shark
Bike Racers are a bunch of unappreciative punks @smithersmpls tells it like it is
Monday, November 16, 2009
'Crossing Over: Why I Stopped trying to Explain Cyclocross To Family and Friends ( v 2.0)
Social Media ROI: Socialnomics
More States....the stairs tell the true story
Sunday, November 15, 2009
A better day - Day 2 of MN GP ZAC DAAB
The coach has been telling me to hold back at the starts. It's hard to break old habits. I like to be in the top 10 at the starts, bonus if I'm top 3. But these old legs need to slow down to speed up I guess. When I was younger I could rock the starts and stay on it. Now when I rock the starts I blow after a couple mins. Today I rolled out easier and stayed top 20 and waited for the legs to come around and then hit it. I worked. I was able to claw my way back and get into the right group. 4th in 35s, 15th overall. 4th in omnium for the weekend
More pics from today
From the lens of Rob Nelson - I love the black and white. It shows how hard cyclocross is
Today was a better day. 4th in 35s, 15th overall. 4th in omnium
State Cyclocross Pics
Saturday, November 14, 2009
@smithersmpls and super rookie
Super rookie
DQ Time
Better luck next year
The old guys keep getting faster. I've one that state CX championships a couple of times, but I think those days are over. The fast guys are getting older and so am I. Today's course was awesome and featured a ton of crossy stuff. I did a warm up lap on my griffos,but everyone was saying the rhinos were the ticket..so I switched and it was night and day. The rhinos on the off-camber were untouchable. 70 of us toed the line and the start was full-on crossy. I settled in top 10, but faded again to the 20s. The sand was my weakness today. I rode it well warming up, but during the race I couldn't ride it consistently. I made a huge mistake mid-race. I was leading a group of about 7 riders and tried to ride the sand and went down and jammed a bunch of sand in my shifter and flatted. I went to the pit to grab my other bike but the group was gone. Oh well...there is always next year. I ended up 9th in 35+, 27th overall. What I find funny is some of the guys who race 1/2s all year on the road and the cross season, decide to ride 35+ for states. Stick to the category you ride and stay with it #HTFU brothers. I could race the 3s race but, that would be sand-bagging in my opinion since I chose to race 35+ on the road and for the full cross season. What do you all think of those that ride different cats for state championships?
States sand pit
Twitter: We own you bitch
Friday, November 13, 2009
I was asked today what the ad agency of the future looks like
here was my response
The agency of the future…ramblings by Jared Roy
Live and breathe digital integration. Interactive marketing changes daily. The key is to evaluate and understand how these changes fit, if at all, within an integrated marketing plan. Agencies that will fail will be those that jump on the latest trends without objectives and strategies behind them.
Every person at the agency is wired. From the front desk staff to the janitor. If you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk 24/7. Every employee at the agency has a smartphone and a flip video and is creating digital content.
If you work for the agency of the future you are social. It is important that all agency employees be active within social media and new marketing tools.
From Interruption to Engagement. The agency of the future understands that we need to move from interruption marketing to engagement marketing. Push marketing needs to be replaced with pull marketing.
Have the pulse of any and all online communities and consumers. Do you know what is being said about your clients and their competitors? How about your prospects? The agency of the future has the pulse of the online world and can tell you what the sentiment, context and volume of conversations are.
Strategy and smart thinking vs. shinny objects. Just because it looks cool, doesn’t mean it is going to drive ROI. Smart agencies do work based on a solid set of objectives and strategies and let the fly by night agencies work on shiny objects.
Analytics and measurability: The agency of the future tests and measures everything they do. If you are not able to track everything you are doing from a marketing perspective, you are wasting your money.
Specialists are dead: everyone at the agency should be able to do everyone else's job. True integrated marketing means that everyone at the agency knows how all the marketing mix works together.
You are a partner: you are not a vendor, you are considered part of the client’s team.
The agency of the future…ramblings by Jared Roy
Live and breathe digital integration. Interactive marketing changes daily. The key is to evaluate and understand how these changes fit, if at all, within an integrated marketing plan. Agencies that will fail will be those that jump on the latest trends without objectives and strategies behind them.
Every person at the agency is wired. From the front desk staff to the janitor. If you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk 24/7. Every employee at the agency has a smartphone and a flip video and is creating digital content.
If you work for the agency of the future you are social. It is important that all agency employees be active within social media and new marketing tools.
From Interruption to Engagement. The agency of the future understands that we need to move from interruption marketing to engagement marketing. Push marketing needs to be replaced with pull marketing.
Have the pulse of any and all online communities and consumers. Do you know what is being said about your clients and their competitors? How about your prospects? The agency of the future has the pulse of the online world and can tell you what the sentiment, context and volume of conversations are.
Strategy and smart thinking vs. shinny objects. Just because it looks cool, doesn’t mean it is going to drive ROI. Smart agencies do work based on a solid set of objectives and strategies and let the fly by night agencies work on shiny objects.
Analytics and measurability: The agency of the future tests and measures everything they do. If you are not able to track everything you are doing from a marketing perspective, you are wasting your money.
Specialists are dead: everyone at the agency should be able to do everyone else's job. True integrated marketing means that everyone at the agency knows how all the marketing mix works together.
You are a partner: you are not a vendor, you are considered part of the client’s team.
Labels: agency of the future
CRC bib pickup for cyclocross state championships
The Power of Twitter
Make fun of it as much as you want...say you don't get it. That's fine. The rest of us will "get" it. My co-worker Kareem and Mark Cuban. They met via Twitter a few months ago at a T-Wolves game. Kareem put together a TweetUp last night and guess who showed up?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
I'm moving to OR, MN cyclocross is lame
Integrated marketing communications, then and now
I started my integrated marketing career in 1995 while attending one of only two graduate programs in the US that offered a masters in Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). My options were the University of Colorado, Boulder or Northwestern. The University of Colorado program was led by Tom Duncan and Sandra Moriarty. Northwestern was being led by Don Shultz, both pioneers in the integrated marketing space. Being an outdoor guy, the obvious choice was the Boulder. What was unique about the program was that half of the classes were with the MBA students in the business school and half of the classes were in the journalism school. In 1995 the internet was in its infancy and we were all trying to figure out how to make it a viable marketing medium. The journalism school jumped on the internet trend and immediately developed classes and curriculum around it. I took all of the classes that I could, interactive design, programming, and theory. When I told people I was working on the “internet” it was like I was on another planet.
I wanted to compare my current marketing world to the lens that I saw marketing in 1995.
In graduate school in 1995 at the University of Colorado, the 10 principals surrounding IMC included:
1)Creating and nourishing relationships rather than just making transactions
2)Focusing on all stakeholders rather than just customers
3)Maintaining strategic consistency rather than independent brand messages
4)Generating purposeful interactivity rather than just a mass media monologue
5)Marketing a corporate mission/mission marketing rather than just product claims
6) Using zero-based marketing planning rather than just tweaking last year's plan
7) Using cross-functional rather than departmental planning and monitoring
8) Creating core competencies rather than just communication specialization and expertise
9) Building and managing databases to retain customers rather than just acquiring new customers
10) Using an integrated agency rather than a traditional, full-service agency
How do these ten 1995 principals apply to today’s marketing world?
1) Creating and nourishing relationships rather than just making transactions ¬
It is more important now more then ever to create and nourish relationships instead of focusing on transactions. We all know the high cost of acquiring new customers vs increasing share of wallet with existing customers and the importance of lifetime customer value. Add to this word of mouth and online conversations being the main source for product recommendations it is vital for companies to have great relationships with their customers and prospects.
2) Focusing on all stakeholders rather than just customers ¬
This key principal is still important in today’s marketing. A lot of marketers only focus on their customers and prospects and forget about other key influencers surrounding the success of their business. Employees, suppliers, investors, financial analysts, government regulators, media, bloggers, 3rd party review sites, and other influence groups can make or break the success of your company. For example, you may have the best restaurant in town, but if your reviews on Yelp are filled with complaints and bad reviews, Yelp and the reviewers own your brand and its success.
3) Maintaining strategic consistency rather than independent brand messages
Now more then ever, message consistency and branding are of utmost importance. Consumers are exposed to thousands of advertisements a day. If you are not sending a consistent message out regarding your brand, your brand will be lost in the clutter of these messages. All of your marketing efforts should revolve around your key messages. Don’t create these key messages in the board room, without any customer research. Monitor online conversations, analyze search engine data, perform primary and secondary research to see what consumers are really saying and how they are describing your product or service.
4) Generating purposeful interactivity rather than just a mass media monologue ¬
When I look back at this key principal it is almost like seeing into the future. Duncan and Moriarty describe this principal as “companies must put as much emphasis on receiving messages as they do on sending messages. The interactivity dimension of integrated marketing proposes that media can be used both to send messages efficiently and to receive and capture messages from customers (and other stakeholders) in order to create a long-term purposeful dialogue.”
They present a framework called the '5 R's of Purposeful Dialogue':
• Recourse: customers need to know that they have some recourse with the company if they are dissatisfied with the product or service.
If I have an issue with a customer I will Tweet about my complaint on Twitter or blog about it. If I don’t get a response from the company, then I feel they are not “listening”, I recently tweeted about a bad experience I had at Home Depot. I was immediately contacted by Home Depot via twitter and the problem was resolved in less then an hour.
• Recognition: personal recognition is very important to many customers and other stakeholders, and is key in moving them higher up the customer bonding framework with your brand.
Listening and responding to customer complaints and praise through online and offline methods can build lifetime customer value.
• Responsiveness: when a complaint is being made, a suggestion offered, or information being sought, it is critical for a company to be responsive to the individual.
In the 24/7 world we live in, we expect customer service and a company to respond in minutes rather then days.
• Respect: individuals from all stakeholder groups, not just customers, need to feel that they are respected by the company ¬
Respect and reputation is all a company has. What your key stakeholders say about your brand, is your brand.
• Reinforcement: people who have already purchased a product or service need to be reinforced that their decision to do so was a good one.
Loyalty programs, clubs, and communities surrounding brands reinforce purchase decisions. Nike’s running community, Mikeplus is a great example of how Nike is reinforcing its consumers experience with the brand by adding value through a running community.
5) Marketing a corporate mission rather than just product claims.¬ Marketing the mission helps put a credible human face on the company, which makes it more likely that stakeholders can develop a positive feeling of personal identity with the company.
This key principal today and when I began my marketing career, for most companies is an after thought. Does your company give a few dollars here, a few dollars there and not focus on one key mission that relates to your company? My graduate thesis was on Mission Marketing and I truly believe that you are wasting your philanthropic dollars by giving a little to a bunch of different causes. You should be focusing your philanthropic mission on leveraging your companies’ expertise. A mission defines and humanizes a company and should be considered a long-term differentiator.
6) Using zero-based planning rather than just tweaking last year's plan. ¬ Undertake an unbiased and objective strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis to identify strategic marketing initiatives each year, rather than simply extending the marketing initiatives of the previous budget cycle.
This principal should be updated to testing and learning constantly. What is great about today’s marketing is that it allows you to test and learn through real-time analytics. You can dial up and down what is working and what is not. If you are waiting until the end of the year to evaluate your marketing efforts, you are wasting your marketing dollars.
7) Using cross-functional rather than departmental planning and monitoring ¬ This seventh strategic driver of an IM approach requires involving many different individuals from across the corporation in the marketing function, not just those who happen to be in a silo labeled 'marketing'
Today everyone at your company is in marketing. Everyone from the CEO to the receptionist can set up a Twitter account, a facebook page, their own blog, and comment on other blogs.
8) Creating core competencies rather than just communication specialization and expertise. Understand customer behavior and understand the strengths and weaknesses of communications tools.
This is how the current Wikipedia entry describes IMC: Integrated Marketing Communications is a term used to describe a holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television Most people believe this is what integrated marketing communications is.
It is important today to understand customer behavior and how they want to be reached. Some only want to be communicated on Twitter, some by email, some traditional means like radio, tv, print, etc.
9) Building and managing databases to retain customers rather than just acquiring new customers.
I have the opportunity to work with hundreds of clients every year and there are only a handful that truly have customer relationship management (CRM) databases. If you are not collecting demographic, psychographic, user-behavior and anything else you can learn about your customers then do you really know who your customer is? Did you know that customer Bill only wants to be communicated via email and that customer Jared only wants to be communicated to via Twitter?
10) Using an integrated agency rather than a traditional, full-service agency
This is a no-brainer. Did I mention that Risdall Marketing Group is an integrated agency?
I wanted to compare my current marketing world to the lens that I saw marketing in 1995.
In graduate school in 1995 at the University of Colorado, the 10 principals surrounding IMC included:
1)Creating and nourishing relationships rather than just making transactions
2)Focusing on all stakeholders rather than just customers
3)Maintaining strategic consistency rather than independent brand messages
4)Generating purposeful interactivity rather than just a mass media monologue
5)Marketing a corporate mission/mission marketing rather than just product claims
6) Using zero-based marketing planning rather than just tweaking last year's plan
7) Using cross-functional rather than departmental planning and monitoring
8) Creating core competencies rather than just communication specialization and expertise
9) Building and managing databases to retain customers rather than just acquiring new customers
10) Using an integrated agency rather than a traditional, full-service agency
How do these ten 1995 principals apply to today’s marketing world?
1) Creating and nourishing relationships rather than just making transactions ¬
It is more important now more then ever to create and nourish relationships instead of focusing on transactions. We all know the high cost of acquiring new customers vs increasing share of wallet with existing customers and the importance of lifetime customer value. Add to this word of mouth and online conversations being the main source for product recommendations it is vital for companies to have great relationships with their customers and prospects.
2) Focusing on all stakeholders rather than just customers ¬
This key principal is still important in today’s marketing. A lot of marketers only focus on their customers and prospects and forget about other key influencers surrounding the success of their business. Employees, suppliers, investors, financial analysts, government regulators, media, bloggers, 3rd party review sites, and other influence groups can make or break the success of your company. For example, you may have the best restaurant in town, but if your reviews on Yelp are filled with complaints and bad reviews, Yelp and the reviewers own your brand and its success.
3) Maintaining strategic consistency rather than independent brand messages
Now more then ever, message consistency and branding are of utmost importance. Consumers are exposed to thousands of advertisements a day. If you are not sending a consistent message out regarding your brand, your brand will be lost in the clutter of these messages. All of your marketing efforts should revolve around your key messages. Don’t create these key messages in the board room, without any customer research. Monitor online conversations, analyze search engine data, perform primary and secondary research to see what consumers are really saying and how they are describing your product or service.
4) Generating purposeful interactivity rather than just a mass media monologue ¬
When I look back at this key principal it is almost like seeing into the future. Duncan and Moriarty describe this principal as “companies must put as much emphasis on receiving messages as they do on sending messages. The interactivity dimension of integrated marketing proposes that media can be used both to send messages efficiently and to receive and capture messages from customers (and other stakeholders) in order to create a long-term purposeful dialogue.”
They present a framework called the '5 R's of Purposeful Dialogue':
• Recourse: customers need to know that they have some recourse with the company if they are dissatisfied with the product or service.
If I have an issue with a customer I will Tweet about my complaint on Twitter or blog about it. If I don’t get a response from the company, then I feel they are not “listening”, I recently tweeted about a bad experience I had at Home Depot. I was immediately contacted by Home Depot via twitter and the problem was resolved in less then an hour.
• Recognition: personal recognition is very important to many customers and other stakeholders, and is key in moving them higher up the customer bonding framework with your brand.
Listening and responding to customer complaints and praise through online and offline methods can build lifetime customer value.
• Responsiveness: when a complaint is being made, a suggestion offered, or information being sought, it is critical for a company to be responsive to the individual.
In the 24/7 world we live in, we expect customer service and a company to respond in minutes rather then days.
• Respect: individuals from all stakeholder groups, not just customers, need to feel that they are respected by the company ¬
Respect and reputation is all a company has. What your key stakeholders say about your brand, is your brand.
• Reinforcement: people who have already purchased a product or service need to be reinforced that their decision to do so was a good one.
Loyalty programs, clubs, and communities surrounding brands reinforce purchase decisions. Nike’s running community, Mikeplus is a great example of how Nike is reinforcing its consumers experience with the brand by adding value through a running community.
5) Marketing a corporate mission rather than just product claims.¬ Marketing the mission helps put a credible human face on the company, which makes it more likely that stakeholders can develop a positive feeling of personal identity with the company.
This key principal today and when I began my marketing career, for most companies is an after thought. Does your company give a few dollars here, a few dollars there and not focus on one key mission that relates to your company? My graduate thesis was on Mission Marketing and I truly believe that you are wasting your philanthropic dollars by giving a little to a bunch of different causes. You should be focusing your philanthropic mission on leveraging your companies’ expertise. A mission defines and humanizes a company and should be considered a long-term differentiator.
6) Using zero-based planning rather than just tweaking last year's plan. ¬ Undertake an unbiased and objective strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis to identify strategic marketing initiatives each year, rather than simply extending the marketing initiatives of the previous budget cycle.
This principal should be updated to testing and learning constantly. What is great about today’s marketing is that it allows you to test and learn through real-time analytics. You can dial up and down what is working and what is not. If you are waiting until the end of the year to evaluate your marketing efforts, you are wasting your marketing dollars.
7) Using cross-functional rather than departmental planning and monitoring ¬ This seventh strategic driver of an IM approach requires involving many different individuals from across the corporation in the marketing function, not just those who happen to be in a silo labeled 'marketing'
Today everyone at your company is in marketing. Everyone from the CEO to the receptionist can set up a Twitter account, a facebook page, their own blog, and comment on other blogs.
8) Creating core competencies rather than just communication specialization and expertise. Understand customer behavior and understand the strengths and weaknesses of communications tools.
This is how the current Wikipedia entry describes IMC: Integrated Marketing Communications is a term used to describe a holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television Most people believe this is what integrated marketing communications is.
It is important today to understand customer behavior and how they want to be reached. Some only want to be communicated on Twitter, some by email, some traditional means like radio, tv, print, etc.
9) Building and managing databases to retain customers rather than just acquiring new customers.
I have the opportunity to work with hundreds of clients every year and there are only a handful that truly have customer relationship management (CRM) databases. If you are not collecting demographic, psychographic, user-behavior and anything else you can learn about your customers then do you really know who your customer is? Did you know that customer Bill only wants to be communicated via email and that customer Jared only wants to be communicated to via Twitter?
10) Using an integrated agency rather than a traditional, full-service agency
This is a no-brainer. Did I mention that Risdall Marketing Group is an integrated agency?
Sunday, November 08, 2009
VeloCross Pics From Frye
Once a teammate, always a teammate
Teammates old and new are family. And they are always there for you when you need them the most. You have not truly experienced bike racing until you really understand what a teammate is.
Today was Back To Shool Cross in Northfield. Mikey P and I rolled down together. We have been teammates on many different teams. This year we are both riding for different cyclocross teams. The course was pretty brutal. It had a steep climb that was painful in the 42x27, add to that a short course and we climbed it 12 times. There was also a board that most of us were bunny-hopping. I'm not the best at it, but made it over every time. I got the traditional good start and held back a little to see if that would help me from blowing after a few minutes....it didn't really help. Midway through the race Mikey P and I hooked up and took turns for the rest of the race. It was great having a "teammate" to share the work. 15mins left in the race I was popped, so Mikey P was kind enough to tow me around the rest of the race and keep us away from those chasing us down. Thanks again Mikey. I ended up 4th in 35+ and 9th overall.
Today was Back To Shool Cross in Northfield. Mikey P and I rolled down together. We have been teammates on many different teams. This year we are both riding for different cyclocross teams. The course was pretty brutal. It had a steep climb that was painful in the 42x27, add to that a short course and we climbed it 12 times. There was also a board that most of us were bunny-hopping. I'm not the best at it, but made it over every time. I got the traditional good start and held back a little to see if that would help me from blowing after a few minutes....it didn't really help. Midway through the race Mikey P and I hooked up and took turns for the rest of the race. It was great having a "teammate" to share the work. 15mins left in the race I was popped, so Mikey P was kind enough to tow me around the rest of the race and keep us away from those chasing us down. Thanks again Mikey. I ended up 4th in 35+ and 9th overall.
Ice cream outside in Minnesota in November, loving the mild weather
Check out the Flickr set from yesterday's VeloCX
Fridley Fall Back, Brought to you by the Crossniacs
This is the course we put together for our race. Let me know what you think
Saturday, November 07, 2009
VeloCross Report
What a beautiful day. 60 degrees and sunny. I arrived early to catch the Midwest Single Speed Championships and saw Marco Lalonde put on a clinic and win by 1 min.
The course was twisty, turny and grassy. Pretty technical with 180s and grass to pavement sections.
My coach told me I needed to slow down my starts as he thinks I'm blowing up after I sprint as hard as I can to get into the top group. But today I had to go hard from the start. The start was critical because it went from pavement to a 180 to grass, so I knew I needed to be top 10 going into the 180. I got a good start and waited for my normal fade, but it didn't come today. I was able to stay on the gas the whole race. I was top 10 and stayed there all day. The course took many victims today. I saw a ton of people go down around corners and a few mechanicals. I knew I had to ride smart and not make any mistakes today, and I did. I was able to hand with the fast group today and ride wheels. I got into top 5 at one point and had to slow it back a little because I was about to blow. Dan Swanson caught me with 5 laps to go and I let him tow me around the course for 5 laps. I couldn't pull through, I just wanted to hang on. I told him the race was his and not to worry about me. With a 1/2 a lap to go I let up a little and let him go and rolled in 2nd in 35+ and 7th overall. My best race of the season so far.
My coach has taught me to train smarter and rest harder.
The course was twisty, turny and grassy. Pretty technical with 180s and grass to pavement sections.
My coach told me I needed to slow down my starts as he thinks I'm blowing up after I sprint as hard as I can to get into the top group. But today I had to go hard from the start. The start was critical because it went from pavement to a 180 to grass, so I knew I needed to be top 10 going into the 180. I got a good start and waited for my normal fade, but it didn't come today. I was able to stay on the gas the whole race. I was top 10 and stayed there all day. The course took many victims today. I saw a ton of people go down around corners and a few mechanicals. I knew I had to ride smart and not make any mistakes today, and I did. I was able to hand with the fast group today and ride wheels. I got into top 5 at one point and had to slow it back a little because I was about to blow. Dan Swanson caught me with 5 laps to go and I let him tow me around the course for 5 laps. I couldn't pull through, I just wanted to hang on. I told him the race was his and not to worry about me. With a 1/2 a lap to go I let up a little and let him go and rolled in 2nd in 35+ and 7th overall. My best race of the season so far.
My coach has taught me to train smarter and rest harder.
Labels: velocross
A great day on the cyclocross bike
2nd in 35+, 7th overall
Sent from my iPhone
#velocx
Thursday, November 05, 2009
@mudandcowbells and @timfaia 35+ PRO style in the mud
Crossniacs Cup Donates Bike Parts to Iraq, Linda Sone Beats the Men
5 Ways to Integrate Social Media in Your Marketing
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The Cyclocross Meeting
The Torture Chamber
Monday, November 02, 2009
5 marketing megatrends
Great post by Adam Kleinberg at iMedia.
1) Mass collaboration is powering the new economy
Companies are taking advantage of a new collaborative world to foster innovation and grow their enterprises.
2) Constant connectivity in an on-demand world
I'm wired almost every minute of every day and so are your customers and prospects. People expect you as a company to be "on" 24/7.
3) Globalization: Making the world a smaller place
Technology has made geography irrelevant. Businesses around the world are doing business with one another and will continue to do so.
4) Pervasive distrust in big corporations
The impending financial doom this country faced a year ago had a tremendous impact on consumer confidence in America, but even greater damage was done to consumer trust.
5) A global sense of urgency to fix the problems of a modern world
Being green is a minimum standard.
5 marketing megatrends you can't ignore
1) Mass collaboration is powering the new economy
Companies are taking advantage of a new collaborative world to foster innovation and grow their enterprises.
2) Constant connectivity in an on-demand world
I'm wired almost every minute of every day and so are your customers and prospects. People expect you as a company to be "on" 24/7.
3) Globalization: Making the world a smaller place
Technology has made geography irrelevant. Businesses around the world are doing business with one another and will continue to do so.
4) Pervasive distrust in big corporations
The impending financial doom this country faced a year ago had a tremendous impact on consumer confidence in America, but even greater damage was done to consumer trust.
5) A global sense of urgency to fix the problems of a modern world
Being green is a minimum standard.
5 marketing megatrends you can't ignore
Labels: Adam Kleinberg, iMedia, megatrends
Images from the Lens of Frank Rowe From Red Barn
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Fridley Fall Back, Brought to you by the Crossniacs
Wow! I forgot how much work it is to put on a race. But it was awesome. My teammate, Bryan Butts scored by getting us the Fridley Middle School venue since he is a teacher there. We were there at 6:30 for set up. The course started on a cinder running track, then hit a pin-wheel of deal and then zig zag section, followed by some off camber in the trees to a fast grass section to a 5-pack (5 barriers in a row) to a barrier to runup down a hill and then zig zag up the hill and back down to a rideup for the few, but run up for most of us and then back to the cinder track. I was in charge of the hill and it was pure pain.
We had a good showing with 150+ riders and my teammates were awesome and helped a ton with setup, registration, and tear down.
I even got the opportunity to race it. I got a great start and then like an idiot crashed in the pinwheel. The pinwheel was on a baseball diamond so it was soft and sandy. I got up quick and hopefully didn't screw anyone up. Doug Swanson put on a clinic and destroyed the field, Adam Bergman broke his collar bone on the 5-pack.
The 5-pack was also my idea and the official looked at my funny when he saw it, but I insisted it be included. Our goal for the course was to cater to those who have bike skills cross skills. The strong without skills suffered today.
Back to my race. I got into the 3rd group and Smither's bridged up and the race was on. We took turns pulling and got into a small group. There were 3 of us going into the last lap and I didn't want it to go into a sprint, so I sprinted into the 5 pack as fast as I could and new it was do or die time. I needed to nail the 5-pack and hopefully get a gap because I went into a lot faster then the other 2 guys. It worked. I opened a small gap and held it to the finish. I ended up 4th in 35+ and 10th overall.
We also collected bike parts to send to the soldiers in Iraq. One our Crossniacs teammates in OR, is sending them over.
All in all a good day and I hope everyone enjoyed the race. Big thanks to my wife Peggy for helping all day.
