TED conferences, you might think, are happy affairs. You get up early, meet the most fascinating people, listen to jaw-dropping talks (each followed by a standing ovation), have deep conversations, and party until dawn – and all of that for four days in a row, safely remote from your usual daily routine. The reality, however, is more complicated. The event is a physical and mental stress test, an emotional rollercoaster ride that challenges you with constant over-stimulation, extreme cross-pollination, and tidal waves of acceptance and rejection as you navigate the social networks in the conference’s “social spaces.” To slightly paraphrase Heidi Klum: “With one group you’re in, with the next group you’re out.” And yet you will never hear anyone who was lucky enough to attend TED come back and not rave about their experience. Why is that? Daniel Kahneman, the mastermind of Behavioral Economics, provided the answer – at TED2010: TEDsters are happy because they expect to be happy. Let me explain, or rather, let Daniel Kahneman explain.
John Hagel, one of my favorite business thinkers, has written a great post on how the "big shift" (from a world "where stocks of knowledge and short-lived transactions are the key to success" to a world "where participation in many, diverse flows of knowledge and long-term, trust-based relationships determine success") puts shy people – like him, as he admits – at a significant disadvantage.
For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi Co. has decided to not run any advertisements during the Super Bowl in 2010. Instead, the nation’s second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its "Pepsi Refresh Project," an online community that allows Pepsi fans to list their public service projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read. Visitors to the site can vote to determine which projects receive money. The program will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities. Last year, Pepsi Co. spent $33 million advertising products such as Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos during the Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it on Pepsi alone. Ad time last year for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average. Pepsi Co. spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said Super Bowl ads don’t work with the company's goals next year: "In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement." Pepsi's remarkable decision epitomizes the new paradigms of marketing: Online instead of TV; many-too-many instead of one-too-many; engagement instead of advertising; sharing instead of broadcasting; movements instead of events; communities instead of campaigns.
I attended the Trendforum in Munich last week (frog was a sponsor), a two-day conference that gathered European innovation, marketing, and R&D executives to explore emerging technologies, social trends, and innovative business models. The program was eclectic and the content mostly of high quality. I was particularly intrigued by the opening session that intersected macro-economic forecasting with geeky trend evangelism as well as a humanistic pledge for meaning-driven business (in fact, the other sessions didn’t even come close, including special guest Ray Kurzweil, whose remote keynote, given by way of 3D-holographic projection, remained utterly flat).
I just read a remarkable essay by Venkatesh Rao on “marketing, innovation, and the creation of customers.” It nails the complex relationship between the two functions, examining both similarities and polarities.
If you only see one slide show about the State of the Internet in 2009, "Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)" by David Gillespie, an Account Director at Maclaren McCann, Toronto, is a good choice: a mesmerizing 256 slide manifesto on the Intention Economy with Data (as the bank) and Meaning (as the currency).
What a season finale it was. ‘Shut the Door. Have a Seat’ was a “tight balance of emotionally pungent drama and company coup d’etat,” the LA Times wrote. And indeed, Mad Men came through in the end. And all the mad men and women came through: Sterling, Cooper, Pryce, Pete, Peggy, Joan, and, more than anyone else of course, Don Draper.
The overlap with the title of the blog I write for CNET, Matter/Antimatter, is completely coincidental, but since most meaningful events are coincidental, it makes perfect sense that it prompted San Francisco-based conceptual artist Jonathon Keats to send me a note pointing to his upcoming exhibition "The First Bank of Antimatter."
Keats' previous artistic enterprises include applying string theory to real estate development, and in the wake of global economic collapse, Keats is now introducing a hedge against future catastrophe by creating a mirror economy designed to skyrocket as world markets plummet: the first holistic response to the great recession.
My mom always told me “Make your passion your profession, and you’ll be a happy man.” She was right, and I am glad I followed her advice. Yet I appear to be part of a minority. In an article about growing disenchantment at work (“Hating What You Do”), this week’s Economist cites a survey conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy. It found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of workers who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%, and the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%. Furthermore, the article refers to a more recent survey by DDI which found that more than half of the respondents described their job as “stagnant,” as in “nothing interesting to do” and “little hope of professional growth" within their current organization. Half of these “stagnators” said they were planning to look for another job as soon as the economy recovered. These survey findings are flanked by several recent cultural events in the US that indicate a shift in the way we negotiate the meaning of work, for example Michael Moore’s “Capitalism – A Love Story” and a whole New York Times Magazine issue on “Anxiety.”
And yet, Americans will be surprised to hear that the most dramatic manifestation of this apparent misery-at-work trend occurred in “socialist” France. A spate of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom that occured over the past twelve months, many of them explicitly prompted by stress and dissatisfaction at work, forced the deputy CEO to resign and sparked an emotional national debate about life in the modern corporation.
Twitter’s “suggested users” list is a Who’s Who of Twitter celebrities, featuring the likes of Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, Ashton Kutcher, John McCain, Martha Stewart, and others with millions of followers. The New York Times claimed that a spot on the list would guarantee 500,000 additional followers and reported that social media guru Jason Calacanis had offered $250,000 to be listed.
