Sorry, I’m a little late posting this one, but here are the 2010 technology trends as I see them.

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NBC took a big gamble when they moved Jay Leno to primetime and it obviously hasn’t worked out. Now they are canceling the prime time show and contemplating putting him back to late night, which itself is complex now as they gave his old job to Conan O’Brien.

What caps my hide about this story, however, is the way NBC has handled the news. NBC has said the show “didn’t meet affiliates’ needs” and that the show performed “exactly as we anticipated on the network.” NBC is saying here, it’s not our fault, the show was fine, blame the affiliates. The painful truth, however, which is clear to everyone is that the show wasn’t very good and very few people were watching. Critics didn’t like it and the general buzz was bad. So if the show really performed “exactly as we anticipated on the network.” that’s pretty sad and it’s no wonder NBC is the last place network.

I don’t know why companies feel they cannot admit failure. Customers will not punish you for failure, only continual failure and an inability or lack of desire to fix things. This is why AT&T is taking such a beating lately. Their network is failing in certain cities and they have been slow to correct the problems and even admit the seriousness of them. That’s what people are most upset about. Admit openly and honestly you have a problem and than get on it. Customers will be patient, for a time. But if you will not admit your failures and you issue trite press statements that smack of ridiculousness in the face of the facts, you will be punished. We are in a very media savvy society; people understand the game now. It would have been so easy for NBC to say something like, we are constantly innovating and pushing the envelope with our content. Jay Leno in primetime did not work the way we imagined so we are changing things up. We anticipate an exciting new line up, including our popular late night programming.

Bill O’Reilly likes so say his show is a “no spin zone”. The entire world is a no spin zone now. PR people are traditionally trained to control the story, even guide it if you can. A traditional PR approach to this NBC/Leno story would be to control the damage on what is basically a negative for the network. But of course the problem is there is no control anymore and there doesn’t even need to be any damage. By admitting your own failure and presenting a plan to correct things and move forward you take away the very weapon others could use against you. When the emperor has no clothes, he shouldn’t parade around as if he does. It’s a new media world now and we can all see you naked.

A World of Hurt

AT&T has been in hot water with their customers lately. Spotty network coverage in critical areas like San Francisco and New York have customers angry. Add to that comments made by AT&T CEO of mobility last week that blamed customers and their heavy data usage for the problem and things are just getting worse.

Dan Lyons of Newsweek who writes as “Fake Steve Jobs” wrote a blog post positing that if iPhone users all used data heavy apps at the same time on a particular day it would choke the AT&T network as punishment for their poor service and lack of respect for customers. Dan may have written the post with tongue in cheek but some of his readers think it’s a great idea and it’s been gaining steam across the Internet.

Teachable Moment

Parents often call this a teachable moment, and if this plan goes off it certainly will be.

Lesson 1: You cannot hide from your customers anymore. All of your faults will be exposed and spread widely among friends and foes. The opportunity is in your reaction and response.

Lesson 2: Be very careful what you say because customers are listening and your words will be amplified and once again spread widely. AT&T’s implication that they may penalize customers for heavy data usage went over like a lead balloon and was the spark for this latest outrage.

Lesson 3: Never, ever blame your customers for your problems. Payback’s a bitch so they say and your customers have many ways to hurt you now. A nasty letter to the editor is the least of your problems.

Amazon.com has scored it’s first big win in securing exclusive electronic rights to publish Stephen Covey’s popular business title 7 Habits of Highly Successful People on the Amazon Kindle. As ebook competition heats up among the Kindle, Barnes and Nobel Nook and others, these companies will seek more exclusive deals with popular authors to gain an advantage for their platform.

I think the really important news, however, is Stephen Covey experimenting with self publishing his own titles, at least the electronic versions. Reportedly the royalty split is more favorable and I’m sure there are other aspects Covey gets more control over with self publishing. The music industry is already going through this right now as many artists are seeing less and less value in the traditional record company. Artists can record, produce, distribute and market their songs all on their own and keep more of the profit and control. Now we can see the first steps of this happening in the publishing world. Stephen Covey is a big name and a best seller. If he can show success with this model, others will likely follow.

It’s not as likely this self publishing senario will flow over into traditional paper bound books as there are real costs there for printing and distribution, unlike electronic books. In fact, Covey says he has no intention at this time of changing his paper book publishing setup. Popular podcast book author Scott Sigler, though, is running a very interesting self publishing experiment with his hardbound book called The Rookie. The Rookie is not the typical horror novel Scott is famous for and as such his publisher Crown Books was not interested in putting the book out. So Sigler started taking pre-orders for the book online, utilizing his lage fan base and social network marketing. Sigler was diligent, making this an exclusive limited print run at a specific price that insured everything was paid for. With some luck, Scott may make a small profit as well.

Self publishing isn’t just for blogs anymore, the whole book industry is about to go through a major disruption in the next several years. More book readers will be released. Tablet computers that may display full color magazines are likely and more. If publishing is to survive they will need to figure out how to utilize this new technology for themselves. If they grip to hard holding onto the old models, they will suffer the same fate as the music industry.

I have been fortunate enough to attend a few really great social media conferences in the past few months and while there I noticed something very interesting. It’s something I had experienced in years past as well. Several people that I came into contact with were familiar with me because of Facebook or Twitter and my profile picture specifically helped to jog that recognition. One person even commented how much he enjoyed my picture on Facebook as it includes my new baby Capella on my shoulders. He said it makes him smile every time he sees it pop up in his Facebook stream.

That’s a kind of brand awareness that you can’t purchase for anything. Traditionally we think of brand awareness as it is associated to a logo like the Nike swoosh or Apple’s Apple with a bite out of it. Logo branding is still a powerful tool and I help many customers crate or revitalize their logos but in this increasingly social world there is also a power in your own face. I guess they don’t call it Facebook for nothing.

Don’t underestimate the value of your face. Think carefully about all those profile photos on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and everywhere else. If you’re into this for building business and brand value, here are some tips to remember:

• Make sure your picture is a good one. A clear close up view of your face. Make sure the exposure is good and the pose is comfortable and positive. Something that captures a little of your personality is always great.
• Don’t use cartoon characters or other logos. If it is an account that represents the entire company, a company logo would be appropriate for that.
• The background should be as clean and clear as possible. You don’t want anything to obscure or take focus away from what’s most important, your face.
• Don’t change your picture often. You can change it now and again, especially if you get a better picture to use, but try to remain as consistent as possible.

I would not appear with anyone else in your photo with the exception of your kids. This could even be a debated point, but I chose personally to have Capella in my Facebook profile for a few reasons. My personal Facebook account is a little less business and more personal. My Connected World Media Facebook page uses the company logo. My kids are also a big part of my life and so much of who I am, I don’t mind showing that. That being said, I have recently changed my LinkedIn photo to a photo of just me and my Twitter profile pic is the same one although my Twitter custom background has the Capella and me photo on it. I try to use the same photo across all networks as much as possible, again for consistency sake.

As with most things there are no hard and fast answers. You have to discover what works for you and your company, but I hope I have given you some things to think about. As always if you want help in this or any other social media regard, don’t hesitate to contact me. I would love to work with you on your brand image online.

I’m very excited to be attending my first Gnomedex conference this year. I’ll be there Aug 20-22 in Seattle. If you are going to be there, please contact me via Twitter or Email and let’s get together. It’s been several years since I’ve spent time in Seattle and I’m looking forward to it, it’s a great city. Gnomedex, if you’re not familiar, is one of the premiere social media conferences, hosted by Chris Pirillo. Many of the industry heavyweights will be there as well as hundreds of other not so known but equally as smart folks. I look forward to two days of great learning and insight as well as connecting with new people .

Martha Stewart recently announced she is giving up on Facebook in favor of Twitter. More bang for the tweet she says. Bill Gates also has stopped using Facebook citing difficulty keeping up with friend requests. I hear this from clients as well. Facebook takes more work than Twitter. There is also more nonsense going on with Facebook apps like Pirate games and thrown snowballs. There is nothing quite like the raw simplicity of Twitter. Also with Twitter, you can gain followers without having to do anything. They follow you by choice and you do not have to follow them back. No management required. I understand all this, but don’t underestimate Facebook.

For one thing, I find that more of my non-geeky so called “normal” friends use Facebook much more and sometimes exclusively over Twitter. If your goal is to reach a less bleeding edge audience, Facebook is really the way to go. Also, it’s a fairly easy to thing to get your Tweets to automatically populate Facebook, so there is really no need to completely abandon it.

As far as the reciprocity of Facebook friends go, that brings me to my second point. I wish I had the problem of having to manage more friend requests than I could handle. But it brings up the larger point that many of these stars aren’t interested in reciprocity. They don’t want to listen or converse, they want to talk. Look at Martha’s Twitter and you will find over a million followers but she only follows 35 people. Her tweets rarely if ever include conversations to other people and when they do it’s mostly to other stars. This is common for most big stars on Twitter. They are using Twitter like another broadcast medium. This, of course, is inherently wrong and against the very spirit of social media. They don’t call it social for nothing. It’s disappointing to see this because these stars have an unbelievable  access to their greatest fans. With a million people following you, I’m sure it’s hard to talk to everyone but I see no reason why they cannot at least make an effort  and do what they can.

Facebook takes more work than Twiter because it does more, but Twitter takes work to if you’re doing it right. It’s something my clients often don’t want to hear, this stuff takes work. But marketing your business takes work too and this kind of marketing can pay off in a much more powerful and long lasting way for all that effort.

Consider this a followup post to my original Twitter is like a ball of clay post. I saw a couple of videos tonight that gave me some additional ideas to further refine the concept and answer the question, why do many people still disregard Twitter as trivial messaging?

The first video is Barry Diller chairman of IAC. He has barely if at all used Twitter and says it’s not a “natural” advertising platform in addition to disregarding it as trivial. It’s also not natural for people to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, but many do and they get a singular experience that cannot be attained any other way. Nothing is normal or natural about social and new media either. That’s why it’s called disruptive and revolutionary. This new marketing world requires a new way of thinking that Barry Diller cannot grok which is ironic since IAC owns a number of great Internet properties.

The second video is White House press secretary Robert Gibbs mentioning that Twitter is, in fact, blocked from White House computers. He does so very casually and he indicates that, at least for him, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not as egregious as Barry Diller, but still somewhat dismissive.

So why? Why do these prominent people, and many others, view Twitter in this way? I think the answer is that Twitter is like a ball of clay. If you’re not willing to pick it up and try to do something with it, it will just be a ball of clay, which is not terribly useful on the face of it. And that’s the problem. People look at Twitter and say ” ok, it’s a ball of clay, I don’t get it”. If you’re not willing to look beyond the surface. If you’re not willing to pick up the clay and mold it into something useful for yourself, you will never, ever get it. Twitter is not some whiz bang social media, demographic, statistics dashboard from on high. It is not a spoon fed, pre-packaged marketing widget. This is what too many marketers want unfortunately. Twitter and much of the rest of social media is something you have to work with your hands. Yes, like working clay you have to get your hands dirty. If I can push the analogy maybe a little too far, this is a good thing because you get a real tactile feel for and a connection with your art (marketing) like never before.

Twitter is a tricky technology because it’s value runs below the surface. I will admit to not seeing it myself at first. I ignored Twitter for a few months thinking it sounded quite dumb. But I gave it a chance and more importantly I went deep with it. The more people I followed and that followed me the better it got. I was patient and it took time to build up to where I am today. It’s something else common marketers don’t have, patience nor the creative zeal to mold the clay and teach their clients to mold the clay.

And that’s what I do at Connected World Media. I teach my clients how to mold the clay. I teach them how to view Twitter for what it is, unlimited potential and how to tap that potential for their benefit.

I am a big supporter of indie media of all forms. It is the primary reason I started my podcast Rock and Roll Jew Show; to highlight and support indie music, especially from Israel. I have also been a supporter of another new form of indie media called Podiobooks. Podiobooks are independent authors who podcast their books in audio form in order to build an audience. After they have build a dedicated listenership the goal is to convert a certain percentage of those listeners into real book buyers. This is right along the lines of what Chris Anderson has outlined in his new book Free: The Future of a radical price. Several authors have been able to land major publishing deals due to their podcasts as well. The model was pioneered by Scott Sigler who is also currently the most successful podiobook author. Scott was able to hit the New York Times best seller list with his second hardcover release Contagious. This from an unknown author literally coming out of nowhere just a few years ago.

I want to highlight here two other of my favorite podiobook authors who currently have books out. JC Hutchins began his podiobook career with the wildly successful 7th Son novel series. 7th Son: Decent, the first in the series, will be coming out this October in hardcover. JC’s first in print release is Personal Effects: Dark Art which I featured on Connected World TV #1. This is a scary horror/psychological thriller. It’s a very unique book because of the tangible items that come as part of the book. These items directly relate to what is going on in the book and include additional clues to the mystery in the form of phone numbers and websites you can visit. It’s being called a trans-media experience and it is certainly like nothing else I have ever seen.

Seth Harwood is a classically trained author who began his writing career with somewhat high brow short stories. Seth finally gave in to his real passions of crime drama, high action and kick butt characters and created Jack Wakes Up, the first novel in the Jack Palms Crime series. Seth also took the podcasting route to promote Jack Wakes Up and has developed a devoted following of “Palms Mamas and Palms Daddies”. Jack wakes up is now out in trade paperback form from Three Rivers Press. I have never been a crime fiction fan but this isn’t your fathers crime drama. Combining the best of Pulp Fiction, The Wire and The Sopranos, Jack Wakes Up is a completely modern crime drama complete with guns, drugs, car chases, and Czechs.

Fortunately both these authors have made available special previews of these books which I have included for you. Read the first couple of chapters and see if you don’t get hooked. If you do, both books are available at major bookstores or at Amazon.com

UPDATE: Phil Rossi, yet another great podiobook author is having his Amazon.com “rush” tomorrow, July 9 2009 to support his new release Crescent. This theory, which has been used successfully before and in fact helped launch Scott Sigler’s career is to get as many people as possible to buy the book on Amazon.com on a single day. This causes the book to attain a very high place on the Amazon.com rankings which brings notoriety to the book and it’s author. More than one author has used this technique to land a major publishing deal. This is new media gorilla marketing at it’s finest. Crescent is also available as a free preview so check it out. I listened to Crescent as a podiobook and I can tell you it is one of the scariest stories I have ever experienced. It’s Blade Runner crossed with Outland crossed with Alien.

Download Personal Effects: Dark Art Preview

Download Jack Wakes Up Preview

Download Crescent Preview

Time has come out with a new experimental personalized magazine called Mine. I give you a look at it here and give you my perspective as to what it means in regard to the future of magazines and publishing.

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