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luni, 12 mai 2014

Not your average big-box store:

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Last Friday, President Obama visited a Walmart in Mountain View, California, that's making big changes to the way it uses energy.

"A few years ago, you decided to put solar panels on the roof of the store," he explained. "You replaced some traditional light bulbs with LEDs. You made refrigerator cases more efficient. And you even put in a charging station for electric vehicles."

Find out how energy-efficient practices are helping the store save money -- and creating jobs in the process.

President Barack Obama walks through the aisles at Walmart prior to his remarks on energy efficiency in Mountain View, Calif., May 9, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Bacon, Burritos, and the Future of Marketing

Posted: 11 May 2014 05:13 PM PDT

Posted by Hannah Smith

You heard it here first: Burritos are the new bacon.

Bacon is *so* last year.

Not so long ago if you wanted to create content to capture the hearts and minds of the internet at large, bacon would be your topic of choice.

However, today, dear friends, you might be better off working burritos into your content. We've seen runaway successes like Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos, Classic Love Scenes Improved by Burritos, and when burritos are made incorrectly (yes, apparently this happens) we see an outpouring of rage like this.

Dear reader, I am of course kidding. Sadly, the future of marketing is not burritos.

In truth, dear reader, as much as I'd love to tell you the future of marketing is as straight-forward as a particular foodstuff, I'd be doing us all a grave disservice.

I got to thinking about this particular topic a few months ago when prepping for SMX Munich. I've been working in this industry for about 7 years, which makes me a comparative youngster, but nonetheless, during that time we've seen huge changes.

Remember when keyword density was a thing?

You'd see these sites which huge, apparently empty footers. You'd hit ctrl+a to reveal the densely packed keywords in text the same colour as the background.

Remember how strongly weighted anchor text was?

It was so strongly weighted, we were able to do stuff like this:

Over the years there have been many updates, and some of the most interesting include:

2009: Vince saw big brands get a boost
2010: Caffeine saw a new web indexing system
2011: Panda saw a crackdown on "thin" content
2012: Venice saw localised results ranking for general or broad queries without a geographic modifier
2012: Penguin saw a crackdown on low quality links
2013: Hummingbird saw a move from indexing to understanding

All of which means that, today, search queries which shouldn't work do in fact work:

This is the sort of query my dear Mother has been typing into search engines for years. Historically these sorts of queries simply didn't yield the results she was looking for. Today, with increasing frequency, they do.

These sorts of developments are unquestionably good for users, however they may not be quite so good for publishers who rely on ad revenue, and indeed for brands.

A search like this will yield the result directly in the SERP; there's no need to click through to a website. There are many other examples of this:

Try queries like "how many calories in an egg", or "how tall is Jason Priestley".

But it's not just informational queries that have been affected by changes to the SERPs. A search for "flights from London to Munich" sees the first organic result pushed way below the fold:

It's fair to say that it's getting a lot tougher out there. But it's not just search that's changing...

Wearable tech is causing a stir

Not too long ago, a woman named Sarah Slocum claimed to have been attacked for wearing Google Glass in a bar in San Francisco. There have been many conflicting accounts of what actually happened that night, and I'm not in a position to comment either way. However, what I think is interesting is the backlash which has ensued against this technology.

As a result, many establishments are banning customers from using Google Glass in their premises.

Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying that Google Glass usage won't ever be accepted, but it's important to understand that when humans and technology collide, things get complicated.

Regardless of the future of Google Glass, device usage is changing

Mobile used to mean "away from your PC," but today, 77% of mobile searches are completed in a location where a PC is available (source).

We also multi-screen:

57% of the time when we're using a smartphone we're also using another device
67% of the time when we're using a PC we're also using another device
75% of the time when we're using a tablet we're also using another device
77% of the time when we're watching TV we're also using another device

**TV doesn't mean on a TV anymore**

5% of homes in the US don't have a TV, and this zero-TV group is growing. The US had more than 5 million zero-TV households in 2013, up from 2 million in 2007. But that doesn't mean they're not watching TV: 67% just get their TV content on other devices.

Why?

Traditional TV scheduling limits people who don't want limits. They want to watch TV whenever and wherever it suits them.

This means TV advertising is also changing

As audiences continue to fragment, the reach of TV advertisements is becoming a problem. Many are simply switching and showing their ads online; YouTube ads, for example, are becoming more prevalent. However, I think this fails to take into account the difference in consumers' mindsets.

Now I don't love watching ads on TV, but I'm reasonably comfortable with it. Most of the time when I'm watching TV I'll put up with the ads because I figure that the ads are the price I pay for watching the shows I want to watch.

However, when a friend sends me a link to a YouTube video, at the point at which the pre-roll ad starts playing I don't know for sure this is a video I *really* want to watch. As such the pre-roll ad maddens me. Many others also feel the same. I sit, primed to skip the ad as those 5 seconds crawl by.

Right now, advertisers have failed to take into account these different modes of human behaviour. Pre-roll ads on YouTube are not the same as ad on TV. We react differently to them. I think in the future pre-roll ads either need to change, or they won't survive.

**It's not just TV; the way we consume all content is changing**

Mitchell Kapour once said "Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant."

To combat this issue we all uses filters (to some degree) to get our content. We may filter by publisher, i.e. we'll only consume content from certain sites (as opposed to trying to consume *all* the content). Or we'll have trusted curators feed us content (this is what's often happening on Twitter; you'll read the content the people you follow and trust recommend).

However, our technology also protects us from unwanted content:

The algorithm which determines what appears in your Facebook feed is based on your previous interactions. As such you'll see more content from those friends who's updates you like and comment on than those you never interact with.

Similarly, if you've previously "liked" a brand page on Facebook, but then never interact with any of their content in your feed, you'll stop seeing that content.

But it gets worse. Ogilvy predicts organic Facebook reach is destined to hit zero.

It's not just Facebook, since Gmail launched the tabbed inbox, unsurprisingly, open rates are down.

Permission marketing may no longer be enough

All of this leads me to believe that permission marketing may no longer be enough. All of those permission assets we spent years building—email lists, active Facebook pages, etc.—are likely to become less and less effective in terms of reach.

Wait, what are you saying here?

Don't panic. I've not tricked you into reading yet another "[insert your marketing tactic of choice] is dead" post. But things are changing, and they're changing rapidly.

Current trends

Here are some trends which I think are interesting:

Real-time

Remember this?

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC
— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

In the write-ups we saw hyperbole abound:

"The message was retweeted and 'liked' a bajillion times" ~ Brad Tuttle, Time

Really?

Close to 16,000 retweets = a bajillion?

The real success was around the amount of press attention this received. In real terms the tweet itself was not that successful.

Nevertheless it's an interesting trend because it appear lightning doesn't just strike twice - it strikes over and over again:

Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs
— Arby's (@Arbys) January 27, 2014

And as if we could forget:

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

Online-first content

Many of the most successful pieces of content we've seen online actually existed offline first. So we've seen many examples of ads created for TV do well online; examples include Old Spice, and Evian Rollerbabies. But I think we're seeing an interesting trend toward content that was created specifically for an online audience.

Dear reader, allow me to introduce you to the only pre-roll ad I've ever elected not to skip.

Now clearly, I can't get it to run like a pre-roll, but you can do this for yourself.

Click play, then position your mouse over the pause button.
Watch for five seconds.
Let me know if this piqued your interest sufficiently that you wanted to watch the whole thing

I've also been enjoying what some brands are doing with Vine, check out: Lowes, this gem from Target and General Electric's 6 Second Science Fair.

We're also seeing a wave of films that don't feel like commercials:

Perhaps the most interesting trend: brands with values

By values, I mean brands that stand for something.

Moz has TAGFEE, Innocent talks a lot about being sustainable, Patagonia talks about environmentalism. Nike has this:

When you stand for something like that, you get to create things like this:

There's also evidence to suggest that standing for something can translate into real business benefits. Brands which are "meaningful" outperform the stock market by 120%.

So what does the future hold?

I wanted to round this up by making some predictions. Some are "safe," some are less so. But where's the fun in telling you stuff you already knew?

"Safe" predictions

We'll see more devices being adopted which will lead to more technical challenges as we'll need to ensure everything we create works across these devices.
We'll be under even more pressure to measure everything more accurately. We'll need to track people, not sessions and figure out multi-channel attribution properly.
We'll be even less reliant on organic search than we are today. Being overly reliant on one channel is too risky.

A "less-safe" Prediction

There will be a deluge of content. But no content fatigue. Filters will become so sophisticated that people just won't see it.

Somewhat "out there" prediction:

Only brands that stand for something will survive.

In Europe and the US people wouldn't care if 92% of brands disappeared (source).

In search we're perhaps more keenly aware of this than other marketers. We've seen many affiliates fall thanks to changes in the algorithm, never to return. Only the affiliates that were also recognisable brands survived.

Why?

Well people would think that Google was "broken" if major brands didn't show up for relevant queries; that's why major brands make it back into the index fairly quickly, even if they don't play by Google's rules.

But it goes deeper than that. Consumers are more savvy today than they once were. If they actively dislike a brand, or what they stand for, they have the tools at their disposal to easily go elsewhere. If your brand doesn't stand for something, or people don't like what it stands for they are easily able to find alternatives. Technology has empowered people in ways previously unimaginable.

But being 'big' isn't enough. If you want to ensure your brand retains visibility in the future I think the only way will be to ensure people love your brand enough to search for you by name.

Contrast these two searches:

The search for "BBC weather" doesn't yield a summary of the weather direct in the SERP. Instead, BBC weather, quite rightly, ranks first.

Now of course there are no guarantees for the future, but I'd suggest that a branded search is unlikely to yield a result where said brand is pushed below a Google property.

Only time will tell.

When we think about the future of marketing it's easy to slip into the trap of thinking purely about technological challenges. However, the truth is that marketing isn't changing because of technology. Marketing is changing because consumers' expectations are evolving.

Consumers expect brands to deliver a seamless experience, regardless of their location or the device they're using.

When they speak, they expect brands to respond.

They aren't interested in your self-serving messaging, or your attempts to be 'down with the kids', but they'll happily be entertained.

Most of all you need them to love your brand and love your marketing. So much so, that they'll actively seek it our for themselves and share it with their friends.

I believe that as an industry we will evolve.

I've only been in the industry for 7 years, many of you have been doing this for much longer than me and I *know* how adaptable you are.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the future, and your thoughts on my predictions.

For those who are interested, you can view my full SMX deck below:

Humans, Technology & The Future of Marketing - SMX Munich 2014 from Hannah Smith

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Seth's Blog : "Don't do what I said, do what I meant."

"Don't do what I said, do what I meant."

That's what most leaders and owners and bosses and customers want, isn't it?

We want employees who know the why, not just the details of the how. We want customer service people and partners and vendors who understand.

Which is what we get, at least until we encounter the first time that we're unpleasantly surprised. It's in that moment, when we demand a refund, or fire someone, or insist on rules being followed to the letter—that's when it all falls apart and stops being a relationship based on understanding and turns into one that's built on compliance to the rules.

If you want the people you work with to act with understanding, then you must trust them to use their best judgment, even when that means you didn't get exactly what you said you wanted. The failure is yours, because you didn't help people understand the reasoning. When you accept responsibility for that failure, when you educate instead of demand, you can gain the benefits of working with people who understand, instead of merely comply.

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duminică, 11 mai 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

3D Printed Hand for $50 Outperforms $42,000 Device; Advances in 3D Printing - Entire Arms and Brain Tissue

Posted: 11 May 2014 10:16 AM PDT

Advances in 3D medical printing are quite amazing. Here are some recent articles on 3Ders.Org.

3d Printed Hand

Comparing: $50 3D printed hand vs. $42,000 prosthetic limb

Jose Delgado Jr. Jose, 53 year old, was born without most of his left hand and in the past year, he had been using a prosthetic hand that costs $42,000, which he paid about half out of pocket. This myoelectric version uses the muscle signals in his forearm to trigger the closing or opening of the fingers, like a real hand would.

Jose visited e-NABLE member Jeremy Simon and asked if he could help make a 3D printed prosthesis for him. Created by Jon Schull, a researcher at Rochester Institute of Technology, e-NABLE pairs children and adults with missing or deformed fingers, hands or forearms with makers who produce customized 3D printed prostheses that can improve their lives.

Jose has been using multiple types of prosthetic devices for years, so he's very familiar with what can or can't be done with them in terms of day-to-day functionality. To his surprise, Jose said he actually prefers the 3D printed Cyborg Beast to his far more expensive myoelectric prosthesis.

Jose claims that the simple, mechanical design of Cyborg Beast is even more comfortable and provides more day-to-day functionality than the expensive version. And if a piece breaks, he could simply print a new one in a few hours.

A typical prosthetic hand from a company will run you more than $10,000, but materials for a 3D printed hand can cost less than $50. The design, research, development and prototyping time for these 3D printable limbs designs has been donated by many individuals in the e-NABLE community, a group of 700 people globally. The design is open source and thus no rights have had to be purchased to use or make them. Therefore it is possible to produce a partial hand for a cost of less than $50 as compared to a retail device with a price of thousands.

Jeremy says he is working with Jose on printing another new hand and this time using a material called Bridge nylon, which is stronger than the previous material and also light weighted. "I'll also be providing him with an alternate thumb mount that will enable a different kind of grip." Jeremy said.

3D Printed Arm

Students 3D Print Pink Robotic Prosthetic Arm for 13-Year-Old Girl

Students at the Washington University in St. Louis has built a robotic prosthetic arm for thirteen-year-old Sydney Kendall who lost her right arm in a boating accident when she was six years old.

Using a computer program and a 3D printer, Kendall Gretsch, Henry Lather and Kranti Peddada, seniors studying biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, created a robotic prosthetic arm out of bright-pink plastic. Each part of the robotic hand and arm is made individually. It took about 20 minutes to print the small parts, and an hour to make larger parts. The whole project took about 13-15 hours to print. Total cost is only $200, while normally a prosthetic would cost a minimum of $6,000.

The students developed the robotic hand as part of their engineering design course with associate professor of physical therapy Joseph Klaesner. With guidance from several medical practitioners including orthopedic hand surgeons Charles A. Goldfarb and Lindley Wall, they built the prosthetic out of bright-PINK plastic, as request by Sydney.

"They brought their engineering expertise, and we shared our practical experience with prosthetics and the needs of children," Goldfarb wrote in a recent blog post about the project. "It was a valuable experience as Kendall, Henry and Kranti had no prosthetic experience and were able to think about the issues in a very different way."

After the accident, Sydney learned to write with her left hand, but found most tasks difficult to accomplish with her prosthetic arm. On the other side, the new 3D printed arm is very easy to manipulate. By moving her shoulder, she can direct the arm to throw a ball, move a computer mouse and perform other tasks.

Peddada said it was thrilling to observe Sydney use her arm. "It really showed us the great things you can accomplish when you bridge medicine and technology," Peddada said.

Sydney's new arm has motor and working thumb, which set it apart from similar "Robohand" that has been widely adopted. A sensor worn on the shoulder detects motion, and sends a signal through a cord to a micro controller chip which activates little motors that control the fingers and thumb. The prosthetic is powered by a nine volt battery.

There are lots of fascinating 3-D printing articles on 3Ders.Org.

Recent topics include 3d-printed handguns, mouthpieces, masks to avoid surveillance, car parts, better bike wheels, and dura matter (a thick and dense inelastic membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, serving for the protection of the brain.)

Inquiring minds may wish to investigate further.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : Set a date

Set a date

If you haven't announced a date, you're not serious.

Pick a date. It can be far in the future. Too far, and we'll all know that you're merely stalling. A real date, a date we can live with and a date you can deliver on.

If your project can't pass this incredibly simple test, it's not a project.

Deliver whatever it is you say you're working on on the date you said you would, regardless of what external factors interfere. Deliver it even if you don't think it's perfect. You picked the date.

And as a professional, the career-making habit is this: once you set a date, never miss a date.

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Numerous High-Level French Government Officials Pressure ECB to Weaken Euro

Posted: 10 May 2014 05:11 PM PDT

Various high-level bureaucrats in the French government including prime minister Manuel Valls, finance minister Michel Sapin, and industry minister Arnaud Montebourg, are all singing the benefits of a weaker euro.

Please consider France Steps Up Campaign to Weaken Euro.

France's socialist government, struggling to reverse a 15-year decline in French competitiveness, is growing increasingly vocal in its calls for action to weaken the euro.

Paris will have been encouraged by the statement on Thursday by Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, that the strong euro was "a cause for serious concern" given low inflation and low growth – and his hint of action next month.

But it is seeking more than just looser monetary policy from the ECB. Led by new prime minister Manuel Valls, ministers have insisted in recent weeks that eurozone political leaders should take up the exchange rate issue – in defiance of German insistence that it must be left solely to the central bank.

Mr Valls said President François Hollande would pursue the issue with fellow leaders after the European elections at the end of the month.

"The ECB is responsible, but it is not the only one," Michel Sapin, the finance minister and confidante of Mr Hollande, said this week. He said the EU's council of ministers should discuss the issue.

Arnaud Montebourg, the outspoken economy and industry minister, took up the cause in parliament on Wednesday saying: "The whole issue of exchange rate policy is one for political authorities, according to EU treaties."

Two Obvious Problems

Nearly every country in the world wants to increase competitiveness by devaluing its currency. Mathematically, it's impossible for every country to do that simultaneously.

A bigger problem for France is that it is not competitive with Germany in nearly every industry, and Spain and other European countries in other industries.

Devaluing the Euro will do absolutely nothing to improve French competitiveness within the eurozone and that is precisely where France most needs to improve competitiveness.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Playing With Fire

Posted: 10 May 2014 08:52 AM PDT

I still believe there will be some sort of diplomatic end to this crisis, before war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine (see Negotiating a Diplomatic Solution in Ukraine: How and Why That Will Happen).

In the meantime, sanctions are extremely counterproductive and the west demands Russia rein in the separatists, even though Russia is clearly not in control.

ZeroHedge has an interesting story this morning Ukraine Scrambles Fighter Jets, Intercepts Airplane Carrying Russian Deputy Premier.

We were one foolish shot away from starting a war, something supposedly no one wants. This is pure idiocy but Obama no doubt views the result as a success.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

luni, 12 mai 2014

Not your average big-box store:

Bacon, Burritos, and the Future of Marketing