seth godin won't twitter
by Jim Jacoby on Feb.15, 2009, under concepts, convergence
social media tools are stressing out just about every client we have. at the same time, marketer after marketer (especially those who feel threatened by economics or their lack of ability to drive any real value) is proposing random social media/marketing techniques… twitter being a big one. it’s refreshing to see another industry pundit take a clear stand with a position that makes perfect sense. if you transfer this thought process from a person to a business, you begin to create an approach that becomes meaningful PR/outbound communication strategy.
for my own part, i believe the world is filled with trees like twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube… you name it. the issue here is that each of them believes they are the one. further, marketers/agencies who figure one or the other out believe they should be used incessantly. the problem is, you start shaking this tree and someone comes along and says, well, if you shake it harder, you’ll get more out of it. so you shake harder. then a crowd of others come around and start shaking it with you… ostensibly to get more value out of it. eventually you’ve shaken all the leaves off of it and you have nothing left but leaves that will blow off in the wind. anyone for an island in secondlife?…
my point is simply this. don’t lose the forest for the trees. create an ecology of smart communication outlets and work them together. treat them like the living, evolving ecology that they are and use them responsibly. treat them like an ecologist would, with an eye for sustainability (to coin another over-abused phrase).
and leave poor guys like seth from trying to answer the question you’re really asking between the lines: how do i have a big idea? he can’t tell you! get inside yourself and find it there. the problem is, that’s a scary thing to do and only the brave live comfortably inside their own minds.
(thanks to john patterson from the Chicago Convergence for sharing. check out the convergence site for more local innovation on topics just like this…)
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Jim Jacoby
Jim Jacoby is a business strategist, seasoned user experience specialist, and entrepreneur. He applies his extensive background to build fully-integrated online solutions that create market advantage. Looking for Design in the Moment?
February 15th, 2009 on 6:53 pm
I didn’t realize Seth Godin was such an interesting fellow. His viewpoints have a lot of merit. My takeaways: 1) You can scream incessantly at the top of your lungs, but that does not mean people will listen. I have been using Twitter long enough now (mostly as a follower of others) that I’ve come to realize that I’m most tuned into the occasional Twitterer who has something to say. This may go against Twitter’s ostensible purpose as a personal lifelog, but it seems every “time for a nap” or “watchin’ TV” tweet dampens my interest (if you were to hack into my Twitter account, you would see the list of people I’m following, with only an elite few who still have the mobile alert feature turned on). 2) I love Seth’s outlook on being first and not fifth; that to be the best at something, you have to pick which battles to fight. If you asked me how the field of user experience / information architecture / interaction design will change in the next decade, I think we are going to see more specialization. The field is currently too broad, and there are many of us who are fifth best in many areas, while being first in none (and yes, I feel I can relate personally). Our inability to reach a consensus with the naming of what we do, I think, evidences this. Are you good at designing usable interfaces and writing effective documentation? Is user research and testing your forte? Are you an innovator who excels at taking a product to the next level? Maybe you are an effective communicator who evangelizes others? …If you were to analyze the tasks that fall under the “user experience architect” umbrella (or insert a title of your choice), then point the associated tasks that go with it to the classifications on a Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, I think it would show that it’s nearly impossible for any one person to be the best in every area of what we do (Jakob Nielsen being the exception, of course ;-)
Thanks for the post.
February 16th, 2009 on 6:46 pm
oh, mr. henkel. don’t bait me with the jakob nielsen comments. you’re killing me. agreed on your summary of the interview. i remain skeptical of twitter at least in terms of people releasing interesting information. guy kawasaki for one appears to have loaded a gattling gun of tweets that rattle off in circular fashion throughout the day. your phone would be dead in a matter of minutes if you had him coming through on sms. and he’s a smart guy. why’s he pounding us with volume when he could be hitting us with brilliant well-spaced lights of wisdom.
i liken a lot of what we need to do in today’s landscape has having the breadth of a shotgun blast and the accuracy of a laser. if you could fire off a your shotgun of communications and have each buck-shot be laser guided, you’d really be on to something. building communications strategies that work that way will be the real successes. i’ll keep an eye out for some examples. perhaps crispin-porter has something in their history that roughly equates.
(now i’ll just have to figure out why all my metaphors are trending toward firearms…)
February 15th, 2009 on 6:53 pm
I didn’t realize Seth Godin was such an interesting fellow. His viewpoints have a lot of merit. My takeaways: 1) You can scream incessantly at the top of your lungs, but that does not mean people will listen. I have been using Twitter long enough now (mostly as a follower of others) that I’ve come to realize that I’m most tuned into the occasional Twitterer who has something to say. This may go against Twitter’s ostensible purpose as a personal lifelog, but it seems every “time for a nap” or “watchin’ TV” tweet dampens my interest (if you were to hack into my Twitter account, you would see the list of people I’m following, with only an elite few who still have the mobile alert feature turned on). 2) I love Seth’s outlook on being first and not fifth; that to be the best at something, you have to pick which battles to fight. If you asked me how the field of user experience / information architecture / interaction design will change in the next decade, I think we are going to see more specialization. The field is currently too broad, and there are many of us who are fifth best in many areas, while being first in none (and yes, I feel I can relate personally). Our inability to reach a consensus with the naming of what we do, I think, evidences this. Are you good at designing usable interfaces and writing effective documentation? Is user research and testing your forte? Are you an innovator who excels at taking a product to the next level? Maybe you are an effective communicator who evangelizes others? …If you were to analyze the tasks that fall under the “user experience architect” umbrella (or insert a title of your choice), then point the associated tasks that go with it to the classifications on a Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, I think it would show that it’s nearly impossible for any one person to be the best in every area of what we do (Jakob Nielsen being the exception, of course ;-)
Thanks for the post.
February 16th, 2009 on 6:46 pm
oh, mr. henkel. don’t bait me with the jakob nielsen comments. you’re killing me. agreed on your summary of the interview. i remain skeptical of twitter at least in terms of people releasing interesting information. guy kawasaki for one appears to have loaded a gattling gun of tweets that rattle off in circular fashion throughout the day. your phone would be dead in a matter of minutes if you had him coming through on sms. and he’s a smart guy. why’s he pounding us with volume when he could be hitting us with brilliant well-spaced lights of wisdom.
i liken a lot of what we need to do in today’s landscape has having the breadth of a shotgun blast and the accuracy of a laser. if you could fire off a your shotgun of communications and have each buck-shot be laser guided, you’d really be on to something. building communications strategies that work that way will be the real successes. i’ll keep an eye out for some examples. perhaps crispin-porter has something in their history that roughly equates.
(now i’ll just have to figure out why all my metaphors are trending toward firearms…)
February 16th, 2009 on 3:56 pm
Conversations about channels are a cop-out. The hard questions, the only real questions, are: What do I have to say that’s worth listening to? and Who needs to hear what I have to say?
February 16th, 2009 on 6:40 pm
exactly. you can see the interviewer fishing literally for how to make his own purple cow. tell me how to be smart, seth. not even seth has figured that out. at least he’s making a living being flat-out common-sense intelligent. now if only he could tell his own thousand followers how to have great ideas. i’ll get working on that…
February 16th, 2009 on 3:56 pm
Conversations about channels are a cop-out. The hard questions, the only real questions, are: What do I have to say that’s worth listening to? and Who needs to hear what I have to say?
February 16th, 2009 on 6:40 pm
exactly. you can see the interviewer fishing literally for how to make his own purple cow. tell me how to be smart, seth. not even seth has figured that out. at least he’s making a living being flat-out common-sense intelligent. now if only he could tell his own thousand followers how to have great ideas. i’ll get working on that…