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thank you,
Michael
Another Great Michael Wesch Video
August 19, 2008 — Michael Cayley55 minutes … long but worthwhile …
This prior one, less than 5 minutes, is one of my all time favourites …
Check out his blog post on “Context Collapse” here.
UPDATE: June over at Network Weaving is lovin’ Michael Wesch too: http://www.networkweaving.com/blog/2008/08/web-20-and-network-weaving.html
Teenage Beer Drinking Party … Shibboleths
August 15, 2008 — Michael CayleyFor one entire year in high school, at least once a week, I calmly walked into our Principal’s office, was offered the use of the PA system with a smile and I announced the time and location of a teenage beer drinking party that was broadcast throughout the entire high school. Eventually most of the kids from two different high schools made it out to one of the parties. I never got caught. Ferris Bueller eat your heart out.
Of course I did not actually announce, “Hey everyone! They will serve us booze at Daniel’s Restaurant! See you there at 7 pm tonight!” I spoke in code …
“There will be a Break Dance Club meeting at Danny’s at 7 pm tonight. Members are reminded to arrive promptly and dress appropriately.”
This was long before the “flash-parties” that are the terror of today’s parents, where news of a private “parents away!” party can spread by text message like wild fire and quickly escalate into a swarm of dangerous strangers wrecking and looting a home. That is an entirely different communication effect with its own memetic qualities.
“Break Dance Club” became a “shibboleth” for some of the teen community in my home town. The idea of a Break Dance Club seemed innocent enough to our teachers and parents in a context where a moon walking Michael Jackson was a mass communication pop culture hit. To us the idea of a “Break Dance Club” was an immediate attention getter. Our party music came from Canadian punk rock bands like Teenage Head and the raging guitars of April Wine.
Who are the goofs in this “Break Dance Club”? (murmurred explanation) Ahhhh … ok, I “get it”. I’m “in”. See you there. Hey – are you going to the Break Dance Club meeting? Wha? And so on …
What are your brand “shibboleths”?
Do you know the “shibboleths” of your competitors?
I wonder what Chip & Dan Heath would say about the structural factors that make effective shibboleths? I am reading their book about the memetics of ideas, “Made to Stick“. It is great! But it is focused on how to achieve mass viral success. So far I have not seen them elaborate on how a memetic brand can also have elements that are exclusive – maybe to your employees, perhaps to only your most important customers.
I have been thinking of “Social Capital Value Add” as a sort of shibboleth that will resonate with disciples of value based management, economic profit/economic value add and brand valuation. I am not going after a mass viral “Tipping Point” hit. I am trying to bring a message to a small but potent group of executives within a framework that brings them meaning both in terms of how to understand what is happening and what to do about it.
Is that the right approach?
Anywhoo – thank you to my friend Doug Ireland for explaining to me what I am thinking.
Susan Blackmore TED talk, released June 8
June 9, 2008 — Michael CayleyA few memetic brand reflections that occur while watching:
- good introduction to the foundations of memetics,
- we are the meme machines,
- what are the keys to selection? Variation is a key to selection. Mutation/variation is key to the survival and the spread of an idea, key to memetic branding but contradicts the traditional brand mantras of consistency, continuity and conformity … hmm,
- “don’t think intelligence”, “think replicators” … this would seem to point us as brand strategists, towards investing a lot more time and money on understanding and developing relationships with broadband empowered uploaders, we over invest in campaign creative and broadcast “push” because it is easier,
- “spreading memes is dangerous” but economic network theory (UPDATE: Just came across this related paper: http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/2756, it’s new!) makes us hopeful that not only will we observe and replicate the behavour of our neighbors, there will be sufficient optimism to spur experiments, so that we will settle on optimum behaviours … hope matters. Elections like this one in the USA, matter …
Launch the video and please jot down your thoughts as they occur below …
Vote SCVA! The dog buttons …
May 20, 2008 — Michael Cayley
A few weeks ago, after receiving a reviewers version of “Introducing Social Capital Value Add” one of the founders of www.changethis.com suggested that I propose SCVA as a ChangeThis manifesto.
This afternoon I received a phone call and email confirming that the Editorial Board at www.changethis.com has accepted my proposal. It should be posted for voting on their site tomorrow (May 20).
Distributing the SCVA idea through ChangeThis would be a great way to obtain the next round of feedback required to improve it. Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, Gladwell, Seth Godin, Toronto’s recently attracted Richard Florida and many more have instigated some great ideas through www.changethis.com.
The hitch is that getting a proposal up on the site is only the first step. Now I need people to vote to have the proposal published as a full manifesto.
I have made a concscience effort to cultivate my social capital over the years volunteering for alumni groups, doing the business, Facebook and LinkedIn networking thing, so I am hopeful that I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.
Nevertheless, the fact is that we’ll need support from far beyond my personal networks to rise through the changethis ranks, so a couple of phone calls ensued today (it being a national holiday in Canada) with my partners at Context and voila! A little word of mouth campaign was hatched.
As fate would have it there are some key events coming up in Toronto this week. As I mentioned over at www.socialcapitalvalueadd.com Joseph Thornley has put together a great panel on Tuesday night who will discuss the issue of measuring social media. And then there is MESH.
So hopefully we will have a few VOTE SCVA at www.changethis.com buttons to hand out at the event but don’t wait! Please grab the button and link above. Vote and pass, vote and pass at: http://www.changethis.com/proposals/1279
Memetic Brand test
May 15, 2008 — Michael CayleyIf you laugh more than once while listening to this, than I want you to contribute to this blog.
Write a guest post, leave a comment (no comments if you don’t pass the test!), send in a link, tell people about us, subscribe, join the Google Group/email list, review a book or paper or vid that might interest us …
(Note: give it a sec, it takes a while to load.)
The dog experiment
May 15, 2008 — Michael CayleyLast night I made a post over at Memetic Brand’s sister blog, Social Capital Value Add, called “What’s with the dog?”.
Social Capital Value Add is an inherently complex concept. It is based upon lots of simple ideas that everyone gets right away:
- in 2004 broadband changed the game,
- there is a “new” word of mouth power out there that brands are vulnerable to,
- brand loyalty matters,
- etc, etc, etc.
The point of developing SCVA is that there is a lot more about all of this that we do not understand at the moment, then there are simple things to grab onto. How do you get across that complexity when people are time starved and operating with attention deficits (or what McLuhan would call “narcotic numbness“)?
Symbols matter. They signal something. They are the tip of the ice berg. But, we are developing the idea here at Memetic Brand that the symbol itself is a lot less important than traditional brand management has (rightfully, within the broadcast paradigm) us believing.
I am not betting on the dog. The dog is cute. I hope the dog gets your attention. I hope that the dog signals to you that SCVA is an idea worth passing on. I hope you scratch the dog a little (go ahead he likes that) and discover the Wizard of Oz metaphor that encompasses for me the difference between symbolic brand and memetic branding.
I hope that we discover together that if we make the kinds of investments that SCVA points us towards, we will all become “clever enough wizards” to quickly transform from Great Oz into leadership of great courage, heart and brains. Playing a role in personal identity formation by recognizing our social network connections with certifications (the Scarecrow’s diploma), testimonials (the Tin Man’s ticking heart) and medals of honour (the Lion’s courage) will be familiar aspects of our strategy and tactics.
