A quite different, second version of this presentation, given on 21st May 2013 at Squared. Whole new back end, and a more useful one at that, perhaps. Though it's only a day old as a structural thought as I write this, so will no doubt improve. Overall, this version of the presentation is less curmogeonly in spirit, at least where it matters.

1. john v willshire
http://smithery.co
@willsh
22nd May 2013
are brands
the social web?
http://rivetin.gs/gasland
fracking 2.0v

2. https://plus.google.com/+WeareSquared
A second, updated run through of
thoughts on marketing, the social web
and collaboration, prepared for...

4. this is STILL
not a standard
“what’s the
social web”
talk...

5. hopefully it’ll give you interesting
ideas to talk to each other about

6. I’ve also left lots
of rabbit holes...
http://rivetin.gs/sennett

7. let’s talk about
fracking

8. “Fracking is an
aggressive, invasive
technique for extracting
valuable raw materials
out of hard to reach
places”
phil adams, Blonde digital
(and Chemical Engineer grad)
http://rivetin.gs/storyfracking

9. attention
is the
most
valuable
raw
material
there is

10. are brands
fracking the
social web?
the question I’m wrestling with:

11. some context...

12. I’ve been inadvertently
writing this talk for the
last five years...

13. today, i run
Smithery
http://rivetin.gs/smithery

14. pretty
it’s been
this, google
thanks for
useful

15. “work of” “goods made”
http://rivetin.gs/artefact

16. two types of
principle
workbut just one

17. before this, I worked at PHD Media for seven years as
“the excitable scottish innovation one”

18. ...which just
became a stick
that social and
advertising
zealots used to
beat each other
with...
(sorry)
http://rivetin.gs/bonfires
i wrote this in 2009...

19. http://rivetin.gs/communis
my IPA Excellence diploma thesis
maybe this is the
start of this talk,
back in 2008...

20. “I believe that the future of brand
communications lies in finding a way to
become part of communities, and
communicate with them in a way that is
shared, participatory and reciprocal”
http://rivetin.gs/communis
me, five years ago

21. that sounds
really annoying

22. yep, really annoying.

23. “Our challenge is that people
really don’t care” martin Weigel, W+K
http://rivetin.gs/hownowtofailhttp://rivetin.gs/realpeople

24. perhaps brands and the
social web are just very
different types of thing?

25. brands
be social,
talk to you,
be your
friend?
how can

26. let’s think
a little about
“conversations”

27. I’ve been
reading a
lot of
Richard
Sennett
lately http://rivetin.gs/sennett

28. three books about the skills people
need to sustain everyday life
The Craftsman
2008
together
2012
with “cities”
to follow...
working well cooperation
http://rivetin.gs/craftsman

29. “an exchange in
which the
participants
benefit from the
encounter”
http://rivetin.gs/together
cooperation
the latest book, ‘together’ is about

30. it contains a
very useful way
to think about
conversation

31. “when we speak about
communication skills, we focus on
how to make a clear presentation,
to present what we think or feel...”
Richard sennett, Together

32. which is
old
school
“brand”
thinking

33. conversation is
about listening

34. but more important
than just listening is
listening well

35. listening carefully
produces conversations
of two sorts...
the dialectic
and the dialogic
“
”Richard sennett, Together

36. what the f***?

37. dialecticfrom work of german philosopher GWF Hegel
the interaction and
resolution between
multiple ideas
http://rivetin.gs/hegel

38. dialectic:
“the aim is to come
eventually to a
common understanding”
Richard sennett, Together

39. dialectic wants consensus
A b C D E F G H
bA CD Fe Ge
C ADb G ADf
C ADb ADfg

40. ...no matter how
good that
consensus is
C ADb ADfg
http://rivetin.gs/camel

41. is it telling
that very few
crowdsourced
“winners” are
around for
long?

42. dialogicfrom work of russian philosopher Mikhail Bahktin
“A discussion that
does not resolve
itself by finding
common ground...”
Richard sennett, Together
http://rivetin.gs/bakhtin

43. “[people] become
more aware of
their own views
and expand their
understanding
of one another”
Richard sennett, Together
http://rivetin.gs/enlightenment
dialogic:

44. in dialogic
conversation,
ideologies
coexist
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

45. they
constantly
interact and
inform each
other
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

46. each ideology can
hold more
salience in certain
circumstances
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

47. changes can be
made if a strategy
does not have the
desired effect
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

48. it’s very
reminiscent
of the
social web...

49. this might not just apply to
“conversation”

50. what if there
are dialectic and
dialogic
structures &
cultures too?

51. are traditional
marketing
structures likely
to be more
dialectic?

52. are social web
platforms and
companies more
dialogic in nature?

53. it would help
explain the
culture clash

54. “if we’re used to seeing
the world through a
centralised lens,
decentralised
organisations don’t
make much sense”
http://rivetin.gs/starfish

55. Are brands
fracking the
social web?
Perhaps...

56. but really, there’s just a
massive cultural divide

57. competition
simplicity
Compression
certainty
cooperation
complexity
fragmentation
experimentation

58. these cultures can greatly
each other
influence

59. social web companies
are heading over here

60. where the money is

61. they want to create safe, attractive
places for brands to place ads
http://rivetin.gs/youradhere

62. when
eyeballs
become
dollar
signs,
things
get ugly

63. “Both companies have turned
their focus away from users and
toward shareholders to get
bigger, not better.”
http://rivetin.gs/fastcoinnovation

64. “The best minds of my generation
are thinking about how to make
people click ads” Jeff Hammerbacher
””

65. we promise“
”screw it up!
not to
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

66. it’s also not great
for the social web

67. “we've abandoned
core values that
used to be
fundamental to
the web world”
http://rivetin.gs/thewebwelost
Anil Dash,
“The web we lost”

68. i fear the day when you look on
ifttt and there’s only one channel
http://ifttt.com

69. “There's a little
meme I've been
hearing recently.
Columnists
repeating it,
"Don't read the
bottom half of
the internet"...”
rob manual
http://rivetin.gs/bottomhalf

70. I believe brands can and should
move this way a lot more

71. cooperation
complexity
fragmentation
experimentation
how do
you do
this?

73. some quick
economics

74. the labour
theory of value
http://rivetin.gs/labourtheory

75. developed
by adam
smith...
...and later
by karl
marx

76. modern economics:
the value of a thing is
determined by what one
is willing to give up to
obtain the thing

77. The labour theory of value
the value of something
is determined by the
labour that went
into its production

78. perhaps there’s a
labour theory of
brand value*
*it might need a better name, mind

79. Field Notes

80. £0.99 £3.33
per padper pad

81. “marketing is
world building.
With unlimited
bandwidth we can
now show you the
world.”
@TobyBarnes

82. We’d rather
buy this world...

83. ...thanthis world

84. Labour theory
of brand value:
you have to make everything
with the infinite canvas of
the internet in mind http://rivetin.gs/legoinside

85. What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a
longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas
together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched
smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What
if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a
longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas
together to create a longer idea? Gareth Kay What if
we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer
idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to
create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller
ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we
http://rivetin.gs/thinksmall

86. “A brand is simply a collection
of perceptions in the mind of
the consumer”
Paul Feldwick, 1991
http://rivetin.gs/feldwick

87. “ I don’t think this definition
is entirely adequate.”
http://rivetin.gs/farisbrand
faris yakob, 2010

88. the modern brand is
like a bittorrent file
complex, distributed,
moving, uncontrollable...
...and yet never complete
without every part

89. impossible for
any one mind
to conceive...

90. it’s not this, FFS
http://rivetin.gs/pyramid

91. no, don’t jump...

92. “blow shit up”cindy Gallop

93. four ways to break apart
dialectic brandsand make them actually useful in a year that doesn’t start with 19..

94. cooperation
complexity
fragmentation
experimentation
based on
these four

95. cooperation
fragmentation
complexity
experimentation

96. *this train of
thought is only
22 hours old.
so be gentle...

97. break it down
break
it back
break it up
break
through

98. break
it back
embrace the granularity of
everything you’ve ever done
fragmentation

99. I’m really interested in the making
of ‘it’ -where the making is part of
the story of the ‘it’...
thomas heatherwick
“
”
http://rivetin.gs/heatherwick

100. http://rivetin.gs/future2020

101. It could be
blending
everything
you do now
with a rich
tapestry of
your past...

102. or It could
be showing
everyone
everything
you do to
make their
thing...

103. which big brands
factory
hollow
find hard because of their

104. make brand
vaguely interesting
& buy loads of media
make product
very efficiently

105. Marx was
half right...

106. it’s not about the
meansof production
http://rivetin.gs/sneveoslo

107. it’s about the
meaningin production

108. break it down
It’s all about people, and
what they do together to
make great things happen
cooperation

109. yep.

110. Having lots of
people in a
company makes
it easy...

111. owning lots of brands makes it harder...

112. break it up
Don’t consolidate.
Fragment by sector,
Product,
country,
region...
complexity

113. think of it
this way
you are an
operating
system

114. they’re not
consumers
they’re users

115. open up your operating system

116. fight
users
for
the

117. there is no
“one size
fits all”
in youtube

118. with the right
mechanic, you
can fragment
your brand
everywhere
you exist...

120. break
through
Experimentation
show people the
future you want to
live in with them

125. sure, It’s easier for some brands
but every market has a future
you just have to show you’re part of it

127. http://rivetin.gs/future2020
Mark Earls

128. cooperation
fragmentation complexity
experimentation

129. A final thought...

130. when working
together...

131. remember that
your ideas coexist
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

132. you will
constantly
interact and
inform each
other
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

133. each idea will
hold more
salience in
certain
circumstances
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

134. if a strategy does
not have the
desired effect,
change tack
A
b
C
D
E
F
G H

135. if you create
together
dialogically...
...you will make
dialogical things

136. thank youjohn v willshire
http://smithery.co
@willsh
john@smithery.co
artefact Cards
http://shop.smithery.co