An exploration of the cultural and structural differences between traditional brand architectures and the social web, with several doodles, reasonably passable jokes, and a brashness that would stand in the corner of a party, glass of wine in hand, and argue that style beats content...

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

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

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

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

6. let’s talk about
fracking

7. “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

8. attention
is the
most
valuable
raw
material
there is

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

10. some context...

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

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

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

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

15. two types of
principle
workbut just one

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

17. ...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...

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

19. “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

20. that sounds
really annoying

21. yep, really annoying.

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

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

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

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

26. http://rivetin.gs/sennett

27. 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

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

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

30. “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

31. ahem.

32. conversation is
about listening

33. but more important
than just listening is
listening well

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

35. what the f***?

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

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

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

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

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

41. 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

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

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

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

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

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

47. this might not just apply to
“conversation”

48. This interchange
of ideas is very
reminiscent of
the social web...

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

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

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

52. it would help
explain the
culture clash

53. Are brands
Intentionally
fracking the
social web?
Perhaps...

54. or is it the fault of a
massive cultural divide?

55. competition
simplicity
Compression
certainty
cooperation
complexity
fragmentation
experimentation

56. these cultures can greatly
each other
influence

57. social web companies
are heading over here

58. where the money is

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

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

61. when
eyeballs
become
dollar
signs,
things
get ugly

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

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

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

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

66. “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

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

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

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

71. some quick
economics

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

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

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

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

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

77. Field Notes

78. £0.99 £3.33
per padper pad

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

80. We’d rather
buy this world...

81. ...thanthis world

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

83. how does it change how we
think about “brands”?

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

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

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

87. 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

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. no, don’t jump...

91. “blow shit up”cindy Gallop

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

93. cooperation
complexity
fragmentation
experimentation
based on
these four

94. break it down
break
it back
break it up
break
through

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

96. 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

97. http://rivetin.gs/future2020

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

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

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

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

102. Marx was
half right...

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

104. it’s about the
meaningin production

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

106. yep.

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

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

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

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

111. they’re not
consumers
they’re users

112. open up your operating system

113. fight
users
for
the

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

115. with the right
mechanic,
complexity
becomes
amazingly
compelling...

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

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

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

125. cooperation
fragmentation complexity
experimentation

126. How do I start?

127. build
yourself a
paper
version

129. draw out
everything

131. try to
map out the
bittorrent...

133. then keep
moving
everything
around

135. finally,
remember to
use it all...
http://shop.thedolectures.co.uk/product/the-infinite-potential-of-every-bit

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