2012-11 Chicago Ignite
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The document discusses a "social reactor" as a metaphor for making things go viral on the web. It lists four key ingredients needed for a social reactor: super geeks to initiate reactions, identity and user-generated content with few features, feedback loops, and a separate generator to turn the reaction into electricity and commerce. The goal is to engage users meaningfully and have brands serve their passions.
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2012-11 Chicago Ignite
- 1. social reactor a (powerful?!) metaphor for making things happen on the web
- 2. “can you make it go viral?”
- 3. k >1
- 4. k >1
- 5. n. re·ac·tor /rēˈaktər/ “An apparatus in which a nuclear-fission chain reaction can be initiated, sustained, and controlled”
- 6. a social reactor needs… social reactor ingredients
- 7. super geeks social reactor ingredient #1
- 8. super geeks social reactor ingredient #1
- 9. super geeks social reactor ingredient #1
- 10. • Identity hardly any features social reactor ingredient #2
- 11. • Identity • Geek- produced content hardly any features social reactor ingredient #2
- 12. hardly any features social reactor ingredient #2 • Identity • Geek- produced content • Feedback loops
- 13. right proportions for controlled reaction social reactor ingredient #3
- 14. 1st reaction: geek 2nd reaction: civilian 3rd reaction: civilian geek geek civilian
- 15. a separate generator social reactor ingredient #4
- 16. reaction heat steam electricity
- 17. commerce can be “engaged” commerce
- 18. marketing can be the result of meaningful engagement
- 19. brands can serve our passions
Editor's Notes
- Thx for the intro the little i know about reactors of the nuclear kind, i learned on wikipedia… which is partly my point… you’ll see… What I know about the social web, I learned in 15 yrs building and experimenting online, most recently as the CMO of Threadless
- If you’ve worked in advertising / media / web / tech in the seven years since YouTube was founded, you’ve heard this question. Hell… I’ve asked it myself. The whole question is backwards, which we’ll get to , but the answer, actually, is: yes… if…
- … You know how to do make K greater than one. In nuclear science, k is the effective neutron multiplication factor. K is the number of subsequent fissions created by a fission. When a neutron hits a uranium atom, it fissures and three neutrons are shot out. Some leave the scene. Others are harmless absorbed.
- How many of those create another fission is k. When k is greater than one: chain reaction. A lot greater than one and you’ve got a nuclear explosion.
- To make something that’s not a bomb from the chain reaction, you need a reactor. The nuclear kind are among the most complex pieces of technology ever produced. They keep K somewhere close to 1, a bit above, a bit below. Just enough to produce useful products and byproducts.
- So. My now my extended metphaor. At Thredless, I got to see a social reactor in operation. A technology that day after day made K>1 and made tshirt designs into a community.
- Super geeks. Enriched uranium of the web. Passion overflowing and knocking loose passion in other geeks around them in a chain reaction. Geeks in Community: At Threadless: the hundreds of designers looking for props on their work from other supergeeks. Some of them have voted on 200K designs at threadless.
- At Wikipedia: the holders and finders and arguers of arcane knowledge who post articles and nit pick other people’s work
- At Etsy: the thousands of people who can’t stop making stuff and need to sell it just to keep buying their materials. Their energy and passion create the reaction.
- Persistent, ideally identifiable identity.
- Content that expresses / results from their passion. Look at threadcakes.com where hundreds of cake decision geeks turned threadlless tees in amzingly sculptural cakes.
- Scoring, commenting, flaming, falling in love. Geeks want to geek out with other geeks.
- Too many fuel rods and too few control rods mean K<1. For the social reaction to self-perpectuate, it needs to build up steam among other supergeeks. Without control rods it’s a bomb.
- Civiilians are much more likely to share things that are well-processed by geeks.
- Electricity is not the product of a nuclear reaction and putting a buy button in your reactor is a non-starter.
- Electricity is the product of steam created by the heat that is produced in the reaction. The conversion rate from energy released to electricity generated isn’t actually that good. If all you want is quick revenue, buy ads. Social site conversion is HARD!
- Which leads to the question: why? Well the promise of the web is that engaged previously lonely geeks can create amazing things online and even fuel impressive businesses
- Instead of flooding the web and the real world with ads, the promise of a social reactor is that marketing is the result of amazing engagement with products and sites. A good product should market itself.
- Instead of trying to make people passionate about brands, it’s much more fun to figure out what makes people passionate and help them be more like that. I’ve been trying to do that online for the last 15 years and it’s why I joined mightynest.