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Monday, February 6, 2012

Review on "Cognitive Surplus" by Clay Shirky


I completely enjoyed the read on the 4 Chapters in Cognitive Surplus. My creative juices are flowing and the 300 word limit will not not hold me back ;op. These are the ideas I gathered.

1) Creating content based on interest
This is how Justin Bieber became famous and to be only artist to hit 1 billion views on his videos on youtube. In this era with all the technology and digital tools available, anyone can become a creator of content. The amount of content creation is about doubling every year and it is through this creation of content, we will start to see more creativity and innovation taking place in the next 10 years. Creators have multiple platforms such as facebook, twitter, youtube to share their ideas and this will lead to an evolution of media and consumers. With a huge amount of content being created, its important to look at Context. Since people are starting to understand how to use the internet better and with their behavior evolving, Context will take over Content as KING in the web 2.0 era, or should I say web 3.0. CONTEXT IS KING

2) The Power of Groups
The book gave very good examples of the power of groups in the 21st century. My prediction is that  people will start to  collaborate more in groups and that is why Google + will be a powerful marketing tool when they realize the full potential of the Google + platform. If marketers can see this trend early, they will see a pattern on how people with similar interest are starting to form groups from all over the world. The 6 degrees theory of separation is already down to 4. The internet is making it easier for people all over the world to come together despite their culture backgrounds and global distance. One thing they share in common is their interest and that will be a powerful bond that holds them together. I shall explain why I say this. In this era 1 + 1 is no longer 2. I feel in the digital era, 1 + 1 = MANY as 1+1=1+1+1+1.....it is limitless. Your audience is now an audience of audiences with audiences.  Click on the hyperlink to read my post on that topic

3) Camera Phones
Camera phones has changed the way news is published. In fact anyone with a camera phone will be able to record any events that takes place and upload it within seconds onto the internet for the whole world to see. As a result companies and the news will no longer be able to cover up anything from the public, hence transparency will play an important role when doing business these days. Take for example this video at Citibank. This is the branch next to the OISS office at NYU. It was captured during the Occupy Wall Street protest. Andy Warhol once said in 1968, "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 mins". With the camera phone, youtube and the internet, everyone can become someone famous!!!

4) Milkshake Mistake
Rather than focus on the product, focus on the customer, from there you will be able to gather critical insights. I remember reading a book on Disruptive Innovation by Luke Williams, an adjunct professor at NYU Stern. He stated that by observing people interacting with computers in the Mac store, he realized that when people are looking at Macs in stores, they are drawn to them in a very physical way. They don't mind moving them around or touching them. This led to an insight " you're seldom intimidated by something that you can feel". If you're intimidated by an object, you tend not to want to touch it. This provided Apple with an opportunity to give people  a tangible sense of control over the technology by establishing an immediate physical connection between the user and the computer, hence the Iphone, Itouch and Ipad being so popular.

5) Culture as a coordinating tool
Culture is extremely important in a group, society or company. Just like the Invisible College and the group PatientsLikeMe, culture in the digital age helps spark innovation and make things more "SIMPLE" as John Maeda would say.  This culture of sharing and openness is relatively new and uncomfortable for some. However combining the knowledge of everyone can lead to better things. As Clay Shirkey says on page 138, " Combinability makes knowing something different from having something. An idea that comes to mind is Netflix. 

When the movie rental company Netflix decided that it needed a better software to more accurately predict the movies its customers would like, it decided to look beyond its own backyard to tap into the wisdom of a broader community. Netflix offered a $1 million reward to the company, group, or person that would be the first to create a solution that was at least 10% better that its in-house software, Cinnematch. A total of 41,000 teams from 186 countries worked on the solution for three years before two groups submitted successful solutions within 24 minutes of each others. A seven person team of computer engineers, statisticians and machine learning experts from the United States, Austria, Canada and Israel comprised the winning team which came to be known as BEllKor's Pragmatic Chaos. In fact when all of the top teams were having discussion with each other, BellKor's leader Chris Volinsky realized he needed to expand his 3 person team to include additional minds and disciplines. This was the secret to their success. The best part is that the team never gathered together in person until the awards ceremony. Now that is the power of culture and social media.

6) The Social Era - Shared Experience
Sharing a video or sharing a picture is common these days. In fact majority of content on fb, twitter etc is all shared. In fact this can help drive down advertising cost. Ford realized this hence they were smart enough not to spend 3 million dollars during the Superbowl over the weekend. Instead they spend less by allocating its budget into social media platforms. Companies need to realize that Brands are no longer created, in fact they are co-created. When consumers share a piece of content on their wall, they are not only creating brand awareness for the company through earned media, consumers are creating a brand for themselves as well and whatever they share tells you a bit about who they are and what they are interested in. Hence leading back to Context, it is important to create content that is relevant or in context with the consumers interest. We are exposed to 10,000 ads a day right now and in order for your message to resonate inside the consumers minds, companies need to be creating relevant content for their consumers to share. Companies always talk about ROI in $$$, however the ones that stand out are the ones who realize that RESONANCE is the new ROI.

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