Take these to the bank:

Online:

• Augmented Reality establishes itself as the new QR code – overhyped, under-adopted, misused technology.
• Pintrest overtakes Myspace in traffic.
• Mobile in-stream ads make their appearance on Twitter and Facebook, everyone throws a fit, but continue to use Twitter and Facebook.
• Brand Pages become a cat-and-mouse game between Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ with each regularly stealing features from one another.
• Online deal fatigue sets in as companies research possibility of online coupons that result in higher prices for consumers.
• Consumer empowerment continues to reshape the supplier/consumer relationship.
• Netscape comes from behind to take down Internet Explorer.

Facebook & Social:

• Facebook launches a competitor to Google+ Hangout via a town hall-like setting with celebrity or major corporate participation
• Instead of Shotbooks, 21-year-olds use an app called PinLine, a mashup of their Pinterest boards and Facebook Timeline.
• Facebook’s UI mutates into an homage to Gowalla. This move infuriates the masses but goes over extremely well with a “niche” group of users, most of whom also kill their own food.

Mobile:

• Federal ban on mobile device use in cars accelerates the Internet of things via connections built into more everyday objects. The subsequent eco-space of connected devices explodes into previously unimagined opportunities for commerce, safety and convenience.
• Voice-directed apps grow in popularity and cause people to bark directions to bypassers. Meanwhile, Siri becomes the most popular name given to newborns, pets and body parts.
• Market share for the iPhone erodes as consumers thirst for something different in their devices. Android fails to capitalize, but with so many people using voice-directed apps, no one can tell what kind of phone they are using.

Miscellaneous:

• Bacon remains delicious.
• In recognition of the growing protest movement, Congress changes the national symbol from an American Eagle to the Angry Bird.
• A record number of celebrities launch virtual or gaming entertainment experiences including former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s guess-that-body-part game.

Media:

• Local becomes the trend of the year with the big boys (Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and eBay) using technology to threaten the last bastion of advertising revenue that newspapers, radio and TV have clung to.
• Political advertising takes over airwaves in the run-up to the November election. The result is a near shutdown of mainstream media as consumers seek to find ways to avoid being inundated with dopey political ads.
• With TV shows being watched more online or with Internet-enabled TVs, programming becomes more like YouTube videos with clickable pop-ups, interactive gaming capability, merchandise call-outs, behind-the-scenes footage, etc.
• The Chicago Sun Times becomes a mobile game.

Unless you want to buy Microsoft Office online.

We recently bought Microsoft Office for a new laptop. We easily downloaded the software in the time it takes for three gigs of info to flow into the machine. However, to set it up and begin using it, we needed the product key.

We figured it would be another seamless process, like every other part of setting up software on a new computer.  We were wrong.

How did Microsoft supply us with the information that allowed us to open up that massive file and start using Word, PowerPoint, and Excel? They mailed it to us.

Yes, that’s right, you put your credit card in, including that three-digit number you can never remember, hit send and, bang! We’ll mail it to you.

A jumble of twenty-five numbers and letters through the mail. No, not email. The other one. The one with those coupons and letters that a guy brings around most days. Yeah, THAT mail.

I’ll admit the plastic box that arrives is impressive, considering it’s just letters and numbers inside. The packaging looks like it would hold a small disc or a thumb drive. When you open it, you find a piece of laminated cardboard onto which they have affixed the label with the 25-character key.

Okay, I know this is 2011 and piracy is a big problem, but is this the best Microsoft can do to defeat the pirates? Do software pirates not know how to type the characters from the cardboard into their skull and crossbones brand laptops? Is this really working?

The facts she reported are nothing short of astonishing, and reflect the incredible growth of ecommerce around the world and how mobile devices have so quickly become the devices of choice to conduct that business. The presentation is a reminder of our position in this world: as Americans, we are playing a central role in creating a lot of the technology and products in this space, but the rest of the world is rapidly adopting them to their lives.

Take a look at this top-level set of amazing facts from her presentation:

• In the last three years, China added more Internet users than exist in all of the U.S.

• The amount of time U.S. users spend on social media is considerably less than much of the rest of the world. We spend an average of 6.8 hours per month while Russians spend almost 10 hours and Israelis spend 11.1 hours.

• From a near-standing start, mobile devices are generating significant traffic for many social sites: Pandora gets 60% of its traffic from mobile, Twitter 55% of its traffic, and Google’s mobile queries are four times what they were in 2007.

• While the iPod and iPhone sold well upon introduction, the iPad is selling at an almost unprecedented level for a new technology product sold by only one company. Meanwhile, Android phones are outselling iPhones almost four to one.

• While consumers spend only 8% of their time on print publications, advertisers are spending 27% of their budgets on print advertising. Meanwhile, consumers are spending 25% of their time on Internet and 8% on mobile devices.

• 200 million farmers in India receive government payments via mobile devices.

• 250 of the Fortune 1000 companies have launched mobile ad campaigns.

• Target now generates more than $1.5 billion from mobile sales.

Stay tuned, marketers. This is only the beginning of a mobile, global market with lots of opportunities for connections with consumers in ways we can only guess at.

As you’ve probably noticed, Facebook is in the midst of some major changes. As always, we are diligently reading, monitoring, experimenting and analyzing to be on top of the channel updates and ahead of the curve when it comes to impact for our clients. We’ve put together a short point of view so you can get a glimpse into what’s coming and what it means. We’ll be in touch as we further develop our ideas and strategies, and as these changes come into play.

BACKGROUND

Each year, Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference brings major changes to its platform. This year, that trend continued and Facebook introduced a series of changes to users’ profiles, its Open Graph protocol, and the News Feed. These changes present marketers with an opportunity to connect with their customers’ lives in an engaging, and more meaningful way.

PERSPECTIVE

The Internet is inundated with complaints every time Facebook changes are released. Users threaten to deactivate their accounts, and create pages encouraging friends to boycott and turn to competitors like Diaspora. The fact remains that Facebook is still growing, and with more than 800 million users it’s a marketing tool unlike any other and implications of these changes cannot be ignored.

In a nutshell, Facebook is making inroads into artificial intelligence and is now thinking for users as its EdgeRank algorithm becomes more and more sophisticated. Elasticity believes that engagement will continue to reign supreme, and this latest round of changes offers additional opportunities for brands and marketers alike to capitalize and further integrate themselves into their customers’ lives.

ANALYSIS

• Open Graph Protocol: For the past year, users could only “Like” content across the web. Facebook’s Open Graph is taking the next step and now users will be able to read, buy, watch, etc. – - any verb can be used the content publisher desires.

• Timeline Profile: User profiles will soon be redesigned into a timeline creating a digital scrapbook of a user’s entire life. Facebook applications can request permission from users to add actions taken within their app or website to their personal timeline.

• News Feed Updates and Ticker: Users view their News Feed by “Top Stories” and “Most Recent” now all in one stream. Top Stories are the result of what Facebook deems most important to the specific users based on their past interactions with friends and pages. In addition a Twitter-like “Ticker” now appears in the upper-right hand corner of the News Feed. All updates appear in the Ticker, and those updates Facebook grants greater significance will break out of the Ticker and appear in the News Feed.

OPPORTUNITIES

The ramifications of these Facebook changes won’t be fully realized until they are all rolled out in the coming months. Ultimately, these changes represent a great opportunity for content publishers and marketers to become a more important part of their customers’ lives.

• Timeline
  • Gaining approval to publish content to a user’s News Feed doesn’t simply create a post that will die out quickly, but instead, it becomes a permanent part of that user’s life on Facebook.
  • Brand pages will also have the opportunity to publish more content and more pictures. The large picture is great real estate for brands to change and update.



• Open Graph
  • Will allow the content publisher to have full control over how interactions within their application or website are published back to Facebook.
  • Users can watch a movie On Demand with their friends, order a new pair of shoes, listen to their favorite song, etc. The possibilities are endless.

• Ticker
  • Marketers will have to ensure their content is as social and engaging as possible to break through the clutter of the Ticker. If people are not engaging with Open Graph stories or page updates, then the publisher’s content will suffer because of the EdgeRank algorithm.
  • This week a study by EdgeRank Checker revealed that brand posts received 33 percent less impressions since the Facebook changes went live, but Likes on the posts increased 18 percent, and comments increased 17 percent.

NEXT STEPS

These changes are shifting away from gimmicks and marketing and toward a real sense of community, a more genuine experience. Walk the walk by following these recommendations:

• Create an experience - Don’t just give a coupon for diet drinks, host a live chat with a nutritionist, create an app to track caloric intake. Innovate so that your content lives prominently on peoples’ Timelines.

• More than ever before, make each post count - This is no longer a platform to push out marketing messages. They will get lost in the Ticker and be buried. Every single post must be something that will be liked and commented on.

• Strategically manage - When you can, make your voice heard by having brand advocates or staff mark posts as “top stories” and kick off the liking or commenting. Figure out what times of day your posts are best received and when they get buried.

• Think outside the “like” – Think about how you want people to interact with your brand. Now with Open Graph, you should choose your verbs carefully (maybe even brand them) and encourage types of interactions that will enhance your message.

For additional help building your brand’s Facebook presence, contact Elasticity at ElasticStrategy@GOELASTIC.com.

And it’s not because I’m an Apple fan. Sure, I have a lot of iPods, iPhones, an iPad, some old desktops and quite a few laptops laying around.  Hell, if I dig deep enough in the office I’m sure I’ll find a Newton in there somewhere. No…this isn’t about products. I did my senior thesis in business school on Apple. It was around the time Steve was first booted out and John Sculley had just come over from Pepsi. I remember railing on the decision to fire Steve as a shortsighted move. I remember defending my points to the college board and dean, and explaining why “bad behavior” was visionary, and how operators and entrepreneurs are two different creatures.

And that is why I’m truly sad tonight; why I feel the world has gotten a little smaller. There are only a handful of people in this world that are unafraid of the status quo. There are but a scant few people that have the strength to stand up to a culture that increasingly continues to see only short-term. That fights and pushes those that continually fear change and all the good that comes of moving the human race forward. I applaud and look up to people like that. I emulate them and have tasted a bit of the backlash that comes from it. It’s a hard road, but it’s the right road. Without it, we cease to evolve. It takes big people like Steve Jobs to keep things moving. It takes people of that conviction to stand up to the short-sighted boards that defend the status quo with all the strength their fear can muster.

Steve was famous for saying “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” But I think that the Wayne Gretzky quote is more apropos: “I skate to where the puck will be.  Not to where it was.”  Steve Jobs was one of the few brave enough to skate away from the pack and move to where the “puck” was going to be.

And even though these words were penned by the Los Angeles office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, I feel there is no better send off for Steve Jobs:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Thank you for being crazy. Thank you for changing the world. Thank you for changing my world. There is one less round peg in the world today, and no matter what anybody says, I feel that that hole will never be filled.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. I already miss you.

What they have failed to realize is that under their feet the entire system had changed – money altered the equation in a fundamental way, allowing players with demonstrated skills to go wherever they wanted, and teams created an open market for their services. That’s a market the As couldn’t compete in – Oakland had a small market team with limited resources. The As were constantly outbid by their big market competitors and the best players on the team inevitably left.

In the scene, Beane is trying to get these older men to see things in a new way. They have to find the players other teams undervalue – read that as cheaper players – and to do that, they have to measure everything and turn the formulas inside out.

Instead of assessing a player based on batting average, home runs and earned run average, they go back to what might seem obvious, but is central to what it takes to win: getting on base and scoring runs, and keeping opponents off base and not scoring runs.

In this new way of looking at baseball, they quickly found that a walk can be as valuable as a long single, and a fly out on one pitch is better for a pitcher than a multi-pitch strike out.

So, what does this mean for us as we look at social media, marketing and public relations? I think we are looking at a very similar situation in the marketing world. Between an emerging generation of users embracing  new tools on a daily basis, and constantly changing technology that is becoming commonplace in our society, the entire system of communicating to consumers has changed under our feet. Now we need to find a new perspective on how we work and profit.

Here are some lessons that we can learn from Moneyball’s intriguing parable:

• Measure everything and take apart all of the formulas your company has been living by.  CPM may be as meaningless to advertising to 18-24-year-olds as RBIs are to the success of a team in a given late-inning situation.

• Find a way to do more with the dollars you have. For instance, if you haven’t reassessed your banner ad strategy lately or the traditional press releases that don’t get picked up, you might be spending money with little to show for it.

• Use research to find out the elements of your business your competitors – and you – have been undervaluing.  Billy Beane picked up pitcher Chris Bradford for next to nothing because teams didn’t like how he looked when he pitched. Not how he pitched or how successful he was, they didn’t like how he threw the ball. It could be that an email marketing campaign might not be as sexy as an iPhone app, but it may be a better use of your marketing money.

• Don’t swing at every pitch.  Moneyball compared each at bat to a hand of Black Jack with every pitch forcing you to reassess your strategy. In marketing, that can mean not jumping on every trend or new technology, but being patient and assessing the opportunities before making a move when it makes sense for you.

• Don’t accept anything at face value. The traditional assumptions may be completely wrong in the new paradigm, and one of the worst things you can do is to continue to operate as you always have for no reason other than tradition.

• Don’t accept failure with the hope that you will get lucky. The As scouts started with the assumption that they couldn’t replace Johnny Damon, Jason Isringhausen and Jason Giambi and still win. As the movie sought to prove, the As had other options besides either overspending or losing more games. By working smart, and using measurement and analysis, they could beat teams with much larger payrolls. So, can you.

Since the inception of Elasticity, we’ve been fortunate to work with leading brands across a range of industries usually reserved for agencies much larger than our boutique. We’re looking for help managing the day-to-day execution of social media programs, strengthening our client relationships, keeping on top of social media technology trends and developing thought leadership content for Elasticity.

Above all, we’re seeking enthusiasm, knowledge, self-reliance, and a desire to learn. Shoot us an email, send us a message via Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, or smoke signals or to RobotOverlord@GoElastic.com.

Requirements

• Passion for all things social media including engaging and fostering relationships through content. Must have a drive to stay current on the latest social media technologies and innovations.
• Proven account management experience, preferably within an agency setting with a demonstrated ability to manage concurrent projects.
• Strong writing acumen is essential.
• Strong technical aptitude, with an understanding of Facebook Apps and basic front end development. We’re not necessarily looking for a developer, but am looking for someone who understands how to integrate these elements.
• Ideal candidate will have basic production design skills.
• Graceful at the waltz and Charleston.
• Familiarity with WordPress, including managing the backend plugins.
• Experience placing, managing and optimizing paid media in social media such as Facebook CPC, Twitter, etc.

Qualifications

• 2 – 5 years digital marketing experience, including management of social media campaigns.
• Account management experience.
• Strong technical background is essential.
• Ability to work well in a team (even ours).
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Up to date on popular culture.
• Ability to be flexible and precise under aggressive deadlines.
• Above average Lite Brite artistic skills

I had directed the communications efforts for an acquisition my firm had made on Wall Street, one that seemed so important then, but is only a footnote today. In Milwaukee, my nephew had just been born. Back home, Minnesota Viking Korey Stringer died of heatstroke at a hot practice in Mankato, Minn.

Sometime the day before, in the rush of flights between New York and Boston, I had lost the power cord to my Blackberry, leaving me unable to call or email anyone as I stared glumly at the tableau of the streets, balancing my bags and a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts I was bringing back for the office in Minneapolis.

It was an odd moment for me. Having lived in New York, I had spent little time around the towers, thinking of it as only a spot for tourists who didn’t really know the city. While the view up the base was dizzying, I found the area around them a barren courtyard with little appeal, too much of a walk from the F train stop to be worth the trip.

And I had long learned to not stare at anyone when I was in Manhattan – in my first days in the city my open Midwestern face had attracted panhandlers who saw me as an easy mark.

But on this day, I was so relieved to have finished a difficult assignment that I began to openly people watch the workers who went into the buildings, many racing to make it to their desks by 8 a.m. Every ethnic group and every color were represented, all so young and determined as they streamed across Church Street to their jobs.

It struck me in that moment that this was the new American dream: secretaries and assistants who were just getting by working in what the world thought of as a premiere location in Manhattan. But, in the heat of the morning, it was more like standing outside a grimy factory gate. In skirts and suits, the workers I watched had their game faces on, looking resigned to another day at work as they clutched purses and New York tabloids in one hand and, in the other, the Manhattan breakfast of coffee in covered blue cups and bagels in brown paper bags.

It haunts me, that otherwise unremarkable day. How could they have known the fate that lay ahead of them; the chaos and terror of that day little more than a month away?

How many of the people I saw are alive today? Who were the ones who overslept that day, called in sick or dallied on their way to work? Who made the decision to leave and led others down the stairs?

And who of them heeded calls to stay at their desks, left behind without a trace to be mourned quietly in a private corner?

And, how could it be that they would die for no reason other than going to work that day, a day little different than the one when their lives brushed by mine?

Unfortunately, on the morning of May 24th, when fans were told the lawn ornaments were fair game, they discovered that pirates beat them to the treasure! Shortly after the 5am start, reports began drifted in that people took multiple ornaments, some pushed and shoved other participants out of the way, and a few of the ornaments popped up on Ebay at hefty prices. All of this turned out to be just the beginning of a PR nightmare for the Brewers.  Take a second to Google “Where’s Bernie” and you’ll see what we’re talking about. Here are just a few of the headlines on the first page:

• Brewers’ “Where’s Bernie?” scavenger hunt descends into chaos
• Milwaukee Brewers’ “Where’s Bernie?” promotion goes awry
• People Suck: Brewer’s “Where’s Bernie?” promo ruined by hoarding, social media

We will give the Brewers credit for taking a risk. They wanted to engage with their fans beyond the standard marketing channels and reward them with a fun, memorable experience. Unfortunately a greedy few scarred their efforts and it will live on in infamy in the Google machine.

Through our own experience with digital treasure hunts, most recently Travel Leaders’ Pursuit of Paradise, we at Elasticity believe all the Brewers’ troubles could have been avoided with a few more hours of internal planning. Here are 6 ways the Brewers could have bulletproofed “Where’s Bernie?” as well things you should keep in mind the next time you tackle the online/offline digital treasure hunt:

1. Don’t announce the location(s) ahead of time. The answers to Bernie’s clue questions contained the parks the lawn ornaments were hidden. By giving participants time to figure this out beforehand you are begging for large crowds on race day which always brings the unknown. The same level of engagement could have been achieved by asking general knowledge Brewers trivia. These trivia questions could solve a secret passcode you must have to claim a prize at a location TBA.
2. Make the clues harder, spread the field out. By making the clues harder you are limiting the number of people who will arrive at the same time, spreading of the field of participants out. When multiple people arrive together you are begging for problems. Adrenaline takes over the participants and you run the risk of them pushing/fighting for the final prize.
3. Limit the number of real world prizes. Although there is a lot of intrique with physically hiding the prize, the promotion could have been just as memorable by hiding a few grand prizes and giving the rest of the prizes away online before raceday. With so many prizes physically hidden (1,400+) it was impossible for the Brewers staff to manage it all. You must maintain control over the promotion to ensure fairplay and no unhappy campers. Alternatively, the Brewers could have been to attached claim tickets to the ornaments. In order to claim the prize you must bring the claim ticket with you to Miller Park and present a photo ID.
4. Don’t lump prizes together in one location. If you’re set with many real world prizes, spread them out. The Brewers hid many prizes within eyesight of each other so you inevitably get participants taking multiples and selling them on Ebay.
5. Don’t put trust in what you can’t control. It may be a real eye-opener but unfortunately you can’t always trust people. By telling them to only take one and to not show up until 5am you are basically giving away a proven method on how to beat the system.
6. Keep asking “What if?” until you’ve covered it all, then ask again. “What if?” is the name of the game. What if people take multiple prizes? What if someone pushes someone out of the way for a prize? What if someone gets in a car accident? What if someone trips and breaks an arm? It may seem tedious but it will be worth it. You can’t predict the future so it’s best to be prepared.

In the end, the “Where’s Bernie?” promotion did end on a positive note with the grand prize winner being one of the participants who was victim to the pushing and shoving. But in a day in age when everything is documented permanently online, you must limit the unknown and prepare for every possible scenario. With a few more hours of brainstorming and asking “What if?”, the Brewers could have avoided this mess altogether.

There are examples of good and not-so-good cause campaigns everywhere. Selfish Giving posted something this week that highlights how some companies will jump on this train without being clear about how they are helping a charity and how they are helping themselves. Forbes explains how this can potentially backfire. Philanthropy Action gives a good 5 basic guidelines for effective and transparent giving programs. Simple things like including the basic details of the contribution (who, what, where, when, why, how) can help showcase the actual partnership and the customer’s impact.

GOOD, a company that describes itself as the integrated media platform for people who want to live well and do good, has launched GOOD/CORPS. Now this, we love. GOOD/CORPS “helps brands and organizations align business strategy with social impact, and win through highly participatory and profitable relationships with their audiences.” Our thinking exactly. With case studies like Pepsi Refresh and Starbucks, they make a compelling case. Their seven tenets are especially helpful in explaining that “cause marketing” is not a tactic, it should be a way of thinking. Here’s our favorite nugget of wisdom from them: “GOOD/CORPS helps brands and people build campfires together around which they share what great things they did together today, and plan what great things they’ll do together tomorrow.”

There is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to take cause marketing to the next step, making it work for good while demonstrating value, providing differentiation and building brand loyalty. Personally, I am in a unique position in that I had 5 years of experience in the nonprofit sector before joining the Elasticity team, as well as 3 years coordinating donations for a small business. I know what the day-to-day life is like for charitable organizations and I have seen successful, seamless partnerships and forced ones alike. Fresh out of college, when the environmental organization I was working for got a call from MySpace, wanting to give us 6 figures to attach our name and logo to a tree widget, I had dollar signs in my eyes. Luckily, these decisions were not up to me, and our executive director recognized that attaching our name to something that seemingly had no alignment with our mission (and had been recently involved with controversy) would not necessarily be worth the money.

We’re especially excited to see this topic getting more traction because not long ago, Elasticity launched Cause Matters. It is our goal to take cause marketing to that next step. It is our mission to move beyond today’s increasingly ineffective—by all measures—and possibly harmful cause marketing and help companies stand out, capture customer attention and build brand loyalty, while doing good for the cause(s) they are strategically aligned with. Whether a company wants to manage their donation requests or create strategic partnerships, we have ideas. We know that companies want to do some good; we want to make sure they can do well.