Why Free Changes Everything

I've been blogging, and networking, and using every means possible to generate revenue online.  I've also participated deeply within the open source community.  I started browsing the Internet in 1994, so I've been using the Internet for 18 years.  Through all of these experiences, there's one thing that is consistent. People love free stuff and the Internet is an infinite supply of free stuff.

The combination of computers and the Internet drive the price of every product they touch to $0 (free).  This observation is at the heart of the problems with the music, newspaper, magazine, and publishing industries.  Before computers and highly capable software were so easily obtainable, each of these industries competed in a scarce economy. Not everyone could publish a book, make a CD, or produce news. Now everything online exists in an abundant economy.  It's a very challenging problem to have, but that's not the dilemma I'm most concerned with.

When consumers get a taste for "free" a few things happen:

• The first thing that happens is that quality is no longer a threshold. We will accept any free version over one we have to pay for.  Ever watched a recently released movie recorded with a camcoder?
• Logging onto the Internet or turning on a computer is a trigger which immediately makes us assume everything should be free.
• Free becomes a habit. Once you can download Open Office or GIMP, then we get into the habit of expecting everything else to be free too.

The Paradox of Free


The dilemma of free is that when no one wants to pay for anything, then the only alternative left is advertising. And boy do we love advertising, am I right? So from open source advocates to independent authors or movie makers, we're all struggling to produce a good product. Since we're not Seth Godin or Mozilla, then we start pricing everything for free. When we try to move up the value chain and charge for our products we get little or no support. I've been sharing Amazon Associate links for 8 years. I've gotten only 16 click throughs, and no sales. I've got Google Adsense running on half a dozen websites, and I'm lucky if I meet the minimum once a quarter.

We easyily drop money on the stupidest of things offline, on vacation, at the fair, or at a Disney on Ice show. However, when we fire up the Internet, we close our wallets and expect everything for free. Going out drinking with your peeps on Friday after a long week of work, we will spend $20, $50, or maybe even a $100. When we conduct these transactions, we rarely thing twice. What is so different about online commerce?

Every company, every project, every artist(author) needs money to survive. Yet, we commonly entertain ourselves with their products for free. How are they supposed to find the money they so desparately need to continue producing entertaining or useful products, if no one wants to buy their products? Don't want to buy, then what about donations? Nope, we rarely do that either. When was the last time you made a donation to an open source project while using their products all the time?

Crying in my Coffee


As we are in the holiday spirit, I'd like to make one wish. If you find something on the Internet for free, and it entertains you, or makes you more productive, then find a way to compensate the producers of said product. Here are a few suggestions:

• If they have products for sales and you've enjoyed their work, please make a purchase. If you already got it for free, then buy it and give it as a gift to a friend.
• If they accept donations, then make a donation. Come on, if you're using software from an open source project, cough up a little money to show your appreciation.
• If they only have advertising on their sites, then by all means click on their ads. I suggest this a lot and most people will say that's cheating.

How Advertising Works


Here is another example of the paradox between offline and online behaviour. When you buy a magazine or newspaper, there are a lot of advertisements. Sometimes there are products in those advertisements, that  you may never buy, ever. Yet the publisher collects their payment for putting that ad in front of you. Do you feel guilty or like your cheating those advertisers for not looking at their ads? Of course you don't.

Yet, when you see ads on a website that is providing something valuable, you don't click on them. If that is the ONLY way for the website owner to get paid, why don't we want to show our appreciation for the effort of making something valuable available for "free?"
Still leave a bad taste in your mouth?


The only option

We vote with our money. When we pay for something we say,"I want things like this." If we never vote for the products we enjoy by buying them, then we are subconciously saying I want to see more advertising. We are still in the infancy of the Internet, so it's hard to predict if a different model will emerge. Unfortunately the only option other than advertising is opening our pocketbooks and exchanging money for value. Let's make the Internet the global marketplace it has the potential to become.

Best perk of transmedia research? Playing collaborative games with children, playing ARGs, & entertaining yourself(watching movies, trying new experiences, going to remote islands). What a life!

What I've been playing lately:

• Animal Jam
• Monkey Quest
• Left 4 Dead
• Call of Duty
• Survival Code

Video from Power to the Pixel 2011

In this presentation Lance suggests that we're asking the wrong questions when we think about building storyworlds. Specifically, he wonders about these questions:

• How can funding opportunities evolve to support R&D?
• What is it about an experience that stays with someone?
• How can we develop a language to tell stories that are 21st century ready?
• How can we design with instead of for?
• How can storytelling be used to empower creativity in others?
• What does it take to co-create?
• How can we document the process of making work and share it efficiently?
• If we don't take digital literacy as storytellers seriously, who will?

Pay attention! How many are based on computers?

The Top 20 Technologies for the World Ahead:

1. Computer Technology
2. Ubiquitous Computing
3. Human Language Interface for Computers
4. Machine Vision
5. Robot Technology
6. Telecommunications Revolution
7. Fullerene Chemistry
8. Multi-Level Coding System in DNA
9. Biotech Analysis Instrumentation
10. Human Biogenetic-Chemical Computer Model
11. Treatment of Hereditary Disease
12. Control of Bio-Metabolic Disorders
13. Blood and Tissue Matching Drugs
14. Tissue Engineering
15. Neurotechnology
16. Nueropharmacology
17. Cellulose-to-Glucose Process
18. Nanotechnology
19. Chaos Theory and Complexity Models
20. Fuel Cells to Allow Deep Sea Habitation

Click on the fractal and see it come to life...

Official Google Blog: Say yes to CS during CSEdWeek: Last Sunday marks the start of the third annual Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), taking place in the U.S. from December 4-10. CSEdWeek underscores the need for strong computer science education programs to ensure the nation has a pipeline of future workers skilled in technology. It’s a call to action that urges local efforts by parents and teachers to not only pay attention to CS education, but also to elevate its status and quality.

Current projections show we’ll have 1.4 million new computing jobs by 2018, but a recent report from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) found that only nine states count high school computer science courses as a core academic subject in graduation requirements. You don’t have to be an engineer to do the math here—if things stay this way, there will be a shortage of skilled workers to fill these valuable jobs.

We want to increase access to education and technology for all students, which is why we support initiatives like CSEdWeek that are vital to accomplishing that very goal. CSEdWeek is a chance to eliminate misperceptions about CS and computing careers and increase awareness about all the opportunities understanding computing enables. Furthermore, a high-quality education that includes CS teaches students skills and processes that will benefit them no matter what field they choose to go into. The overarching goal is to have K-12 computer science become one of the core disciplines in our national education system.

A few ideas about what you can do this week:

• Students can celebrate CSEdWeek and spread the word by changing their Google+, Facebook, Twitter or other social media profiles to a computer scientist you identify with most.
• Teachers can use CS Unplugged to teach lessons that explain how computers work, and at the same time, address critical mathematics and science concepts from number systems and algorithms to manipulating variables and logic.
• Anyone can “Take the Pledge” to join in and/or support teachers, students, parents and others who are participating in CSEdWeek activities and events.

CSEdWeek is a major activity of Computing in the Core (CinC), a non-partisan coalition of which we’re proud to be a member, alongside other corporations, associations, scientific societies and nonprofits striving to elevate computer science education to a core academic subject in K-12 education. Including CS as a core subject will give young people career-readiness knowledge and the skills necessary to thrive in a technology-focused society.

For additional information on CSEdWeek or to find out about events for students, parents and educators in your area, please visit the CSEdWeek website: www.csedweek.org.

Aren't markets conversations?

In a new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and The George Washington University. The study addresses questions about how news outlets use the social media tool to share, gather and curate information.

Analysis

One of the most counter-intuitive findings was that news organizations were much similar in the focus of their Twitter activity. The vast majority of the postings promoted the organizations' own work and sent users back to their websites. On the main news feeds studied, fully 93% of the postings over the course of the week offered a link to a news story on the organization's own website.

Is this trend caused by the addition of a News or Media base? I believe that those "labels" (keywords) causes people to act in the opposite of what they do with companies that aren't News or Media. Aren't markets conversations? How can there be a conversation if one party of the conversation talks 93% of the time?

The difference between a start-up do it all yourself publisher has become nearly indistinguishable from a major publisher. eBooks have made selling on the Internet a data and IT race. Independent authors and publishers, like Mis Tribus, have only to build their reputation. It's all downhill from here for major publishers, as the price & reputation races to 0 (zero). If publishers don't become bigdata companies, around customer information given by permission; publishers will see there revenues drop like a Led Zeppelin.

With enough data, patterns will appear


I've been lecturing lately about the infinite complexity of the Internet and the needle in a haystack search for your fans. I was reminded of chaos theory, when I was friending Jose Alvarado on Facebook.  I met him, while trying to simplify the complexity of the Internet into 15 minutes. Quite a challenge, and even more so in Spanish.

Equally challenging, Jose was the master of ceremonies for the educational track at expoCaguas last week. When I saw some pictures of him on Facebook, I was reminded of my explorations of the chaotic nature of a blizzard from my childhood in Indiana. It was always a race outside after the pass of a big storm.  What treasures lay hidden in the miles of snow around us?  Had the wind conspired with the snow to create instant forts, trenches, sometimes even the rare tunnel? Winter can truly be a wonderland.

Chaos Theory


Chaos theory describes for us the observation that even random generations and mutations tend to form an organization and structure (super-structure) when you have enough data. We have the exact same problem when trying to connect with our fans over the Internet. Given enough data, we should be able to detect patterns that we can use to predict which points of contact to focus our responses within the infinite marketplace.

That means data, and lot's of it. Big data, data that might not be ours, but is easily attainable over the Internet. The more data we can collect, the closer we will come to seeing the super patterns appear. This truly is our only hope of improving our chances. If we are left to guess work, it will pull all down all effectivity, as we iterate through unknown repetitions narrowing down our guesses.

Transmedia requires a maximum strategy.

I've spent so long in the bowels of relationship analysis within social networks that I almost forgot how transmedia fit-in to my theories. Tonight, I remembered how using max-n channels, you exponentially increase your chances of finding new fans.Which brings me full-circle, transmedia is the distribution of a story using multiple mediums.

Wow, it's been a long year. What started out with a curious fascination in transmedia lead me to culture convergence. Transmedia uses a fundamental relational structure. So it is easy to understand the multi-dimensionality required by pursuing social engagement.

Transmeida is the structured division of a coherent story using multiple mediums. The ability to manage this level of complexity is only possible through automation. Especially when many of those mediums has many strong channels with an engaged user base.

If you're going to produce one element of a transmedia arc using online video, which site do you use? Of do you use as money as is feasibly possible? What if you could synchronize the distribution to 10 video sites with only one upload?

At the end of last year, I had finished with what I called respectable reach on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. So I set some goals for each one of them. I gave myself a year to met my new targets. In financial circles, that's what is called budget or the budget.

Early this year, I discovered what is probably one of two fundamental truths about social networks. I've shared it here several times before (Social Media is the New Rolodex & Social Media, Music, & Television). Once again I'd like to point out, unless social media is purely a past-time, you're livelihood is directly proportional to the size of your social graph.

What's a social graph? Imagine a cloud of rain. Within that cloud there are perhaps more drops of rain than you can count. Now imagine each one of those raindrops connected to every other raindrop in the cloud. This mesh of connections is THE "Social Graph" comprised of all social network connections for everyone using social media. Each individual person "owns" or "shares" their own set of social network connections.

Goals

Alright, I confess. There's a third fundamental truth about social networks. Thanks to my research on transmedia, I can now see the social graph as the multidimensional mesh that it is. Within each dimension, let's say each social network, it functions using certain main algorithms and processes. The advantage that I have over many of my peers is that I come from a pure computer science background. To me they are all systems, and I'm a very good system analyst. The trick to social media is that each channel is different. Too many lump all things Internet into one channel, while separating tv from radio or newspapers. That doesn't drill down deep enough. While they share some similarities, Facebook is very different from Twitter and LinkedIn. Each of these is a unique channel with a unique system behind it.

To effectively grow your social graph, you've got to understand each social networks basic formula and adjust your strategy to capitalize on weaknesses in the formula. By a weakness, I refer to components involved within a social networks "formula" that I can control. Ultimately this means you need to have a growth strategy for each social media channel.

I've discovered a few weaknesses for each of the leading social networks and I'm pleased to report that I've exceeded all of the goals I set out for 2010. In some cases I've doubled the number of friends, connections, and followers that I had budgeted. And the year isn't even over!

Metcalfe's Law for Social Media

During research for my recent class on "Using Twitter for Revenue Growth," I learned that Bob Melcalfe has adjusted his description of "Metcalfe's Law" just for social media. Where he predicted a linear growth for each additional node you add to a network, he is now suggesting that a social network grows logarithmically with each new connection you add to your network. Put most simply, the value of your social network grows exponentially every connection, friend, or follower you obtain.

Conclusion

Look around for suggestions on how to grow your social networks and implement something. Find something you can do EVERY day to grow your social graph. If it doesn't work, then try something else. Keep trying until you can see visible growth in every social network you belong to. And of course, I'm not talking about indiscriminately adding connections, just because. Try to form real relationships based on the keywords most important to you or your business. Go ahead and set yourself some moderate goals. I think that is the simplest way to increase the size of your social graph. Set a goal and measure how you're doing.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: Anders Adermark

One of my favorite acceptance speeches ever!

There may have been many people expecting another record performance for the combination of a star-studded awards show and the second screen.  The so called second screen is using a computer (laptop, tablet, phone, etc) while actively watching a television show.  After last month's monster success for MTV's Video Music Awards (VMA), many were expecting, or at least hoping for, a repeat performance from last night's Prime-time Emmy Awards.  I, however, was not one of them.

I doubted that the combination of Fox Television, Mark Burnett, and the second screen would move the needle much during last night's show.  While they are probably still partying in hollywood, it appears that I may have been right.  A quick scan this morning of the Internet news reveals nothing other than the standard report of the winners for the awards show.

Case-Study for Second Screen for Mainstream Television

So what clues did I use to conclude that the Emmys wouldn't set any new records?  It was a combination of  3 factors. together they combine to provide a cautionary tale for ANYONE hoping for success in Social Media. Here are the three clues:

1. He who has the biggest social network wins: If you look at the top users of Twitter, according to the metrics site Twitter Counter, 6 of the top 10 (10/20) Twitter users are music celebrities. Only 3 of the top 10 (4/20) are television celebrities. If you scan through the top 100, there are many more music celebrities than any other category.
   
   Conclusion: I believe this is simply Metcalfe's Law in action. The larger the network of social connections (the size of your social graph), the higher your engagement potential will be. In this case, more is more.
2. Commitment to social media: From the beginning, it was clear that MTV was fully committed to engaging viewers with social media. First, they knew from the 2010 VMA award show, to expect second screen participation. While I'm not sure that even they were prepared for a  record setting awards show, they created a strategy to highlight social media engagement, specifically Twitter. Two things they did, which I think helped push them to the top were actively urging viewers to get involved on Twitter during the broadcast and providing real-time metrics. From repeatedly announcing the hashtag #vma as well as suggesting a new one, #whatWillGagaWear, the directors of the show encouraged second screen participation. Then, to give viewers a real-time feedback loop, MTV created a special web application to show viewer participation. The real-time Twitter analytics tool provided amazing integration of metrics with multi-media components to cement in viewer's minds that they cared about and wanted the second screen involvement.
   
   Conclusion: Social media can not be an after thought to your marketing strategy. It must be planned for ahead of time and built into a well rounded Internet Marketing campaign. For MTV, the combination of on-air promotion along with a supportive Internet website made for a record setting level of engagement.
   
   Note: The Emmys website has links to social media, a twitter feed plugin and links to plenty of vides, but nothing to funnel social media attention into one location of tool. According to Mashable, producer Mark Burnett was going to promote social engagement. From a look at the Emmy site, I'd say he failed to complete the 360 integration seen from MTV. Plus, I didn't see or hear the #EMMYS hashtag once during my limited viewing. Does that mean MTV is the new litmus test for social media engagement?
3. Optimum audience demographic. MTVs target demographic 13-25 age group (call'em whatever, conehead X gen) has nearly 100% penetration in social media. So all those crazy 26 MILLION kids who follow Mother Monster and the Beibs are heavy users of Twitter and Facebook and YouTube.
   
   Conclusion: The dictum follow the traffic, has been true from the beginning of the commercialization of the Internet. Guess what! It's still true, especially within social networks. As a demographic group, the 13-25(26)(27) continues to grow in size, it will force all companies to pursue this demographic. It will absolutely explode as Brazil, Russia, India, and China come online with smartphones.

You want a winning combination to produce loyal fan engagement. Then these three clues should be key aspects of a winning social media marketing campaign. Three critical Internet marketing components that promote engagement:

1. Metcalfe's Law - Aggressively grow your social graph (24/7/365). You never have enough connection points. He who has the biggest social graph wins.
2. Add a social media department. Build social media into your Internet Marketing campaign from the conception of your marketing plan. 
3. Understand your target demographic. Or preferably, how can  you appeal to, first the 18-25 demographic, every major Internet user demographic. Tricky thing though, you have to get each demographic to engage based on their own unique behavioral models. There are few behaviors that span all major demographics. 

While you say that you are not against spammers, you've most definitely got something against Metcalfe's Law for networks. You deny us the right to pursue the accelerating demands we gain by each new connection. Only a few accounts are selected within a secretive system where you establish who gets the maximum benefit and who needs to match a preferred profile (celebrity).

At this point, most of my new adds are followbacks, which I suggest is required of any conversation based community. You can't have a conversation if only one person gets to talk. Followbacks should be excluded from your little formula.formula.

I look forward to clearing up this misunderstanding.

While you say that you are not against spammers, you've most definitely got something against Metcalfe's Law for networks. You deny us the right to pursue the accelerating demands we gain by each new connection. Only a few accounts are selected within a secretive system where only celebrities get the maximum benefit. We shouldn';t have to match a preferred profile to get access.

At this point, most of my new adds are followbacks, which I suggest is required of any conversation based community. You can't have a conversation if only one person gets to talk. Followbacks should be excluded from your formula.
----
Would you please remove the following limit from this account. The follower growth model I use relies on pursuing high Klout users and #followbacks. It would really help me If could continue with my strategy. Thanks.

When Henry Jenkins introduced the concept of convergence culture, Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter had yet to come into their prominence as dominant social forces in our society. So I don't think he could have anticipated how much more social networks would have made transmedia story telling possible.

As all of our media have begin to converge across multiple layers, so too will our social networks. As we each grow and evolve our social graph, they will tend to be confused in a fog of features and relationships. A big could of mushy connections that will blend together. Now, more than ever, you success as a content producer is directly connected to the size of your social network and the relationships you maintain.

A journey of a thousand steps...

2 Types of Relationships

1. Master-Subordinate - In this relationship the Master role leads the interaction, dominates the intercourse, leaving very little time and attention for what the subordinate wants or needs. The master believes that his subordinates should listen to him. By listening, they subordinate themselves to him, bestowing the Master's false sense of power. Examples of these relationships Employer-employee; Coach-player; Dad-son. In other words, the conversation typically only flows in one direction.

2. Equanimity - In an equal relationship, both parts of the relationship are receiving exactly what they want. For companies, this means listening to and responding to what the other part declares he/she wants. Each much sacrifice their time to please the other. And while one part of the relationship may dominate for a while, equilibrium is usually restored with an equal but opposite shift to the other party.

I think there is major confusion amongst high profile users in Twitter about the type of relationship they should be in. As with many other metrics, we're seen as more relevant by the number of followers an account has. However, in order to have the conversation we've all heard promised as the essential ingredient in social media marketing. it is impossible if your account is only a master. The major percentage of accounts I encounter in twitter are master-subordinate. What a major lost opportunity.

Looking Back

It's true all long journeys begin with a single step. What's also true is that once you've started the journey, after many days of taken 1 or 2 steps, if you look back you'll be pleasantly surprised just how many steps you've taken. Through a steady campaign of taking a few steps each day, you'll go far.

Just a few months I started building my Twitter max strategy. Now I have it tweaked into a porsche-like process capable of nimbly responding in near real-time to keyword driven attention. Using a collection of twitter tools, I've built a Twitter max strategy solution.

Here's a few of my recent Twitter achievements:

1. I'm number 1 on twitalolic.com for Gurabo, PR. Hey, it may be a small town, but it's MY home town! What about yours?
2. Another account Mis Tribus manages, @iKantoo is #11 for San Juan, PR; a much bigger pond including major media companies and celebrities.
3. I'm a Specialist on Klout with a Klout score of 57.
4. Here's my latest numbers:

• @shockeyk: 821/1491
• @ iKantoo: 710/1283
• @misTribus: 360/1048
• @Anima5fans: 144/356.

Last year after a very long time focused on generating followers merely based on content, I could never get the @iKantoo account to generate more than 300 followers. Now, I'll soon have 4 accounts with greater than 300. Maybe more! I'm also managing another 22 accounts, each tuned into a clear set of keywords.

Flickr Creative Commons Photo from williamcho

Sparrow asked me for my thoughts on his new transmedia book, Two Blue Wolves & Nightwork Special Combined Edition. Here's what initially pooped into my head.

Overall, I think the book is a very interesting concept, 1 book two covers. Really cool idea to package together products. Deemed an enhanced book with a digital download. If purchased, the buyer receives, not only a copy of the double book, but access to additional (downloadable) content, including artwork and music. This additional material is supposed to extend and enhance the books, thus making this a transmedia project.

Before saying anything else, I just want to commend Sparrow for shipping. It's perhaps the hardest when you're shipping for money. Gaining a reach, well, that's a tough nut to crack too. But if you're not shipping and monetizing, you're volunteering.


I guess two things Sparrow. If you have the artwork and music, I would highly consider a book trailer. It's worth the effort. Use Animoto if nothing else. Here's a lame one I did for an e-book of mine called "A Bus Trip to Further". Second, please take a minute to think about a few questions:

1. What does your funnel look like, i.e., how are you funneling everyone to your call to action "Buy the book?"
2. What is your conversion rate of visitors to your landing page(What % buy the book)?
3. How are you engaging with fans or potential fans to get them to buy the book.
4. From what I've seen, one of the tricks to transmedia is to lure fans in with free content, and then ask for the sale. You're doing a buy + bonus. It's not a rule, per se. You've just got to play around with the offer and follow what leads to higher conversions.

I hope this helps...Good luck with the new book!

This, I believe is at the heart of economic downturn. I believe across the board, companies are under spending on IT. In addition, the quality of personnel is down, since we've been on a downward trend in Computer Science degrees since about 1985. There is still a massive gap between what companies are doing with IT and what they could with more people with computer science professionals.

I still can't believe how most people can not see the implications of social media on society. In a way, it's the power of the people being able to unite and share information. Of course, knowing that it's being done under the watchful eye of industry and governments too.

Anyway, social media is such an unusual art form, that it was almost made for providing the uncommon relationship between memes.  Look at what showed up in my Gmail this morning:

Funny how this came just after the largest recent drop in stocks...

Are you kidding me! Right there is a product, delivered for free right into my inbox. Just imagine what 3 billion "inboxes" might contain? Of course, it all depends on where you "live." What is your "inbox?" What's your primary source of contact with the social graph?

If We Could Only

I've got about 10 days to get my first transmedia project started. Why the sudden rush? I'm going to have a pretty large span of the summer where I'll have limited Internet access. So I wanted to share what I've done so far. I think it will be interesting enough as it stands. And I'll take @SlackMistress's example and just ad-lib the rest of the experience; getting the rest out as I can.

As with any skill you hope to master, the only real way to learn about transmedia is to do it. The more you do it, typically, the better you get at it. It also increases your understanding of transmedia. For me, it's obvious that is one of the problems we have with nailing down a transmedia standard is because we have two different views. One from the academic perspective, which is usually theory; and second, the practioner's perspective, which is usually based on direct experience.

I'll share soon what I'll be doing about standardizing transmedia. While I think an IRC channel is useful, and recommended, the fundamental issue that needs resolution is the definition of transmedia and transmedia process. IRC is just a tool to converse. We must focus the conversation on establishing transmedia standards.

Anyway, as I was saying, oh yeah, I'll be throwing a bunch of stuff onto the Internet, and we'll see what sticks. And what falls and is ignored. The horror! We'll see how things work over the summer and then tweak things when I get back to mission control. I mean, who knows what could happen, you never know when you leave cronies in charge.

In the meantime, I invite you to explore with me the world of Pandemic 1.0. Mad Props to @LanceWeiler and @ChuckWendig for the bountiful cracks in which I could create "If We Could Only." In the end, this experiment is my proof to you guys, that I get it! Get it?

I love used book stores! And libraries too! There is something about the smell of rotting books, I know, weird isn't it? Anyway, one of the treasures I picked up a long time ago was a copy of Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail. As I began to master the many processes of software development I came to admire this book's brilliance. John Gall provides one of the clearest explanations of how to understand and develop systems ever printed.

One of the gems Gall documents is a simple rule of thumb. You can't develop a successful complex system without developing a successful simple system. So to start the standardization of transmedia I recommend we start simply. As mentioned in my call to action for transmedia standards, the RFC system used in the development of consensus and standards on the young Internet should prove a good guide.

The Transmedia RFC System

An RFC, for those not familiar with the concept, is (according to Wikipedia) a memorandum published describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems. In our case, it would be for the working of transmedia and transmedia production.

The RFC allowed engineers and computer scientists to publish discourse either for peer review or simply to convey new concepts and information. Then the Inter Engineering Task Force would adopt some of the proposals published as RFCs as Internet standards.

For the transmedia community, we could mimic the function of the Internet RFC, to publish discourse either for peer review or simply to convey new concepts and information. Then an, as yet, unformed organizing task force would adopt some of the transmedia RFCs as transmedia standards.

Why the RFC? Well for a couple of reasons. First, it's a well understood system that has been successful in obtaining consensus from a global community. Second, it is a fairly simple system. Third, it has a consistent process that ranges from the informal, using the Internet Draft, to the formal RFC, with produces outright standards.

What is needed to get started?

In terms of resources, there isn't much technology required, but there is some, for which I have proposals. The rest of what we need for the Transmedia RFC System is process based, which means we can obtain the necessary documentation and adapt as necessary.

While there are many "free" web resources that could provide the functionality we need, I would recommend NOT using said resources. I believe it is important that community own all of the data produced through the Transmedia RFC System, therefore, the only way to ensure that is to use open source tools running on independently owned servers.

As I see it, what we need is:

1. A modified set of organizing documents that establish the process for Transmedia Drafts and Transmedia RFCs. We can obtain these documents from the Internet community and then modify them for our own purposes.
2. An email list or group to coordinate the communication with the transmedia community. This would be an opt-in process. There are quite a few email list servers available, any of which would provide the functionality needed.
3. An IRC channel. In many of the standardization examples I mentioned in my call to action for transmedia standards, they use the Internet Relay Chat system to maintain a constant online communication channel. This channel makes the transmedia community to stay tightly linked as we progress through this transformative phase. In addition, it gives novices a place to turn to when they can't find what they are looking for. 
4. A repository for the Transmedia Drafts and Transmedia RFCs. I think that wiki software provides the right set of functionality. It allows us to share an initial document and then manage changes to the document as it evolves towards consensus. 
5. A set of leaders that will guide the standardization process. This group will ultimately be responsible for deciding when Transmedia Drafts become Transmedia RFCs and when Transmedia RFCs become transmedia standards.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Hugo90

The Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS at CERN

It occurred to me the other day, as a friend and I gear up to ask the NEA for a grant to launch a new transmedia _________, that as a community, it is time to knuckle down and develop a transmedia standard. For example, did you notice the fill in the blank? I did that intentionally, because I'm not sure what to call the effort we have in mind! Is it a canonical narrative? Or maybe a story? Perhaps an experience? No? Then what about a storyworld or an ARG? Is it simply a project or a production?

It might be simplistic to believe that a standard is necessary just because I'm not sure what to call the work I want to produce. However, if you'll consider this as a symptom of a much larger problem, then you might agree with me. One of the advantages that I bring to this discussion is that I come from a software development background and in my world, it's nearly impossible to accomplish anything without standards. So for me, standards are commonplace.

Symptoms of the need for a transmedia standard

Before you swiftly brush this rant aside as the tirade of a naiveté, consider the following additional symptoms:

1. Nearly everyone admits this is nothing new, but still, the debate on what transmedia IS will not die down. This dissent points to fundamental disagreements. Disagreements that need resolution.
2. Most of the conferences and speeches on transmedia are still centered on individual perspectives on what transmedia IS. 
3. While process oriented documentation and speeches are beginning to emerge, they are still the minority and vary wildly in depth and scope.
4. Since Dr. Henry Jenkins' call to action in the Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, there has been little progress and sparse adoption of the fundamental elements of transmedia.
5. Very little scholarly research has been written since Jenkins' CC was published. (I'm guessing here...)

The history of global standards  

As you read these words, can you begin to see the similarities between the transmedia community and other communities that have come before? Here are four examples of communities that greatly improved and subsequently reached new levels of adoption and success through standards:

1. The Internet - In the 1960's when researchers around the world begin to exchange communication and explore remote collaboration, they recognized the need for standardization. They begin to use the concept of a Request for Comments (RFC). As those RFCs reached consensus, they eventually became standards.
2. Programming languages - Throughout the history of programming, standards facilitated the learning and adoption of new programming languages. As languages matured, then the programming community moved their desire onto standardization of software development processes, such as the waterfall method, iterative prototyping, rapid prototyping, object orientation, extreme programming, and lean programming, to name just a few.
3. Open Source - More recently as a global community begin to work on the gargantuan task of building a free unix, now known as Linux, they realized that in order to effectively manage and optimize work they needed standards. This quickly became the pattern for many other wildly successful projects, like Apache, MySQL (until recently, screw you Sun! I always doubted your loyalty to FLOSS), OpenOffice, now known as LibreOffice (Up yours Larry! You're ignorant of the power of a free culture network to route around obstacles.) Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.
4. Wikipedia - Finally, even crowdsourced projects like Wikipedia required a style guide and other standard operating procedures in order to manage a highly complex system and database used by  a large global volunteer work force.

Advantages of a transmedia standard

So you see, as with nearly every complex technology, the transmedia community should recognize that with a standard they could:

1. Move past our differences by obtaining a consensual definition. 
2. Once past the definition stage, we can move into the process definition stage of the technology.   
3. Make the technology easier to communicate and learn, thus reducing the confusion for aspiring transmedia producers.
4. Accelerate the acceptance of transmedia as a  practice and raise all boats with the rising tide of adoption.
5. With increased awareness, selling transmedia to major distribution companies will become significantly easier.

Characteristics of the transmedia community

In the end, when you look at the state of our art, you'll recognize some of the reasons why we are still, where we are. Consider, if you will, that we are:

1. A global community.
2. Highly connected over the Internet and through social networks.
3. A diverse group with a variety of backgrounds, experience, and expertise.
4. Artists attempting to establish a new art form, a new hyper-flexible-medium, capable of extremely complex organizations of story. 

It is combination of all these factors which significantly increases the complexity and risk of attempting to grow our craft. With each new channel, with the addition of participants, and in the face of constant technological change, the complexity grows exponentially. There is only one way to manage this level of complexity, through standardization

Conclusion

As I continue to study and learn about transmedia, I'm constantly reminded of how difficult it is to explain what transmedia is to novices. Standards provide a wonderful resource to improve a novice's ability to find a foot hold on which to scale-up the ladder of understanding.

Reflecting on where we are and who has gone before us, then our resemblance to previously dispersed and loosely coordinated groups is clear. We should recognize that other groups have solved the problems we face and learn from their lessons. I encourage the leadership of the transmedia community to consider this proposal and work together to layout the framework for a transmedia and transmedia production standard.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Image Editor

Atari and TRS-80 Computers

Looking back on my career in the military, in private industry, as an entrepreneur and author, there's one maxim that repeatedly proves itself to be true.  One of the first people to point this out was bazillionaire Bill Gates. He said

"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”

Put another way, we almost always overestimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.  There's a popular corollary, which is not nearly as widely known, but I submit is equally true.  It states, that it is a very difficult and long term process to "eliminate" technology.

There is a direct relationship between the amount of money required to replace a legacy technology and the time required to replace it.  This relationship helps explain how some inferior low-cost or free technologies can quickly disrupt an industry.  When the cost to replace a technology approaches zero, the less features, quality, and over-all functionality people are willing to accept. However, even though, for example, ebooks may severely disrupt publishing, any prediction of the elimination of printed books is hogwash.

One of the biggest secrets of the banking and finance sector is the amount of legacy COBOL code that is still running in their back-end data centers.  Since the amount of money required to replace those systems and the potential for business interruption are so high, most companies have chosen to build around the legacy systems.

What does this mean for transmedia producers?

I'll give three quick examples from my current research: books, CDs, and movies (DVDs). While many have predicted,  the disappearance of these mediums, I don't see any of them disappearing anytime soon.  As I've tried to establish here, each of these mediums has a large installed base of compatible consumer devices and each has a very large investment in place for their production and distribution.

It's difficult to anticipate 20 to 30 years out, but as it concerns publishing I don't foresee books, magazine, or comic books, disappearing within that time period.  It's also very likely, that these forms of content distribution could even turn into just another souvenir, like a t-shirt or any other types of memorabilia.  I can even see some traditionalists clinging onto the medium, let's call it sentimental or memorabilia  publishing.  Therefore, we can anticipate many people continuing to consume printed media because it holds sentimental  value for them. A good example of that is the resurgence of vinyl LP's. While this could also be attributed to the perceived quality of analog reproduction of music, in a way this is still consistent with the transition of music to a service (or experience).

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: blakespot

While we hear a lot about the future of publishing from the publisher's perspective, I don't hear much speculation on the future of publishing from the author's perspective.  Specifically, I don't hear anything about the gap between what the current publishing industry can accommodate and the large number of authors looking to publish.

While it's true that publishers have always curated authors and manuscripts to develop only the best possible bets, it still left many good authors with only vanity publishing as a recourse.  However, I believe the size of the unpublished author community has become much larger.  The rise in self-publishing is a testament to the explosion of unpublished authors.  In just 2009, 764,448 books were self-published, dwarfing the 288,355 generated from traditional publishing.  With Kindle, Nook, and iPad self-publishing options, that number must have exploded in 2010.

It's prudent at this point, to make a comparison between publishing and venture capitalism.  Each must keep their focus on the bets which have the biggest possible return on their investment.  With each industry, it's a numbers game; to get a few successes, they have to spread their bets across a large number of investments.  Most of those bets do not pay any dividends, according to Chris Anderson's research from Free he estimates that only 5% of books published are profitable. As with VC funding, the 5% of books which are profitable, are so profitable, they cover the costs of producing the other 95%.

Let's be clear what I'm trying to point out here:

• First, for the benefit of any unpublished authors reading this, your odds of breaking through and getting a publisher to back your manuscript have become exponentially smaller. As a whole, the existing publishing industry doesn't have enough money to bet on too many authors. Therefore, they are going to continue to back known authors and any breakout self-publishing phenomenons who seem like a good bet.
  
  By the way, it's also my opinion that as e-books reduce existing publishers revenues, their ability to fund books will diminish.  This is a point that many in the industry disagree with me on, but I don't know why they think that books will be different from any other industry which has made the conversion from atoms to bits.  Historically, once an industry is working predominantly with bits, revenues drop.  Yes, it's true that costs also drop, but it's never enough to make up for the shift to bits.  I'm sorry that is such a bitter pill to swallow, but it's the truth.
  
• Second, if you accept that authors hoping to get published dramatically outnumbers the authors that get published, then get ready for some really bad news.  If you self-published 4 books in 2009, the odds of anyone finding your books were 1 in 119,112.  Those, my friends, are some very slim odds. Unfortunately those odds are only going to get worse, exponentially worse. The greatest single challenge for any freelance self-publisher, independent film-maker, musician, or artist is reaching your fans or would-be fans.
   
• Finally, now that you know how slim the odds are that anyone will find and pay for your work, you might be stricken with inaction trying to decide what you think is worthy of making.  However, I think that would be missing the point.  Making your work better will not pay a very high return on investment. In IT when you discuss system availability, the discussion is about how close to 100% you can get. It can never be 100% because, you know, shit happens. Usually what is negotiated is the number of nines after 99.%, i.e., 99.9% or 99.99%. What most people outside of IT don't know is that with the addition of each 9 after the decimal place, the cost rises exponentially. In my opinion, the costs of going from good enough to great rises exponentially.
  
  Instead, what I believe any freelancer should focus on instead, is marketing your work.  I believe this to be true, because noone can guess, with any degree of reliability, what 3.5 billion (estimated # of Internet users by 2015) or even 1.5 billion (2010 estimated Internet user base) want.  In my opinion, the long tail suggests that it is impossible to predict anymore, what people are willing to pay for. 

I've been contemplating this for a while, and while I've done a lot of research and preparation for my first project, I've come to a decision about using Facebook for promotion. I'm not going to use Facebook.

Now this might seem ill-advised, but hear me out. One of the basic tenets of designing and implementing a transmedia narrative states that we should use each platform in the way it is best used. This raises the question, how do people use Facebook?

As with most technologies, I was an early adopter of Facebook. So I've seen it grow and seen what it has become. While I know there are social media experts who swear by Facebook, here's why I think it isn't a valuable promotional or story telling tool:

1. It's a closed garden - As a story teller, I have to consider the openness of each platform I use. The immediate implications are clear, whatever I can do is limited by Facebook's Terms of Service (ToS). One aspect of the new rules of entertainment, is that I should retain as much control over my story as possible, so agreeing to limitations from the beginning is not a good idea.
   
2. Facebook owns a limited license to all content posted within it - This is merely an extension of the closed garden argument. So not only am I limited by their ToS, but I also grant Facebook a limited license to use my content. This also does not seem like a good idea. The trend in story telling seems to be the just the opposite.
   
3. SEO is surprisingly poor - With the exception of your user ID or your Facebook Page name, your content is mostly invisible to search engines. Part of this is in part to the extreme confusion surrounding the privacy settings on Facebook content. In general, most content is severely restricted to only your Facebook friends.
   
4. Facebook information is largely unsearchable, except within Facebook - The corollary to the privacy settings on Facebook content, is that it hides content from search engines. It is therefore, mostly invisible to search engines. If it's invisible, then it can't be found, that is, except from within Facebook. To my knowledge making your content findable within Facebook is a grand unknown. In addition, I don't believe that people do much searching within Facebook.
   
5. Facebook is used to define our online personaes - What I've seen from the X, Y and millennial generations, is that Facebook gives them an environment where they can completely control "who" they are. While "liking" a Facebook Page is part of how they define themselves, I don't believe brands are able to translate that "like" into engagement. With the exception of showing up in the Facebook user's news feed, branded content is a needle which flashes by so quickly in a huge avalanche of hay (updates). In my opinion, that doesn't leave much of an opportunity to spread a story.
    
6. Facebook is about sharing Internet content - Even though we "like" things and they show up in our news feed, what most people share on Facebook is content brought into Facebook from the Internet. It is true that we also comment, and therefore share content posted by our friends, but in terms of what we share it is largely personal content and not brand related.
   
7. Facebook is about keeping in touch with friends, family, and celebrities - I will confess that most of these conclusions are based on my personal experience and intuition, so I might be off base. What I do and what I see other people do on Facebook is stay in contact with friends, family, and then maybe celebrities. While family might come first, then friends, without a doubt, everything else comes in a distant third. My guess is less than 10% of what is shared on Facebook is about something other than friends and family.

Think about it, have you heard of anyone being "discovered" on Facebook? YouTube clearly dominates the zeitgeist when it comes to breaking out of the pack. I think Twitter is also very valuable for interacting with fans, but I can't recall a Facebook success story. I guess that's ultimately the clue which lead me to reconsider Facebook as a transmedia platform.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: MSVG

For you kids, this is a rolodex...

A few days ago, inspired by a recent article on young new filmmakers in Puerto Rico, I became curious about this new generation. I wondered how well they were connected and how aggressively they were using social media. According to industry trends, and personal observation, I expected this group to be highly connected.

What I found was shocking! While they might be connected and very active within their group of friends and family, outwardly, they didn't appear to grasp the importance of social media for their careers. Of course, it's also possible that they have their career and personal lives separated, but that still flies in the face of the new rules of social media.

When I was a young upwardly mo-bile professional, I was told that my success would be directly proportional to the size of my Rolodex. Of course, with the advent of social networks, everything has changed. Now, I'm here to tell you that "your success is now directly proportional to the size of your social graph."

Now it's hard to be definitive about my informal search for these creatives, but I think that highlights a corollary to my new rule of thumb. Your success is also directly dependent on your findability. One of the things I've learned from Twitter is that it makes you very findable. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a great website (or preferably a blog), with a lot of relevant content.

It also helps to have content which cross references other content. Like for instance, I tried to collect as many local creative types as I could find, and I put them onto a new Twtter List called Puerto Rico Creatives. Follow it, for the latest from some of the leading creative people on the island. I just realized that I forgot to add the creative people that I already knew, to the llist. Doy.

This brings me to probably the biggest surprise of my hunt. Out of 12 I think I found three on Twitter.  These three provided me with leads to find many more creative people in Puerto Rico. However, many that I found in my search had their Twitter feed locked. I was like "What the...?" For me, this defied explanation.

I had never even heard of most of these Twitter users and based on their follow counts, not many other people had either, so what gives? In general, the percentage of Puerto Rican Twitter accounts that lock their feeds was significantly higher than any other community I have encountered. What could be going on here?

The only conclusion I could make from my experiment, was that, in general, there are too many people who still believe that they live and work in an economy built on scarcity. Of course, that would be a really disempowering belief. In my opinion, accepting that most of us live, work, and play within an abundant economy, is the hardest paradigm shift for people to accept. Unfortunately, it's probably the most fundamental change in the content industry since the invention of television.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: TOKY Branding and Design

I'm an expert writer. Don't laugh, it's taken me a long time to be able to say that. So I become frustrated when people try to downplay the worthiness of some text when they don't get it. As if they were actually able to predict whether something was quality art or worthy of your attention. They're the leftover gate keepers of a scare economy in charge of unwise gates in an abundant economy.

If I tell you that it only took me five minutes to write this, do you start to doubt it's worthiness? By the way, it didn't. :-/ On the other hand, if I told you that I had been working on that sentence for 10 years, do you start to question my sanity? What if I say, to be honest, it's more like 25 years. Ever since I was first tasked to write a report for the United States Army back in 1986, I've been studying the art of writing with the English language.

Of course, when you put it that way, it seems clearer that my writing might be worthy of your attention. Or does it? In my advanced theory of the "Tower of Babel," our minds are so unique to make it nearly impossible to expect that any one person will see/hear/say/feel things the way an artist did when they created their art. So we look for clues to help us see/hear/say/feel what the artist did. Unfortunately we continue to look to the gatekeepers for that help, instead of artists offering their own help.

We have a fundamental need to categorize things, if we can not find our own way to see/hear/say/feel what the artist did we must find help. If we don't find any help, we must rapidly discard it from our attention queue and route around the interference to the next item waiting. we are networked Homo Sapien.


I once again must state:

"It is impossible for anyone to predict with any high degree of accuracy what someone is willing to buy or pay for."

Two billion is such a LARGE number, it towers over any imagination. The complexity involved to increase your accuracy in such a large market quickly becomes cost prohibitive. As the costs of publishing or producing approach zero, it should decentivize anyone from investing in that effort.

As with the practice of any art, artistic freedom can only come when you detach any expectations of those who experience your art. Therefore, as self publishers and producers, we must focus on producing art with as much passion and precision as possible, then share the hell out of it. We've got to make personal connections with equal efforts. We must have a social graph with enough people in it to vastly increase our odds of finding enough fans willing to share your work and hopefully, give us the opportunity to ask them to buy something as well. This is the convergent economy, get used to it.

Photos Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: rita banerji & aurelio.asiain

There are many things in life that one can read about and successful accomplish without much practice. transmedia, entrepreneurship, and Internet marketing are not any of those things. No, all of these activities require you to get your hands dirty and keep them dirty until you are able to set expectations and reach them with any chance of success.

I'm constantly riffing off of Seth Godin, but there are others, like Kathy Sierra and Jono Bacon. Recently I've found people who discredit some of these leaders. What people try to do is minimize what these leaders do, saying anyone could match their results if they had the same email database, or their connections. However, I think this misses the point that they weren't always the leaders they are now. Each in the own way, blazed a trail of how things need to be done, and then did them. Even Guy Kawasaki, who's famous for saying "Ideas are easy, execution is hard!" When it comes to transmedia, entrepreneurship, and Internet marketing, that's just the way they work. The magic of anything these leaders say is in the doing. There's just no other substitute.

So if you've never produced a transmedia project, then you had better take the time to create a storyworld bible and launch a project. If you haven't used Rob Pratten's suggestion for documenting the transmedia timeline, then you better do it. Then launch the project. Now comes this intensely complex diagram for branding by Dubberly Design Office.

I haven't been able to take a deep dive into the diagram, but I bet that it is essential in understanding just how broad the plane is where a fan might encounter your story, everything is a brand now and must be carefully managed. And guess what, I bet too, that the only way to understand the diagram, is to step through the instructions and map out your brand.  I wish there was a short cut, but there is no substitute for first hand experience.

UggBoy♥UggGirl [ PHOTO // WORLD // SENSE ]

In another great keynote from the recently completed O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo, Amy Jo Kim (ShuffleBrain) presented "Beyond Gamification: 7 Core Concepts to Create Compelling Products." I've seen a few keynotes on gamification, and I think Amy's is the simplest explanation for adding gaming design to content. In her speech she highlights seven core concepts:

1. Know  your players: design for their personal and social needs.
2. Build fun/pleasure/satisfaction into your core activity loop.
3. Design for three key stages of your player lifecycle (novice, regular, enthusiast)
4. Build a system that is easy to learn, but hard to master.
5. Use game mechanics to "light the way" towards mastery 
6. As players progress, increase the challenge and complexity.
7. Embrace intrinsic motivators like power, autonomy, & belonging

And while I've read Flow, Amy reminded me of the flow channel, something every game design has burnt into their memories. I guess that means that I've got some studying to do, and if you don't have the image frozen in you memory, then if you hope to achieve flow and reach the highest level of engagement, you know what you have do...

Everyone I've ever suggested clicking on Ads as a way to compensate the owner of a website has responded with the same question, "Isn't that cheating?"

All I have to say in response is, when you pay for a newspaper, does it mean that your cheating everyone who runs an ad in the paper for which you have no need or interest?

What's the second biggest understanding about Internet advertising, just in case, your favorite didn't top the list?

Why do people think that running advertising on any website means that you're somehow sacrificing something in the process?

On the Internet, you're always enveloped by an environment which is nearly free. In so many ways the Internet is a vast waste land where information is free. Without an explicit attempt to create services or products, then advertising is the only proven business model that can sustain such abundance.

So along comes White Space Links, announced today by Seth Godin, with the creation of invisible links. It's not quite clear to me if this is real, it could be a April's Fool Prank. If it is then it's funny; it is so funny, that it just might work. "Invisible links," too funny. I'd use it if the revenue wasn't invisible too. LOL


Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons:  mrhayata

I've been working with O'Reilly Media for going on seven years now, and on of the things I most admire about Tim and his company is their promotion of abundance as a frame of mind. I had forget that Web 2.0 Expo was taking place this week until something came through Twitter.

So not only does stream all of the keynote speeches at their conferences, but they tirelessly work to make those recordings immediately available for viewing. So even if you did miss the live streaming you can catch up on the speeches almost immediately.

One speech that caught my eye was "Creating Infectious Action" by Jennifer Lynn Aaker (Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business). Here's the video of her speech yesterday:



In her speech she points out four key principles for creating infectious action that would help anyone in transmedia to consider when building a storyworld:

1. Develop a clear goal.
   Focus on a single goal. There is power in simplicity.
   
   
2. Reverse the rules. 
   How might other address the challenge? Do the opposite.
   
3. Tell a good (truthful) story.
   Tell stories that connect on an emotional level.
   
4. Design for collaboration.
   Enable others to contribute and choose their own weapon.