Lorem ipsum mortuus est

The minority who studied Latin or the majority with access to http://latin-dictionary.net/, may wonder why I have decided to declare that paragraphs of random text are dead. The simple answer being that I cannot find a latin translation for "mocking up" which is what should really on the digital coroners slab.

In one of those handy yet ultimately fruitless moves, "mocking up" is one of the many practices that have been transitioned between the print and online environments, despite being utterly unfit for purpose.

When working in print there are a few important variables that revolve around content, design and readibility. However, in the digital environment this list expands to content, interaction, usability, accessibility, response and readibility. If we put the primacy of content to one side for a moment you are left with two quite different lists, where the former is largely down to aesthetics and the second more defined by function. In this instance a flat Photoshop document is of extremely limited use as it fails to address any issues of function which ultimately are far more important than physical design.

How something reads, works and responds when put in front of a user is not defined by design but by its architecture and build. Its why studies show that users make decisions around web page design in microseconds, as these are simply not what the mind is focussed on. Look at the web pages you use the most - are they fantastic designs or are the the most useful to you (think Google).

Which is where the problem really comes to a head. You cannot have function without content on the web. A link that doesn't go somewhere isn't a link its a dead end. A page without meaningful content that you can react to and with, is a dead loss.

In the digital environment we need to be thinking of user experience, content streams, wireframes and usability. Not flat designs and mock ups. Think of your favourite movie and then think of it again "mock up" with meaningless content. It won't be your favourite movie any more? So if you find yourself wanting a mock up of a site, an app or anything else then you are probably asking the wrong question, as it will have the opposite to the desired effect.

PS I realise the incongruity of using a latin headline on a page demanding clear content, but that is the point, isn't it?

How much?

It is not that long ago that TV viewing figures used to be compiled by a selected group of viewers filling in diaries. When this was changed to being measured by actual usage, somewhat unsurprisingly, overall viewing time leapt.  It also showed that viewers were more fickle than had been recorded a wider number of channels were watched more frequently than had previously been suggested.

Rather like the teenager claiming only to have been on their Xbox for an hour when its clearly been twice that, it is not because we are inherently dishonest, but simply because we are not good at monitoring our own activity.

So it was no surprise when a recent study by Forrester Research found that in US users claimed their online usage fell by around 10% from 2011 to 2012. The reality of course is the opposite (and by a lot more than 10%). Quite simply in this case the participants in the study no longer release when they are online, as that used to involve a physical act of going to a computer and starting up a web browser.

Now (or around about now) more people are accessing online services via mobile devices hour by hour then ever before. But finding your way using Google maps, or checking the availability of a product in a stores app doesn't feel like "going online", so in some minds it doesn't count.

The result of this phenomena is that the reality of take up of new digital services is invariably far ahead of our expectations. For no reason other than the fact that we tend to extrapolate from our own experience which is invariably underplayed.

  

And when you really start digging into how people behave online it becomes even more interesting. We know from many sources that app viewing figures do not confirm to expected patterns either. That peak usage time is not commuting time (as expected) but between 10pm and 11pm. Not many people ever guess that. Yet no organisation has yet to really make the most of the challenge/opportunity that this presents.

Only when you take time to measure activity can you truly understand and respond to it.  Look at the numbers, not your instincts.

For no-one

For a while, in the pre-crash days, it was quite vogue to rename an organisation, often as part of a merger or acquisition, but occasionally simply to change ingrained perceptions. Let loose on these projects, branding agencies conjured up unmemorable, unpronounceable or simply odd monikers such as Consignia, Thales or More Than, which were then the subject of intense and expensive marketing campaigns. 

The recent lack of such activities is one of the more welcomed but unplanned consequences of the financial turmoil. However, it has not disappeared completely as those who used to benefit are still employing  the tactic even applying it to themselves and their activities. The latest incarnation of this effect has come to be known as content marketing. 

According to Wikipedia: "Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action. Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader attention and improving brand loyalty." 

While the concept isn't new (ok content free marketing has existed but was not the norm) and some of the channels and techniques required are recent phenomena, there is a deeper issue with the idea of content marketing which I believe will ensure adds up to little more than another passing term.

In a digitally connected world, so many traditional advertising, marketing and communications functions are fundamentally challenged. The ideas of targeting segments, using limited media outlets to disrupt attention, controlling messaging, building communities are all laid to waste in a world of infinite information sources, user commentary, online sharing and social networking. 

Communicating in this environment requires new skills and approaches. Messaging and communications are increasingly decentralised with every employee becoming a  brand advocate and conversations around products and performance happening at the personal level. 

However, the mantra behind content marketing as it is currently enacted is simply "this is more of the same". Organisations continue to try to talk to their clients, not through their people but over their heads; centralised messaging is pushed out via Twitter but with no-one reacting to any feedback and ghost written corporate blogs that eschew opinion in favour of supporting initiatives. 

The failure of content marketing is that too often it is content written by nobody specific for no-one in particular. 

Until organisations grasp the need to fundamentally rethink their model, i.e. the way they interact with their market, and understand how their clients want to interact with them then this is destined to be another online cul-de-sac. 

Those organisations that get digital engagement right, I doubt, will be setting up a content marketing division anytime soon. 

Wiggins rides roughshod over Messi, Rooney et al

Anybody lucky enough to have accessed the BBC's extraordinary coverage of the London 2012 Olympics, witnessed something truly groundbreaking in the evolution of the multichannel environment.

Users were able to access pretty much every minute of every competition across TV, internet and mobile platforms throughout the duration of the games. In itself this was an impressive enough logistical feat, but there are a couple of metrics from the online coverage which are even more exceptional.

The single most viewed online moment was GB’s Bradley Wiggins winning gold in the road time trial. During that day the BBC’s servers delivered over 2.8 Petabytes of data. I had to look up what a petabyte is, and its a heck of a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petabyte

What really stands this apart however is the fact that this single event was more popular that than the entire BBC online coverage of the 2010 World Cup. So one bloke sitting on a bike for 50 minutes spinning as fast as he can, trumped the entire panoply of the world’s most famous and most feted footballers over the course of a month.

Its a stark and unavoidable reminder that the digital environment disrupts and changes even the most widely held truisms. While Wiggin’s heroic efforts in winning the Tour de France had established his status as a national hero in the UK, his time trial took place right in the middle of the working day in Britain. Regardless of that fact nobody who could, it seems, did miss the coverage of his latest triumph. And all this in a nation obsessed by its national sport of football, where cycling would politely be derided as a minority interest and certainly not a spectator sport.

Well not in August 2012. All of our understanding, assumptions and expectations of people’s behaviour based on previous knowledge were once again overturned. And yet still many of us continue to have to argue the case against the established certainties of audience behaviour. Essentially there are none anymore. We must start to plan for all eventualities and deliver digital experiences which will appeal beyond the perceived equation of audience targeting + previous activity = assumed behaviour (otherwise known as more of the same).

You can read more about the scale of the BBC’s challenge here. What is equally impressive and less reported however is that the UK online and mobile infrastructure coped. The ISP’s managed to deliver all of this information to users despite the unprecedented demand.

What we now know is, we don’t know what will happen next, but that we can cope if that is what we expect.

Message in a bottle

So you have a great campaign or initiative or viewpoint you want to communicate to your clients. Where do you start?

Presumably by:

• generating relevant content, 
• creating collateral, 
• drawing down a target list of interested parties
• prepare electronic mail to send to the target group
• approaching the media to see if you can generate interest
• maybe organise an event, 
• put something on the website
• by some advertising 

Then you stand back, press go and watch everything disappear into the ether.

Which is followed by the wait. Not literally of course, because you have to manage all the moving parts. But the reality is that you are now waiting for your clients and targets to read, watch, hear, search or simply trip over the relevant content. And once they have you rely on them to make the effort to come back and ask you for more.

This is the modern equivalent of communicating via a message in a bottle. Once upon a time it made sense, but it seems utterly anachronistic now. Your employees and colleagues are connected to their market in ways that simply didn't exist previously. They correspond and collaborate via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter more than they do via phone or in person.

It makes no sense to bypass your people, and their connections and networks, if you want to communicate with your targets, because that is where the relationships already exist. Where the conversations will naturally occur and where the dialogue that could build to engagement can easily begin.

In a networked world:

1. Lobbing material over the heads of our people into the market is inefficient.
2. Ignoring the power of existing relationships and contacts is wasteful.
3. Expecting our clients to make the running in an engagement is fanciful.

So, if this all does sound familiar, then its time to change the music.

The right content distributed in the right way

The challenge for businesses is to understand their client’s choices and to communicate with them using the methods and channels they prefer.

There’s no point having good content and services, if they’re not distributed in the right way. The solution is to build networks based on ideas, themes and issues. Through these trusted networks content will find its audience, based on its value.  


Unlike targeted campaigns based on assumed interest, which are unlikey to intersect with the point at which a recipient is truly engaged with the subject. That is more to do with coincidence than coordination.

Sometimes, cohorts and communities converge to be one and the same. That’s when the interests of users match an assumed distribution model for information. These opportunities to simplify the production and distribution of information are few. They should be seen as a bonus, not as an excuse to carry on as is.


Until organisations embrace the disruptive nature of networked communications, they are going to rely on luck and convergence of interest. That is not a sound strategy at any point, least of all now.

Syndication, serialisation and atomisation

People consume content one piece at a time online, and they don’t necessarily care where the information comes from as long as they trust the source that referred it. For B2B in particular, this means they cannot rely on just brand image or size to reach their target audience.


Instead they must change the way they distribute their information; to stop aggregating content and instead split it into discrete parts so users can get more out of it, more easily.

This is best done by breaking information into its separate components and publishing it in multiple formats, via multiple channels, to the widest possible audience – a process called atomisation which breaks content into its constituent parts:

1.      So each piece can be found.

2.      So each piece can be shared.

3.      So each piece can start a dialogue.

4.      So each piece builds into a greater whole.

What needs to change?

To reach more digital consumers, businesses have to accept the way they publish information currently is flawed, outdated, inefficient and wasteful.

They need new models for commissioning, producing and distributing content, internally and externally. And they need a clear, multi-channel strategy to produce the right content and distribute it in the right way.

· Content must be created which can easily distributed among personal networks - The amount of information available means clients are not loyal. They’re guided by which sources best answer their needs, and which they trust.

· Content must be easier to find in searches - Google controls around 90% of business search traffic. It’ll be a major factor in deciding whether content reaches its target audience, and so in deciding success.

· Large pieces of content covering various topics into must be split into, individual, focused, topical pieces - Searchers look for a single answer to a single question. The type of content is less important, than getting the right answer.

· Content must be produced in the widest variety of media as possible - Video and audio products are almost as easy to create, edit and distribute as print documents.

· Content must produced in a suitable format for mobiles - More people now access the internet using mobile devices than PCs.