In the digital world, six months equals six years.  That’s how fast things are changing.  As digital media becomes more intertwined in our lives, everyone’s expectations continue to grow.  

With 17 new forms of digital media (if not more), the internet can better approximate, and sometimes exceed, real world experiences.  We are far past just posting information on the web about our company or organization.  Rather, people want to interact and engage with us as if we were right there with them.  They want to strip away the veneer and get to know us in an authentic way.

So how do you thrive, let alone survive, in the era of millions of channels?

Start with your most important piece of real estate: your digital presence. We have moved beyond the need for one single website that tries to meet everyone’s needs. Now, people expect you to be wherever they are, when they want you. If you’re not, they’ll find someone else.

It’s like we have moved from being a planet to being a solar system. By creating a well-conceived strategy that assembles the right mix of audience-focused websites, attention grabbing email-marketing, strong SEO/SEM, engaging videos, and other digital media tools, you can tell your story better than you have ever before.

When’s the last time you upgraded your Digital You? What are you doing differently now than you were two years ago?

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Sifting through my RSS feeds this morning I found a link for a new Web 2.0 app called Nuconomy, a web traffic analysis startup still in beta. Now, I haven’t tried it and I’m not saying that Nuconomy is even worth watching. What got my attention is that they’re basing their marketing on the ability to measure contributions from visitors in addition to all the web traffic stats that something like Google Analytics offers. Also, the name of the company says something important. Contribution and participation is the new economy. It’s not enough to have traffic. Visitors are passive. Page views don’t tell you whether people actually engaged in your content. Hits don’t tell you whether readers found your page useful and insightful or daft and shallow. Even measuring the time on a page doesn’t give you the whole picture. Someone spending 30 seconds on your site might have wandered off disinterested or found what they needed right away. You’ll never know.

However, measuring contribution gives you new, powerful insight into how people are engaging with your brand. How many people post content? Comment on blog entries? Create user accounts? Those numbers really tell you something. But there’s a catch. Before you can measure contribution and engagement you have to allow it!  Yep, that’s right folks. The only way to guarantee absolutely NO contributions is to not allow visitors to actually contribute.

There are other benefits to participation as well. Users who feel that they have a voice (even if they’re saying they don’t like you) feel that they have a stake in the conversation. Users who have a voice will use it and you’ll benefit from hearing what they have to say. Whether you’re a plumber encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews of your services or an information worker who voices her opinion on a blog…allowing the conversation to be two-way rather than one-way makes for better conversation for all involved.

How are you encouraging participation? Engagement? Contributions? 

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Did the Founding Fathers issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) when they started the American Revolution?  Did John F. Kennedy issue one when he called for a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s?  How about Nelson Mandela when he stood up against apartheid?

I’m pretty sure there were no RFPs issued for these or during any revolutionary time.  They were sailing in uncharted waters and were defining their needs as they went along with the help of trusted partners.  Only one thing guided them – their desire.

It’s hard to ignore that we live in a revolutionary time.  Digital media is fundamentally altering how we communicate and redefining basic human interaction.  YouTube has been a domain name for just three years.  For the majority of the world, Facebook and MySpace came out of nowhere last year.  Twitter is exploding this year.  

What’s next?  No one truly knows.  The only thing anyone can agree on is that we live in a very dynamic time.

As defined by Wikipedia, an RFP is “an invitation for suppliers, through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific commodity or service.”  By their very nature, then, RFPs are ill suited for revolutionary times, because they are based on the premise that we know exactly what we need.

If you are leading your organization to where it has never been in a way not possible before, do you really know what you need?  

When you consider there are 17 new forms of digital media and that this number will only continue to increase, there is a better way.  Find someone you can trust to deepen your understanding of digital media and help you create and execute a well-conceived strategy to achieve your revolution.

What do you think? Is there a place for RFPs during revolutionary times?

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Dear Geek:
My colleagues are constantly sending me links to articles that they think I ought to read. My inbox is full of “thought you might like to read this” emails. How can I ensure that I see relevant articles, blogs, news etc so I can tell my coworkers to stop bothering me with these emails?
Ms. Inbox

Dear Ms. Inbox:
There’s a simple solution to your problem: RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  RSS is a simple technology that allows you to subscribe to websites that publish blogs, news, and other frequently updated information. Using an RSS reader like Google Reader or Sage, you can aggregate the updates from lots of pages into one easy to read page that will be updated anytime one of your subscriptions is updated. Getting started is simple. Just go to reader.google.com or sage.mozdev.com and create an account. Then, as you surf your favorite pages, looks for a RSS subscription link or the orange RSS icon (looks like this: http://media.canada.com/48d772b0-440b-4862-9dea-94c061d8eb0d/rss-icon.jpg). The feed for your page will be added to your RSS reader and away you go.  Now when your coworkers ask you “have you seen this?” you can say “yes, it’s in my RSS.”

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I get invitations to new social networks every single day. My inbox is filled with emails about the downfall of sites like MySpace and news stories about scandals related to pictures and information posted to social networks. The latest flurry surrounds the financial losses suffered by companies who hopes social networks would be their best advertising bet.  It seems that the world is abuzz with misconceptions about how social networks function, what they’re actually good for, and why they seem to be all the rage. Let me give you the simple low down. I’ll do it with a story. Bare with me. I promise at the end you’ll be saying “Aha! I get it!”

Before social networks:

Sally is taking a physics class and can’t focus on the difference between gravity and mass because they guy who sits in front of her, Dave, is so handsome. He’s smart, answers questions in witty ways, and even listens to her favorite band on his iPod before class starts. Sally would love to ask Dave out but she’s nervous. She doesn’t know much about him, only what she knows from seeing him in class. She finally works up the courage and Dave says “Sure! Pizza sounds great!” They go out and the conversation is awkward, full of long pauses, realizations that their personalities are totally incompatible. She’s a vegetarian. He loves meat. She’s a conservative and he’s a socialist. She likes romantic movies and he only likes action. They’ve got nothing in common. The date is awful and physics class is awful for the rest of the semester.

I’m sure this story is pretty familiar to most of us. Either we’ve had a bad date or we’ve heard the sob stories of a friend. Now let’s look at the same situation in the age of Web 2.0 and social networks.

After social networks:

Sally is taking an American  Literature class and can’t focus on Poe because she’s starry-eyed over a guy named Joe who recites “The Raven” and makes her feel all mushy. Right after class she rushes back to her room and pulls up Facebook. She searches for Joe, finds him and sees that they have five friends in common, one of which, Christy, lives on her dorm floor. She runs down  to talk to Christy. Is Joe nice? What’s he like? She then goes back to his profile and checks out his interests, hobbies etc. Wow! Joe likes Alfred Hitchcock movies too and he spent a semester in Japan just as Sally is hoping to do next year.  Sally drops him a note on Facebook to compliment his reading in class. He responds with a thanks and comments on her favorite bands. After a few days of chatting online Sally asks Joe if he wants to go out and get some veggie pizza after class. They have loads to talk about and enjoy themselves.

What’s the difference? Information. Now imagine if instead of being two students on a first date these were two companies. Sally’s company really wants David or Joe’s company as a client. Which meeting would go over better? With the aid of social networks, Sally would have already checked out Joe’s company, the kind of folks who work there, the topics they seem to chat about or be concerned about, and she’d be prepared to offer him a meaningful meeting that he’d know wouldn’t be a waste of time. As a matter of fact, they might agree to do business before they meet and get together merely to discuss details.

In some ways, social networks just replace some of the face to face social communications we’re all used to. It’s the small talk that allows us to find the person at the party who we’ll find interesting and avoid the obnoxious guy (that’s the guy with the drunken Facebook pics that will keep him from getting a job). Social networks function as a “getting to know you” process that makes face to face interaction more efficient and more productive. So don’t be the shy guy in the corner at the social network because you’re worried that you don’t have anything in common with other people. Learn the ropes and then jump in and start reaping the rewards.

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We love helping people pull off big things. Let’s be candid, scaling a seemingly insurmountable summit is an exhilarating experience.  But it’s not for the faint of heart.  

Why? Growth requires truth and not everyone wants to know the truth.  Some find it easier to listen to what they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear.

Our interconnected world is shining a much brighter light on all of us. Information is everywhere and what once were little-known-facts are now available to anyone with internet access. Even your high school yearbook photos.

While some may be tempted to shrink back from the light, it is far better to embrace it. The digital world gives us the opportunity to be authentic and transparent to the world in ways not possible before. [Just check out our company profiles].

Truth comes in two forms: honesty and clarity. Honesty is telling the truth to yourself and others. Clarity is seeking the truth from others. Be honest and seek clarity; it’s that simple.

Just look at how the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is embracing these concepts through their new blog, Evolution of Security. In its first week, their blog helped stop a rumor that was circulating. Plus, responding to feedback they received, they have eliminated a recently introduced screening procedure. I find it refreshing to know that at least one part of the federal government has embraced this.

How about you? How are you using truth to grow?

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Forrester Research just published an article about how agencies need to change and that they are in a “world of hurt” because they can’t adapt to the changing advertising world.

The Adweek article states, “In a new report, the research firm paints a grim view of the current state of advertising, which it believes is in “a world of hurt” because consumers are tuning out the messages the industry is predicated on producing. Instead, it believes shops need to be organized around communities, not disciplines. What it is calling ‘the connected agency’ would not only know certain communities but also be active members of these groups. Pushing messages would give way to encouraging voluntary engagement, and ongoing conversations would replace time-based campaigns.”

It’s like they stopped in and talked to us about what we currently do.

Then they say that “Since marketers will continue to focus on results from their marketing, particularly as digital media makes it easier to track, advertising agencies would get geekier, Forrester believes.”

If you are looking for an agency that already plays this way (and plays it well), then you need to come in and talk to us.

Or click here and read the whole article.

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As we were putting the finishing touches on what is our new web presence, it made me pause for a moment and think about the previous generations of MediaSauce.com. Not for very long, mind you, but you know, at least long enough to shutter and shake my head a bit. Quickly shifting mental gears (and blocking out those mistakes and technological shortcomings of the past), I thought about how far most businesses have come in the way they approach the web (I even found some great examples from the 90s from the likes of McDonald’s and Pepsi that made me realize we weren’t as bad as I thought). The possibilities and flexibilities for connecting with the people and information are expanding every day, and they will continue to do so.

While the overuse of the term “Web 2.0″ makes me cringe, there is no doubt that much has changed since businesses tossed up their first websites (more out of curiosity than anything else), and we are truly in a new era of communication.

MediaSauce is a communication company that was born because of this broadband revolution, which has allowed us to grow up immersed in new technologies and new strategies that allow us to create amazing user experiences. So, for a group like ours, the launch of a new site is a lot like opening a brand new headquarters.

We built this new site with you in mind, and we hope that you enjoy taking some time to play a little bit. We are an organization that preaches about the virtues of being authentic, and of course, that drove us to go even further to walk the talk. On our central site, you can meet every member of our team (and learn about their fears and desires) and take a look at the thinking behind some recent projects.

Beyond that, we’ve also created what are the first of several microsites that allow you to go deeper into certain areas that make up the complete picture of MediaSauce. One is a playground for our Studio team, an amazing group of storytellers and developers that bring our strategic thinking to life. The other is MediaSauce.tv, which is, in effect, our own “television” network–complete with a variety of channels that show what goes on in and around a young, energetic, creative organization like ours. After all, why on earth would we buy ad space for :30 television spots when we can create an entire network full of our own content?

One last thing, with all of these different sites and different opportunities to explore, we wanted to make sure that you never got lost, so we developed a “toolbar” that is a common thread on the top of each of these sites that allows you to easily hop between them and find your way back home.

Take some time and enjoy your visit. We look forward to your feedback.

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