State of The Brand Union : It’s over (Part 1)

As a reformed Brand Marketer I cannot help myself, but spin off the heels of President Obama’s, State of the Union address yesterday–still fresh in everyone’s mind. (I must shed my shameless opportunism.) Nevertheless, I cannot help stating that the health of the Republic was largely held together by powerful global brands born in the USA. Until now.

We have seen many epochs come and go in the field of, “selling stuff to the public”. It all started with the Town Crier, followed by printed Press, ergo “Marketing”, ergo “Emotional Branding”, ergo “Experiential Marketing”, and finally to “Word-of-mouth” (WOM). Note that I have not attached the words, branding or marketing, to the latter. WOM has been erroneously referenced as “viral marketing”, “peer-to-peer marketing”, “social media” and endless permutations. To the extent that no control can be exerted over this organically sprouted revolution, no suffix makes any sense; all these terms are oxymorons. WOM is wholly driven by the masses who now have access to each other on the internet. The internet has convened people around their owns ideas, behavior and beliefs, not those manufactured in ivory towers.

I consider the words of Marshall McLuhan, “is it the medium or the message” [that drives our future]? It is neither. The medium allows people to convene and share. There is no message; all words-of-mouth erupt spontaneously, organically. Words travel across nodes propelled purely by their attraction to other mouths. This is the central  problem ailing brands and their stewards today: they are still manufacturing messages and sending them out into “the media”. The world’s esteemed media futurist, Gerd Leonhard, expressed in a recent interview, “are you using magnets or handcuffs”? Most brands are still using handcuffs and losing customers to the magnetizing effect of WOM.

As I key this in, I hear a message yelling at me in the background on the cathode ray tube, spouting claims of “joy and happiness” delivered by artery-clogging creme cheese in a :30 spot. Over-promising is an understatement; but, this is also testament, this brand that has lost its compass.

So what are brands to do? Many are attempting to survive as they discover from the internet consensus that they were never loved and that lesser-known alternatives are eating their lunch (now that the public has access to them). The mouths know the brands that are poorly made, unhealthy, wrought with negative history, ad infinitum.

At the root, brands must innovate and improve. Case in point, some brands are abandoning “high fructose corn syrup” now that the public is aware of its negative effects on their health; these adjustments may not suffice to obtain forgiveness from a public that now has many choices. Accordingly, brands need to get into the sandbox and humble themselves. They no longer reign over the sub-conscious of the public with their “messages”. Frankly, many brands have become irrelevant and should be retired; so when I present brand innovation as a solution, it may in fact be from inception, and not a make-over.

I also see humanization of brands through their Community Managers as a key shift. This requires a keen handle on authenticity and transparency of the information shared between communicators and the community. At the core all brands provide a utilitarian value; however, the mouths add value to this utility according to their world views and experiences. This is the key precept to this final revolution:  the community managers do not add the value, the community does. These values may be social, emotional, or may actually extend the utility of the brand. Now, I am going to take a leap next. Here it comes.

Perhaps brands are confections of days gone by. Brands were conceived inside the organization, leveraging studies of mass segments which no longer have any definition in the aggregate. You will say, “yes, but what about Harley Davidson and Virgin”? A Harley is indeed an artifact that has resonated with a large population. All things Virgin are imbued with deeper expressions of “self”; accordingly, Richard Branson dropped from a tall building in a wedding gown. Both Harley and Virgin do limited advertising and branding; it seems their tribes provide their meaning,  having had the wisdom not to inject their own ideas into their products and services. Freedom and individuality are no longer constructs leveraged by any brand in one-way media; these have returned to their intended inheritors, the 90% on the internet.

Brands now have to facilitate their users, providing verifiable value and bringing various communities together. These communities, also called tribes, will experience your brands in different ways; be prepared to offer many iterations of your brands. Now, read my last sentence again. If brands now require many iterations to suit many tribes, clearly this indicates that branding has ended. What do we replace branding with? Not wishing complicate the answer, I will go out on a limb and state, this is all you need : expressions of its tribes.

In the short term, many technologies such as QR codes permit folks to access rich information particular to them on the spot, even an on-going conversation stream specific to their inquiry. So now every product is branded to the one by the one. This is not Minority Report revisited; people have turned a deaf ear to corporations and opened them to their peers and friends. So that voice that Tom Cruise heard emanating from live billboards should have been from his peers, friends or family, “Don’t forget to pick up a litre of [our favorite] milk!”

In this final revolution, it is imperative that corporations listen in on conversation streams, learn, adjust, kill or give birth to new products and services shaped by their users and influencers. “So how do I advertise to reach people?” you say, holding fast to control. Aye, there’s the rub. You don’t. Now Google will be all atwitter over this comment; but, when you witness the evolution of advertising on the web, you see shifts over the years. Email is now opt-in. Advertising is opt-in. Attempts at old-fashioned intrusion fail, resulting in dropped views; you do not want this friction attached to your offerings.  Truly, brands must now be publishers, broadcasters, and foremost, peers, building content around the stuff they offer and its context. Perhaps, brands are evolving into “content”. Recently, a major sports organization in Canada changed hands; the CEO in a press conference referred to this hockey brand as “content”. This incisive leader will navigate the new frontier with relative ease.

Stay-tuned for Part 2

Day of darkness : January 18, 2012

While this is a palpable protest from leading internet properties like Wikileaks, Reddit, WordPress and it seems, Google (last count 7,000 sites went dark), as shown above, this is a mere scuffle compared to what’s coming if Washington persists with this tyranny based on false pretenses. DC and their lobbies can create their own controlled internet, “China-style”; but, I know the public will not partake. It’s just more TV on another box.  Google, Facebook, Twitter, the internet-using population against a few paid-out politicians? Not gonna happen.

Should we put all of our money together and send up a few satellites for the people? Is it not theft for Washington to take the internet? Can DC grab newspapers? TV networks? It is sheer insanity.

Sure piracy is the cover story; accordingly, I will boycott Universal brands until they make a public mea culpa. In my humble opinion, I know SOPA / PIPA is about information control at the most critical electoral time in history. The public is sick of both parties and looking to kick both off the hill.

I wrote about SOPA and PIPA exactly two months ago here.

Here is the recorded stream of three big internet players in an emergency conference with the Cato Institute on January 17, 2012, streamed to thousands.

Phenomenal Guest at Tribe Radio : Gerd Leonhard

I interviewed “one of the world’s leading media futurists” (Wall Street Journal) last Tuesday. Extraordinary communicator, able to shed light on the state of “our connected society”. Gerd deplores the words, “social media” (as I also do), preferring to aptly name it a “social operating system”. The focus of our interview is the future of brands, marketing, advertising–the changes and the challenges. If you are looking for clarity or an AHA!, sit back, take notes and meditate on his words. It will transform you. I am changed by knowing him.

NOTE: YouTube still has not “processed” our video and released to on our own channel at http://YouTube.com/TRIBEradio likely because it is over 2GB; yet, it plays in its own repository. I don’t get it! Plus our real traffic is not tallied. I have gone into their forums and the complaints are sky high. I patiently wait for my labor to benefit my audience, my tribe, my guests and myself; not a seemingly glutoneous app! tried to monetize itself with my free labor.

Fantastic infographic : 2012 start-ups changing the world

Fantastic Infographic by Peter Oumanski - Click to zoom in

Who will dominate or shoot through the cloud in 2012? This infographic is a fun, quite complete look at the big picture.

Read more on this forecast by Fast Company.

Confessions of an Advertising Woman – Part 1

Zygot days - No it's not Justin Bieber

I started my advertising agency too young. I was barely out of my 20th birthday when I added a second sign, Marie Germain Advertising, in the hall leading to my office (the first sign featured a publishing venture with one of Canada’s jewels, Michael DePencier). My youth was always an obstacle; I know this profoundly, because of my own reaction to new initiates. At this age, the frontal cortex is still in development, inefficiently filtering warnings to the amygdala of impending danger; yet, this is likely the reason I barreled forward like a bull in an “everything is breakable shop”. I often wonder if this is the core reason so many young millionaires and billionaires are erupting on the scene today.

I remember meeting privately with Bill Bremner and Terry O’Malley, co-founder and creative leader respectively of the much lauded Vickers & Benson agency, in the mid-eighties. In our huddle, Bill shared with me his “fear” and trepidation in business, too polite to chide me on  my youthful exuberance, perhaps naive fearlessness. As I muse on his paternal sincerity, I consider the wisdom of standing back, slowing down and peering into the universe one is entering before throwing oneself into it. It is the great irony of life that as you decay, wisdom increases.

Imagine the reaction of an industry reputed for its ruthless competitiveness at the intrusion of a young ’20-something’ daring to open offices in Toronto and Calgary, almost overnight by their standards. Surely, I seemed the fox waiting to pounce on the hen house. Undaunted, I flew across the country every two weeks to manage staff and clients. My Siamese cats, Ariel and Othello, grew weary of airport conveyor belts and airplane climates; but, not I. I was always armed with my Cross pen and Pantone markers to create campaigns and write strategies, using this captive time productively (coddled by creature comforts I worked hard to earn like first class seating and menus). These were the worst of times and the best of times.

Mid 80s - Picnic anyone?

Age was not my only obstacle, my gender was a whole other kettle of eels. As reported by the press, I was the first woman to open an ad agency in Canada, alone, without partners. So the attention to every move I made was exceptional. The press could not resist acknowledging my gender or “the sexism [which challenged me]“; oddly, I never paid heed to this notion since I enjoyed the company of men. I remember being asked about this on a television talk show; I simply dismissed the question since it did not fit my reality. So I thought.

It is true that people remember what they see the most. In my case, “young and female”, did not fit into any Darwinian construct; by nature, I was an anomaly, not meant to survive. Was I a mutation or would nature select me? It has always puzzled me, this hidden hegemony, an unseen permission that must be granted to anyone, permitting our hopes and dreams to come to life. Evolution suffers from collective xenophobia placing obstacles before “new and different”. Multitudes spout soliloquies on tolerance and diversity; but, my experience knows better. I have been that “outlier” Malcolm Gladwell has inserted into our lexicon. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad of it. If only I could travel back in time, be a mentor to the young Marie, tell her the world would become more akin to her and quell a loneliness few experience at such a young age. Who knew the world would be bristling with outliers? The engine of individuality, the internet, had not been invented. In hindsight, Darwin lost.

Accordingly, I spent most of my young career acting older, mimicking maturity, speaking pedantically and buttoning tailored shirts right up to my chin; all of these efforts where in vain. My nubile existence preceded me. My quest to be the best at my craft and generate new revenue for my clients intensified; when that started to happen, they started to listen.

Stay-tuned for Parts 2, 3, 4…until I have nothing left to say. I hope these missives will resonate, inspire you, help you avert pain, help you follow your heart, and of course, help you succeed.

ANECDOTE: Look at second picture, on my desk. There is no computer. There is a ‘dictaphone’ (the little black thing), into which I dictated everything. The recorded tapes where removed and inserted into a player for my secretaries to transcribe onto ‘paper’ from their ‘electric’ typewriters. I used to pack these tapes like we do DV cards and memory sticks–except by the dozen. With editing and corrections it could take a letter over two days to get out into the snail mail. I still have the tapes and the dictaphone. Someone should start the museum, ‘artifacts from the age of business molasses’.  I’ve got a few exhibits to donate.

Seth Godin and Jackie Onassis : The Neoteny Factor

Seth’s brain is the key physical attribute leading to his success; but, one key element has been overlooked. It is a para-language missed by marketers.

Have a look at Seth’s face. Note his large and well spaced eyes. Seth is heir to a feature called neoteny is neuro-psychology; unwittingly people are drawn to those with this feature. When sporting dark rimmed glasses, the effect is altered; however, when the glasses are removed, the full power of neoteny is in force.

Why am I making this point?  Well at the front lines, in retail, in customer service, in public presentations, images and videos of oneself, this is a success factor. In recruiting, it matters. We are human and cannot overcome our hard-wired biology. Neoteny is not an end in itself; but, it is the cherry on the cake.

Why is neoteny an element of success? Facial features of children which are maintained into adulthood trigger a positive response in their beholders; simply, these features elicit trust. Jackie Onassis, Winston Churchill and our own top-ranking blogger, Jay Baer , display many of these facial features.

These are the neotenous facial traits in humans: flattened face, broadened face, large brain, hairless face, small nose, reduction of brow ridge, small teeth, small upper jaw (maxilla), small lower jaw (mandible), thinness of skull bones, larger eyes and wide space between eyes. I trust you can also add blue eyes into the equation since babies in the Western world tend start off with this color. In the vernacular neoteny is what we call, ‘baby face’.

Many studies indicate that individuals with a baby face are perceived as more trustworthy. To illustrate, when the extent to which individuals are trustworthy is ambiguous, anyone with a baby face is especially likely to be persuasive (Brownlow, 1992). Similarly, in response to crises, a corporate representative or spokesperson with a baby face is more likely to be trusted than other individuals (Gorn, Jiang, & Johar, 2008).

Put neoteny to the test and watch your own reaction to the ‘baby faces’ around you. Studies show that these people are more likely to succeed to overcome the persistent coddling from their admires. So try not to love on Seth and Jay too much; they could drive themselves to their graves, working to instill a little fear in us (satire).

P.S. This subject is one tiny segment in my book due this May, “HARD-WIRED : mysterious triggers that cause you to love brands and people”. The content will cross the spectrum emotionally, physically, socially and spiritually, disclosing cues and triggers to satiate many unmet needs in business today.

Seth Godin on 2012

Wonderful interview with our George Stroumboulopoulos “Strombo”, Canada’s leading late-night talk show. Dense with sound-bites.

Jeffrey Hayzlett on TRIBEradio yesterday – Excellent!

This is one smart cowboy! I interviewed bestselling author, change agent to the Fortune 500, dynamic speaker, Jeffrey Hayzlett. (I should coin the moniker “Get Hayzed”; Jeffrey is an experience.) Find out what Jeffrey means by “change the mood” and “fail faster”. YouTube has graced me with “long videos” status; so this one is a smooth 35 minutes. Enjoy, be inspired! Sit back, sip coffee or wine… it’s like sitting by the campfire with Jeffrey.

BRANDfutur : where brands are flowing

I am hosting this event, May 11, 2012. Hope you join us physically or virtually. The blog, BRANDfutur was just started today; the site is in development. You will be able to sign-up shortly.

Mike Walsh: “Two internets are rising”

An exceptional thought leader, founder of Hong Kong, The Tomorrow Network.

SOCIAL BRAND OF THE WEEK: SKYPE

It’s official. I am KooKoo-For-Skype. How everyone isn’t baffles me. Skype may be the greatest unsung hero of the social web. The progress of this corporation has been phenomenal, gradual, calculated and increasingly reliable. It’s no wonder the consumption of Skype by Microsoft was completed this October. Due diligence was surely a slight dalliance.

Look at the latest stats (hope you can read the scrawny text):

And here is Tony Bate’s (CEO) latest live missive about their hopes for Skype.

This is an app to watch. Microsoft got closer to the “People of the screen” (Kevin Kelly) with Skype. The battle of the Trojans ensue, Google vs. Microsoft vs. Facebook. I expect Facebook is pondering its video aspect, lest it be swallowed by its challengers.

The future is visual. Skype communicates. YouTube records. For now.

Facebook remains ultimately a static content curator.

Important Trend For Brands: “Decompress”

Listen to the following video to grasp the symptoms driving an important trend which I have named, “Decompress”. Many of you will wonder how this translates into their brand meaning and relationships; so, I will give a few pointers in my next post. This is perhaps one of the most powerful trends driving brand value, missing from Maslow’s hierachy of needs. It is at the core respite from the cacaphony of technology, bad news, health challenges, society running amuck.

Response to Futurist, Kevin Kelly

I am tempted to start a hashtag, “syntax hegemony”. I say this with humor; but, it is an eventuality. Here is my second live missive on the future and technology.

My video response to Futurists

I started my first live film, rather than the audio format I use for interviews, to authentically express my views toward those of Futurists being heard on the world stage. The first, as well as all upcoming episodes, addressing “The Future” and Futurists’ forecasts, can be viewed at TRIBEradio, the show which I host on marketing, brands, tribes, social media and more. The future affects all our work; we cannot make appropriate changes today if we do not know which direction to take. We must participate in mapping this direction. Here is my first video introducing the series on “The Future”. (P.S. My father was a Doctor of Philosophy and Futurist; this is in my blood!)

6 verbs that define the future by Futurist, Kevin Kelly

You cannot change today, if you do not know what is coming.

BRAND OF THE WEEK: Gerd Leonhard

Seminal Presentation November 20, 2011, by Futurist, Gerd Leonhard

This is essential listening.

Brand Directors, CMOs, all C-suiters and their service providers: LISTEN! Gerd is a “gestaltist” too IMO–because he incites change immediately. Gerd Leonhard is head of The Futures Agency . Be prepared. Listen twice. Take notes.

My “10 Best” principles for brand video success

Storyboard software in use

Video will conceivably overtake all forms of communication as capacity scales up. TV continues to grind the :30 spot losing more brands to the more flexible web play. Many digital firms are creating video advertisements for the web with limited prior experience in producing :30 second “movies” for brands; conversely, many full-service agencies and TV production houses are slow to rescind old, expensive production practices for the leaner web experience. It is all moot at this point; simply, the full media experience is here to replace everything from press releases through technical instruction to gentle persuasion.

Here are my ten best practices for all who toil in the video experience to succeed in the P2P era; some are timeless principles from the past, others are entirely new.

1- Choose visual cues carefully: Don’t underestimate the meaning of any visual cues within your storyboard; they could be mortal blows. Deep psychological stimuli persist through time and across all cultures and you must be sensitive to them. xBox  produced a commercial “from birth to grave” with a newborn propelled out of its mother’s womb, speeding through the air and space, accelerated aging, decaying into its grave. “Life is short” is the visual message before the beauty shot. How much cortisol (bad chemical) did this release into the brain of its young prospects? Were xBox sales punished by this experience at the shelf? And how endearing was this to a mother, the one who influences this purchase, the one who romanticizes the giving of new life? Anyone for a study? British humor, they say. Poppycock! Wombs and coffins–tread carefully on your visual cues. (BTW it was pulled off the air)

2- Visual modality first: Video is firstly a visual medium (how redundant is it to state this); but, the message must work in this modality first. Turn the sound off and see if an unbiased viewer gets the story. I remember commercials I wrote and produced/directed/edited particularly one for White Rose Nurseries. The episodes unfolded between a grandfather and his granddaughter in their home garden; the events in the story were all visual. The voice-over was experiential gravy. A hearing impaired viewer required no captioning. We must not forget that visual is the fastest learning modality. On the web, people can focus more on reading and the hearing; but, the visual ultimately takes over. Remember that people are increasingly attention-deficit; many call this the “Attention Age” for a reason.

3- Audio-video match: Creatives, resist your customers’ desire to increase their corporate noise within the story; a story is visual as I stated above. Voice-overs are only heard by the viewer when the audio matches the story; if not, it will be missed and confuse the message! Words that are mouthed by a narrator will be forgotten because there is nothing engaging about a talking head; that’s not a story. The Geico gecko is adorable but few remember a thing he says. Talking heads just don’t work. If the gecko’s voice-over were to say, “this lone cockney gecko is wandering aimlessly talking to whoever will listen avoiding the fact that his only purpose in life is to help you remember an auto insurer’s name merely by his specie–that’s why he looks forlorn“, that would support the visual and be remembered. Of course, if you buy as much air time as Geico, a disconnected audio may eventually stick; but, that is not a successful use of  marketing dollars. Does anyone remember a word those two hicks standing in the cranberry growing ponds share on the Ocean Spray commercials? (I always think about these two unkept characters standing in my drink; what is the advertiser thinking?! It also a poorly chosen visual cue for a food product.)

4- Archetypal storytelling: Archetypes are a sort of short-hand that allows the brand to communicate quickly in a short time. There are myriad archetypes from colors and shapes through objects to heroes to name a few. I endorse using these ethically within a story. Where I part with their use in the new transparent, authentic P2P universe, is if they falsely represent the brand. I do not believe Coke is love or joy or is going “to teach the world to sing”; it’s a delicious drink, on occasion. I don’t mean to be utilitarian; but, emotional branding is not being tolerated by tribes as it used to; legacy brands would be smart to revisit its use purposefully.

5- Relevant content: The precept, “content is king”, now reigns; but, content can be the jester. On-line media buys are effective because they are increasingly contextual as algorithms improve. The problem with TV is the program ratings are based on broad viewer profiles, a wide net with few relevant catches. The advent of the web algorithms has rocketed a new era of relevance to viewers. Your brand must not be affected negatively by its placement within the wrong content, TV or web. The former offers too little in comparison to the latter. During TV sweeps, many programs go where they have never gone before. In Desperate Housewives, Eva Longoria’s character committed statutory rape repeatedly by romancing a seventeen year-old. You can’t inject a legacy brand like Aunt Jemima or Gerber into this context without attaching destructive neural clusters (thoughts) in the mind of their customers; these are difficult to reverse. Sub-consciously, the customer will be unable to disassociate the negative emotions emanating from the violation and choose another brand. The resulting loss of market share and revenue can be catastrophic. I have seen network after network harm brands in this manner. The web portends similar but lesser risks; yet, it is wise to visit placements of videos, dynamic banners and see what contextual company your ad is keeping. Know where your ads are playing.

6-  Adaptability: You can no longer afford to produce ads just for TV–it is only one of several delivery systems. 30 seconds is not so easy to deliver on the internet right now; people are opting out in droves. It is actually seen as more intrusive than television, especially when there is no opt out; this reflects negatively on the brand. Re-frame your creative to adapt to the web and mobile devices. When you produce story-boards, make four versions: TV, web, mobile and lastly think, really short snippets of the same message for wrapping around or inserting in myriad of other live content.

7- Powerful interactivity: Your message will be more acceptable if it is interactive; the viewer is engaged in co-creation of the message. The psychology of “press the button” works well and transforms a passive experience into a relationship. Programming code delivers this easily now. Here is one of the earliest, highly acclaimed, executions. Follow through to see what “co-creation” is.

8- Optimize recency: Humans tend to remember the beginning and end of a message more than the middle. In fact, there is higher retention at the start; yet, most brands tie in their stories in the last :05 or even in the heart of the message. You must have powerful meaning in the first sequence, the first few seconds–not noise or tricks–relevant content that will elicit the desire to watch the whole message. Here is a clue: don’t produce an ad, produce a relevant story. The world is your oyster. Cues that look and sound like advertisements have become repugnant to almost everyone. David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach were brilliant–in their day. These days are gone forever.

9- Produce many shorts for many tribes: This is the most critical aspect of producing live content around your brand for the web. Since content allows people to identify will smaller audiences who share homogeneous ideas, beliefs, like-mindedness, so too your content will have to be relevant. Shoot or select relevant footage to appeal to the many and “splice” at editing. Speak the language of the tribes.

10- Produce short movies with your brand as product placement: If you can afford big production, write a script that will capture your audiences. Behold one of the most viewed brand stories for DC shoes; it is over nine minutes long with over 12 million identifiable viewers and corresponding insights. Time is not scarce on the web; you can weave and engage as never before. A caveat: long videos work well with low production budgets if they resonate with their tribes; over-production is overrated.

I have been a Creative Director most of my adult life. It is my numero uno passion. I am a latent, unrequited film director (even wrote movie scripts to satiate my desires). So I am relegated to shorts, so to speak. Frankly, finding ways to coral people to enjoy brands viscerally in seconds is a test of skill. The book on advertising is being re-written; the ideas of those in the social space are significant to this process. Brands must be marketed to fuel Western economies; there is no opt-out. It is a reality. Brands employ and feed people in the free market system. They must thrive; but, this is only possible if they can transition to the new fragmented, augmented universe.

Emotionally unavailable Twitter jilts woman

I have fallen in love with Twitter in the last few months. Previously, I had a tumultuous relationship with it, often wondering why I was courting, spending time on such an “emotionally unavailable” app; but, a special person intervened. Mark Schaefer, author of The Tao of Twitter, uncovered the treasures that laid within Twitter; I realized that I had taken Twitter for granted.

Ironically, assured of my love, Twitter has began to take me for granted. It is slow to respond to my needs. It assumes my love will remain intact while sharing only a small part of itself with me. Often, I can’t get tweets, make tweets, access my followers… Yesterday, I discovered Twitter has thrown out half of my photos! This is an overt sign that I must start to hold-back my love and start playing “hard-to-get”. And yet I thought we had evolved beyond this Cro-Magnon, adolescent behavior.

O! how I would like to find an app as sexy and confident as Twitter; one that would love me back, unconditionally. Jump through hoops to earn my trust. Cuddle after we have had time together. Be there in the morning. Respond when I speak. Answer when I call. Dare I dream, touch me in ways Twitter has yet to.

I feel so jilted.

SOPA makes for a sober, sombre Friday

I have had about all I can handle from those who supposedly govern. First, there was the #ProtectIPAct and now sandwiched in, there is #SOPA. The powers that are elected to serve the will of the people are trying to speed these two ignoble laws through Congress; both have bi-partisan support.

This is the end of the internet. Of freedom of expression. You could be locked up for 5 years for the slightest obfuscation or sharing content. This is supposedly about copyright, piracy, lies, etc… but it’s not. It is utterly ambiguous and like an executive order, it allows a take-down of your site or business without judge or jury.

Americans do not live in the United States of Mao. Congress needs to be told that LOUDLY. While you think this is not global, think again.

Forget about the “social” in social media if you do not fight this, NOW. Eric Schmidt and Matt Cutts are in the fight against both laws i.e. the largest corporation in the world, Google. Bless them! The social apps are fighting against surprising suspects supporting SOPA: Hollywood, Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Symantec, Intel, Intuit among many. Shame on these brands. I’ll bet Steve Jobs would not have approved. Seems like “High Noon” between internet pure-players and lock-in-style tech companies.  Needless to say, I am not happy with this. My love for Apple now has been altered; I am keying on it begrudgingly at this moment. If Apples does not come to our corner soon, it will be my last. I surely won’t be buying a Dell again nor any brand that supports SOPA or ProtectIPAct. I will be publishing a “Corporations that support SOPA Blacklist” to counter DC’s own list. Microsoft’s jealousy of Google is so transparent–no surprise there.

I will be adding to this post today and as the weekend evolves. This is about my future, my childrens’ future, 6.8 billion peoples’ future. Make no mistake, the web is the single greatest contributor to economic growth, wealth, knowledge, relationships; this Draconian attempt at controlling the web WILL kill it. Actions will start soft as they do; but, in no time it will dissipate into a policed state of the virtual kind and the end of the web as we know it.

FOR ACTION go to Techcrunch here. You can sign a petition and learn more.

SUPPORT ERIC: Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google inc., is unarguably SOPA’s greatest opponent promising not to comply, by policing his customers (uh, that’s everyone, just about). We need to support him by disseminating his words, writings and testimonies before Senate widely. So glad Eric is in our corner; he has the power to kill SOPA and ProtectIPAct (among many contrivances).

In the meantime see how people have recombined against the debt-bubble-blowers in the last 24 hours:

Are Congress and the WH trying to stop the voices of the people against financial collapse and their culprits? The timing is uncanny.

The “Filter Bubble”: two key words to add to your lexicon

Behold a prescient interpretation of misdirected algorithms by great thinker and author of “the Filter Bubble”, Eli Pariser.

“Hyper-personalization has also led to the rise of a term (and phenomenon that is getting increasingly defined) called “filter Bubble,” which was first coined by writer Eli Pariser. Growing hyper-personalization is hiding more information than revealing it to users, and is trapping us in a sort of a bubble, that we can’t look beyond”, writes Preetam Kaushik, in this excellent article .

Here is a multi-media interpretation not to be missed, illustrating The Filter Bubble well:

Listen to Eli at TED:

You can also visit Eli’s blog .

I expect the conversation on Eli’s work to grow exponentially. Weigh in here or at Twitter’s #BuildTribes.