John Winsor

The Me-ification of Social Media

I've noticed how my own social media use has changed. I'm apart of a dozen or so social networks, everything from Path to Twitter and Facebook to Instagram. And, the latest, Pintrest. That's only a small fraction. We live in a networked world and in this social media 1.0 phase it's been all about the network. 2011, will be remembered as the year that social media really mattered. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street and a rash of corporations learning the hard lessons of the power of the network. 

But it was all about the network. I believe that 2012 will be the me-ification of social media where the focus will move from the network to the individual helping people manage and share massive amounts of information in a very intimate, socially focusd way. A couple of great examples are Strava, the cycling and exercise site that let's you share massive amounts of information from your rides to your friends and coach. 

 

And, Vail's Epic Mix that helps you measure your vertical, compare with your friends, find your family and even check the traffic.

 

EpicMix was born on a chairlift ride at Vail with Alex Bogusky, Winston Binch and myself. It was a solve for a small group of us and while it's driving Vail's customer strategy, it started small. It was all about the collective me.

Expect that more micro-networks that are all about the collective me to arise this year. At the end of the day it's a natural progression.

 

Is This the End of Advertising?

Deb Roy was one of my favorite speakers at this year's TED. What started as an exploration into how his son begins to speak and develop language. Deb has begun to point his tools towards public media creating both a content graph and a social graph. This segment starts at 11:00. So my question is when we can objectively connect every piece of content with every social conversation and track real media consumption, engagement and behavior, how will advertising compete with everything all the other content?

My sense is that advertising that can quantifiably effect cultural change will be worth a lot more and all other advertising will be worth a whole lot less.

New Shoe Time: An Insight into Consumption

My Bluntstone's finally bit the dust. I've loved these boots. But, after 15 years the bottoms were literally falling off. So, I thought I'd by a new pair. When I was driving around town yesterday I thought I'd stop by the local shoe shop that carries them. I pulled into the parking lot and it was packed. There's a hardware store and a coffee shop next door. The whole parking/shopping experience can bring me down. At that moment I started thinking about all of the good experiences I've had with Zappos. Last night, around 7:30, I called Zappos to order a new pair of boots. It took all of 3 minutes. To my surprise, FedEx walked in this morning at ten with my new Bluntstones. It was so easy. Why can't every shopping experience be so seamless?

Join The Revolution

In honor of walking the walk, we’ve decided to put out a couple of staff-position opportunities to the crowd. Or at least the crowd that follows my blog. Specifically we’re looking for two extremely smart, digitally connected, hard working folks who want to help change the world here at Victors & Spoils. Here are the two positions we’re looking for currently:

Strategy Director
 
Account Director
 
These jobs are both full time and based in Boulder. If you’re interested, please visit www.victorsandspoils.com, and click on “Join the creative department.” Then click on “Join the crowd” at the bottom of that section and fill out the form - making sure to select either “Planner/Strategy” or “Account Management.” Then just let us know why you think you’d be the perfect fit for V&S and how you could help us start a revolution.

The Power of Twitter

Almost every day someone asks me about Twitter. If you're interested, check this out. Evan Williams gave a great talk at TED about how he listens to his customers to develop Twitter.

Does Twitter Really Matter?

Like many others in the marketing world, I've been interested in Twitter lately. I'm trying to figure out if it matters. Sure, it's great to engage in stimulating conversations. Likewise, I've found that it's been a great tool while writing BakedIn. I can post a quick question and get some great responses in a matter of minutes instead of a few hours.

This week I taught three different marketing classes at the University of Colorado. I was talking about how CP+B was trying to figure out social media and its marketing implications, like everyone else. I asked the students who used Twitter. Shockingly, only 1 in 70. Not only that, only 1/3 of them had even heard of Twitter.

So, are we just talking to ourselves or early adopters, ahead of the curve?

Update: I just got a note from a journalism professor at CU. She said her classes are all using Twitter as a tool. Interesting. Maybe Journalism students are a further along the curve than business students.

Love to hear your thoughts.

It's a Curious Case

Ed Ulbrich's talk on the technology behind the aging Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" blew me away. How long will it be before all of our actors are digital?

A Surprise

While I've been using Facebook for a year now I'm really not that active. My attitude is that I'll become anybody's friend but I won't invite anybody. I've been surprised how many more invites I get each week.

Well, yesterday I was even more surprised. My dad invited me to become his friend. Facebook has hit another a tipping point.

I'm sure this means I'll use it even more now.

Paper or Digital?

I love photography. I'm a bit of a nut about it. For a long time, I really wanted to pursue it as a career. You know how it goes. Other things got in the way. Now, I'm just another amatuer hack. That said, I love living vicariously through other people's images and products. And, I'm absolutely hooked on dpreview.com.

So in this digital world we live in, I was shocked to recieve my annual B&H Catalog the other day, all 454 pages of it. I used to love this catalog. I'd spend hours checking out all of the new products. However, this time I wasn't sure what to think. I thought, "Why did they waste so much money and paper printing this thing?" Even more profound to me, I wondered how I was supposed to use it. I mean, it doesn't have google search, does it?

I'm amazed how in such a short amount of time the digital experience has reconfigured our brains to go anywhere and to find anything. I can only imagine giving a telephone book to my 6 year old boys in a couple of years. "Dad, what do I do with this?"

I think it's time or B&H to let go of their catalog.