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NFL Playoff Weekend: It's a Patriots Nation, According to Facebook
This Sunday televisions across America will be set to watch the NFL conference finals, with the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens facing off followed by the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants. Who are Americans cheering for this weekend? We turned to Facebook data from the Nanigans Ad Engine to find out, creating the below infographic:
Facebook’s New ‘Social Feedback Loop’ and 7 Recommendations for Marketers
Note: This posted originally appeared on the Nanigans blog.
With the hype of Facebook’s f8 developer conference behind us, with its celebrity cameos and star-studded after parties probably calling in some help for the morning clean-up, it’s now time to think of the sobering implications of how this groundbreaking update to the Facebook platform causes us to rethink our social marketing strategies going forward.
Facebook’s ‘social feedback loop’
While we’ve described tools like Timeline and the new Open Graph features in our post yesterday, the really interesting piece is how they all fit together to create a feedback loop between Open Graph Apps and the Facebook experience — one that is designed to spur social discovery and engagement.
Let’s examine this in more detail.
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Facebook’s f8 2011 Keynote: What it Means for Developers and Marketers
Note: I was live at Facebook’s f8 developer conference yesterday, and posted this originally to the Nanigans blog, and also to BostInnovation. I’ve made some minor grammar updates here, to correct for my speed-blogging.
We’re at f8 in San Francisco today, with the keynote speeches just concluding. After an entertaining opening with comedian Andy Samberg masquerading as Mark Zuckerberg, the real “Zuck Dawg” (as Samberg called him) took the stage to deliver the true keynote. Facebook’s CTO Bret Taylor and VP Product Chris Cox followed, along with brief cameo CEO appearances from Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Netflix’s Reed Hastings.
Overview of Announcements
Two major announcements were made at f8: (1) introduction of the Timeline and (2) development of the Open Graph.
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Confusing Constraints with Goals
Summary: Too often we either confuse, or merge, goals with constraints. While both are necessary, it’s essential to understand how to use each one properly to design plans that work. E-mail. Tweet. http://rdean.me/fIefuP
One issue that enrages me enough to rant about is is how often we conflate what is a goal with what is a constraint. While the differences may seem like nuance, confusing a business’ goals, with the the constraints they are subject to, leads to a lack of focus and ultimately failing to achieve what you really want.
Goals are clear objectives for what you want your end state to be, while constraints are given conditions, or circumstances that your solution must satisfy…so to paraphrase Seth Godin, a goal would be “to go to the moon”, and a constraint of that would be “to overcome gravity”. Sounds simple enough, right? Then why do these get confused so often, and how should we think about each one?
‘Work / Life Balance’ is a myth for entrepreneurs…and everyone else too
Summary: At a startup is there ever really such thing as “downtime”? How about “work / life” balance? The lines don’t exist for entrepreneurs, and is increasingly blurring in other jobs as well. Here’s a different way to think about what it all means.E-mail. Tweet. http://rdean.me/wlbmyth
As an entrepreneur, your work and your life are intertwined, there is no such thing as a “balance” between them. You’ve made immense personal sacrifice, ask much of those people near and dear to you, so anyone who tells you you need to make crisper distinctions, simply doesn’t understand what it takes, and what you’ve signed up for. Yes, taking a “job” is different, but startups demand this level of effort.
Moreover, this type of lifestyle is increasingly seeping into the mainstream. Given the nature of mobility devices (laptops, iPads, smartphones), connecting us ubiquitously wherever and whenever (including planes and trains) we are. This shift will change the very nature of work, and in turn blur the lines of work and life, the way most entrepreneurs face it.
So what does that really mean? The best metaphor I can use is pro sports, and with basketball and football seasons in full swing, I thought I’d illustrate what I mean using those as analogies.
Crowdsourcing Workplace Design: a case study
Summary: What happens when you get a 40+ person company to design its own office space? More importantly, will they want to? Turns out the results are better than expected, speaking in large part to an incredible culture and a great group of people. See for yourself.E-mail. Tweet. http://rdean.me/ez369R
Well, if you haven’t heard, we at Visible Measures recently moved office space. However, what you probably didn’t know is that this move, and all of the office space design, was performed entirely by the company employees….this is a lesson in crowdsourced design.
As a growing technology company, with state-of-the-art technology, and in a really hot market, we were bursting at the seams of our former office space…so it was time to move on to bigger, and better office space.
What we did
Unlike most companies of our size, we decided to go back to our roots, and keep things very frugal, and “startup”…or as VM advisor, David Cancel, would say “ghettopreneur”.
This approach meant all of the basics would have to be handled; like boxing stuff up, moving furniture, renting a U-Haul truck, and lots of little trips back and forth. However, in taking this approach, we were afforded to do something very unique: to all pitch in to design our own office space. To make things fun, we enacted an HGTV-style competition where teams signed up and developed their own concepts on a limited budgets, and timeframe, to execute their concepts. While the budget was fixed, we erred on the side of fewer rules, in order to let the creativity flourish. Additionally, we employed the best interior designer I know (um, well…ok it’s my wife) to provide guidance to the teams, and to help out with our other common areas.
See pictures of the space
Is Groupon, or another group buying promotion, right for your product?
Summary: Groupon, and its “group buying” counterparts, have been all the rage in e-commerce, but is it right for your product? Here we’ll look at the types of products and strategies where these platforms do, and do not, make economic sense for merchants. E-mail. Tweet. http://rdean.me/f0miOb
With all of the recent hype around the spurned $6B acquisition offer of Groupon by Google, and the holiday shopping season upon us, I thought I’d share our experience at Lime Tree Cove, with promoting our products through group buying.
In considering, researching, and executing our campaign we learned a lot, and wanted to share our experiences and views of what types of products / services are best suited, and which are not.
First, a breakdown of group buying economics
By “group buying”, I’m referring to the numerous services that showcase discounted products and services; usually done with a minimum number of people accepting, in a “deal a day” model that targets specific local markets. While there are a host of sites offering this service, such as Groupon, Eversave, Living Social, BuyWithMe, Woot, getsugar, Tippr, and more, there may be subtle differences, but the general model works as follows:
- The consumer receives a 50% discount on the list price of the product
- Of the remaining 50%, 50% of that goes to the site
- So effectively, you’re selling your product at a 75% discount
For more information you can go here, but for all intents and purposes, you can expect to give a pretty steep discount, and not all types of products and business models can stomach this. So let’s look at who, and when, this type of promotion works best and worst…
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Why I’ll never buy a 3D-TV…and you probably won’t either
Summary: There has been much hype around 3D-TV, as the future of home entertainment. I outright disagree, and contend that, as they are currently designed, will have a long time to mass consumption…or most likely never. E-mail. Tweet. http://rdean.me/dnXIlz
3D-TV is not going to be the next big thing. In a previous post, I looked at different factors that drive innovation diffusion to commercial success. Using that same model, it’s pretty clear that current 3D-TVs have a tough road ahead of them.
Testing 3D-TV against the diffusion of innovation framework
Let’s look at the 7 factors of innovation diffusion, and do a back of the envelope analysis to see what I mean:
| Rating | Explanation | |
|---|---|---|
| Relative Advantage | POSITIVE | Watching a movie in 3D looks better |
| Compatibility | NEGATIVE | New TV equipment (incl. glasses) and new DVD formats — not to mention new techniques for sudios |
| Complexity | NEGATIVE | This does not make my home theater situation easier at all |
| Observability | NEUTRAL | While anyone can see a demo, its hard to notice the difference in anything but the standard demos of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs |
| Trialability | NEUTRAL | I have to go to a Best Buy, or a rich friend’s place to try it out |
| Social Acceptability | NEGATIVE | Be honest, wearing glasses makes you look like a dork |
| Regulatory | NEGATIVE | While “regulatory” is used loosely, here, the point of this factor is all of the ecosystem changes that need to occur, from studios to broadcasters, new equipment and transmission methods, as well as cable companies |
The net effect: slow growth projection
The net effect is that I believe 3D-TV will have a slow ramp, based on the model above.
Additionally, the macro trend of video consumption is toward video “snacking”, and “cord cutting”, with the advent of YouTube and social video. Mobile technologies (like the iPad) and new devices (like Roku, PS3, and AppleTV) are making it even easier to consume what you want, when you want it, and on whatever device.
So the real need to have an immersive in-home experience revolve around sports, live events, and movies; I think in-home 3D may have a place in those three areas. However, the complexity and expense of the setup, limited availability of content options, and the overall inconvenience of having to wear glasses impede the diffusion of this technology…oh yeah, and apparently harmful to drink and watch a 3D-TV, so I certainly won’t buy one 
[UPDATE Nov 1, 2010: It seems TechCrunch has caught on to this trend as well with this post]
Designing and Building Culture at a Startup: Three Keys to Keep in Mind
Summary: While designing and building culture anywhere is difficult, startups have unique qualities that make it especially challenging. Here I give a mini-model, called the “Three Ps”, which can serve as a reminder of the key elements to create, maintain, and align culture. E-mail. Tweet.
I was recently asked by good friend, and coach Bob Radin, a professor at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, to speak to his MBA class, called “Managing People in Organizations”. Bob asked me to give them the perspective of what it takes to design and build culture at a startup; for which I provided some perspective, as well as a mini-framework, to help students think about how culture plays an integral role when founding a startup, or even selecting where to begin their post-MBA career.
In addition to the slides, here is a description of the main takeaways of the discussion.
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My Blog is featured on Guy Kawasaki's "Alltop", as a top innovation blog.
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How Many Licks?: Or, How to Estimate Damn Near Anything
