Micropipelines and Implications for Digital Marketing

Isaac Mao has a thought-provoking post on micropipelines as unblockable infrastructure. This is how many-to-many relationships develop and work.

[image created by Isaac Mao]

The digital revolution has given us more than the opportunity to find any kind of content we want or connect with anyone - a-la one click of separation. One day we may well have artificial intelligence agents as discovery channels. In the semantic Web, pipes could talk to each other.

This indeed opens all kinds of possibilities for individuals to organize themselves. It makes the world not as flat as we'd like to think - given means, tools, geography, etc. - certainly it makes it a lot smaller.

Clay Shirky provided ample examples of such movements in his book, Here Comes Everybody. One such example is that of the music industry that used to provide a service by distributing music and images. This was their business model.

Today users themselves can post videos and share music, in ways that are far easier and more convenient for them. The music industry, however, is not ready to change its model and is fighting those very people that are passionate about spreading the word. Where could it add value? 

John Lambie of Bates 141 has a few ideas. In his presentation he moves in the direction of read/write/execute, where the customer customizes. How do marketers get ahead in this environment where the customer customizes, her device is her, he's at the center of the universe, she is her media, and commerce becomes "meCommerce"?

By being open, inviting, listening, asking, responding, sharing, questioning the macro, and observing the micro.

Digital Marketing

view presentation (tags: digital marketing)

Comments

[laurent]

Valeria
The 1 little click away enables the marketer 2.0 to be with his customers everyday. This is huge. Focus groups, PRs, surveys and so on may become the dinosaures of marketing as the ongoing organic dialog taking place within social media replaces all those hard to setup, once upon a time, one way process.
'Tell me and I will forget; show me and I will remember, involve me and I will remember' - confucius.

[Valeria Maltoni]

What I am starting to wonder is this: is the marketer comfortable being just one click away? When you are that close, you can ill afford to be prescriptive and to talk about "targets" as if they were not individuals.

And is one click away too close to see?

[Helge Tennø]

Slide 35 of the presentation: "Zero degrees of separation, I'm at the center of my universe"
Reminds me of an analogy Anthropologist Anne Kirah (formerly of Microsoft) used to tell at her presentations.

When they invited people into their labs and asked them to create a collage of their world, all Americans - and only Americans, did one thing in particular: put a picture of themselves at the center of the collage :o)

So I'm wondering if this (zero degrees of separation) would be something only applicable to American target groups? And if so, what is important for the international TG's?

[laurent]

@valeria
Good question (is the marketer...?) - I would say it depends. Some will be and some won't. The difference, to me, is in the capacity to genuinely interest and influence others thanks to their own ability to do so vs because they are part of brand xyz. 1 degre of separation really means simply face to face (virtually speaking).

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Helge - Interestingly, John Lambie works in the Asian marketplace at the moment and this is a recent submission. I hear what you are saying, though. I was made in Italy and still keep one foot planted solidly in Europe for many reasons - the food, the people, the culture and the way of work, especially in the social arena.

@Laurent - I wonder about perspective and whole picture, too.

[gianandrea facchini]

Valeria, I'm glad to see that Confucio's reference that close the presentation of my company since few months now is becoming more and more popular.
I'm glad because, it's the most powerful was to describe the marketing to come.
While I do believe that behavioural targeting will never make its way because of too many issue about privacy, I do strongly believe that marketers are becoming the target for customers. Yes, the table is turning to customers advantage.