A feed is a collection of information that comes at you. It's the 24/7 hour concept of what we want in our lives. It's the opposite of broadcasting, although there is still a big and important place for broadcasting. These are some of the thoughts I jotted down during Ze Frank's keynote at the 2008 MIMA Summit.
Ze held my attention even though I was in the back of the room, had my shoulders to the stage, and I could not even see his slides on the big screen. In person you can be like that - larger than life. Yet, when you meet someone who is experienced in online interactions - and collaboration - you also get intimacy. Online is personal, and it transfers off line.
Ideas and projects are constantly moving, morphing and holding our attention in many ways. Through collaboration, we learn to keep moving with them. Can you design a business through interactions? Companies are still busy creating manuals. The reality of it is that manuals are no longer relevant in the feed. Increasingly, it's about how a story gets our attention and holds it, even for a moment. We take the rest in our hands, and make it ours.
Even when a company creates something that is customizable, it still means that that item is limited to what the company is doing currently - or what the marketer could think about. There are rule-sets that foment that activity. Let's imagine for a moment that instead you provide tools that facilitate the creativity of users. In that instance, the rewards go to the people. The term "reward" changes meaning - from point, prize, or award it shifts to the activity itself. The activity becomes the reward.
How should brands behave in this environment? We'll begin the conversation Sunday with new media and news organizations. Meanwhile, enjoy Ze's TED talk [What's so funny about the Web? 19:08] For more fun, explore Color Wars.
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