Feeding the Puppy

A Gazillion Different iPhones

So, Mashable reported recently that there are now 100,000 approved apps for the iPhone.

Which is a big number. 

But not as big as the number I think is more interesting, and maybe more important. 

How many different combinations of iPhones are there with 100,000 available apps?

 

We can get the average number of apps per iPhone from reports like this from networkworld)

It's about 18, apparently (10 paid for, 8 free).

So from 100,000 apps, how many possible combinations of iPhone are there?

To work this out, I asked my brother, Andrew, who has a PHD in engineering and works at our sister agency BrandScience. 

Needless to say, he has a better grasp of numbers than I...

This is what he worked out:

No. of Apps   /   Total Combinations   

1        100,000       
2        4,999,950,000   
3        166,661,666,700,000   
4        4,166,416,671,249,980,000   
5        83,325,000,291,662,500,000,000
6        1,388,680,567,360,800,000,000,000,000
7        19,837,103,521,810,800,000,000,000,000,000
8        247,946,436,557,054,000,000,000,000,000,000,000   
9        2,754,740,009,356,990,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
10       27,544,920,827,561,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
11      250,383,330,322,534,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
12      2,086,298,234,634,990,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
13      16,046,522,144,975,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
14      114,603,114,979,263,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
15      763,913,803,621,103,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
16      4,773,745,103,441,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
17      28,076,360,613,085,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

...18:

        155,953,264,621,004,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
                              000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Yep; if you select just eighteen apps from the app store, you are selecting one of the 1.56E+74 possible 18 app iPhone combinations.

Which is a very big number indeed. 

To put it in context, if you multiply the number of hydrogen atoms in the galaxy (5E+68) by 311,907, then you get to the number of possible iPhone permutations. 

(EDIT: This is an update on the maths from Andrew... I misinterpreted original email)

 

Interesting?  Maybe, depending on your take on what 'interesting' is... but it's certainly important.

Why?  Because it represents just how unique and customisable the iPhone platform has become... the chances of you ever running into someone who has the same iPhone as you are entirely remote.

...which means that not only is your iPhone unique, it continues to be a social object even when everyone around you has one, because you're always likely to have something new, different and interesting to show each other.

So next year, when the Orange and Vodafone iPhone deals have really kicked in, it's not like everyone in the UK is going to have the same phone...

...they're going to have the most unique phone they've ever owned. 

It's just they're all going to have the same case for it...

 

A day for building social bonfires

 

Yes indeed, lest we forget it's Bonfire night, and given the history of the Bonfire & Fireworks analogy on Feeding the Puppy, it would have been remiss of me not to post the latest thoughts I've been having on this more fitting of days...

(As a brief reprise, for those who haven't seen or have forgotten it, skip through this again...)

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires

View more presentations from John V Willshire.

So, what now?

After the IPA Social Event (which I first started writing about Bonfires for), we all thought it'd be a good idea to keep the momentum behind the project going... build on the success, keep the bonfire burning as it were.

After all, it was just the end of the beginning.

Rather than a formal evening organised event, though, we wondered if holding three concurrent conversations over coffee, somewhere in London, would mean that people could spend half a morning dipping in and out of different conversations... sharing experiences, results, case studies and the like.

How best to make it happen?

It's not just an 'advertising' issue

Largely every type of agency and communications company going are all looking at this area, whether they're involved in advertising, PR, corporate comms, internal etc.

The shift in the way the world communicates has affected many industries, not just the one that you or I happen to find ourselves working in.

At its simplest, I think everyone can take the graph below, look at their own industry as say 'yep, that's happening to us, and we're not totally sure how to deal with it /create it / measure it / value it / charge for it yet.

 

So we'd love to see folks from across as wide a spectrum as possible... the sharing of results & case studies is something that the Measurement Camp guys have been doing a great job every month, so we'd love to see them down there.

Then there's all the folks interested in making businesses internally social too... Enterprise 2.0, or Social Business Design.  I found the Corporate Social Networking Forum earlier this year a fascinating insight into how other industries are harnessing the available tools to add significant value to their businesses.

And I'm quite sure that I'm missing out folk too... so in order to make an 'easy to manage' list of folk to tell about it, I've made my first twitter list...

Making a list, checking it twice...

We'll get on with confirming a date, thinking a bit more about the format & subject matter... just generally firming things up a little more.

And you? 

Well, if you think you'd be up for meeting up one morning for a couple of hours in early December and sharing some social insights over coffee, then just add your twitter name TO THIS LIST HERE*.

Happy bonfire night... see you all soon I'm sure.

(*fingers crossed that I've got the list thing working OK...)

IPAsocial 03 - If advertising is a firework, social media is a bonfire

"Social Media is a conversation. That seems to be one thing that we can all agree on.

But given that Social Media is a rather noisy and opinionated conversation, what value do we think we will have by adding our voices to it?

We are not Social Media gurus. In face we are rather sceptical of people who claim they are. We are simply 10 people from across a wide range of communications disciplines in the UK and the US who would like to share some thoughts. Thoughts that have either been bugging us or inspiring us, thoughts that we believe could form some of the building blocks for successful Social campaigns. We came together to respond to and add our voices to some work that the IPA had done earlier in the year.

We have each defined a Principle which we feel is important in this Social world. You will find each principle up here but they are also on our individual blogs where we will be curating the conversation which we hope they will generate. Please do get involved, maybe you think these principles don't apply, are there better ones? Are there changes that you would like to make? Are there examples that you could add to help illustrate them? The only thing that we ask is that as part of the advertising and communications community that you become part of the conversation. After all the more opinions that are being shared and built on, the more interesting and stronger the outcome. At least that's what we are hoping.

Thank you in advance."

You'll no doubt remember all the bonfires and fireworks posts from before... well, this is the project that it's been for (which I'm delighted to be a part of)...

It's well worth reading the brilliant summary of The Big Picture by Mark Earls first, and you can see the  list of all ten principles here.

As for the principle I'm babysitting, at the moment it's as follows:

IPA social principle 03:  Continuous conversation, not campaigning

If advertising is a firework, social media is a bonfire; slow to start, collaborative to build, then gets bigger and brighter...

The traditional advertising approach to campaigning is like setting off fireworks. 

Great fireworks are attention grabbing beacons on steroids; they make crowds gasp in delight, and draw an audience from many miles around.  

Yet while advertising burns very brightly, it dies very quickly.  Fireworks are an expensive way to keep a crowd happy all night.

Social media isn't like setting off a firework; it's like building a bonfire.  

It takes time to start.  There's careful initial construction, a gentle blow here and there, and the gradual addition of more wood.

Then a couple of other folk gather around.  Some of them will even help you build the fire; break some wood up, throw more on, poke around in the embers to make sure the fire doesn't go out.  

As more people gather, and help the fire grow bigger, the more it will attract yet more people... with attention and dedication, as everyone fuels the bonfire it will only ever burn brighter.

A social bonfire isn't something you can 'campaign'.  It doesn't fit snugly in four week bursts, it doesn't come with a guaranteed reach & frequency, and it's hard to know exactly what it's going to cost from the outset.  

If you want to start a social bonfire, or want to help other people make their bonfires bigger, you're going to have to commit some time, effort, ingenuity and resource. 

Because it's not just about the bonfire; it's about building it together.

"If you are going to engage, you have to have a plan and make sure that resources are available. Because you can't gracefully exit - once you're in, you're in. The days of walking away from a campaign are over – once we engage, we have to commit to it."

Denise Morrissey, Online Community Manager, Toyota

(Source: http://www.engagementdb.com/)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, what's next?

These ten principles are just a starting point; provokers of conversation, thought, ideas... an invitation to you (yes, YOU) to join in. 
 
Why?  Our aim with this project is to move the debate beyond simply the theoretical, and into the practical; examples of approaches that have worked, and which have not.  What does success look like?  What do you need to do first? 
 
We believe that by sharing information and case studies around 'social communications' we will all, from the largest agency to the nimblest freelancer, from the most traditional client to the youngest start-up, benefit from this open source of knowledge.
 
So please, join the debate below...

(NB: I may take a while to respond, given circumstances, but some of the other guys in the group are going to weigh in too...)

Social media as speed dating

Guest puppy feeder... Jason Spencer

Jason is Managing Director of PHD North in Manchester, and is nicely fostering the 'Feeding The Puppy' spirit there... he recently attended the 'Science of Success' seminar in Manchester featuring Malcolm Gladwell & Daniel Goleman, and has come away with four main thoughts inspired by what he heard there...

...'can I share them on Feeding The Puppy?' asks Jason.  You certainly can, Mr Spencer...

----------------------------

2. Social media as speed dating

If you are going to go speed dating, don’t just talk about yourself. The same goes for brands.

Daniel Goleman cited the greatest Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, and his I and Thou Theory that there are 2 types of human relationship:

I/it relationships, where the I considers the person they are interacting with as an object and talks at them;

I/you relationships, where the I empathises and listens to the other person.

Now it does not take a genius to work out which strategy will yield the most success if you go speed dating, as Goleman pointed out.

But this got me thinking that social media is maybe just like speed dating.

If you are inundated with lots of brands vying for your attention, you will be drawn towards the brand that treats you as an individual not an object. The brand that stands out because it listens rather than just talks.

Without social media, every brand would be engaging in an I/it strategy and whilst they would get through the highest number of its, they would make the least “connections”.

If we want to get phone numbers and meet again, hey maybe even go out on a few dates and have some sort of meaningful relationship, we must listen and ask questions from the very start.

So I/you beats I/it every time.

For the record, I have never been speed dating. But I have a friend who has.

If you have been speed dating, it would be great to know if this analogy works for you (and if we can stretch it a little further)…

 

(Read Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence for more on all this)

Sandpit; jumping in to social gaming

As I talked about before here, I'd made my first ever 'social game', called Hatchet...

And I spent last night in Brighton at Hide & Seek's Sandpit event where we played it for the first time...

...so, how did it go?

Well, Hatchet was pretty chaotic, but a lot of fun...

 

A quick reminder of how the game works; there's a box of moo cards.  Each of the cards has one word on it.  Each of those words is a line from a Beatles song.  There are several such lyrics in the game.  The aim of the game is to find the rest of your line, and sing the lyric with your new friends.  First three teams to sing get points.  Repeat ad infinitum.

"I'd LOVE to play that..."

Well, here's how you can:

The full rules, and the images to make the minicards at moo, are available at this dropio site here.

Holly from Hide & Seek is going to upload them on game wiki Luocity too.

It's all available under this creative commons licence too. 

Did it work for us?

Yes, pretty well.  I hadn't quite realised just how loud and boisterous the game would be...  There were about 65 people playing, and 75 cards in play... which meant that there were some unformable lyrics.  So you need to have a check about how many people are playing first.

But by and large, a raucous fun time was had by all...

 

 

If you ever have the chance to go to a Hide & Seek event, like one of their Sandpits, I would hugely recommend it too... there were lots of brilliant games throughout the evening, my favourite of which I think was Werewolf... or maybe Night of the Vampire... or Standoff...

...anyway, check out Ludocity for an extensive list of other games you can play.

And to Holly and the gang at Hide & Seek... thanks for letting me play :)

Cricket and Transmedia Storytelling

Like me, you may have become increasing in thrall of the gentleman's game over the last few years...

...yes, that's right, cricket. 

Since the 2005 Ashes, it has moved from being in danger of becoming a relic of a forgotten era, to a hot topic of conversation, beloved of pop stars (like Lily Allen and The Duckworth Lewis Method) and celebrities and TV presenters...

....and most importantly, lots of ordinary people like you and I.

Is it because England, finally, have started winning?  Well, that helps certainly. 

But I think there's something more powerful at its heart; the shift in how the world communicates.

Transmedia Storytelling

Over the weekend I was attuned to the second one day match (oh, Australia, you can have the one day series, it's like winning a battle after the war has been won).

I was listening on TMS, checking the scorecard on the ECB app for the iPhone, having a sneaky glance at the Guardian's OBO coverage, and also following a few of the cricket commentators on Twitter...

It occurred that perhaps the revival of cricket is down to it being the perfect sport for Transmedia Storytelling.

Transwhatia Whodeia?

OK, a quick explanation... Transmedia Storytelling is something that I first encountered via Faris (as most folk in the agency arena did), and then through Prof Henry Jenkins' book Convergence Culture. 

What is it? 

Transmedia Storytelling is about using lots of different media to tell separate parts of the same story, as opposed to retelling the same story in lots of different places.

An oft-used example, first suggested by Jenkins, was The Matrix Trilogy; you could just watch the films, but would get more points of view, background etc from comics, computer games, animations etc etc.

The Matrix: Neo goes in to bat for his friends

Read Henry Jenkins' Transmedia 101 for a much fuller, better description...

Transmedia Storytelling & Cricket

So we can see from the way I followed the cricket this weekend how the Transmedia theory is clearly at play in cricket.

In addition to the places I was attuned to this weekend, there's the Sky coverage, Five's highlights show, newspaper commentary and analysis, Cricinfo, various cricket forums etc etc. 

But why does it work so well for cricket?  I think it's down to four things which are a fundamental part of the game itself...

1. Duration

Cricket takes a long time.  Even the 'short' version  like the 50-over game I listened to yesterday takes the best part of a whole day to play.

So in an era where 'appointment to view' is dying out, people perhaps don't necessarily want a sport that they have to sit down at a precise time and watch for 90 minutes. 

A sport where you can duck in and out at any point during five days is very suitable indeed for the way we live our lives and communicate nowadays.

2. Access points

You can't sit and watch five days of cricket on the TV.  It's just too long for people with jobs, families etc.  So you need a variety of different points of access to suit what you're doing at the time...

Get the score from a mobile phone, some opinion from the Guardian's OBO, tune into TMS (Test Match Special) on the radio if you're at work.  Meet a friend in a pub to watch a couple of hours play, talk to other fans on forums about the form of players, or just talk to your friends where you talk to them already (email, facebook, text message etc)

You can use any of these different access points whilst the game is still in progress, which makes the game, and your 'participation' in it, much more engaging than it was before.

3. A love of information

The ease with which data has become measurable and malleable is changing a lot of things in the world (how we listen to music, buy books, see our travel patterns etc).  We know that humans really seem to like looking at data visualisations that augment our experiences. 

Cricket was always a game of stats and numbers, of course, but now technology is being brought to bear in lots of interesting ways, in everything from the coverage itself (Hawkeye, wagon wheels etc)to the ease of access that everyone in the audience has to the statistics only once available in Wisden.

Detailed information in this new exciting, highly visual form helps give the 'story' that's being told an amazing amount of depth, and helps people understand it more.

4. Understanding of the game

There's a lot of depth that in the complexity and techniques of the game; all in all, there's a lot to get you head around.  Which is what help makes cricket the perfect Transmedia foil...

Where once cricket was inaccessible through complexity, the emergence of all of the different access points means people have been much more likely to find a route in that suits them; they can choose the depth of understanding they want to go to, and find their favourite access points in. 

Cricket suddenly becomes a lot more sociable, as more people find that they have a 'route in' to talk about it.  Cricket is a social object (as Mark testifies to here).

It no longer matters how much you know really about cricket; you can still join in a conversation about it.

Accidental Transmedia Storytelling

What's really interesting is that cricket is now big in the UK by accident; the variety of access points which have emerged have not emerged by design.

Sky's TV coverage, BBC's Radio coverage, the Guardian's OBO, Crickinfo, the ECB app, forums, the commentators on Twitter, your friend's commentary on his Facebook status... and all the other access points I've missed...

...no-one sat down and planned for all this to happen. 

Various entities have rights here and there, other organisations reported on things in a particular way, some commentators & producers took it upon themselves to try something new, and people started getting involved themselves.

A more restrictive set of media rights would not have produced as a diverse a set of access points for people to have come into cricket.

Not only do I think cricket is a great example of Transmedia Storytelling, I think it shows what can happen when you cede control (whether on purpose or not) to people so they can help create a different part of the story.

The lesson for companies I think is this:

Transmedia Storytelling works best with more access points.  You don't have to create all of those access points yourself. 

But in order for other people and organisations to create them, you have to let go of as much control as possible.

It's not what you say; it's what you do

Paul Isakson at space150 very recently posted this up on slideshare (found via Simon)... he says it's roughly the first half of what they'll typically show to clients as an introduction to what they should be doing in the social media realms.

Social Media: It's Not What You Say That Matters

View more documents from Paul Isakson.

I think it's a great introductory overview.  It covers a lot of the areas we've touched on here on Feeding The Puppy, and in a very elegant, zippy way.  It's well worth spending five minutes having a flick through.

As an aside on 'style', I think slideshare as a tool is changing the way a lot of people create 'presentations'...

...the modern shareable presentation works more like a comic book strip, with the speech bubbles embedded.

I believe that the comic book is a great template for presentations.  This image from Austin Kleon is represents it well:

I'd be interested to find out from Paul whether he has a different version of this for when he presents live... in fact, I may well ask him.

Branding, relationships, and the private label double whammy

When I was doing the IPA Excellence Diploma course, I picked up this from John Millar & David Muir's book 'The Business of Brands'...

For a company, good branding achieved certain things...

i) INCREASE the cash flow, as the number of purchases increased
ii) ACCELERATE the cash flow, as strong brands grow and diversify more quickly
iii) EXTEND the duration of the cash flow, as brands create habit in people
iv) REDUCE RISK, as brands help guarantee the continuation of cash flow

But of course the world of branding is going through some big changes right now... 

People have started beginning to change the relationships they have with the companies who supply their goods and services.  Relationship is maybe the key word here; people talking to other people, because technology has made mass conversation possible, and desirable...

I've covered lots on social media before, or course, like Bonfires & Fireworks, so let's skip over that for now...

However, much is made of how preposterous this when you come to thinking about how people would form relationships with the everyday branded objects...

...The Ad Contrarian goes off in a most eloquent rant about it here, part of which is...

"These new humans want a direct relationship with their peanut butter maker and their muffler manufacturer. They want a relationship with the company that makes their socks and their chairs. And their pickles, and their half-and-half, and their mayonnaise, and their cookies, and their tires, and their chewing gum, and their toothbrush, and their umbrella, and their dishwasher, and their napkins, and their toaster, and their gasoline, and their horseradish..." 

...and so it continues (thanks to Jo for the heads up).

Now, I agree, it'd be completely unwieldy and unlikely to expect people to have a 'relationship' with all of these different companies... they'll still seek out and talk about/talk to the companies they think are remarkable, but it'll be one in a hundred perhaps.

But for the most part, a relatively unremarkable FMCG product is just a relatively unremarkable FMCG product.  Why would you want to form a relationship with a 'soap powder brand'.

Yet this is where I think the 'private label' issue is the key one...

Why form a relationship with hundreds of individual companies, when you can build a strong, reciprocal relationship with one company who can deliver you all the products you wanted, of comparable quality, at a lower price.

Of course, the 'price' factor is often raised as the biggest factor in the private label vs brand battle... but that's only half the story I think; competition from private label products, and inferior brands, has always been around in the competitive marketplace of the last few decades.

The double whammy is that not only is private label cheaper, but it comes from a company people have an increasingly close relationship with. 

People don't form relationships with brands.  They form relationships with people, and with companies (who're just big groups of people). 

Supermarkets have lots of people on the ground, and lots of initiatives, which are all fixated on building relationships with their customers (in order to prevent defection to other supermarkets).  Relationships between people and supermarkets are really quite strong.

So I guess maybe the question for the producers of 'dull FMCG products' is 'how do I get people to form relationships with my brands?'.  Because to justify price differentials, there needs to be a relationship differential.

In time though, I wonder if there's a need for FMCG producers to act more like supermarkets... it's not the individual brands and products they should look to for forming relationships, it's the companies themselves...

Social Bonfires & Advertising Fireworks, pt III

The Social Bonfires & Advertising Fireworks discussions & continuations have set our little corner of the internet alight (yes, pun intended)...

...a quick recap if you've not seen:

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires

View more presentations from John V Willshire.

It's all helping improve and refine the analogy (which is great, as the IPA group I'm working with, for which this was originally started, meets tomorrow).

So from Daniel Goodall at Nokia, this fine build...

"many people already have bonfires, and they usually want to build their own bonfires; you know, with their friends and that. They probably don’t want to come to your Corporate Bonfire."

"...how can we help people with what they want to do at a bonfire?

1. Provide some stuff: some blankets to keep people warm, some snacks and drinks, maybe even provide some entertainment (a guitar?)

2. Go along to the bonfire and actually have a conversation or two (remember to be a good listener!)

3. Most importantly, of course, you could do something *genuinely useful* like put some extra wood on the bonfire to keep the damn thing going!"

(You'll maybe remember that we're big fans of being useful to people at PHD.)

Anyway, thanks Dan, great post and a hugely important point.

I shall report back on tomorrow's meeting at the IPA with Mark, Le'Nise, Katy, Neil, Amelia, Graeme, Jamie, Nigel when I get a chance...

PS

Yes, I know, part III in Hollywood Blockbusters is usually where things start going wrong... 

...Rocky III (Mr T?  WTF??). 

...Police Academy III (Zed's now a Police cadet??  WTF???). 

...Return of the Jedi (Muppets?  WTF????).

Remember though, those Ewoks loved a bonfire...

 

Advertising Firework, Social Bonfire pt II

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this post on why if advertising was a firework, social media was a bonfire. 

A lot of people liked it (in PHD & beyond) and found it a really helpful way to think about, or explain to other people, the differences between the world of campaigning, mass media advertising, and the new social landscape.

So I've been improving it and have written this, so thought I'd share it here too...

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires

View more presentations from John V Willshire.

(Thanks to Simon, David, Beth, Chris, Dan, Mat & Vijay for chipping in with excellent thoughts)