Or all this is all just a traffic jam in progress, despite the Google Maps, GPS, and live traffic reports?

Imagine a world where there was no rear view.  A world where Google Analytics, Post Rank Analysis, YouTube Insights, and two dozen other data mining and aggregation software services didn’t exist.  No trending for patterns or granular views at source.  No premise of popularity.  For all you knew, even your mom didn’t subscribe to your blog.  And you definitely didn’t know what time of day your tweets had the best propensity to be RT’d, much less know how many people clicked your junk.

Now, stop to consider that this imaginary report and pivot table-free world was reality (pretty much, at least in this context) as recent as five years ago.

What did the rear view look like back then, in 2005?  Gmail had only been around for a year, the iTunes store for two.  Facebook had decidedly less than the 500 million users it boasts today.  Many were still sticky (stuck?) from the dot-com bubble bust of 2000.  We pretty much lacked heat maps and status updates.  Most web sites were still digital pamphlets coded in tables, and community was somewhere most of us lived.  Literally.  In real life.

Where we worse off?  Somehow disadvantaged?  True, I didn’t have the random photo of a friend’s bumper crop of backyard tomatoes pushed to my wall.  But then I also lacked even the most tenuous of connections with friends sitting on the fringe of my life.  As I grow older and shed more facets from my youth, even those digital connections and the ability to easily send a short message of care give me comfort.

But back to the questions.  Were things worse in 2005 for the digitally oriented marketer?  The answer may depend on the day and the work you need to get done.  Ask me to forgo GA on a day when I need to tally conversions from an email drop, and I’d say No Can Do. But I also look for offline advances perhaps achieved more easily through current technology but deeply rooted in principles of brand development.  The physical manifestation of an emotional connection between a brand and its believers.

I’m eternally grateful for the people I’ve met and the things they’ve helped me learn during these intervening years, made possible by products I can’t even hold in my hand (other products running these products, yes.  But the products themselves, no.  Follow?).  And yet I can’t help but wonder where all this knowledge, sh@! piles of information, data, and perpetual access is going.  Where its taking us. Whether we’re consistently being productive with it (as Toby Bloomberg tweeted during a recent conference).  And what comes next.

To paraphrase Seth Godin, at some point you “…spend your best energy on optimization, not creation…the never-ending cycle becomes a crutch when you should be heading for the unknown and unrealized.”

When do we become so saturated with raw data that we become immobilized? I think it’s entirely possible we’ll have truckloads of data available and still lead with trusty instinct and seasoned intuition when rubber needs to meet the road.  Why?  Why revert backwards as though unenlightened with all these line-graphed indications of forward movement?

Because the tools won’t answer any more truly important questions.  Moreover, most of us won’t know what to make of data we have access to, to speak nothing of the wealth potentially available around the corner.  The numerically inclined that long to dive into the data and emerge with colorful charts will have performed impressive tasks, for certain.  But I question the value of that output if generated within companies that get stymied by all the potential implications, alternative routes, and possible A/B tests.  Companies that need lots of weigh-in and internal mulling.

Those companies may bring the most scientifically advanced, vetted product to market, but it will come at the price of being 24 months behind the competition.  When the product is already associated – and likely entrenched – with the more nimble brand.

Does your company use its rear view to produce variations of rear views?  How has that worked out for you?

Featuring:  (listed as seated) Michael Lambie, Dave McClure, Jim Schroer, Daniel Neely

My second live-blog attempt of the festival (only, is it really a live-blog if you take the notes real time and clean up the formatting and post few hours later? lol)

Neely:  Data will be created in next 2 years. Biz still need to attract and keep customers, make sure they’re relevant in a customer-driven world, rather than make themselves relevant. How do we take their (consumer) messages and put them inside our messages. Lots of jargon and overuse of language.  Is a customer engaged? Impressions is important. It matters if they talk about it, if someone is saying something about your product or service.  Other data besides quantitative exists. Lots of free data exists. Then there’s insights, actionable stuff. The new valuable insights cost a little more, ultimately the holy grail.  Now have a massive set of info, needs to have it simplified. How do we make SM insights actionable? Data to insight to valuable insight to actionable insight.  Actionable insights: adding anthropological perspective to the numbers.  Measurement:  Sample vs. comprehensive

Michael Lambie: Use primary data, 360 degree view of consumers; fuse it with measurement data; ethnogrophay studies, ad exposure, media consumption, neuro science, etc, eye tracking. Buzz Metrics is on the online side, monitoring social stuff. Segment customers more by following them on the Web and engaging them.

Jim Schroer: Former CMO for Ford worldwide, Chrysler. Earthquake is happening in the world of marketing. Most metics today are based on :30 TV–antiquated system. Actionability by Neilesen by consumers . Used SuperBowl ad. The SM buzz for Coke, HP, etc. dropped, despite 3 mill per spot spend. Teleaflora is the only marketer than won 14x 1,400% on their 3 million (not Coke, not Budweiser). And could track positive or negative.  Wants to challenge the economy that’s based on the TV rating system which is based on exposure to instead change to monitor both positive and negative word of mouth. Is SM and the buzz a good proxy for Word of Mouth? If so, it should have greater effect in how marketing dollars is allocated.

Neely: Language/translation plays a part. Must understand beyond the interactions; can’t only think about what happens about posted content. [network insights] What about 85% rating, sharing, linking, inviting, tagging–that’s what his company encourages us to look at. Many agenacies hide behind the way they used to do things. How do we affect ad spend? What type of events do we host? Where do we host them?

PR is about telling a story, the number of impressions. How do you accurately measure the vocal minority?

What is the influence of that minority? Some have influence, others don’t . Monitor twitter, FB, Google alerts.  Do the marketer’s equivalent of the Q score, the high highs by the low lows. You want to have about 10% neg, about 20% high.  Being in the middle sucks; you want to either be loved or hated.

Use Your Voice, Get Satisfaction, Yelp, other tools. Twitter can be sued for some survey stuff. Whether or not your brand uses it, the community is in fact using it so you’ll be there anyway.  Not engaging with your community doesn’t mean the sentiment isn’t going to be there.  Use Flickr and YT, Twitter–the same way you use Google Alerts.

Shrorer:  How move from listening to acting? nOT ABOUT exposures anymore, but about the intensity of their feelings. Dropped media spend by 200 mill in 2001, BBDO fought tooth and nail. It’s hard to move the money out of things (channels) consumers and dealers are used to into other channels.

Neely:  Visible Technologies–has a cool way to respond.  Hitwise is a good competitive analysis tool, as is Biz 360.

Tap into Biz Intelligence tools companies already have in place, another data layer.

SEM is important. Localization must be factored in.

Lambie:  Where was reduced spend in offline, and then turned into more specific targeted spend into online?

Hot Fudge Rule–a lot less interested in the tonnage than about the vanilla. Too much creative is just bland or overstimulating. Interactions online up 700% the Ed MacMahan super bowl spot. Do something that people will talk about online, and know that. Sometimes ugly can perform better than pretty.  Mazda’s Zoom Zoom, 159 companies. But gets one of the highest annoyance factors–its memorable, whether its liked or not.

Give people something interesting to talk about, forget IAB standard. Must aim better and stop pissing most away.

Golden nuggets of wisdom:

1) Focus groups and surveys have their place, but new gold standards will arise. STay plugged in to your consumers.

2) Seat up your search words on Technorati, Google, .etc. Then move from data into insight. At that point, will have to hire someone else to do it for you.

3) Word of Net is a proxy for Word of Mouth

Must also get samples of non-online users. Must assume word of net is the same as what is typed on twitter.

4) Social and search balance. SEM test concepts, then moving that. Must use paid search to test landing page copy.

Listen to the data.  Don’t just search for what you’re hoping to find/look for, be open to what you find and explore the data.

I had a notion strike me, likely spurred by my informaniac-like consumption of written material (articles, reports, posts, papers, editorials, presentations, webinars, books, cereal boxes, the list goes on.  It’s like a compulsion).  Lately I’ve been pondering the aggregated net effect of one’s involvement (commitment is implied) and participation in UGC (user generated content).

Where does it get you?  What does it give you?  Maybe moreover, What does it create? What does that mean for your brand, and the appeal it might have to others?

We’re familiar with “Google Juice” and the concept that algorithms are a strange, tantalizing, and sometimes elusive gossamer veil that can surround your digital presence (assume it starts with a blog or site) and make faerie magic happen. Throw in analytics-a mind-numbing if thrilling cloud of pixie dust–and you now know the “how” and “where” (and maybe some idea of the “who,”  and “when,” too).  Still pining for the “what.”

By extrapolation, when other “connector pieces” like Twitter, Facebook, Social Vibe, Flickr, Slideshare, StumbleUpon, etc. are factored in, the picture in my mind starts to resemble a Tinkertoy creation.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Now we’re mixing juices, pomegranate+cherry.  Cranapple+grape.  Strawberry+raspberry+pineapple.  De.lic.ious. and Digg.

Less Nutritious Alternatives?

What are the implictions when your UGC or social media reach is, say, a 3-Tinkertoy creation instead of a 9-Tinkerytoy creation.  There’s less to work with.  Is your involvement–or lack of, maybe more accurately–hampering your brand appeal?  Not available, findable, “in the stream”? Think what it might mean in traditional marketing  sense–fewer spots, infrequent rotation,  restricted print runs.  What might this mean to your reach, impressions, or message reinforcement?

For certain it means one message, fewer connectors/channels in which to mirror the rosy glow you had going on.

If your expectations are in line, then I say not attempting to go full-bore is just fine.  I believe you’ll get out of online branding what you put into it.  And once the resources or time are in place, then those efforts can always be stepped up (you def don’t want to step down, could cause some bad feelings).  I’ll bet in a short while, you’ll start seeing the fruits of your labor (sorry for the pun).  I know I did–Just by participating in some Q&A’s on LinkedIn that interested me, and Twittering more often, I saw about a 50% increase in traffic to my blog.  Now my bounce rate is higher than I’d like, but since the magical calculation doesn’t handle blog landing pages very well (those where stories are laid out in continuous timeline on a single page), I’ll balance that with some of the other criteria points.

Daily Supply of Vitamins

To get back to the question on hand–what does your conversation participation create?  What does it do?  What does it mean for your brand?  The answer is simple, really, and already outlined above.

Vitamins are not a substitute for good nutrition.  They are called “supplements” for a reason.  And I believe that one Tinkertoy connection supplements–compliments–another.  The more connectors you have, the greater the exposure points to potentially great people, resources, companies, ideas, and news.

So do a little, do a lot.  Be a joiner or a follower (def don’t be a lurker) or even a leader! Build your creation in any fashion you want to.  Just do it with passion, enthusiasm, an eye for detail, and  a vision in your mind.

Your personal brand will be strongest when you’re participating (or leading) consistently and authentically.