OgEvolves - Charting the next revolution

He’s undergoing restructuring!

My apologies for the utter lack of posting activity over the past month. Between graduating and moving to DC, my hands have indeed been full (excuses, excuses…). I’ve brought three of my spiritual kin from the frontlines on board Verticality Group, LLC, and we’re working hard on the next iteration of this evolutionary endeavor… Until then, please do consider Og under construction.

In other news, I thought you might enjoy some recent (and exciting) updates from Andrew Cohen’s blog; two new startup blogs in the world of What Is Enlightenment? magazine and Evolutionary Enlightenment; and a funny SNL parody of Oprah’s ongoing love affair with The Secret (”I control the universe with my thoughts…”).

Happy trailblazing!

Well — it’s official (in a not-very-official kind of way): I’ve finished my senior thesis, entitled, “User Generated Democracy: An Emergent Potential in American Politics” (hence, the title of this blog post).

Here’s the mini-preface:

“A not-so-subtle shift is occurring in the body politic: citizens have begun to use the participatory architecture of the Net to effect substantive change in American democracy. In their social roles, they are moving from consumers to producers, audiences to speakers. This shift makes the evolutionary potential of the American political system greater than at any other period in history.

“Yet a more democratic future is far from guaranteed. Technology provides the physical architecture only. The rest depends on the collaborative effort of Internet users and citizens of America–hence, user-generated democracy. As such, this website represents more of an inquiry than an answer; the solutions, I believe, will come through further deliberation and open discourse…”

You can read the paper, with links and video, here. Feedback welcome!

It’s late, and I’m wrapping up a day’s (make that three days’) worth of research for my thesis–which is due on Friday. My apologies for the lack of posting activity; look for an announcement later this week on a fun little exercise I’m doing on academic publishing.

Thought I’d offer the following inquiry in the interim:

It’s amazing how many resources can suddenly “appear” when you put your attention on a particular task.

The excuse of not being able to find what you’re looking for, then, may simply derive from not wanting to look hard enough. After all, attention and intention seem to have a generally (though perhaps not universally) causal relationship.

Makes you wonder — what would happen if we all suddenly decided that creating a better world, regardless of profession, pay, or neurosis, was more important than anything else?

(Of course, my use of the second person is only a literary–rhetorical?–device, and should be replaced with the first person. But it’s an interesting question nonetheless.

A lot of material on interactive marketing focuses on implementation. Some of it is helpful, some not.

But how can we think about interactive marketing–both strategically and philosophically?

To be sure, there’s no one right answer to that question. But here’s a proposed start:

Interactive marketing entails identifying all of the potential areas for meaningful interaction online and actualizing each of them to their fullest potential using an integrated strategy in the largest possible context.

Whoah. That’s a mouthful, with lots of buzzwords. Let’s break it down:

Identifying all of the potential areas for meaningful interaction online. The key word here is “meaningful,” in two senses: first, you want your interactions to offer a sense of shared meaning between you and the user; and second, you want the interactions to mean something to your overall philosophical, spiritual, and financial vision.

Actualizing each of them to their fullest potential. Vague, I know–I’ll work on that one. But the idea is that you want to create as much meaning as possible and always strive toward higher levels of “relational value.” Your work is never done as an interactive marketer–you can always make life better and more meaningful for both you and your users.

Using an integrated strategy. Though this phrase definitely sets off my own BS meter for buzzword density (and I wrote it!), it’s still true: every online interaction you facilitate, whether in the form of email, social media, or advertising, needs to contribute to a larger overall strategy. If it’s not integrated, then you’ll eventually find yourself putting out fires without realizing the entire forest is ablaze.

In the largest possible context. That strategy needs to be seen in a much larger context than “monetization” alone. If not, then you end up focusing your attention on myopic tactics that may lead to short-term revenues but compromise the long-term integrity of your relationship with the user–as well as your own capacity to make a difference in the world.

If we’re going to use the web as a vehicle for evolutionary change, then we all need to start diving into these dynamics with greater depth and subtlety.

After all, if we’re not improving the world, then what’s the point?

I’m working on a new white paper, and I thought I’d share a passage with my readers (this is a continuation of my post on the Mystical Internet):

A lot of people I talk to view the Internet as both mystical and magical.

Mystical, because there’s just so much stuff to learn, so many emerging technologies, and so few solid resources to help them navigate these unfamiliar waters.

Magical, because “once I set up my blog, RSS feed, email newsletter, and podcast,” the story usually goes, “I’ll receive a swarm of traffic.”

Typically the magical part comes first. And then, after a few months (sometimes hours), the whole “interactive marketing” universe starts to look pretty confusing—perhaps like a whole new world.

Is it? Well, yes and no:

Yes, marketing on the Web does require new skill sets, in addition to more complex modes of thinking about consumer psychology, the public sphere, collaboration, and social networks.

No, it’s not mystical, and the best way to make a difference online is still through, as Seth Godin would say, being “remarkable”—and putting in some good old-fashioned creativity and sweat equity (and following some traditional relationship rules—especially the golden one) into the marketing process.

So to begin, let’s be clear:

The Internet doesn’t “change everything,” in the sense that we can suddenly reach people just by putting up a website. That is, don’t expect that by putting up a wiki about your latest product, you’ll start harnessing the wisdom of the crowds.

But it does “change everything,” if you know how to use it in the right way, for the right reasons, with the right people.

What I often say to clients excited about the marketing potential of the Internet is:

“Imagine that the Internet never existed. Remember those times before it was ubiquitous—you know, when you knew you had to do stuff, like creating a competitive advantage and communicating with people, to build a successful business? Start there.”

It’s a shocking statement to many, and usually met with a combination of resistance and dismay. But I’ve found it to be absolutely true: the net is the best lever, inter-connector, and electronic communicator this world has ever seen, but it’s certainly not a replacement for ingenuity.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the difference between momentum and scale, in business and beyond.

For the past year, I have had my sights on scale–on building a business that can both handle rapid (or exponential, or geometric) growth and effect significant change in the world.

But I am beginning to appreciate the importance of momentum as a precursor to scale.

Here’s what I mean: many of us who seek to make a difference want it all to happen now–the book that launches an international platform, the organization that affects millions, the movement that transforms the world.

But that’s not actually where we are. And so we take actions based on that false sense of reality–namely, that we’re at a point where building economies of scale makes sense.

If we actually decided to look at where we were, however–to be brutally honest about our present situation–we would see that simply building momentum, over and over again is the most effective and sensible strategy we can adopt.

What does that look like? To me, it looks something like this: everyday, I develop more momentum than the previous one… and when I’ve developed enough momentum where more complex systems are needed, then I shift my focus to scale (thanks to Rich Schefren for the insight).

So if you’re in startup phase–like I am–then I recommend starting to take an honest look at how much momentum you’re actually building. It may surprise you, as it did me.

I’m now in the momentum business–not the scale business. That comes later.

The intensive with Andrew Cohen was, in a word, transformative. Actually, I can’t just use one word: revolutionary, evolutionary, moving, inspiring also hint at the experience. 

But even that barely conveys its real impact, both current and potential, on my own life and the world.

In lieu of writing a tome on what happened–I certainly could–I instead point readers to some links that provide a potent vista into those magical eight days:

Samples from Andrew Cohen’s talks

Chris Parish’s blog on Zaadz

Jeff Carreira’s blog on Zaadz

Og and I shall be back in business soon–as soon as I overcome a few more hills of catch-up work.

In our postmodern age, the spiritual experience–and, by extension, the possibility of enlightenment–is often seen as peripheral, complementary, non-essential to the fabric of human life.

Well, today, I embark on an 8-day intensive to make enlightenment meaningful, guided by Andrew Cohen, founder of EnlightenNext and What is Enlightenment? magazine.

So I am retiring Og for the week. In the meantime, be well, and Og and I look forward to blogging our hearts out again starting in early March.

Apparently, Narrativity Quotient™, or NQ™, was a hit among my classmates last night.

Someone told me to copyright it. So, I went to the US Copyright Office FAQ, and l learned that copyrights don’t cover names. Trademarks do.

And then I remembered a Seth Godin post I read on trademarks. Referenced the USPTO article on the same subject, and it checked out: you don’t need to register your clever word or phrase with ol’ USPTO to make it legally yours…

So, a word to the wise: if you come up with a catchy meme, just slap on the ™ and you’re good to go.

I was on a call the other night with the founders of a freshly minted online startup. The company has a lot of potential to do good in the world–their hearts are in the right place and their business model is very prosumer.

But one thing was missing: a compelling narrative. I told them (paraphrasing here), “If you want this thing to reach critical mass with the ‘conscious consumer’ market, you need to convey a narrative that truly inspires them.”

With values-driven consumers, it’s all about the context: why is a company doing what they do? What’s the story behind their reasons for being? And does their narrative speak to my values?

So it got me thinking: what if we could begin measuring the Narrativity Quotient(tm) of brands (and their marketers)? I use the word “narrativity” because, in academic parlance at least, it describes how “narrative” a narrative actually is. If it’s disjunct and hard to follow, it has low narrativity. The same holds for the converse.

In a crowded, increasingly niched marketplace, your brand’s narrativity matters. A lot. Do your streams of business represent a coherent narrative? Is that narrative compelling and easy to understand? Is every email an extension of your core narrative?

How about every conversation?