If we examine technologies honestly, each one as its faults as well as its virtues. There are no technologies without vices and none that are neutral. The consequences of a technology expand with its disruptive nature. Powerful technologies will be powerful in both directions – for good and bad. There is no powerfully constructive technology that is not also powerfully destructive in another direction, just as there is no great idea that cannot be greatly perverted for great harm. The greater the promise of a new technology, the greater its potential for harm as well
The first millionaire of the California gold rush did not mine for gold but rather sold shovels and other supplies to the miners. He also started the first newspaper in San-Francisco which he used to a great extent publicizing the discovery of gold in the area. Levi Strauss also made a fortune selling pickaxes to the miners but was never lured to mine for gold himself. Today his brand of jeans are known worldwide.
It is indeed less glamorous to say “I sell pickaxes” than to say “I mine for gold”, but I guess it’s the behind the scenes work, like selling pickaxes, that sometimes is most worthwhile financially.
Factoid: Akamai, supplier of online video infrastructure, has made more money than Youtube, the most widely known online video sharing website.
“Fact is, that as Jamaicans (and by extension corporate Jamaica) we are CHEAP.”
But is that the truth?
Jonathan made this comment on my previous post on the mindset of Jamaica’s online media professionals. I disagree.
Corporate Jamaica, or rather majority of the individuals heading the marketing departments of Corporate Companies, have been slow to make significant investments in their company’s online images, from their websites to their social media presence they have often scrounged on their spending. Though this is so, it’s not that any one of them is being cheap. It’s more that they undervalue the medium and thus attention and spend follow suit. And that is perfectly logical. After all, I wouldn’t advise anyone to spend more on an object than what they believe it’s worth. That’s bad business.
So what I’d like to see more than increased spending from these execs, is and increased understanding of the possibilities online media present corporate Jamaica and also for what it is we online media professionals do. With better understanding executives will put more value in their online activities and their spend will increase. Right?
We have entered a Golden Age of marketing technology. There are now thousands of software applications built for nearly every aspect of marketing. We have more choices, with more capabilities, at more attractive economics, than ever before.
Yet most marketing organizations today lack the technical leadership to fully harness this power. Previously, technology management didn’t need to be a core competency of marketing. It was sufficient to rely on a hodgepodge of the IT department, outsourced providers and vendor consultants. The translation of a high-level marketing vision into its technical implementation was considered largely “in the weeds.
Jamaica’s TV commercials have always been(and probably will always be)below par when compared to those created by our neighbors to the north and those created in Europe. Not because of a lack of talented creatives, trust me we do have extremely talented people, but more because of a lack of sizable competition and a relatively small market. There’s no reason to spend a million US dollars creating an advert for a market of under 2 million people. Plus there’s not much local channels for your advertising to compete through(two and a half the last time I checked). This results in the production of ads that, in a few cases, are good but still so very far from being great.
Internet properties are an other story entirely. If you are like me, whenever you go looking up information, your first instinct is to do a google search. There lies the big problem(or opportunity) for our Jamaican web designers, content strategists, and online marketers. The majority of local designers who seek to create something extraordinary fall short because they look at ‘Jamaican’ websites the same way they look at Jamaican television commercials. Limited to Jamaica.
When you create a website, post a video or any other piece of content online that piece of content is competing with the world. Nobody cares if you intended it for a Jamaican audience. Jamaicans don’t care if you are targeting Jamaicans. Information is unbiased and universal and so is the internet. If you are going to build a website, hold your work to the standards of the best designers across the globe. Don’t for one second think that I’m gonna search for a ‘Jamaican’ website when I want some tips on how to save money. Unless your website is as good as or better than mint.com or MSN Money in terms of both content and design, chances are it wont get me past the first page much less persuade me to buy from your company.
Being an education and liberal studies student, from time to time we get interesting assignments. A recent assignment I got was to participate in a forum discussion under the topic “Can the social network Facebook be used constructively in the classroom?”. Here’s one of my responses:
Facebook can and is already being used as an educational tool. However, being a social website, the goals may be a little different from traditional classroom techniques and may include:
Increase a sense of belonging
Build bonds between classmates
Increase bond between students and instructors.
Consider the following Facebook features:
Profiles
You can set up a “teacher” profile separate and apart from your personal profile to connect with students
Facebook Lists
You can manage classes of students using lists and using the privacy settings you can send updates and messages to specific groups of students.
Note’s and Note Tagging
Notes can be targeted to groups or individual students. You can share anecdotes about good things that happened in class as well as publish thoughts about class content.
Photos
You can take photos of presentations, diagrams, class activities and upload them for the class to see. You can even use the discussion board already built into Facebook as an alternative to this Moodle board you’re on right now.
Comments
All the features above are brought to a new level when you allow students to comment, thus enhancing the experience.
These are but a few features that can do wonders for Classroom. I’d probably need an entire book to cover all that Facebook can do for students.
Here’s one very innovative means I found where Bullis School teacher Sara Romeyn talks about using Facebook as a teaching tool in her AP U.S. History Class:
The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Hugh MaCleod
This is one of the most important yet most ignored aspects of social media marketing. It’s ignored because in most cases it is not understood. Every conversation whether online or offline revolves around a social object, in fact, I think social object marketing is a better term than social media marketing if we are to condense what it is we try to do when we market via social networks and communities. If so far the concept seem vague here are some examples
Example 1
If you and and a bunch of friends gather every Tuesday night to play Kaluki, Kaluki is the social object.
Example 2
You are a female and on the bus going to work another female say’s “Nice shoes!”. You get into a conversation about places you can get nice shoes, you even start talking about the deals you got on Jamaica Observer’s Fashions Night Out and eventually how Observer put’s on nice events etcetera etcetera. In this case the shoes is the social object.
Example 3
Someone posts a video of cat riding atop a turtle. You watch this video and decide to leave a comment as well as post it to your own profile. The video is the social object.
Remember social objects are the heart of social networks, not the other way around. Social obejects existed before facebook and twitter, and will continue to exit long after. If you want to influence conversations then first you must have a social object. Take a look at your product, is it something to talk about?
