Daniel Slaughter

Anne Hunter (@followanne)
VP Advertising Effectiveness
comScore

How does the Internet change how we define communities and ourselves? What does diversity mean in a world of technological grazing? What does diversity matter at all?

This topic is looking at Diversity in what we classicly define as diversity, and what Diversity is on the internet. A digital medium, like the internet, can have the same kind of effect on communities that a television can have in local environments as it causes them to change.

Definition of Common Diversity:

• The condition of having or being composed of different elements; variety, especially.

Definition of Digital Age Diversity:

• The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect.
• It means understanding that each individual is unique and recognixing our individual differences
• These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social-eco status, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.

Statistics on how people use the internet:

• Genders: 54% of internet users worldwide are male. Mobile phones play a large part in this. Males, especially in the United States, are more likely to have smart phones. As prices drop, women being to buy these phones and actually consume more content than males through these devices.
• Ages: The younger the generation, the more internet use they do. As we get older our generation will use the internet more than currently elder generations.
• Locations: The Asian Pacific is the largest area for internet usage, and it’s not the USA. They are 38.9% of the worldwide usage.
• How Often: Typically, every person in the world access the internet 18 days a month.
• How Long: Statistically each person spends 26 minutes per use of the internet.
• How Quickly: They are on broadband, they have a cell phone, they send text messages, but other countries do not have smart phones yet. This is, however, rapidly changing. Typically new technology is first obtained my “wealthy” males, and then later passed to the rest of the world and genders.

What websites: Globally 73.9% visit Google, 66.7% visit Microsoft Sites, 50.6% visit Facebook, 48.0% visit Yahoo, and 31% visit Wikimedia.

But Internet use is not typical! In January 2011 there were 416 thousand people in southwest Brazil were reading pet content online. 381 thousand people pensioners (older individuals) in the UK went online looking for love on personals sites. 1.3 million men between the ages of 25-44 in Vietnam were looking at cosmetic websites.

Does the ability to connect with other like-minded people mean we’re more diverse? Well, the internet has really made human “grazers.” We’re like Human Cows. The power of $0.99: On average 18 songs are purchased on iTunes per person. However, less than 2 songs per album. There’s not a lot of commitment for any one certain artist. People are looking at 9.8 artists per month, per person. Are there areas in music where people are more committed, buying specific genres, etc? Well, New Age is the most common, then Classical, Metal, Jazz, Inspirational, Rock, Christian, Hip hop, …, and Latino. Commitment to a particular artist varies worldwide. Brazil and Sweden are the most committed, and the USA is the least.

Even specialized content consumption changes online. Essence print magazine reaches 40% of all African American women every month in print. And almost all of these women who receive this are African American. However, online only 1/3rd of people who access their website are African American. This is because online you can link to an article and sample pieces of the magazine without having to commit to the entire thing which is targeting a demographic. This is a change we have not seen before, because access to content has always been very specific.

Video content consumption changes online. 180 million USA video viwers. 85% of internet users viewed at least one video. 13 hours of viewing time per view. Unlike sitting down and watching a sitcom, the average video length we watch is 3.9 minutes per video. This is because we’re “grazing.”

If we are grazing more, does that mean we’re committed to things less? Typically core audiences are still more engaged online. African Americans spend 62% more time per person on essence.com than non-African Americans. African Americans consume 2x as many pages on essence.com than non-African Americans.

The appearance of Diversity, the reinforcement of community. Sites link to other sites that are relevant to the topic, or ideas. Recommendation engines for example does this. If we start interacting with a certain group, they’ll start providing us with other knowledge and links for related materials. This happens with the advertising we see so that we are more interested in this.

How the internet introduces me. The first thing Facebook says about us is our job. Then it lists college and major, residence, relationship status, and then hometown. In a verbal conversation typically these things do not come up. However, with the internet we use this to introduce one another. Who you are is defined by different definition of your community. This online almost makes us less diverse, but gives us the abilities to connect.

Diversity prevents Vulnerability. The more diverse our MHC genes are the stronger our immune system. Inbreeding can make populations vulnerable to diseases because you do not have the genetic immune system built up.

Diversity breeds innovation. Societies with diverse natural resources prosper. Environmental barriers prevent the spread of ideas and societies innovated from new ideas.

The internet is a tool for benevolent and nefarious excuses. To harness the power of the internet, we must actively steward all forms of diversity. We need to go with full heart and say to ourselves, “Am I learning and reinforcing my ideas to help myself, or to limit my diversity to see the other side of the story?” As we go forth, we need to make sure we are active stewards of this.

In the Fortune 500 companies, the most gender diverse boards outperformed by 66% with women on their boards. In 2011 the World Economic Forum found equality drove prosperity as countries with almost parity between men and women to succeed the most.

Daniel Hope
Counselor
DanielHope.org

Zachary Burt
Mr. Awesome
Awesomeness Reminders LLC

Daniel Hope has an interest in the effect of Social Media on relationships. Zachary Burt works at Awesomeness Reminders which calls people every day to tell them how awesome they are.

Entitlement is having something awesome, but hating it when it doesn’t work as expected. It’s in our nature to complain, which is fine. We can move forward into embracing our need to complain. The seven deadly sins are violated in almost every social media product.

Zachary created a website where people could go and vent to someone they don’t know about how bad their life is. This is win-win because the person venting is revealed, and the listener gets a fun story of how bad someone’s life is. Just because something is evil or bad (the seven deadly sins), doesn’t mean it needs to be negative.

Daniel recently was hit as a pedestrian when crossing the street by a vehicle. The driver was using their blue-tooth head set, and couldn’t drive and talk on the phone enough to hit them. This is an “evolution fail.”

Turning off your cell phone before you engage with someone is a good way to say, “Hey, I’m here now. I’m here for you.” It’s a great way to communicate and interact with someone, instead of spending the conversation not listening and just reading your texts or email.

Multitasking is also really difficult. With so much stuff going on, we cannot focus on one thing. So what are some ways we can start our day at being more intentional (asked to the audience)?

• Don’t use Twitter before noon.
• Someone in the audience has a program that disables their internet for a couple hours while they write, and then turns off his phone. He tells his mom if someone dies then they’ll still be dead once he turns his device back on.
• A good technique is to work for 20 minutes, and then take a 5 minute break. It’s almost a form of multitasking, but being intentional with the way you’re doing it.
• Someone makes a list and puts in the fun things first, and then the bad things. They’ll do the bad things first knowing that once they’re done then they’ll have the fun things to do.

One of the underlining things is to simply measure things to see your output. Because what can be measured, can be managed.

How can we add a dimension into our conversation to identify emotion into our verbal communication online? It’s kind of like an emoticon, but something more in depth. Because with an emoticon it gives you a concept in the mood of the message, but you almost need to know the person personally for it to make sense. Sarcasm, for example, is very hard to demonstrate through a text-message without actually knowing the person. However, if they’re your friend it’s not hard to convey that at all.

If you focus on just one thing, at the end of the day you’ll be more happy than if you multitask multiple at the end of the day.

We are getting better at emotionally connecting with people and things we cannot see with our own eyes. Good Morning America said that if you were wearing a $2000 suit you’d jump into a lake to save someone drowning even if it would ruin the suit without even thinking about it. However if someone asked you for $2000 to dig a well in a foreign country to save a village of people from dehydration you probably wouldn’t consider it. It’s all relative to what’s in front of you in the here and now. You almost have a sense of responsibility for those things in front of you. In an email, however, you may just not consider responding right away.

The Happiness Journal is a concept where you write down things that you’re thankful for. And then when you’re having a bad day you can look through this Journal to feel better about your life. Also just getting feedback about projects helps. For instance, doing an Open Source project lets you see that others want to help you, be grateful for your product, and care about your abilities.

Chrissie Brodigan (@tenaciouscb)
Engagement Lead
Mozilla/Firefox

She found it difficult to contribute design into an open source project. Most free software projects fail, usually around 90-95% of these. It’s not a lot different than what happens in our day-to-day job. For a project to be successful it needs to attract users and developers. Intricate systems usually are the number one cause for failed systems.

Open source software is free, flexible, customizable, full of great features, and they’re able to make you feel “warm fuzzies.” Open source gets really awesome once you get in there and become involved.

Double D: Developer/designer conundrum. Those awkward conversations between developers and designers. Designers and Developers are willful, independent, idealistic, prideful people… We love our work! Sure, we can argue that Developers and Designers are cosmetically different in style, dress, attitude, etc., however in the end of the day we all love Pandas (yeah, the cute little animal). Hehe.

Documentation matters rather it be developer, user, or design documentation. They’re all different types of documentation, as they’re not the same thing.

Confidence matters since your project’s presentation builds confidence.

The most important thing here is “dissolving demotivation.” One of the big things is how do we get Designers to contribute to the Open Source community? The reality is you cannot. You cannot ever give great designers what they want. The best thing if you do find a great designer is to hide them from everyone, and shelter them. Designers take a lot of pride and credit in what they do, but being told not to use your name is scary. Developers see logical problems, but they use those problems as excuses to bypass design. The excuses are usually pretty compelling and convincing. When you have developers who are putting themselves out there, admitting they’re chaotic, no one will want to work with them.

Bad Habits

1. Workarounds: developers think and engineer in workarounds for speed. Designers design to avoid workarounds.
2. Going Rogue: developers misinterpret design logic and make a decision work the way they think it should/might work. Designers don’t provide design documentation to any a developer’s “why” and instead makes it work the way they think it should work.
3. Being Trendy: Designers design for trends vs. designing for maintenance and iteration. Developers write code for the future. Designers will never say, “man, I’d love to see where this design is going to go in the future in the next version.” This is bad.
4. Source Code: developers practice version control and code review. Designers don’t treat their output assets as source code or practice team-friendly version control. As a designer if you make a pseudo-version control and keep versions of your design as you create it, then it’s easy to roll back, see what’s already been done, or learn what hasn’t worked before. This is what developers do to produce really good code, and this should be in design too. Work with your designers to teach them how they can treat their design source code in version-control.

Solutions for Designers

• Open Source design can work, and work very well! The best place to start is to open an IRC channel for your project. use #project_namedesign.
• Design graphic lite: don’t rely on graphics. Because of HTML and new browser web-fonts we have the ability to rely more on that, and less on the graphics.
• Design practice design-specific version control. There are very few software solutions for this at the moment. Promote design-specific bug tracking.
• Make micro opportunities by starting small, don’t use your own name, and you’ll still have small success somewhere.
• Design and documentation for localization. Your project can be designed locally, but still be shared globally.
• Refactor together: apply user leanings and amend hastily written code.
• Include “forkability” as a part of the project’s design ethos. Designers think that what they make wont be used by others, and when they are they consider that intellectual theft.

There are a few projects that are helping Designers play nice in the Open Source World

• Dribbble Rebounds
• Layer Tennis
• Design-Swap.com encourages and pairs up designers to go into one another’s sites and design new templates with their names on them.

A good way to get people involved and excited is to design design contests. Mozilla’s Firefox logo actually came from a community-drive design challenge.

Free software projects include software innovation for designers. For designers lettering.js does down to the letter control of your web fonts. Another good place is openfontlibrary.org.

Good design is a powerful (non-markety way to spread the word about your project without feeling like you’re selling your soul.

So, where are the Open Source designers? This is definitely a problem, because they’re not at free software-centric conferences and never on the IRC. They are definitely here at SXSW.

Thank you: @estellwyle, @lxt, @mozcreative, @paulirish, @nateabele of lithium, @scottmac of facebook (PHP developer).

“Go hacktivate designers!”

I remember when I first got my Droid Incredible by HTC and I scoured the internet for blog posts about the “Top Android Applications.” Come to find out they all posted the same applications, give or take a few, and they all pretty much sucked (yeah, I said it). Now, I’m not saying these are the best ones, but they sure are pretty sweet!

Games

• Bonsai Blast: A path of balls go through various maze paths requiring you to shoot and attach three balls of the same color to eliminate the strand before it gets to the end.
• Mahjong: The classic block stack game where you need to find two of the same to remove them, ideally having no blocks left in the end. You have to like Mahjong to enjoy the tedious searching of this game, but it can cure your boredom.
• Alchemy: This is an interesting “game” where you match two “Elements” which then may or may not make a new Element. Constantly combining Elements can add up to hundreds of new Elements… including a Yoshi Doll! I kind of got bored with this after a while, but it’s a fun concept nonetheless.
• Wordfeud Free: Simply put, it’s online multiplayer Solitary. This game is ad supported but there is a paid non-ad version for around $4 which unlocks some other things too.
• Traffic Jam Free: Try to get the main brick/car/log out of the Jam by moving around the other objects until a straight line is formed. This game has thousands of different puzzle combinations which get harder and harder as you go. This is ad supported, but they’re not obnoxious.
• Solitaire: This game does not have any ads and is completely free. It’s just a very well done Solitaire game which minimal stats (best time, wins/losses). Also includes Spider, Freecell, and Forty Thieves.
• Raging Thunder Lite: A beautiful 3d racing game with a sequel (see below). The Lite version is pretty minimal on what you can do but it does offer a couple cars, quick race mode, and one or two tracks to race on.
• Raging Thunder 2 Lite: The sequel to the racing game above. Again, the Lite version is pretty minimal but the full version has a dozen or so maps, cars, enhancements, and tournament rounds with online leaderboards. I did end up buying the full version of this version and it can be quite fun.
• Pocket Legends (3D MMO): Another very pretty 3d game which is similar to World of Warcraft (WoW) in style. Now, you cannot expect WoW on your phone, but for having minimal functionality this pretty much hit it on the head. It is massive multiplayer meaning you’re playing in the same world as everyone else in the world. What’s nice about this app is it’s also available on the iPhone so you can play with those kids! This app is FREE like the rest in this list, but you can pay for “silver coins” which will allow you to buy better items and go further into the game if you wish.
• Guns N’ Glory: A pretty overhead top down game where you move Cowboys, Indians, and Outlaws around in a Tower Defense like game to prevent the Westerners from, well, going west and taking their loot. The commentary is witty, and it’s an enjoyable game to play. This game is ad supported, and not obnoxious.
• Angry Birds: Everyone is talking about this right now. However, unlike those iPhone folks who have to pay $1 for their copy, yours is FREE! Why is it free? Well, it is ad supported, and Android/Google Market doesn’t charge developers $99/application/year to post them there… silly iPhone.
• Angry Birds Seasons: The same exact game as above, but with Halloween and Christmas themed levels. Smash pumpkins and blast through new icicle tiles to get at those pesky piggies.

Tools

• Wyse PocketCloud Free: Have a computer at home you want to RDP or VNC into so you can move your cursor around, click on things, and completely control it? Well, you can! Obviously over 3G it is sluggish compared to WiFi, but it does still work. It’s nice that I can use my computer at home from across the country if I wanted to. The Free version only allows you to save the settings for one Computer at a time, and other than that is pretty much the same as the full version.
• Lookout Mobile Security: This Application is a must have for anyone with an Android device. The free version will backup your contacts list, photos, and even recent call log! It’ll scan downloaded Applications and your whole phone for viruses. And, if you loose your phone (this is where it gets cool) you can log into the website online and it will show you where it is on a map via the GPS within 5-10 meters! Woah! The paid version will also let you completely lock out your phone (but I’d recommend just setting a password of some type anyways) and/or wipe out all the data on your phone if you loose it. And surprisingly, it takes little to no battery life to use!
• Twitter: This is the official twitter.com application, and it’s by far the best one out there. It’s pretty, trendy, and it’ll even allow you to message or follow me at @danielslaughter.
• The Weather Channel: Is it raining outside? Well, why check the window when you could just check your phone, ‘eh? But seriously, this little guy will keep a running temperature in your task bar if you want it to, and even tell you up to 10 days in advance what the weather is going to be. Is there a tornado looming in your area? No worry! It’ll even notify you of hazards and warnings too!
• CalWidget: I switched from a Blackberry to the Android and I really wanted to find a nice widget which I could customize to look like the Blackberry theme with the calendar on the homepage. Well, here she is. This thing has around 12 different dimensions for widgets, and is completely customizable down to your first offspring’s gender.
• Barcode Scanner: You’ve probably seen those pesky QR tags all around the place; I hear they’re huge in Japan. Well, rather it be a QR code, a barcode off your mother’s lipstick, or anything else with lines you can scan it with this. It even has an option to send the barcode via a URL of your choice if you want! Pretty nice feature if you’re a nerd who’s made their own website to inventory something.
• Meebo IM: Do not download all those silly little Instant Messenger clients, just save your time and get this one. If you haven’t ever used Meebo or ever even heard of it then get out from under a rock, create an account, assign every IM client you have to it (including my_little_pony01@hotmail.com) and sit back and IM away.

More

• Color Flashlight: Things are lurking for you in the dark, watch out for them with this app. This little guy will turn the brightness on your phone all the way up, and display a white screen, pink screen, animated candle stick, or disco like effects. Totally.
• Metal Detector: I’m not sure why I’m listing this other than it’s kind of awesome. It basically uses your phone’s built in compass to detect metal disturbances and determine if it’s around large masses of metal. Too bad it doesn’t work on smaller, more practical, items like rings or coins. But if you ever need to find your car in a one-foot deep pile of snow then you’re in for a treat.
• Pandora Radio: Music! Streaming! Free! Need I say more? Plug your phone into the Aux port of your car with a Male to Male adapter off Amazon for like $2 and go for a road trip listening to Pandora.com. Just please don’t be the guy who’s sitting next to me without ear buds on the public transit listening to Baby’s Got Back… okay?
• GTunes Music: If Pandora isn’t good enough for you and you want to specify what songs you listen to, and maybe with the goodness (or evilness) of your heart just steal MP3s instantly from the internet and download them, then use this. This thing even has a Top X list, which will let you click on them and simply download every single one. Probably once you get this you’ll want a good MP3 ID3 tag editor, since no one labels MP3s correctly. Disclaimer: don’t steal music, and I’m not suggesting you do (but it is kind of awesome, and free).
• Torrent-fu: If you have a multimedia center at home, or a computer somewhere else, you can use this nifty little program to connect to either the web-client of uTorrent or Transmission, search for something, and have it instantly start downloading while you’re on the John, or in Italy. Disclaimer: again, please don’t steal things.

Would you like a quick way to pull this page up on your Android Phone? Well, either navigate your web browser to this short link or use the Barcode Scanner I mentioned earlier to take a photo of this QR Code:

http://ub32.com/4V

Over the past couple days the brilliant minds of Old Spice marketing have released Youtube videos documenting fan feedback about their spoke-person’s opinions (or “facts” as he would probably call them). In one of the episodes a person by the username pandarr on Reddit requested a video for his voicemail system in which fans quickly asked for a soundboard to. Later @knitmeapony on Twitter requested one for the ladies. And here you have it, my soundboard of those Youtube videos.

Click here for the Old Spice Voicemail Soundboard

Video Transcript

On Reddit, Pandarr: “We need the audio to build our own voice mail messages.” Anything I can do to help Pandarr. Hello, you have dialed. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. The tall accomplished man you have dialed cannot come to the phone right now because they’re. Ripping out mass loads of weights. Polishing their model smile. Cracking walnuts with their man mind. Building an orphanage with their bare hands while playing sweet sweet lullaby for those children with two mallets against their abs-xylophone. But leave a message and they’ll return your call as soon as possible. I’m on a horse. I’m on a boat. Swan dive. This voicemail is now diamonds. Do da do do do do do do. You’re welcome Pandarr.

Knitmeapony tweets, “Us ladies would like to have your melodious tones as our voice mail message too.” Well Knitmeapony, here goes. Hello goddess. The lovely/talented/intelligent and beautiful/sophisticated lady at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 is unable to take your call. She’s busy. Ridding a horse backwards with me. Listening to me read romantic poetry while I make a bouquet of flowers from each read page. Ingesting my Old Spice man smell. Being serenaded on the moon while surviving off the oxygen in my lungs via a passionate kiss. Enjoying a delicious lobster dinner I prepared just for her while carrying her on my back through piranha infested waters. But she’ll get back to you as soon as she can. Thanks for calling.

Enjoy!
Daniel Slaughter

I wouldn’t normally put a recipe on my blog until I’ve perfected it, but I’m not quite sure how much more perfecting this one needs. So, I am proud to announce a delicious way to cook tofu resulting in a firm meaty texture.

Ingredients

14oz Extra Firm Tofu
2.5 Tbsp Sesame Seed Oil
1/2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/4 tsp Ground Ginger
1/4 tsp White Pepper
1/8 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Horseradish
Toasted Sesame Seeds (for garnish)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees and preheat a pan on your stove to high heat. Mix everything together in a bowl aside from the Sesame Seeds (for garnish) and the Tofu itself. Slice the Tofu into 3/4 inch thick pieces and let marinate a couple minutes in the mixture you just prepared. Once marinated move the Tofu to the preheated pan on your stove to sear both sides of the tofu. Drizzle the remaining contents of your bowl mixture on top of the Tofu. Once both sides have been seared to a light brown move the tofu to a oiled baking sheet covered in tin-foil (optional, for easy clean-up). Drizzle the contents of your pan on top of your tofu on the baking sheet. Place baking sheet into the oven for 8 minutes, flip the tofu over, and wait another 8 minutes before removing. At this time preheat the same pan you had on your stove to a medium heat. Move the tofu back into this pan letting each side cook until medium to dark brown (usually 4 minutes on each side). Remove Tofu from pan and let sit to cool for 20 minutes. Dice up the Tofu, garnish with Toasted Sesame Seeds, add to whatever dish you’d like (such as a salad), and enjoy!

Serves 2-3

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:00am
Ann Aikin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
David Hale, National Library of Medicine
Andrew Wilson, Dept Health and Human Services
Andre Blackman, Pulse + Signal

Session Description

Discussion

“That particular genetic combination of swine influenza viruses has not been recognized before in the U.S. or elsewhere”

Situational Awareness: the ability of a group, organization, or individual to have access to everything they need to make active decisions to create results.

Monitoring Twitter with NLP

• Processed 1200 Twitter posts (within the first hour)
• Preprocessed to accommodate format

Schema: UMLS Semantic Types

• Focus output
• Schema for influenza epidemic

MetaMap and SemRep Output

• Tweets: Texas confirms third case of swine flu

Results: Filtered through Schema

• Disease or Syndrome: Influenza
• Sign or Symptom: Coughing
• Location: Mexico
• etc.

…Basically they analyzed Tweets within the first hour of the outbreak in a calculated system (NLP) defined by some specific search terms to see when outbreaks were occurring, and how fast they were spreading.

More Information

#whenswineflew
flu.gov/socialmedia
cdc.gov/socialmedia
newmedia.hhs.gov
facebook.com/h1n1flu
facebook.com/cdc
youtube.com/USGOVHHS
youtube.com/CDCStreamingHealth
@flugov
@cdc_eHealth
@cdcemergency
@cdcflu
@NLM_SIS

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:30am
Rand Schulman, The Schulman Thorogood Group
Mike Teasdale, Harvest Digital
Joanna Burton, Crescent Communications

Session Description

Breakthrough marketing used to come from creative genius, from big ideas, from empathy with customers. But now all the attention goes to rigorous testing and algorithmic approaches to customer insight. So is the science driving out creativity – or are we focused on the wrong kind of maths?

Discussion

Amazon‘s PHAME methodology:

• Identify the Problem
• Formulate a Hypothesis
• Propose and Action
• Identify key Metrics
• Run the Experiment

Amazon noticed the best way to get someone to buy someone was to suggest to them something in their wish list.

At Google they questioned if they should use green or blue, so instead they decided to test over 40 shades in-between until they discovered which one resulted in the best user interaction.

Google has discovered the most articular formula of all time. Before google came around and made page ranking, and ad ranking. Ad ranking is: Ad ranking = bid price * click through rate. And thus, this causes the most clicked results to bubble to the top making more money for Google and more changes of views for the advertisers with good marketing.

The battle lines

• Math vs English
• Reason vs Instinct
• Right brain vs Left brain

So when does data go wrong?

• When we start with the data, and not with a problem. Many people look at data with no goal of what they’re finding. Data is really not that great.
• When we only focus on the things that are easy to measure.
• When it stops us from taking giant leaps.

You can optimize a better version of the present. But it takes imagination, not math, to take a leap into the future.

The Internet changes the equation. Why?

• Empirical Data vs. Guess Work or Extrapolated data
• Tools exist today for optimization
• But, left brain process thinking!

What is a “Content Engineer?”

• One part Creator Director
• One part Data Analysis

1. Monitor
2. Measure
3. Maximize… the do it again!

What’s a better call to action?

• Buy today – get half off
• Buy today – get one for free

My math: creativity without conversion = 0

• Use the Scientific Method
• Create a Thesis
• Set up a Control
• Test against the Control

Many types of conversion events

• Macro Conversions (ROI)
• Micro Conversions: conversion to the homepage, product page, forms, optimizations, etc.
• Revenue Life Cycle Stages

Know your tools – become a Content Engineer

• Web Analytic & Site Optimization
• Marketing Optimization
• CRM
• Sales 2.0

But this is hard work… too bad! It can be fun. Check out SalesPop.

More Information

Slides (set 1, Teasdale)
#toomuchmath

Monday, March 15, 2010 5:00pm
Caroline McCarthy, CNET News/CBS Interactive
Frank Eliason, Comcast
Lois Townsend, HP
Toby Richards, Microsoft
Jeremiah Owyang, Altimeter Group

Session Description

Discussion

Social Media is a place the customer owns. And thus, it becomes a place feasible to gather customer feedback. The question becomes is what should businesses do with the feedback? Twitter seems, in most businesses, to be a way to connect with the customer but not converse with the customer.

• HP has 11 people dedicated, and about 75 actively supporting customers in social media.
• Comcast reviews over 2000 tweets per day.
• Microsoft supports about 1200 customers per month online through 6 people.

Basically what you say online hurts their company image, and they’ll respond. But a phone call? Ha! (read the past blog post, and you’ll see why that’s bad).

More Information

#140customersupport OR #140cs
ClaraBridge (Microsoft uses this)
Blue Ocean (Microsoft uses this)

Monday, March 15, 2010 3:30pm
Mason Hale, OneSpot
Doug Lenat, Cycorp
Bart Selman, Cornell University
Natasha Vita-More, H+ Lab
Peter Stone, UT Austin

Session Description

Discussion

Today AI is still limited to logical questioning and answering. By 2015 it’s estimated that question answering, semantic search, and syntatic search will all be possible. By 2020 there will be a “cradle-to-grave” mental prosthesis. These both assuming AI-learning will become more prevalent giving AI greater potential.

The goal of AI is to create robust, fully autonomous agents in the real world. Well, how can we do this?

• Build complete solutions to relevant challenge tasks Complete agents: sense, decide, and act – closed loop Challenge tasks: specific, concrete objectives
• Drives research on componenet algorithms theory: improve from experience (machine learning), interact with other agents (multiagent systems)
• A top-down, empathetical approach

What happens when we achieve this goal?

• Utopia view? (Like the Jetsons)
• Or not? (like Terminator)

Question: would you rather live 50 years ago, or 50 years in the future? It’s not really clear since the world is changing in many ways for the worse.

Complex Issues

• Enhancement
• Normality: What do we consider to be normal, and what will be considered normal in the future?
• Behavior: What type of biology or behavior will they have to communicate with humans?

AI metabrain: The concept of AI being placed in human brains to make “super-humans” and allow us to naturally interface with devices or with each other differently.

AAAI Presidential Panel on Long-Term AI Futures

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