Author Archives: ghotchkiss

Search and the Age of “Usefulness”

First published April 19, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

There has been a lot of digital ink spilled over the recent changes to Google’s algorithm and what it means for the SEO industry. This is not the first time the death knell has been rung for SEO. It seems to have more lives than your average barnyard cat. But there’s no doubt that Google’s recent changes throws a rather large wrench in the industry as a whole. In my view, that’s a good thing.

First of all, from the perspective of the user, Google’s changes mark an evolution of search beyond a tool used to search for information to one used by us to do the things we want to do. It’s moving from using relevance as the sole measure of success to incorporating usefulness.

The algorithm is changing to keep pace with the changes in the Web as a whole. No longer is it just the world’s biggest repository of text-based information; it’s now a living, interactive, functional network of apps, data and information, extending our capabilities through a variety of connected devices.

Google had to introduce these back-end changes. Not to do so would have guaranteed the company would have soon become irrelevant in the online world.

As Google succeeds in consistently interpreting more and more signals of user intent, it can become more confident in presenting a differentiated user experience. It can serve a different type of results set to a query that’s obviously initiated by someone looking for information than it does to the user who’s looking to do something online.

We’ve been talking about the death of the monolithic set of search results for years now. In truth, it never died; it just faded away, pixel by pixel. The change has been gradual, but for the first time in several years of observing search, I can truthfully say that my search experience (whether on Google, Bing or the other competitors) looks significantly different today than it did three years ago.

As search changes, so do the expectations of users. And that affects the “use case” of search. In its previous incarnation, we accepted that search was one of a number of necessary intermediate steps between our intent and our ultimate action. If we wanted to do something, we accepted the fact that we would search for information, find the information, evaluate the information and then, eventually, take the information and do something with it. The limitations of the Web forced us to take several steps to get us where we wanted to go.

But now, as we can do more of what we want to online, the steps are being eliminated. Information and functionality are often seamlessly integrated in a single destination. So we have less patience with seemingly superfluous steps between us and our destination. That includes search.

Soon, we will no longer be content with considering the search results page as a sort of index to online content. We will want the functionality we know exists served to us via the shortest possible path. We see this beginning as answers to common information requests are pushed to the top of the search results page.

What this does, in terms of user experience, is make the transition from search page to destination more critical than ever. As long as search was a reference index, the user expected to bounce back and forth between potential destinations, deciding which was the best match. But as search gets better at unearthing useful destinations, our “post-click” expectations will rise accordingly.  Whatever lies on the other side of that search click better be good. The changes in Google’s algorithm are the first step (of several yet to come) to ensure that it is.

What this does for SEO specialists is to suddenly push them toward considering a much bigger picture than they previously had to worry about. They have to think in terms of a search user’s unique intent and expectations. They have to understand the importance of the transition from a search page to a landing page and the functionality that has to offer. And, most of all, they have to counsel their clients on the increasing importance of “usefulness” — and how potential customers will use online to seek and connect to that usefulness.  If the SEO community can transition to that role, there will always be a need for them.

The SEO industry and the Google search quality team have been playing a game of cat and mouse for several years now. It’s been more “hacking” than “marketing” as SEO practitioners prod for loopholes in the Google algorithm. All too often, a top ranking was the end goal, with no thought to what that actually meant for true connections with prospects.

In my mind, if that changes, it’s perhaps the best thing to ever happen in the SEO business.

Looking for the B2B Needle in the B2C Haystack

First published April 12, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

It’s not easy being a B2B marketer of the digital variety. Trust me. The problem is that 99% of the online world seems to be built specifically for the consumer market, and us B2B types have to try to divvy up the 1% that’s left. And that’s where it gets challenging.

The Tip of a hidden B2B Iceberg

One of the challenges is the lack of definition of the B2B market. It’s massive. But no one really seems to know just how big it is. When I was writing my book on B2B digital marketing, I tried in vain to try to find some reliable quantification of the immensity of the market, but I never did find a number that seemed fit for quoting. I had consumer market stats coming out of the ying-yang, but no one wanted to go on record to try to nail down the size of the business-to-business marketplace.

Consider this, though. For every consumer product that ends up in your hand, there is a long string of B2B transactions that precedes it. Some are materials and components directly incorporated into the end product, but many are indirect: equipment, services and supplies required to keep the long supply chain running.

Massive Fragmentation

If the B2B market is one massive iceberg that remains hidden, the challenges that face the B2B marketer start compounding when you consider that the market isn’t a monolithic one. Unlike the big consumer markets like automotive or consumer electronics, B2B markets are incredibly fragmented. The market lives in tiny little slivers spread across the online landscape. Suddenly our iceberg shatters into billions and billions of slippery little ice cubes.

This becomes apparent when you try to use a service like comScore or Hitwise to get market intelligence. Unless you’re GE, Siemens or Oracle, the vast majority of B2B websites have barely enough traffic to register in the datasets of these tools. Consumer markets tend to aggregate around a few landmark sites. But B2B traffic is scattered to the four winds. Even big B2B suppliers like 3M face the same problem in trying to obtain meaningful competitive data, once you go past the home page.

Consider that the main site, 3M.com, gets roughly the same traffic as just one site for a single PG consumer brand, Pampers.com. But within the 3m.site, no less than 70 different product divisions and hundreds of thousands of product lines are represented, from electronic components to liquid absorption materials that are used in, yes, those very same Pampers. If you try to slice and dice the traffic to get any meaningful intelligence, you soon find it would be easier to split an atom.

B2B Buyers look very much like B2C Buyers in the Data

Finally, you have the problem that when we have our B2B buying hat on, we still act much the same as when we wear our everyday consumer hat. We don’t suddenly change our search or online habits. For example, if you’re researching a possible solution for improving the water quality of a chain of coffee franchises, you’re likely to use pretty much the same keywords on Google that you might if you were looking for a home unit to fit under your kitchen sink.

When we search, we tend to start broad and only narrow down our searches when we have to. So when you look at search data available through Google or another tool, it becomes virtually impossible to segment B2B traffic from B2C. In the data, it often looks the same. So as you try to quantify opportunity, you start playing the B2B guessing game, where you arbitrarily discount the opportunity based on a WAG on what percentage could possibly be non-consumer in nature.

If you’re looking in a highly specialized product category, you might eventually use a B2B search tool like ThomasNet, GlobalSpec or KnowledgeStorm, but in all our research we have found that vast majority of B2B search activity happens in the same place as our consumer queries: namely Google, and to a lesser extent, Bing and the other alternatives.

Slim Pickens…

If you’re a consumer marketer, there is an increasingly rich set of digital marketing tools and data and targeting services to choose from. Everybody and their cousin are falling over themselves to cater to this market. But if you’ve decided to stake your flag on the B2B side of the divide, good luck! Only the foolhardy and brave seem to want to set foot here.

Reinventing AIDA

First published April 5, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Last week, my column was about how branding differs between search and more traditional brand channels like TV and print. It came from a recent client conversation I had. Rob Schmults from Intent Media added a well-thought-out, on-the-mark comment that deserves a follow-up. There are three points in particular I want to dive deeper into.

“ I think part of the problem in attempting to do so is that branding is all too often an end in and of itself rather than a means.”

Absolutely. Most sales and marketing happens in dozens of disconnected siloes, with little thought about how the actions of one silo affect all the others. Each silo measures progress by its own metric and set its own agenda. The problem is that all these different initiatives are aimed at the same target, but there is little thought as to how each initiative can impact the prospect.

For the past year, I’ve been thinking about how to approach marketing by starting first with creating a common understanding of the buyer’s motivations and behaviors, and then mapping a decision landscape so we can begin to understand the path the buyer takes through it. Much of my writing over the past two years has explored various aspects of this landscape: things like the role of risk and reward, and how they affect the emotions drive our buying decisions.

If branding becomes disconnected and “an end in and of itself,” it starts to lose touch with the chain of “means” that translates brand awareness into action. I saw a particularly acute example of this in a recent meeting: a brand agency presented research showing each point of movement in its unaided brand awareness metric translated into X of additional revenue. I didn’t dispute the finding, as I believed it to be true. What was missing was the long chain of interdependent “means” taking us from there to here. It was like saying that each inch of rain translated into X increase of revenue at the local farmer’s market. We’re jumping from “A” to “Z” without worrying about the 24 intervening letters.

“SEM is clearly a means — it’s a step to driving a conversion event (typically a sale).”

As I mentioned last week, presence on the search page is very often a critical intermediate step between the lofty heights of brand-building and the nitty-gritty of bringing cash in the door. In fact, if you take the time to understand how search is typically used in the purchase process with your typical buyer, it typically falls into the “no-brainer” category, because the prospect has intent and is completely open to being persuaded. Which brings me to Rob’s next point:

“Branding has value, so the war Gordon describes doesn’t have to end with total victory and branding’s extinction.”

As effective as search is, it’s a channel with built-in limitations, including available inventory. If there is no awareness, there is no inventory. People can’t search for something they don’t know exists (at least, not yet). Branding creates awareness, which, if the dots are connected properly, eventually turns into intent. And when intent is present, search is very effective at converting that intent into action. The chain then is Awareness – Intent – Action, which is a variation on the venerable AIDA branding model: Attention – Interest – Desire – Action. If you combine the two you end up with Awareness – Interest – Desire – Intent – Action, or AIDIA. You need branding at the front end, to create awareness, spark interest and create desire. You need search at the back end to allow prospects to act on their intent and discover how to take action.

It’s interesting to note that the original AIDA model jumped all the way from desire to action without much explanation on how to get there. Given that two of the steps –“interest” and “desire” — seem pretty similar, it’s odd that there is such a huge chasm between the domain of branding and the ultimate transaction itself. The AIDA model was definitely biased towards the front end of the marketing process.

I think what digital has done, especially through search, is to provide much more granularity and clarity on the many steps you can take to get from desire to action. But, as Mr. Schmults reminds us, none of these steps is “an end unto itself.” They’re part of a journey. They depend on each other. And each is passed through by your prospects as they travel down the path of purchase.

To come full circle, that was my original point. I’m not calling for the abolition of branding. I’m just asking that we take the time to understand the journey our customers take, and be there at each step.

 

There is No Floor on Search Spending

First published March 29, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I was asked an interesting question by a client the other day:  “What is the minimum spending threshold for paid search? Below what level does it not make sense to invest anything?”

A little context is in order here. This same client had been through a vigorous round of budget discussions, where the digital and branding teams were fighting for the same bucket of dollars. They were trying, with almost no success, to compare effectiveness of digital and branding on a dollar-for-dollar basis. The brand team’s tactic was that they couldn’t give up any budget because they were already at minimum spending levels. Even a dollar less would drop them below the level required to hit the reach/frequency minimums dictated by the agency handling the media buys.

The answer, of course, is that there is no minimum when it comes to paid search. Each click you buy generates a potential lead. But the reasoning behind that answer speaks to the unique nature of search, when compared to traditional brand-building channels.

Online Branding is a Different Beast

Search vendors have been trying to prove the brand-building effects of search for years now. I’ve been personally involved in some of the earliest of these studies. And I’m here to tell you, branding is much different in an online environment than it is in the traditional worlds of print and electronic media.

When you use research to create a direct comparison between two different alternatives, you have to control for variables. If you don’t, the results are meaningless. If you’re trying to measure the brand lift of search, you have to use traditional brand awareness metrics — which, as I said, have significant methodological challenges.

The biggest challenge, identified by more sophisticated research approaches such as neuroscanning, is that most market research doesn’t really take into account how the brain works. And it’s here where the brand impact of search really can leave its more traditional counterparts in the dust.

The brain can interact with potential marketing messages in two different modes – a “bottom up” mode or a “top down” mode. The “bottom up” mode is how most traditional advertising works. It interrupts the brain, whatever it’s engaged with, and temporarily sidetracks the brain long enough to hopefully leave a “brand imprint” that will stick in long-term memory. Often, this is done at a subconscious level.

And therein lies the problem with most brand-awareness metrics. By their very nature, they have to engage the conscious brain and suddenly you’ve muddied the mental waters to such an extent that it’s almost impossible to get a true picture of the impression the brand left. Traditional brand impact research is a crapshoot, at best.

It’s this subconscious impact that has created the “minimum buy” hypothesis. If you don’t hit a potential target with enough impressions to make even a slight ding in their mental armor, you have wasted your entire budget. It’s the “Chinese water torture” approach to advertising.

But search engages the brain in a “top down” mode. We’re actively engaged with the task at hand, which means that no interruption is required to implant the brand impression. It’s immediately loaded into working memory, and we’re ready to act on it. That’s why there is no such thing as a minimum search spend. Each click bought has the potential to work, because there are no mental barriers to break down or attention to grab.

Sometimes the Truth Hurts

Ironically, in this particular budget discussion, the effectiveness of search turned out to be its downfall. We didn’t have the same “minimum spend” argument as the branding agency when it came to moving ad dollars from one budget to the other. But, when the dust settled, I took some solace in knowing that while we may have lost the battle, the effectiveness of search will eventually prove triumphant in the war.

Welders: Creating Sparks in the Social Space

First published March 22, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

A few weeks ago, I was asked to keynote at an annual gathering of welding equipment manufacturers. The topic? Social media, which had emerged as the number one thing these industrial marketers wanted to learn more about during their previous conference.

Now, if that image introduces some cognitive dissonance, you’re not alone. Anyone I mentioned this to tended to raise an eyebrow and look at me with skepticism.  I quickly learned to counter with, “Did I mention that the conference was in Indian Wells, Calif., at a beautiful resort at the end of February?”

“Ohh,” they would respond, nodding knowingly, “Well, that makes sense, then.”

I wouldn’t press the issue, but I also knew something they didn’t know.  Don’t be too quick to judge welders, because they’re a different breed. I know this because life has surrounded me with welders. I have two brothers-in-law that are welders. I worked my way through college working summers on pipeline crews, doing the jobs welders didn’t want to do. I’ve had several years of observation of the welding community under my belt, and it didn’t surprise me in the least that social media would be something they would be interested in.

You see, welders are craftspeople. They have a pride in their work, their tools and their community that may seem strange to those from outside their inner circle. I have sat and listened to welders talk for hours about the challenges they encounter on a job site. They care about what they do.  In fact, in the hands of some, an arc welder and acetylene torch become tools of artistic expression. If you don’t believe me, check out the work of Craig Palm.

How did I find Craig? I found him on the official Facebook page of Lincoln Welders. And frankly, the authenticity and passion of the Lincoln community blows away 99% of what I’ve seen pass as social media marketing out there, from brands that one would assume are far more sophisticated when it comes to digital marketing. But Lincoln has something essential for creating online communities. At the heart of it, there’s something there: something welders care about. It’s not manufactured, spun or contrived. It’s real. It’s common. It’s engaging. It’s the stuff communities are made of.

And that was my message to the group. Social does not equal market, just as marriage does not equal stalking. Marketing is defined by terms like targeting, reach and effectiveness — all implying one party doing something to the other. Communities are defined by terms like belonging, engaged and members — all speaking of a two-way relationship, where both sides are partners. It’s a much different dynamic, one that eludes those who view social as just another channel to be employed to drive the bottom line.

Companies like Lincoln and Miller understood there was already a strong community of welders with common interests and passions. If welding were just a job, welding helmets wouldn’t come in dozens of different custom designs. But they do, because your helmet signals both that you belong to a community, while making a personal statement about you. You wouldn’t do that if you didn’t care.

Social isn’t for everyone. In fact, before you start pinning your hopes on social, ask yourself a tough question. Is there something there? Is there a reason to engage? Does your business elicit conversations that could happen over a beer and span an hour or two? If there’s nothing there, then your online community will be a ghost town.

I have to be honest. I went to the conference expecting to teach the welders something about social media, but I actually left getting just as much as I gave.

Has Technology Spoiled Us?

First published March 15, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots.” — Louis C.K.

If you want to see “amazing” as it emerges onto our collective radar, your best seat is in front of the TED stage. It’s like a candy store of jaw-dropping technology. This year’s edition was no exception. We saw flying robots, virtual cadavers (to train new surgeons) and enough other techno-goodies to keep the TED audience in a digitally enhanced state of rapture.

One that stood out for me doesn’t exist yet, but Peter Diamandis and his “X Prize” have placed their bets on something called the Qualcomm Tricorder Challenger. Remember the Tricorder from the original “Star Trek “ — a nifty little piece of hardware that could instantly diagnose Star Fleet crew members and other assorted alien life forms? Well, the X Prize foundation thinks we’re at a point where we could turn that particular piece of science fiction into science fact. They’ve put $10 million up for grabs for whoever can create a handheld device that will be “a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements.”  The TED community collectively started salivating at the possibilities.

But as most of us had our attention focused on the amazing glimpses of our own cleverness on stage, I couldn’t help scanning the audience around me at TEDActive. Here we were, a group of privileged (and mainly well-to-do) Westerners, and most of us had technology in our hands that would have blown away the TED audience of 2002, just 10 short years ago. Imagine demoing the iPhone or iPad then. A standing “O” would have been guaranteed (not that that’s too stringent a bar to get over at TED).

It made me realizing how fickle we are when it comes to technology. What amazes us today is expected tomorrow and becomes boring the day after. We chew up innovation at an ever-increasing pace and seem to grow annoyed if we’re not constantly fed a diet of “wow.”

I started with a quote from comedian Louis C.K.  In his routine, he talks about a flight he was recently on where the airline announced that you could access WiFi while in the air.  Partway through the flight, the system went down and the flight attendants came on the system and apologized.

The person in the next seat responded with an exasperated, “This is complete B.S.!”

How, wondered C.K., could you possible feel entitled to something you didn’t even know existed five minutes ago?

Look, I love my gadgets as much as the next guy. More, in fact. But at that moment, sitting in that darkened auditorium, I couldn’t help but wonder if our own insatiability for innovation is setting off a technological arms race with social implications we can’t possibly foresee. Are we becoming spoiled idiots? Are we so blinded by our own sense of entitlement that we fail to appreciate just how amazing the world is today? And, more disturbingly, as we underutilizing the tools that technology is giving us, going for the easy distraction rather than the earth-shaking potential of innovation?Do we push technology down the path of least resistance, rather than directing it where it can do the most good for the world, collectively?

Of course, applying technology for the betterment of mankind is right in TED’s wheelhouse, so my fears are not so much aimed at what I saw during TED, but rather to the deluge of technical innovation whose only purpose seems to be to make us fatter, stupider and lazier.

Among the nobler pursuits of innovation is Segway inventor Dean Kamen’s Stirling Water still, a box about the size of a large camping cooler that allows you to “stick a hose into anything that looks wet…and it comes out…as perfect distilled water.” The box can supply a village with 1,000 liters of clean water a day.  Peter Diamandis gave us an update on the still, saying that hopes are high that it will soon go into widespread production, making a massive difference in the health and well-being of many third-world countries. It all sounds great until we remember that Kamen first introduced it on the TED stage in (you guessed it) 2002.

I wonder. If Steve Jobs had teased us with the capabilities of the iPhone in 2002, would we have waited patiently for a decade to get our hands on it? Or would we have whined like a bunch of “spoiled idiots” until it shipped? We’ve now had four version of the iPhone ship since it was introduced give years ago, so I suspect the latter is more likely.

Considering that the majority of the world still can’t get a glass of clean drinking water, it does give one pause for thought, doesn’t it?

Who is Joseph Kony – and Why Does it Matter?

First published March 8, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“Do you know who Joseph Kony is?”

The question was posed to me this week by my 16-year-old daughter, Lauren. Immediately I knew something was up. Lauren delivers everything with a half smirk, which is generally followed by some sarcastic comment. But this time, she was disarmingly serious in her question.

I curbed my knee-jerk reaction, which was to respond with an equally sarcastic comeback (genetic testing not required to prove paternity in this particular case) and simply said, “No.”

“I want you to go check out this site — kony2012.com,” she said.

I did, and ran into one of the most compelling uses of digital communication I’ve ever seen. So I wanted to use this column to do two things. First, to urge you to take the time to visit the site. It’s a crash course in effective online communication that any digital marketer could learn from. But secondly — and more importantly — I want to tell you who Joseph Kony is. Learning this might be the most important thing you do today.

Let me give you a brief introduction to Mr. Kony. The International  Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, compiled a list of the most wanted criminals in the world. Among better-known names like Muammar Khadafy, Joseph Kony had the unfortunate distinction of topping the list.

How do you get to the top of such a list? You form a guerilla army (The Lord’s Resistance Army) in Uganda and kidnap children to act as your foot soldiers. Not just a few children. Tens of thousands of children. You rip boys as young as eight and nine away from their homes and parents and force them to kill, torture, maim, rape and pillage, literally at gunpoint. Often, their first order is to kill their family and friends. You turn their lives into an unimaginable hell where the only avenue of escape seems to be their own death.

And it’s not just boys. Girls are kidnapped as well, forced to become sex slaves. Kony’s army has no cause, no goal, no reason for being. Despite its name, it’s unclear what Kony is actually resisting. The mission of the LRA has apparently gone directly from the mouth of God to the ear of Joseph Kony, but he has neglected to pass it along. The army exists, and the practice of kidnapping children continues solely because the world has allowed it to. In most cases, it’s because the world, like me, has never heard this story. It doesn’t know who Joseph Kony is.

This is where http://www.kony2012.com comes in. Started by filmmaker Jason Russell, who has been working to expose Kony for the last nine years, Kony2012 has a very clear goal: to make Kony famous by the end of this year, shining a blindingly bright light on his activities.  Russell believes that evil can’t be sustained when the world is watching you.  The Arab Spring indicates that Jason Russell is probably right.

The site has a heart-breaking 29-minute video, but that alone doesn’t really differentiate it. What is amazing is the way it uses digital communication and social media to help light the fires of fame around Joseph Kony. On the site, there are direct links to the Twitter accounts of 20 celebrities, including Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg and George Clooney, as well as social media links to 12 policy makers and political influencers including Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and John Kerry. Kony 2012 knows that the world of social influence is spanned by only a few degrees of separation and that these influencers, if activated, can bring unwelcome awareness to Kony with brutal efficiency. The degree of digital savviness shown by this site and the movement in general is humbling and inspiring. Of course, it helps to have a compelling story to tell, and the story of Joseph Kony certainly qualifies.

I made my daughter a promise. I would learn who Joseph Kony was. And I would do what I could so others would know him as well. I would try to make Joseph Kony famous.

There are many less important ways to spend 29 minutes of your life.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/169701/who-is-joseph-kony-and-why-does-it-matter.html#ixzz2imaY0Mn2

An Introvert’s Confession

First published March 1, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I am an introvert.

Which, I guess, qualifies as an introvert’s confession — a metaphorical “coming out of the closet.” But if you were an introvert, you would know that’s the last thing you really want to do. The closet is such a non-threatening place to be.

A few columns ago I wrote about personality tests and said that, according to the Myers Briggs Personality Test, I’m usually tagged as an “INFJ” – which, according to the labels applied, means I’m an Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling and Judging person.  Apparently that’s one of the rarest of the 16 personality types. Only 1% to 3% of the population are “INFJ”s. Depending on when I’ve taken the test, the last two letters have wavered a bit, but never that first “I.” I am, was and always will be an introvert.

I write this from TEDActive – which may just be the definition of introvert’s hell. It’s a gathering of some 600 well-meaning, gregarious TEDsters in the desert east of LAS (Palm Springs) who are prodded at every juncture to “interact” and “connect.” A good question would be, “Why the hell would you subject yourself to that?” A better question might be, “Tell me why this is this your third TEDActive.”

This year, much to my delight, one of the speakers of the first day of TED was a fellow introvert, Susan Cain, who spoke (much to her discomfort) on the TED stage about the importance of introversion. Internally I cheered, because that’s what we introverts do. Externally I stayed calm and expressionless, because that, too, is what we introverts do.

Let me tell you how an introvert negotiates the social minefield that is TEDActive. Tonight (being the night I’m writing this column) is “Free Night,” which means you’re supposed to somehow connect with a group of five to eight total strangers and invite yourself out to dinner with them at a local restaurant.

Yeah, right.

I, to the contrary, bailed out of the last session early (which was not that big a sacrifice, frankly) and snuck away to a local diner to grab a quick bite, by myself. By the time the rest of the TEDActive crowd was heading out to dinner with their new friends, to be followed, I assume, by poolside partying and midnight karaoke, I was already back, safely ensconced in my hotel room, writing this column.

If you were judging me through an extrovert’s eye, you would probably be using words like “antisocial” (you do know what “introvert” means, don’t you?) and “pathetic.” What you don’t know is the profound pleasure an introvert can get from observing life and thinking about how it all fits into the bigger picture. As I sat in that diner, I watched a four-generation family reunion unfold before my eyes. I watched a mom take her 3-year-old daughter for a walk around the restaurant so she could be the center of attention as her new shoes sparkled and lit up with each step. And I asked myself why most of us adults don’t feel the need to wear shoes that light up when we walk through a restaurant. What happens along the way that steals that wonder from us?  If I were there with a group of others that I felt compelled to socialize with, I would have never seen that sight. That’s an introvert’s modus operandi: we observe, we think and we wonder. There are worse ways to spend your life.

Now, to be clear, I don’t skulk my way through the entire TED program avoiding eye contact and sneaking back into my hotel room. I had a very enjoyable conversation at lunch about space travel, the global rebalancing of wealth, the ethical dilemma of artificial intelligence and how our sense of entitlement may kill North America. That’s why I have come back to TEDActive for three straight years. But by 6 p.m., the tank was full. I needed some solitary time to digest.

My career has forced me to take on some extroverted characteristics. I’ve had to learn to speak in public. And owning your own business dictates that you become a salesperson. But I can’t live on a steady diet of that. At the many search conferences I attend, I usually stay at a different hotel than the “official venue.” It just makes life easier. And my longtime industry friends can tell you that I’m much more comfortable with a quiet dinner and engaging conversation than the more gregarious gatherings around the hotel bar.  That’s just how I roll.

As an introvert, you get used to living in a world that’s largely defined and judged by extroverts. As Susan Cain pointed out today in her talk, somewhere in the 20th century, the value of character somehow slipped and gave way to the cult of personality. We introverts are constantly made to feel that we should be more “outgoing.” Perhaps, though, the rest of the world should become more “thoughtful.” Would that be such a bad thing?

All of this has little to do with search engines or digital marketing. But I do think that our newfound digital connections may actually turn the tables on the imbalance between the introverts and extroverts of the world.  It seems to be less of a social stigma to spend time by yourself. And thanks to online connections, we can now connect on an “as required” basis.  Perhaps, as a society, we’re beginning to put more importance on the value of individual contribution.

Maybe, just maybe, the introvert’s time has come.

Behind Every Search There’s a Story

First published February 23, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

This week, I was reminded why I got into this business. The timing was good, because to be honest, after being involved in too many discussions revolving around search budgets and cross-channel attribution models, I had lost touch with what I’d found so magical about online marketing in the first place. But Tim and Daniel reminded me. It’s a story worth repeating.

About a week ago, I was sitting in a boardroom trying to find an “apples-to-apples” comparison for a CMO of a huge company to help validate moving money from traditional brand-building channels into search. We had run dozens of models, compiled multiple spreadsheets, and put together at least six different slide decks. In the process we did our level best to suck all the life out of the exercise, reducing it to a colorless discussion based solely on numbers. We were trying to find that elusive formula that would allow us to compare the impact of a dollar spent on search vs. a dollar spent on TV.

This was a variation of a conversation that I’m sure we’ve all had multiple times in the last year. I guess it was a sign that digital has come of age. We were trying to subject it to the same BS that had propped up TV and print for decades.

However, in the process, we were missing something critical. And I found that something critical on the streets of San Francisco.

When I started in search, I used to get a kick from the fact that thanks to what we did, a small Mustang after-market parts retailer could outrank Ford for keywords like “Mustang parts” and increase its online business by 10 times in under a year, eventually outstripping its traditional brick- and-mortar business, which had been around for decades. Or that a small boat manufacturer in Kelowna, B.C. could rank No. 1 for “boats” and suddenly start getting inquiries from around the world. Online made things possible that had never been possible before. And that was pretty cool.

Those stories are still happening and being talked about. It’s just that they’re not happening at the boardroom tables where I’ve been hanging out lately. But then I ran into Tim and Daniel, and their story restored my faith in online marketing.

Tim and Daniel are just a couple of guys who happen to love their city (San Francisco) and wanted to find a way to afford their sky-rocketing rent so they could continue to live there.  A little over a year ago, they started a bike tour company that takes tourists through the streets of San Francisco, pointing out the little nooks and crannies that give the city its color. They’re both pretty personable guys and the tours benefit from their obvious passion for their subject. They can bring Haight-Ashbury or the Castro to life in a way that no tour book or bus tour ever could. They reduce San Francisco to a street-level, intimate love affair, exactly the way the city should be seen.

Now, as cool as that is, the story wouldn’t be worth telling unless people actually discovered the tour, allowing Tim and Daniel to keep their jobs as guides.

And that’s where the Internet comes in. Right now, their tour is the No. 1 ranked tour on Trip Advisor, with 145 reviews, all of them “excellent.” And so, because of this feedback, they top a very long list of things to do in San Francisco. They probably won’t get rich, but they will keep the business rolling and keep paying the rent. And that’s not a bad outcome for being able to do the thing you love.

I asked Daniel what the impact of the positive ranking on Trip Advisor had been, and he was positive but realistic, “It’s been pretty awesome, but as I keep telling my mom, it’s an algorithm and it might be gone tomorrow. But we’re enjoying it while we can.”

Excellent advice. Enjoy it while you can. And when the big business of search seems to suck all the fun out of life, remember that guys like Tim and Daniel are still stoked about what it can do for them.

That’s why I got into the biz.

Ramblings of a Feverish Mind

First published February 16, 2012 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’ve had the flu for going on a week now. My head hurts and my tongue feels like a terrycloth towel. My voice sounds like a cross between Satan and a barking seal. Any lucid thoughts I may have had have long been beaten into submission by repeated doses of NyQuil. And now I have a column to write.

What strikes me the most about my current state of mind is how little tolerance I have for the stuff that normally makes up my life.  The saying “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” must have an illness-triggered corollary: “Fever-induced sweat seems to wash away all the little crap.” Before I got sick, I had a mountain of stuff that was all vitally important. Then I lost two-and-a-half days because I simply couldn’t raise my head from my pillow. Something had to give. Actually, several things had to give. And you know what? The world didn’t end. Life went on.

It’s a revelation of much less significance than Steve Job’s more eloquent version in his 2005 Stanford commencement speech: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” But you get the gist. We fill up our lives with little crap, and it drowns out the significant stuff we should be focused on. Steven Covey calls them our “rocks.” But why do we need something like a death sentence or being waylaid by a particularly virulent flu virus to remember it? Why can’t we keep focused on the big stuff every day of our lives?

The ironic thing is that most of the stuff we do in a day, we do for others, not ourselves. We don’t want to drop the ball, leave someone hanging or let something fall between the cracks. Delivering on these multiple imperatives is the price we pay for being social animals. We want to keep the acceptance of the herd, so we’re hardwired to make other’s priorities our priorities. And, in the process, we keep shuffling the stuff that’s truly important to us to the back shelf. The only way to avoid molding your life around someone else’s priorities is to be a narcissistic jerk — like Mr. Jobs, or yours truly when spiking a fever.

This got me to wondering. Don’t these selfsame jerks have a natural advantage over the rest of us “nice guys”? The fact that they don’t care about other’s priorities and naturally advance their own agendas, expecting others to adopt them as their own, seems to indicate that they’ll actually get the stuff done they care about.

After three decades in the business world, I’ve come to the sad and wearied conclusion that to be wildly successful in business, you have to be an asshole. Nice guys may not always finish last, but they seldom take home the gold.  The most successful CEOs typically have a Machiavellian side, ideally buffered by some social skills.

By next week the flu will be gone, I hope. But part of me is also hoping that the forced perspective it gave me lingers a bit longer.  Maybe a little flu-induced “dickishness” wouldn’t be a bad thing the carry through 2012 and beyond.