Mike Maney

Category: Uncategorized

  • Of Airports and Thermostats


    Know what’s fun on a rainy Labor Day? Catching up on a weekend’s worth of links from Twitter. Know what’s even more fun? When one of your favorite bloggers writes about how we’re on the precipice of a period when “machines will communicate in increasingly human-like ways.” Know what’s even more fun than that? When a duo of big brains do near instant follow-up posts that build on that thought.

    That’s what happened this afternoon as I first caught Alex Williams’ thought-provoking post on the eventuality of a future where machines get all Facebook’y and build friend lists of their own (“How Machines Will Use Social Networks To Gain Identity, Develop Relationships And Make Friends“).

    Which led me (via Twitter) to a post by rye connoisseur, pit master and jiu jitsu warrior Christopher Hoff. In his post, Christopher expands on the sociality of human/machine interaction by positing that ““how humans are changing the way we interact will ultimately define how the machines we design will, too.” In other words, up until now, we’ve been focused on how machines change human behavior; we’re on the cusp of seeing how humans change machine behavior.

    And then one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter, Christian Reilly, threw his gray matter into the mix with a post that put real-world context around the discussion. Christian writes that a “colossal, ad-hoc network of sensors” will make buildings — yes, actual inanimate things — smarter…something he’s dubbed “smart maintenance.”

    The idea of sensors everywhere creating a global (cosmic?) data fabric is an idea that I helped promote a decade ago during the early days of IBM’s pervasive computing initiative. Over the past 10 years, its core has evolved into the technological foundation underneath business and society today: cloud computing, APIs, open source and big data. Millions and billions of people and things sensing, learning and adapting. IBM once referred to the server-centric version of this as autonomic computing.

    The pieces required to create the future Alex, Christopher and Christian map out are here. Computer chips and logic are already embedded in everyday objects (and getting smaller and faster by the day). Networks are getting wider and smarter with the rollout of technologies like LTE. APIs are liberating data. And software (and humans) are taking that data and turning it into information. And despite the non-society-contributing, advertising-focused business models of today’s social networks, the personal and societal connectivity enabled by the likes of Twitter and Facebook is unassailable.

    We’re on the cusp of a future where this bouillabaisse of technology and society combine into a single pot. A pot where an airport becomes the social network and thermostats friend other thermostats.

     

    Image Credit: Benedict Campbell. Wellcome Images. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK

  • PR’s Caffeine Jolt

    Becoming a big fan of Starbucks…not for its coffee, but for its bold approach to PR. Traditional PR strategy would advise the CEO to avoid conflict at all costs; their modern approach is one of take a point of view – if even unpopular – and say what needs to be said and what others are afraid to say. Huge brand cred, IMHO. And lessons to learn for other organizations and PR pros. Having a strong position on an issue and doing the right thing is not the sole domain of national politics.

  • Marketing != Manipulation

    “The more authentic you are, the more authentic you can be with others. It has to come from an intention not to manipulate.” – National Geographic photographer Lynn Johnson.

    Great advice for modern marketers. The best marketing is not marketing.

  • Gluecon 2012

    http://storify.com/the_spinmd/gluecon-2012.js?border=false&header=false&more=false

  • Stop Selling

    Last week, I had the pleasure of being the opening keynote speaker at the second annual Social Media Business Life Conference produced by Chuck Hall. I’m usually the guy writing speeches for others, so it was an interesting role reversal to be the guy in front of the audience for a change.

    Chuck does a great job organizing this conference and putting together a full-slate of content that is, refreshingly, vendor-free. Too often, those of us who have been involved in social media for years forget that many people are still ramping up. There were nearly 250 people drawn to learning about how they could use social media to improve their organizations. In a suburb of Philadelphia. As my friend, John Patrick, often said when the web was first molten hot: “We’re only 10% of the way there.”

    My talk focused on the need to look beyond the tools of social media and see the humans behind those tools. I also challenged the audience to stop using social media to sell…which I think forced Chuck and several members of the audience to wonder if I’d started the conference-ending happy hour a bit early.

    (My keynote starts at ~9:30 into the video.)

    Because Face Time is as Important as Facebook

    View more presentations from Mike Maney

  • Normal

    Every town has a mainstay, that person everyone recognizes, but never knows by name; that person who is seemingly seen everywhere, yet at the same time never seen.

    For me, it’s Randy. He’s the ever-present kid on the bicycle, working the bags at the Doylestown Genuardi’s, tooling around town. He’s the kid who life threw a thousand challenges at; challenges you and I will never know.

    I ran into him this afternoon at the local burrito joint. He had a new shirt, a new name tag. No longer stuffing bags and sparking up conversation at the recently-sold supermarket; now slinging burritos at the recently-revamped California Tortilla.

    He noticed the shirt I was wearing. I got it after riding last year’s tour of the county’s covered bridges. Randy asked me about it and we ended up talking about bicycles while I waited for my burrito. It was mid-conversation when something he said almost made me tear-up in the middle of the restaurant. He casually mentioned that we should go riding someday. He promised to take it easy on my much older legs. He said I should meet him “where the buses pick up the normal kids.”

    Where the buses pick up the normal kids.

    It was that moment – that single. microscopic blip in the fabric of the cosmos – where I saw the world through his eyes. Eyes that have been taught that different is normal and normal is different. Eyes that have seen everything despite never being seen themselves. Eyes that somehow still manage to look on the world with a sense of adventure and fun, enough to invite a neighbor to go riding. Eyes that see the fun in a Saturday bike ride for no particular reason.

    Just like the normal kids.

  • Where Innovation is Born

    Mikel Etxea 1 in BarcelonaThis tavern (taberna in Catalan) is where our team has met each February for the past three years. It is where many of us have met for the first time.

    Mikel Etxea 1 is just off La Ramblas in Barcelona. Small and lively with great tapas, great service, big Estrella and powerful fruity sangria – all fuel for day-long sessions of animated debate and discussion.

    We stumbled upon it back in 2010 during our team’s first visit to Mobile World Congress. We return each year, commandeering the long table to the right of the bar. This year, we didn’t even need to order…the waitress remembered us from each of the previous years.

    Where was your innovation born?

  • Know What Makes Influencers Tick

    If you work with influencers – be they traditional media, analysts, bloggers or something in between – you need to know what makes them tick. In my “Influencing the Influencers” presentation, I somewhat flippantly called this stalking (of which I meant the non-creepy, from afar kind).

    This thread between the BBC’s Dave Lee & online journalism lecturer Andy Dickinson is but one example of how just doing something simple, like monitoring Twitter, can make you smarter about the influencers you work with…and, in turn, make their lives a bit easier.

    What looks like a fun exchange about headline character count is, to the insightful PR pro, a deeper education in how the BBC and Dave work. Armed with this newfound knowledge, a smart flack will tailor any story idea he pitches to Dave (or other BBC journalist) to the BBC’s 30-4-16-40 rule.

    So, sure, some may call me a professional influencer stalker. I’m okay with that, especially when it means I’m giving myself a leg up on my competition and doing my part to stop the spread of PR spam still running rampant in the industry.

  • Influencing the Influencers

    http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=influencingtheinfluencers-111011151001-phpapp02&stripped_title=influencing-the-influencers-9649216&userName=mikemaney
    This is a presentation I gave at the 2011 Social Media Summit hosted at Marquette University. I used the presentation to illustrate the changes in the disciplines of marketing, PR and analyst relations, as well as provide new rules on how those functions must work today and in the future.

  • My Wild Ass Idea to Save Cougar Town

    The Problem: Cougar Town (a fan-loved show by the guy behind the successful Scrubs series and produced/starring Friend’s star Courteney Cox) is at risk of being cancelled. ABC, which owns the show and on whose network the show airs, has all but indicated they no longer support it…despite a passionate and loyal fan following. The show’s creator and cast have shown a willingness (and creativeness) to do what it takes to keep the show alive for their fan base.

    The Fix: Use new crowdfunding services like Kickstarter to:
    1. Buy the show back from ABC
    2. Fund future episodes based on loyal sponsors, fan micro-donations and series subscriptions, and
    3. Reduce/eliminate distribution costs and network fees by offering the show exclusively on iTunes or the web for $1 per episode.
    While I have zero clue what it would cost to purchase (or even license) the show from the network or what each episode costs to produce, I do know that Cougar Town is pulling roughly 4 million viewers each week. And, given the lack of support by the network, it can be assumed that a high percentage of those are loyal viewers who would most likely be willing to shell out a shekel to see the show continue.
    Insane idea? Just insane enough to work? An opportunity to create the first mass-market, viewer-funded show? Let me know what you think.