Tag: Search engine optimization

The Remains of Print

The Post is now under new ownership. So is the iconic Newsweek. Both incidentally got taken over by jungle-like entities like Amazon and the Beast, respectively. New world order (or jungle order). The “barbarians” are once again at the gate.

New totem pole. New titanic shift, from analog to digital, from print to online.

I prefer to see this change-over than seeing the Washington Times taken over by  a then cultic figure (Moon).

Big play. Big players. The game of influence. of Soft Powers and soft-wares.

It’s the other shoe that drops (from the time of the Reformation, with the advent of the printing press).

Back then, it was the free circulation of the Bible among the mass ( oral and scribal tradition).  Now, it’s the viral popularity of an Islamic scholar studying the life of a “political”  Jesus

With Al Jazeera (the other CNN) and Amazon, we got the complete set of opinion leaders for our world.

Want to know something? go on Wikipedia.

Want to hear something? plenty of cable channels.

Want to buy something? go on Amazon.com.

Jeff was telling interviewers that his favorite book was “the Remains of the Day” (about a butler who saw the change or more likely, the decline of aristocracy in the West).

Now, he finds himself amidst another real-life decline, a paradigm shift. And all that remains of print are those Google’s scanned pages (our modern equivalent of microfiche) for researchers of historical facts.

We process information differently. In print, we interact with those fonts and we turn the pages.

Online, we are glued to the screen, and before we know it, we might click on porn pages.

Just one of the many differences.

As creatures, we have yet learned how to handle the beast.

Massive inflow of content. Sheep among wolves.

Sleepy eyes and desensitized filters.

7 billion souls, one web site (Google).

We search that which reinforces our prejudice (a priori), or when lazy, let the SEO bots dictate what we are exposed to.

All that remains are stove-pipe thinking. More alliances and armed comrades are formed. But less in original thinking.

We need another generation or two before we can handle this new change (by then, it’s a new norm).

No more memoirs in print. Just sensational up-to-the-minute expose on celebrity and consumerism.

Those who have built good “filter” will become great curators of this new information explosion.

Those who don’t, won’t.

The new divide (information gap) won’t be geographical. It will be content-rich and content-poor folks.

The the twain shall never meet.

All that remains are for the brokers to exploit, and the pipe deliverers to profit in this new “jungle” whose sole law is survival of the smartest.

In this post-print environment, we need to say farewell to prejudices. We need to learn to be childlike, to soak in new and uncomfortable piece of news. To be changed and change-agent. It will be a tearful farewell to “home”, where each morning we expect to see sunrise and newspaper delivered on the front lawn. All that remains is a new You, with all the changes in one’s life time, more than our great grandparents and later generations have ever experienced.

That’s how important this tectonic shift is. It’s a bookend to a long overdue, but necessary re-structuring: modernity and progress.

 

SWOT and ROI

We do millions of those calculations a day (the reptilian brain). Threat? Opportunity? Fight and flight.

Yet we also learn to trust, to take risks.

In business or in life.

Situations and circumstances, problems and people (who often times become problems).

Some of us are more reflexive than others.

But at long last, we will have arrived at the same conclusion to validate that initial BLINK (first impressions, first 6-seconds).

Without that instinct for survival, we wouldn’t still be here.

No matter what color we put on outside.

Underneath it all, lays our human nature: ambitious and ambivalent.

We initially employed SWOT and ROI analyses in business.

Then, work doesn’t stop after 5PM. So we start doing that in social and academic context (study for a career that is most promising, she is a good match i.e. suitability measured in socio-economic fit).

So there is no  point in denying it.

Still cavemen-like. Still operating reflexively with the reptilian brain (WIIFM = what’s in it for me).

Keep that in mind. When two or more get together, there will be collision of self-interests.

Group leaders know this and thrive on it. 2+2=5 when it is handled well. It’s called synergy.

Hunt in pack. Celebrate together. Burning men and bushmen. Boardroom or bedroom. We need one another if we were to live a ROI life. It’s worth a try. Despite all the threats. We are still here, together, working for the common goods.

Your story

During the 60’s, when computers were too limited for personal use, Andy Warhol had already predicted that in the future (which is NOW) each of us would have 15 minutes of fame (just like his signature Campbell soup ).

Naturally, he couldn’t have predicted the rise of social media  which upend traditional broadcast media, turning it around from one-to-many (old) to many-to-many (new) forever and free (Cloud computing + mobile + social media).

Unrestricted and unleashed i.e. texting while driving (we have yet come up with an acronym similar to DUI).

We “Like”.  We “tag”. We “tweet”. Yahoo now bets big on Mobile.

We prepare to lay ourselves exposed: photos (even pictures when we were babies), home-recorded songs and secret sauce.

We learn the art of filmography and biography e.g. story board and story line, scripting and screen playing (Youtube).

We share lessons on sewing and  selling.

It’s quite an open world and open society.

It used to be that the only time someone asked “tell us about yourself” was at a job interview.

Now, we tell them about ourselves even when not asked. “They” here means the World Wide Web:

Facebook, Google + and more.

A narrative was supposed to have a beginning, middle and end. Since we keep discovering and reinventing ourselves, our personal narrative evolves. Every day, we put on make-ups off line and  make-over on line. Some even called this “the start-up of you”.

The more interaction on-line, the more detailed our social graph, the richer our narrative. Fresh content generates higher Search Engine Optimization. This process also creates Digital Addicts or DigitAl-holics  who cross-comment  and follow each other. A band of brothers, only more inclusive and extensive (coincides with austerity).

This domain used to be exclusive for professionals e.g. product improvement and placement now laid bare for all (design your T-shirt contest etc…).

Now, people are the product (sold to advertisers). Their tweet or post could go viral, to the tune of a million hits.

Self-branding.

Self-aggrandizement is in. Self-effacing is out.

The modesty of Asian mystique faces serious challenges, perhaps more so than last century’s cultural invasion of the West e.g. China and Japan with men eventually do away with braided hair or Samurai tradition. This time around, the invasion is technology-enabled, a spontaneous explosion of personal freedom and expression second to none (including the 60’s Flower Power. This time, it’s trans-cultural and trans-continental in nature.)

As a result, we need to put up personal “firewalls” to protect our privacy and safeguard our brand.

To trade ourselves up. Tier-One (as in Premium LinkedIn accounts etc..).

Sort of like LV who refused to offshore the manufacturing of its handbags. Planned scarcity.

We first expand, then contract our circle over time.

This retrenching was mentioned in The Tipping Point (maximum 120 in your circle to have a meaningful conversation and community).

In the early days of Social Media,, we enjoyed new-toy stage (friending everyone).

Then Google + came out. By then, we became social-media fatigue.

Once  you lost that first-mover’s advantage, it’s hard to play catch-up,

Good luck yahoo, with revamping.

Yahoo was late in Search, and Social.

I wonder whatever else it could do to innovate and leapfrog competition. Perhaps with the yCloud? or Ymobile.

Meanwhile, we still want to find new ways to connect, to share and to show off.

We are members of a digital country club, where strangers suddenly become intimate i.e. know more about our personal stories, or at least, more quickly, than family members . These are our intimate strangers.

So, if you share, learn to show and tell properly. Learn the 2-minute summary like our presidential candidates just did tonight. Tell them what you are all about, your hopes, fears and dreams, all scripted and rehearsed (elevator speech). And maybe, someone out there, can identify with your vulnerability, your shortcomings and your humanity. Maybe they will endorse you, adopt you as family member, and you then become  “famous” for 15 minutes. Warhol would have never guessed someday (today) we would be showing off our secret sauce, while he, could only photocopy the (Campbell) Soup he touted as arts.

buy-in behavior

Ambivalence is a sign of maturity, the study concluded.

But an ambivalent buyer produces anxiety and uncertainty.

Here are the gist of a recent study, as published in the N Y Times.

PEOPLE WHO SEE THE WORLD AS BLACK AND WHITE TEND TO…

  • Speak their mind or make quick decisions.
  • Be more predictable in making decisions (e.g., who they vote for).
  • Be less anxious about making wrong choices.
  • Have relationship conflicts that are less drawn out.
  • Be less likely to consider others’ points of view.

PEOPLE WHO SEE THE WORLD IN SHADES OF GRAY TEND TO….

  • Procrastinate or avoid making decisions if possible.
  • Feel more regret after making a decision.
  • Be thoughtful about making the right choice.
  • Stay longer in unhappy relationships.
  • Appreciate multiple points of view.

Ambivalent people make good philosophers, but poor partners (in an otherwise better-off being divorce).

Case in point.

Doctors and hospitals are digitizing their billing and medical records. But many are fence-sitting. Sheer ambivalence.

Inertia.  Yes, it’s complex. But simplicity will come once one acquires a new set of routine (infrastructure solution is often messy).

Take India. The country is trying to assign digital ID for 1.2 Billion people. Biometrics.

Analytics. Number crunching. Daunting task.

I used to work with an Indian customer base, and was exposed to some of the longest last names.

12-digit ID to make sure future shortage.

I realize now we have to rely more on automation, algorithm and auto selection (SEO).

Google said it would take 300 years to achieve their goal (organizing the world’s information).

That year is 2298 .

Some sales cycles are longer than others.

I love  a black-and-white prospect. He/she either rejects the proposal right off the bet or signs up. One-call close. It saves time.

Those people often rise to the top. They know how to make decisions, and make them quickly. No regrets.

But then what is life, if not filled with uncertainties and unpredictability. A smart man would recognize that, but then go ahead anyway.

It’s called gut check.

I saw an expiration date on the milk bottle. Of course, I chose the furthest-out date possible.

I wish life choices could be that black and white, with a clearly marked expiration date. Tell that to the owner of Segway, who died in a Segway accident while beta-testing his product. The most important date to him was withheld to the last-minute. At least he ended up dead doing what he loved best.