Presenting at American Creativity Association International Conference in March 2006

While preparing for an upcoming presentation in March at the American Creativity Association International Conference 2006 I was researching white papers on association and organization trends.  First some information on the speaking engagement for ACA – I am an attendee as well so I am really looking forward to the conference!

American Creativity Association International Conference 2006
Ed Schipul CEO
Schipul – The Web Marketing Company
Wed 22-Mar-06 8:00 AM to Sat 25-Mar-06 5:00 PM

Now for an interesting white paper from Mr. Barkan who I have not met nor read previously, but I found the following short very interesting from a visual communication perspective.  And of course it may be a bit “the sky is falling” but it IS true that many organizations experience a real performance gap as described below:

Strategic Review on Association Development: International Trends, Issues and Options
Mr. Terrance A. Barkan, AGS (Association Global Services) www.agshq.com

<snip pg.6>Associations with their consensus decision-making processes, tend to be following rather than leading organizations in the implementation of new business practices, programs and services.  In contrast, it is within associations that professional development issues, trends, standards and benchmarks are debated, forged and communicated.

When the rate of change of the external environment exceeds the ability of an association to anticipate or react to that change, a gap develops between what the environment demands and what the association can deliver.  It is this disconnect between the rate of change in the environment and the capacity rate of change of the association to adapt that poses a serious threat to the continued relevance of the organization.

Blatant plug disclaimer. It is the closing of this association performance gap that Tendenci represents.  Even if you don’t know what CMS, RSS or Podcasting are; you get them anyway.  That is the power of a cutting edge MMS application sold in the ASP sales model where everybody wins and your organization remains relevant.  The most important aspect is the enabling of distributed authoring for the association members.

brandchannel: The Search Is Over: Google Wins in 2005

brandchannel just released their 2005 Readers Choice Award Results for top brands.  It is a must read for those in advertising and public relations.  The top 10 global brands are (visit the site for the full list and geographic break downs – link above and below)

For the public relations professional these results are huge.  Note that Google does virtually no advertising, nor does Skype, Starbucks or Firefox. 

In fact while I don’t have the exact numbers, it looks to me like 40% of the top readers choice global brands are primarily built on word-of-mouth marketing and public relations.  Wow!

1. Google
2. Apple
3. Skype
4. Starbucks
5. Ikea
6. Nokia
7. Yahoo!
8. Firefox
9. eBay
10. Sony

<rant> Now if brandchannel would JUST GET AN RSS FEED I’d be happy!  Aarrrgh.</rant>

Houston Interactive Marketing Group Kickoff Event

Houston has launched the Houston Interactive Marketing Group.  The organization has been primarily coordinated by Steve Latham of Spur Digital.  The HiMA kickoff event is coming up this Thursday the 26th and we will have several people attending from our team.

<snip from the site>Please join us for our New Year Kick-Off event, January 26, from 7:30 to 9:30 am at the Houston Technology Center. Geoffrey Ramsey, founder and CEO of eMarketer will be the keynote speaker.</snip>

The following are the founding members of the Houston Interactive Marketing Association (HiMA). BMC Software Fogarty Klein Monroe Gulf Publishing Halliburton Houston Chronicle Houston Technology Center Human Kind Inc.

Idea Integration InfoVine Interactive Lopez Negrete Money Management International One Real World PennWell Publishing Pierpont Communications Questia Media, Inc. Schipul – The Web Marketing Company Sam Houston Area Council Six Foot Studios Spur Digital Texas Children’s Hospital Zephyr Salvo Studios

Geometry and the Mundurukú – Anthropology and Geometric Understanding

A very timely post in Slashdot on geometry and visualization today.  It relates to an anthropology study on the human interpretation of visual information through geometry.  It is timely because at the end of January Edward Tufte is presenting in Houston this month and I hope to attend! 

More on the article on geometry and the Mundurukú people.

We’re hard-wired for geometry (By Daniel B. Kane)
Tests with Amazon villagers hint at innate geometrical sense

WASHINGTON – Even if you never learned the difference between a triangle, a rectangle and a trapezoid, and you never used a ruler, a compass or a map, you would still do well on some basic geometry tests, according to a new study.

Using a series of nonverbal tests, scientists claim to have uncovered core knowledge of geometry in villagers from a remote region of the Amazon who have little schooling or experience with maps and speak a language without the mathematical language of geometry.

and

the authors of the new study conclude that they have uncovered evidence for a basic understanding of geometry among people without much formal education. Future research may clarify if humans are born with these intuitions or if we acquire them early in life.

We spend a great deal of energy and time with Tendenci reporting trying to create visualization of the actions taking place on the site to communicate back to the organizations.  Beyond basic network diagrams which are still best assembled by hand, it is a frustrating process.  Not to create the chart, but to create a chart that is easily comprehended. And it is far more complex than visualization of explicit social network connections. 

I like the visualization discussion at the bottom of this post regarding implicit networks as opposed to explicit networks.  That is a post for another day.

This is a corporate customer service problem – AT&T can’t back it up

Dr. Evil: "Austin… I am your father."
Austin: Really?
Dr Evil: No, I can’t back that up.
                           … from Austin Powers Trilogy

Which relates to a perfectly executed but factually incorrect advertising campaign by AT&T:

http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/01/wtf-or-att-can-kiss-my-rss.html

photo courtesy of Brian at Weblogs Work

I’m not even going to START with my this gets my blood boiling…okay…maybe I’ll start.

#1 – I blogged about AT&T lame-o campaign a little while back
and one of their lackey advertising dorks left a nasty comment on my
blog. Something about how a Web 2.0 blogger shouldn’t be commenting on
his brilliant advertising campaign. Ha! First of all, if they knew
their asses from the blogosphere, they would know that my background is in advertising and marketing and that their campaign sux rss.

… (more)

Working with numerous advertising agencies I can feel the agency pain.  No doubt they (AT&7) sent the A-list to the creative kick-off.  They, the ad agency, were assured that indeed AT&T had street cred with the bloggers. 

Unfortunately AT&7 is a legacy monopoly with no clue how to treat a consumer (apparently at least – I no longer user their services!).  Posting those billboards made me comment on them in Houston while driving.  I didn’t post it, but many others did and unfortunately for AT&T one of them was Tara Rogue.  Hee hee. 

Assume every customer is king and your brand will have no problems.  Bloggers are like the CIA – they are silent and will enforce what they believe in.