Two continuing themes of this blog have been my admiration for PSFK, and my belief in quality print publications, whether they be experimental efforts like theNewerYork lit mag or ‘work as a lifestyle’ tome, Monocle. So when I read yesterday that PSFK was launching a new magazine called, Need to Know, well it was like chocolate and peanut butter coming together. So, this week I’ve stepped away from my weekly Kickstarter Support Project and ‘invested’ in this worthy effort.

Need to Read

As I’ve said before, I don’t think print is dead, it’s just crappy content in print form that is dead. I caught up with Piers Fawkes, one of PSFK’s founders to ask him about the project:

Rick Liebling: You recently wrote about issues [Ed. - my word, not his] you had with Monocle, do you see Need To Know as an antidote to Monocle in any way?

Piers Fawkes: Ha. I don’t have any issue with Monocle. Tyler and his gang inspire me. They make an amazing product. I just said that it’s less and less designed for someone like me. Monocle is a Rolls Royce – and while I like the brand, I probably need a BMW type of mag.

Need To Know is a test to (a) see if we can make a slow-form magazine while we still produce with our rapid blog-like publishing speed, (b) see if there’s a market for slow-form content that PSFK is interested in writing about and (c) to do it once, so the next time it can be better

RL: Was the decision to do a print magazine a response to reader interest, or did the idea come from within PSFK?

PF: Partly from me. Partly from email exchanges with the journalist Rob Walker and the planner Russell Davies. I suppose I only buy magazines when I’m at the airport and after a bout of travel recently, I looked at what I was reading and thought, “I could do something like this.”

Rob told me two things: that I should make every issue timeless so that it can be picked up in a year and still be relevant; and also to make every issue a ‘special’ around one theme. Russell told me to keep it analog and not try to put in real-world hyperlinks or like buttons (I guess through QR codes and AR).

I feel there’s an opportunity to deep-dive into subjects I know the PSFK audience wants to know about – and because we have PSFK.com - I know I don’t have to compete with the web by providing news.

Creating this magazine is pretty easy for me. (Making it a good read is still hard work). Once this first issue comes out on March 30 [Ed. - in conjunction with PSFK's New York conference] I’m going to find out how the news-stand system works and see how I can shortcut it to test selling the magazine near where our readers work.

When discussing the world of magazine publishing, it’s always a good idea to check in with Samir Husni. Known as Mr. Magazine™, Samir A. Husni, Ph.D. is the founder and director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism and New Media. He is also Professor and Hederman Lecturer at the School of Journalism. I checked in with Husni regarding Need to Know and he told me:

“I think as print changes from a disposable item to a collectable item more and more people are going to enjoy the ”experience making” of print.  Magazines are much more than just content providers.  They are experience makers.  Unlike digital, you can feel their weight, see their real shape, feel their structure and hold the story from beginning to end in your hands.  They were, are and will continue to be the best lap top, tablet ever invented… and the cheapest for that matter.”

So, will Need to Know find a spot in the marketplace? I don’t think it wil be easy, but I have tremendous respect for the people involved. I’m confident the content and design will be strong, the question becomes can they find a business model that makes the effort sustainable?

A map for viewing content differently?

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you are somehow involved in the marketing communications industry. Equally, there’s a good chance that you have a blog, or perhaps you create decks that you post to Slideshare.  Either way, I think we can agree that there is an overwhelmingly massive amount of content out there created by people like me (and perhaps like you).

In this way, content by and for the marcomms industry is a microcosm of the Internet in general. A lot of content, spread all over the place, of varying quality.  So of course, the aggregators and “curators” have sprouted up to help us sort through the various haystacks to find the needles. I put the word curators in quotes because few, if any, really are curators. Most just compile links, but they think curator sounds a bit fancy.

But whatever you want to call them, they aren’t always sufficient. They either lack a broad enough scope, or they rely solely on bottom-up popularity metrics. What’s missing is context. How does blog post “X” relate to deck “Y”? How much more popular is blog post “1″ compared to blog post “2″?  That’s, at least in part, what a true curator does – they don’t just share the content, they help you better understand it and the larger meaning of the entire subject.

So here’s what I’m calling for, a new way to experience content by and for the marcomms community. Here’s how I think it could work, and here’s what I think it could look like:

Welcome to Contentville

The initial inspiration for this idea came when I saw a map of Disneyland. It sparked an idea, ‘what if we could navigate one main repository for content as if we were walking around Disneyland?’  Disneyland has themed areas, so a rocket ship ride isn’t right next to an Old West adventure ride. So Contentville would have neighborhoods for things like planning, creativity, consumer engagement, insights, etc. Now, tagging content isn’t particularly novel, but the neighborhood visual allows us to also view content along a spectrum, so content could be in the downtown part of a neighborhood, or it could be on the border between to neighborhoods (signifying that the content is relevant to more than one subject matter).

Welcome to Contentville

In addition to positioning blog posts and decks in relation to each other from a contextual standpoint, the city metaphor could also work to show size, popularity or quality.  If you’ve played Zynga’s CityVille game, you know that buildings can grow. We could use this to distinguish pieces of content as well. It could be by size – larger buildings represent longer pieces of content – or it could be more qualitative. A building (representing a piece of content) would grow from a tiny store to a huge factory based on the number of views, or how well it was rated by readers.

Either way, when you mouse over a building, you would get a brief, Twitter-length description of the content as well as info on the creator of the content. Click on the building and the post or deck pops up for viewing/reading.

Contentville would need a Mayor of course, someone to manage and truly curate all the content. But soon each neighborhood could have town council members responsible for finding and tagging content for their smaller areas.  Soon you’d have vibrant communities where you could explore and discover content in a unique and relevant way.

But maybe I’m crazy, I’d love your thoughts on this. Would you be interested in a site layed out this way? How would you improve it?

Greg Burney's #DrawMyFollowers Project

If you’re an artist, and by artist I mean that in the broadest sense, how do you stand out in a world where everyone is an artist and has the ability to distribute their work easily and broadly? It’s a tough question, one that every artist grapples with and answers in a way that works best for them. For Greg Burney the answer was making drawings of his Twitter followers. For free.

I grabbed a few minutes of Greg’s time to ask him some questions about this project:

Rick Liebling: How important is personalization in something like this? Do you think you would have had the same response if you had offered just an original drawing, as opposed to an original drawing of each person?

Greg Burney: I think it’s absolutely essential that the drawings are of each person. This project is all about connecting to people in a personal way, and that would be totally lost if I offered them just an original drawing.

Rick Liebling: How important is “the story” in this? One guy trying to draw all these Twitter followers. That’s a different dynamic than artist sitting at the cafe, charging $10 for a quick sketch.

Greg Burney: I guess its a very simple premise. I’m not asking for anything, but offering something. I’m one guy, I’m not an illustrator, I’m rubbish at drawing, I’m working from home. I like to think its a nice, honest project that makes people smile and takes advantage of today’s immensely powerful social media.

Rick Liebling: I’m interested in the value exchange of this project. The followers receive a unique, personalized piece of original art. What are you getting from this project?

Greg Burney: A sore hand. No, it really is a buzz seeing people’s reactions. I like to think the little bit of happiness I give with every drawing accumulates to a massive impact. I also get many supporting messages every day and I have cool conversations with many of my new followers. It’s fun to be part of a huge project. The thought of it being finished is very exciting.

Rick Liebling: What would have been your response if a brand had approached you to be part of this in some way? Would you have been open to such a proposition?

Greg Burney: I’m not sure how I would react. I’d like to think I would say no. As soon as there are third parties involved, I no longer have 100% control of the project, and the premise stops becoming so simple. It might also lead people to be suspicious of what the real intention of the project is, fun or money. Saying that, if the right brand came along, perhaps one that supports illustrators, or large scale internet projects such as the wonderful Ze Frank, who knows.

Greg brings up several issues that perfectly illustrate why so many brands struggle with connecting with people online.  How many brands can create personalized engagements with each person? How many brands can create simple, honest engagements? How many brands looks to create engagements where the value generated goes to the consumer, not the brand? And what brand is willing to take the time to do more than just slap their logo on an idea, and really support the content creator?

I’m not saying it isn’t or can’t be done, I’m just saying that it is rare. But I think it’s a solid recipe for success.

November 11-12 will see the Futures Of Entertaintment 5event, held at MIT in Cambridge, MA.  FoE tends to bring together a great mix of marketing/brand type people with some academics who bring a different perspective to the subject. The program includes discussions with titles like Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Society, and Here We Are Now (Entertain Us): Location, Mobile, and How Data Tells Stories. 

Sam Ford, Director of Digital Strategy with Peppercom Strategic Communications, is one of the featured speakers and he was kind enough to share some of his thoughts about the futures of entertainment…

Rick Liebling: FoE seems very academic in nature, looking at many of the speakers. How does that affect the approach to the event and the dialogue that is created?

Sam Ford: Our goal with each conference is to have panels that are a mixture of academic and industry perspectives. We want to create an event that is as much an academic conference as it is an industry event and to reap the rewards of what happens when you bring the perspectives of academics from a variety of disciplines who study the media into conversation with one another and with representatives from a range of media and marketing companies. It creates a unique environment where the goal is neither to present a paper or research project (the focus of many academic conferences) nor it is a place to display a slide deck or present a corporate case study. We frown on presentations and don’t use PowerPoint or Keynote unless someone has something specific they need to show in order to further the discussion. And no one’s coming to read papers. We want to take advantage of one of these few opportunities to have the people who study media in a room with those who make media, and we want to put the focus on the dialogue that can happen when these groups come together and are willing to have a dialogue to one another, to listen to one another.

As a result, we have had research collaborations arise that came out of this event and the community surrounding it. We have had new businesses launch from people who have met at Futures of Entertainment. I believe it’s a unique event that draws an audience of academics interested in dialogue with industry representatives and marketing and media industries people who want to listen to and learn from those involved in media studies.

Rick Liebling: Crowdsourcing, gamification, social TV… Are these trends simply fads, or mainstays that content producers need to understand and incorporate?

Sam Ford: We try to stay away from focusing on fads and focus our panels and discussions around larger cultural patterns. I’d say that some things currently being called, or which have been labeled as, “crowdsourcing” could be trends that wax and wane, the purview of “trendspotters” who get people excited about a shiny new object, only for everyone to realize after the fact that it was hype. The same has happened with gamification and social TV. To define these patterns too narrowly and expect one small, gimmicked version of this to be “the way” this trend will take shape can be a mistake. That’s the purpose for our event. To step back, look at what’s developing, and discuss the larger cultural patterns underneath what we’re seeing. And that’s what we see as the role of the academy in this, as media studies academics are often trained to look at developments within their larger historical context.

Rick Liebling:  Where is the most innovative storytelling happening right now?

Sam Ford: It’s perhaps not surprising to see indie media makers driving some of the most innovative storytelling. That’s why we have a large number of people speaking in this year’s panels who are indie musicians, filmmakers, journalists, serialized storytellers, etc., and people who are studying spaces like soap opera, where series are moving to the web. You’ll also notice that we have a greater number of panelists from outside the U.S. than ever before: Brazil, India, The Netherlands, Finland, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom…Our goal is to bring together media creators from Harry Potter to Christian music, from Mexican television to the U.S. journalism industry, to learn from people who are driving innovation. And it’s key to realize that, while some media markets outside the U.S. (like Brazil) might be fostering some of the most innovative forms of storytelling and while indie creators have more flexibility to try new models and methods, we have media and marketing industries more willing than ever to engage with audiences in new ways and find new ways to tell stories. That’s why we’re happy to collaborate with the likes of Viacom Media Networks, Petrobras, The Alchemists, and Samsung as our sponsors of the event and draw on a variety of speakers who are in, or who come from, more “traditional” media companies.

If you’re interested in checking out Futures of Entertainment 5, you can still register here.

Changing the LBS experience.

This has been a hectic year in social media. It seemed every week a new app, service, tool, platform or metric was being introduced. Perhaps as a result of this, I’ve been feeling some social media fatigue. One of the places I’ve most acutely felt this fatigue is with Foursquare. Sure, finding discounts for free chips and salsa at Chili’s is nice, but the vast majority of the time I’m just checking-in to check-in. Becoming a mayor or earning a badge has lost its appeal.

Part of the problem is the loss of the novelty, but another part is the lack of emotional engagement. There’s something missing for me with Foursquare because it’s not touching me on a deeper level. Perhaps it’s a lack of narrative or story. There’s really no connective tissue between my check-ins, or between my check-ins and those of my friends. This lack of emotional pull leaves me feeling that if Foursquare were to go away tomorrow, I really wouldn’t miss it.

But this post isn’t about Foursquare, it’s about Gowalla, another Location Based Service that is usually compared to Foursquare.  A month or so ago Gowalla announced several changes to the service. These changes were necessary for Gowalla to move forward and evolve – a smart move to help it move away from Foursquare, yes, but also to change the nature of the user experience. I reached out to Andy Ellwood, Gowalla’s Director of Business Development to find out more about these moves and here’s what he told me:

“The basic idea that the newest release of Gowalla centers around is the idea that has always been at the core of what we are doing here with Gowalla: your phone as your passport. How do we help discover the world’s most loved spots and share the stories that people create when they are exploring the world around them? How do we incentivize people to tell better stories, not just check-in for some gamified electronic reward? What is the underlying action that we want to bring to the forefront of the conversation and that works for EVERYONE not just the early adopters… These are some of the questions that we asked and that influenced this latest version. The goal is to encourage discovery, exploration, and sharing the best that you see with those that you care about and inspiring them to GO as well.”

Andy perfectly articulates the very issues I’ve been talking about. Stories, taking action, exploration. Those are powerful things to leverage. I hit Andy up with some follow up questions:

Rick Liebling: I’m starting to develop check-in fatigue. Gowalla, GetGlue, Foursquare… There has to be more to it than that, doesn’t there? Is that where the new Gowalla is headed?

Andy Ellwood: Gowalla is, and has always been, about discovering the world around you, sharing it with your friends, and having a record of the places that you go. The narratives that Gowalla documents are much more than a check-in, it is a story that has the potential to inspire others.

Rick Liebling: Gowalla is always compared to Foursquare, but do you guys see the landscape differently?

Andy Ellwood: The visions for Gowalla and Foursquare have always been different, but the technology through which we’ve each used had enough similarities for comparison that in the nascent industry, we were often in the same sentence. Gowalla is about going, doing, and sharing the new places your go. Foursquare is about unlocking your city and loyalty to the places you go most.

Rick Liebling: I’m believe that not enough sites/apps/platforms are infusing emotion into their offerings. How is Gowalla trying to leverage the emotion and passion of travel?

Andy Ellwood: We recently added the Love button (because love is more awesome than like) and have Highlights to subjectively describe why a certain place is awesome. People are emotionally attached to the places they go and, if given the right platform, inspire others to go there too.

Rick Liebling: How can brands engage consumers in new ways via the updated Gowalla?

Andy Ellwood: We ask two questions of every brand that we begin working with: 1) What is the experience that you want to create? 2) Where are the places that you want that experience to happen? Once we understand that, we are able to use the multitude of features from Gowalla to craft an organic experience for those going out with Gowalla that allows the brand to be a part of the story in a natural way at places that are important to their brand.

Rick Liebling: Complete this: Gowall: Come for the ________, stay for the _________.

Andy Ellwood: Come for the exploration, stay for the story.

If you haven’t yet, give Gowalla a shot. If you have tried it, tell me what you think of the changes.

Recently I wrote about the idea of Intermedia – where content interaction happens between platforms through content producers and content consumers. I thought it might be helpful to create a chart to show what this might look like: