Too much to see and do - where do you start?

Robert Scoble is like Dave Winer - he's feeling overwhelmed. Not him personally, but he is clear that most of us are. He rightly asserts that there are too many ideas and companies now and many of them will not achieve critical mass - not because they're not great, but because there isn't enough attention spectrum left.

I think one way to avoid this overload is to stop aiming products at our own sandbox and start aiming them towards mums and dads, executives, knowledge workers, cafe owners and others who don't care about myspace, or social bookmarking or making youtube videos.

Another way is to just let the information flow over you. Stop trying to hold onto it.

As I have written previously to Dave Winer and about Constant Pile Reduction Mode it's important to remember news was never supposed to be read like email. No one went through their newspaper and marked off each and every article. They browse and they get what they can about their world before going off to live their real lives.

With this in mind, publishers need to start offering tools to their users that are designed with this reality in mind.

I am reminded by a great quote from the movie "American Beauty"

"it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment..."

Great movie - I suggest you rent it!

Is Advertising Dead?

In response to my post "Carefactor: 100" Scientaestubique posted a comment. It was a great question so I thought I would post it here along with my reply. What do you think? Reply in the comments.

scientaestubique said...

Is advertising as a paradigm now obselete?

Wikipedia defines Advertising as:
the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor.

Do we really need old style ads anymore?

Generations X & Y don't absorb advertising like they used to, however they consume more media than ever.

Maybe companies could try producing really good media about their products and services and skip the spruking altogether.

More signal, less noise.

Chris said...

I think fist that Marketing (paying someone to find ways to get people to notice) is always going to be around.

The requirements of the job will, however, change rapidly over time.

The most sophisticated marketers today know that marketing is not necessarily about shaping a clever message as it is about shaping a clever product that speaks for itself.

Look to CitizenAgency.com and ResonancePartnership (plus others) for that sort of thinking.

As for advertising, I think that it can sometimes be argued that people don't know they need something until they are introduced to the idea. Like marketing, however, it needs to change shape from yelling at people into something more akin to a conversation. Read: Cluetrain Manifesto.

Speaking of creating media for your product - there was a series of short stories directed by famous directors that were effectively BMW commercials. I believe it was in response to BWM loosing the deal to appear in one of the 007 movies. Was fascinating to watch.

What other forms of media would you suggest they produce though? I don’t really want to watch an episode about the sale on down the road...

"can one man buy a discount shirt... against.. all... odds"

haha