It was exactly one year and 4 days ago I wrote a blog entry about a very interesting trio of Swedes starting up a business in a first-ever attempt to sell jeans made from North Korea.
I’m excited to share that this past Saturday, Noko Jeans officially launched—but not without controversy. The PUB department store, located in Stockholm, made the decision to remove these North Korean-made designer jeans only a few hours before its opening once management learned of its label. “For us this is not a question of Noko Jeans – this is a question about a political issue that PUB doesn’t want to be associated with,” said Rene Stephansen, the store’s director. More on this shut-down on the Washington Post and BBC News.
From the beginning of this venture, Noko Jeans was very intentional about being transparent and open about their purpose of doing business with North Korea by posting behind-the-scene videos, photos, blogs and tweets throughout the whole process that started over 2 1/2 years ago.
And now, from following the flurry of tweets, news coverage and blogs, it’s clear that getting shut down was probably the best thing to have happened for Noko Jeans’ PR. Of course, this has caused some scrambling to find another location for the Noko Jeans Museum (the name of their retail presence), but I doubt they will have any trouble with this.
This is a real-world example of how being transparent and using social media are so effectively spreading the message and story for Noko Jeans. And that story is creating an emotional following that is helping to indirectly, but powerfully raise more awareness for the company.
This line from their Web site is at the heart of Noko Jeans and why I want to personally see them succeed:
“To learn and realize that there are people living in North Korea, and even befriend some of them, has been overwhelming, and is the true core of the story we tell. Beyond every mass-game are people, living and breathing and not that different from us, or you.”
Once another location for the Noko Jeans Museum is announced and the online shop is up and running on their Web site, it will be interesting to see how much of their following will translate to actual sales of these $220 designer jeans (only 1100 pair of jeans were produced).
It is more and more obvious to businesses and individuals that technology allows for opinions to travel more quickly than ever. Every blog is a potential blessing or curse for a business, and any tweet may take the place of old school Consumer Reports magazine. We all know we can save money and improve our chances of getting a good value by looking to online sources that we trust.
In addition to the widespread and speedy dissemination of information, though, a recent survey points out another factor at work: cyberdisinhibition.
What is “cyberdisinhibition”? It is the reduction of the “public face” that each of us wears in real life. It is the willingness of people to be more extreme—in their opinions, in their (lack of) manners, in their abrasiveness—online. Anonymity and the low barriers to entry to contributing online logically make being especially loud and grouchy more likely; the consequences are fewer and the costs lower to complain (even in an over-the-top fashion) over a digital medium than in person.
What does cyberdisinhibition mean to businesses? It reinforces the need to be aware of how their brand and image is being communicated online. The days of controlling the message entirely are long gone, but an untended complaint (whether thanks to cyberdisinhibitionist forces or not) can snowball out of control quickly. Businesses should be aware of communities (blogs, forums, Twitter users) that use and discuss their products and be willing to communicate about issues.
Nip the problem in the bud before the Customer with the Keyboard starts typing in all caps.
OK, let’s settle this right now. I get a lot of incredulous looks from my friends. You’re on Twitter?? Who cares what I’m eating for breakfast? Sounds like a waste of time.
Well, I could argue the benefits of sharing the details of your life with friends and family, but that’s another topic - and I use Facebook for that. For now let’s just say that I agree with you. I don’t use Twitter that way, and I wouldn’t follow anyone who did - friend, family or favorite deity. For me, Twitter is a business and learning tool. I use it to stay abreast of what’s new in my profession, and likewise to share with other interested parties. And I get a LOT out of it. Twitter is a realtime live feed of all the best tips, tricks and discoveries made by people with similar interests as myself, pre-filtered and delivered straight to my hungry brain in a tidy, little package. Awesome.
I said that the feed is “pre-filtered” - What does that mean and how does it work? With Twitter you can “follow” anyone you want. It’s up to you. Simply put: I don’t follow people who tweet about breakfast, movies, moods, concerts, or any number of other uninteresting, “teenagery” topics. I am strictly interested in finding the little gems that make my work better, faster, more relevant, etc. It’s a learning tool. I follow people who post useful, interesting or educational things. If you start talking about Will Smith - you’re dumped in a heartbeat. Don’t waste my time.
About that - Isn’t weeding through all the “bad” feeds to find the good ones time-consuming? This is the beauty of Twitter. First of all, this isn’t really a problem, if you only follow people who say interesting things, as stated above. Second, every post is limited in length to 140 characters, so I can tell in 5 seconds or less if a post interests me. In 1 minute, I can scan all the morning’s updates and move on. Most useful posts include a link to an outside article, blog, etc. If there is something worth following, you can chase it down. If not, you don’t follow the link, and you’ve lost very little of your precious time.
What kind of “gems” do you really get out of this? As a graphic designer and aspiring web developer, I get all kinds of useful content. A link to an artist’s blog can be inspiring for days or weeks. Maybe it’s a link to a website full of free fonts, plugins, or texture files. Maybe it’s a how-to page about using a feature of my favorite Adobe software product. I get a lot of useful information for educating my clients and language for communicating expertly about my profession. Sometimes it’s a link to an industry event that I might like to attend. Web developers find and share snippets of code, online resources, the latest technology trends, updates and how-tos. I’m telling you. It’s a goldmine - if you follow the right people.
So how do you find the right people? Start with people you know, in the business. Look for Twitter links at the bottom of your favorite blogs. Filter the Twitter feed for relevant topics with a tool like Tweet Grid (highly recommended). Publish your Twitter username on your website/blog/Facebook profile, and start tweeting valuable content yourself. When you start gaining followers who are interested in what you are saying, they are likely worth following back. As they say, if you want a friend, you have to be a friend. Network, share, inspire, learn. Go forth and tweet!
Two services that I use on a regular basis have been hit with service interruptions this week. T-Mobile has had ongoing problems with Sidekick services, and I’ve been personally affected/afflicted with an inability to use my phone’s browser. I called customer service about 24 hours after it started happening and was greeted with a pre-recorded general “We know it’s happening” message. Fortunately for me, I sit in front of a PC for most of my waking hours, so I can put up with the lack of service, especially since the company is going to be providing me a credit for an entire month’s worth of service.
Facebook, too, has had its problems this week. An unknown number of users have been unable to access their accounts and they’re not pleased by it. Facebook has some 300 million users, and if even one percent of users are locked out, that’s a lot of potential anger.
People put so much of their lives—their contact information, their primary communication mechanism—into Facebook that when it’s suddenly unavailable for an indefinite amount of time for an unknown (or at least uncommunicated-to-users) reason, frustration is natural. And, unlike T-Mobile, Facebook cannot simply refund user fees because (obviously) it’s already free.
Facebook is, at some level, a victim of its own success and its users’ high expectations. If it hopes to maintain its dominant position in the social networking universe, it needs to have plans in place to avoid emotionally isolating its users when technical snags arise.
Reporters do it. Shaq does it. The guy sipping on the $9 beer in the upper deck does it.
These people all attend sporting events, and they report on the game through social media. They Tweet, they take pictures, and they chat and txt in personal and professional capacities.
It seems inevitable, doesn’t it? Technology has become so mobile that people are constantly pushing information, whether they’re on a bus or their wife is in labor. When it comes to sports, though, it gets a bit trickier. Imagery and even some aspects of the reporting are intellectual property (IP), and the owners of that IP have a legal obligation to protect it, or else they risk losing whatever rights they’ve got in the IP.
The NBA is reportedly clamping down its players when it comes to Tweeting, and the NFL did something similar last month. Of course, the NFL (the league where the players wear helmets and they better not show too much personality unless they legally change their name) extended the guidelines to media members, too.
Media members may not, according to the NFL, use Twitter or any other medium to give play-by-play. That seems pretty obvious and fair. But what about the guy with the $9 beer in the upper deck? Can the NFL hope to stop him? Should their IP rights be threatened if they cannot?
It appeared, for a short time, that the Southeastern Conference (SEC) hoped to. After a big negative reaction last month, the SEC explained its new policies, which were primarily aimed at video feeds during games, rather than a Tweet about Tim Tebow‘s throwing motion in the third quarter.
Are these social media guidelines reactionary overreaching? Or are they a first step towards institutional limitations on what is commonly seen as a self-evident right to Tweet?
We’re happy to announce that Phinney Bischoff Design House is a proud sponsor of Ignite Seattle, which is happening tonight over near Belltown. Details can be found on this post by Brady Forrest over on the O’Reilly Radar Blog.
What is Ignite you ask? Picture a quick succession of 5 minute powerpoint presentations on a wide range of interesting topics. Speakers get 20 slides which automatically advance every 15 seconds.
Lively to say the least.
Doors open at 7:00, Paper Tower Competition begins at 7:30, and presentations start at 8:30.
Here’s a video of one of Ignite’s most popular past talks - “How to Buy Car (without getting screwed)” by Rob Gruhl:
Scoble had a great article on Saturday describing how Facebook is positioned to serve higher quality information to people and, in doing so, why it will continue to grow into the center of attention for the majority of web users (and a target for effective marketing).
He offers this foodie example—
You pull out your iPhone or Palm Pre or Android or Blackberry or Windows Mobile doohickey and click open the Facebook application. Then you type “sushi near me.”
It answers back “within walking distance are two sushi restaurants that more than 20 of your friends have liked.”
Wait a second. “Friends have liked?”
And that is a great summary of the emerging power of Facebook in an easy to understand story.
A friend’s recommendation (when it’s easy to find and is contextually relevant) will always trump other forms of marketing / advertising—it’s the easiest way to find a good restaurant, the hot spot of the hour, or that “today only” deal we’ve all been on the lookout for.
Because Facebook is built around these relationships from the ground up, it will continue to trump Twitter (and may even best Google eventually) as the most effective place to focus many marketing efforts.
