Walter Isaacson wrote a 571-page biography of Jobs, which went on sale earlier this month. The book confirms what we know today: Jobs was focused on exploring new and interesting ways of doing things. There's even a Facebook page dedicated to WWSJD (What would Steve Jobs do?).

Here are three themes that marketers can use as guideposts when developing marketing strategies:

1. Get your thinking "clean to make it simple"

“Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end.”

We often hear about the need to “keep it simple” in marketing campaigns. But most marketing strategies don’t follow this principle. For example, in product development today, the emphasis is on new variants instead of original product ideas. A twist on keeping it simple is to start with a simple concept and stay true to the original brand idea. Jobs summed it up really well- “it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important”.

Steve Jobs told Fortune magazine in 2008, "Apple is a $30 billion company yet we've got less than 30 major products. I don't know if that's ever been done before". He went on to add:

"Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don't put information into it. Pretty soon cell phones are going to do that, so the PDA market's going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won't really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn't have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn't have seen it coming.”

“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google and former Apple Board Member said in an article in Bloomberg Business Week, “One of the things about Steve is, he was always in the realm of possibility. There was a set of assumptions that Steve would make that were never crazy. They were just ahead of me.” He added, “he had a level of perception about feelings and emotions that was far beyond anything I’ve met in my entire life.”

At Arcus, we have found that the biggest insights and ideas come from observing and analyzing in real time how consumers interact with products in their daily lives. Jobs believed that technology can be a tool for individual definition and self-expression. A pink iPod is about much more than just listening to music. Simple insights can lead to great campaigns. This goes against conventional thinking about market research. Focus groups and quantitative research generate insights but these tools will never match the depth of understanding that observing feelings and emotions of people in real life situations can offer.

3. Anticipate surprising and completely new strategic directions

“Creativity is about connecting things.”

We live in a connected world. Interaction between brands and customers has never been more complex with so many touch points. However, some things never change. Good ideas are scarce. No matter how complex we think marketing has become, the most successful strategies tend to have a simple premise that captivates and delights audiences. Jobs' last advice to the new Chief Executive Officer of Apple Inc., Tim Cook, was to 'never ask what Steve would do'. He would suggest, ‘Just do what’s right’. He felt that followers tended to spend all their time thinking and talking about what someone else would do.

Merril Mascarenhas

Perhaps it's because I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro. Perhaps it's because we have over a half dozen Apple devices in our home. Perhaps it's the way I see my 3 year old daughter effortlessly using an iPad and technology without a second thought. Or perhaps I still remember when I first used a computer (Apple IIE) and how it was a moment of 'child-like wonder'.

I'm sure you have heard, Steve Jobs the founder of Apple and until recently its CEO, passed away yesterday due to the scourge of cancer. He left behind a wife and young family. He also left behind a legacy as an innovator and someone who demanded excellence. Someone who never contented himself or his company with the status quo.

Indeed I had the privilege to work at Apple but I only saw him once from a distance when I travelled to headquarters in Cupertino, California. But let me tell you that you felt his presence throughout the Apple and it was firmly ingrained within the company DNA.

Words that come to mind as it relates to Steve Jobs and Apple as a former employee? Excellence. Drive. Innovation. Marketing. Simplicity. Financial Performance. Ruthlessness. Secrecy. Vision.

Now I'm not about to suggest that Steve Jobs was perfect. But really who amongst is? He was no deity but one would be naive to deny the tremendous impact Steve Jobs had on marketing, technology and perhaps our society at large especially in the past decade.

Whether it was the founding of Apple. Being later unceremoniously removed from the very company he founded. Returning back to Apple to help it rise like a phoenix from the ashes and the precipice of bankruptcy. Taking Pixar Studios to the next level and making it a blockbuster company in terms of computer animation. Steve Jobs consistently made his mark.

Steve Jobs took an almost bankrupt company (with financial help from Microsoft) and made it one of the largest companies in terms of market capitalization on the planet. He did so by launching innovative and revolutionary products such as the MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Each of which significantly raised the bar in terms of the quality of products that companies in the consumer electronics industry produced. Each also severely disrupting other established industries such as music and entertainment.

So here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. Like Steve.

Sulemaan Ahmed
Twitter @sulemaan

With such a massive flood of new participants, it would seem that, surely, Google+ is the next big thing. Right? Unfortunately, I think we've neglected one key variable when making this comparison: ease of adoption. Like hundreds of millions of other people, I use Google's webmail service Gmail. That means I have a Google account that allows for customized searching, mapping, panda video watching, et. al. The list goes on and on, each hook connected to the last. Much of what I do online is connected back to them. So, when Google+ was launched, they had an easy opportunity to reach me. I signed into my email one day and Google+ was right there in front of me. The sign-up process was lightning fast and easy. Which makes sense, considering they already had a swarm of info about me in their database.

My point is this: when it came time for Google to recruit new users, they had a vast pool of extremely warm leads to draw from. Now, let's compare this experience to, say, Facebook. I had never heard of Facebook when it came out. I received emails from friends inviting me to join, but I was skeptical because these things don't always catch. Then there was the privacy issue. It was weird to give some (at the time) unknown entity a bunch of info bits about where I went to school and what personal info I wanted to share with "friends". I had to visit a new website - nay - an entirely new form of the Internet, and say "yeah, I'll give these guys a chance to impress me".. Google+ grew fast because the high-level trust with the brand was already there. Facebook and Twitter had to overcome a lot more barriers to win us over. And in my opinion, it's far more impressive - and perhaps a better indicator of future success - to win people over based on the offering itself vs. the brand behind the offer.

Perhaps Google+ is destined to become the next big thing. All the face-value indications are pointing in that direction. But I'm going to sit on it before predicting mammoth success. Because it's one thing to sign up - but it's another to keep signing in.

Brook Johnston

The recent announcement by LifeSize® of the upcoming release of a cloud-based video conferencing package later this year is a good example of how cloud based alternatives to more traditional client-server software packages are becoming available, but what does this mean for businesses? Flexibility, Lower Price and Mobility.

Cloud computing, by definition, removes the need for installation of software and hardware, and increases the range of platforms through which programs and files are accessible. Cloud computing also breaks down price barriers for businesses who are not interested in purchasing high-end telepresence and desktop video conferencing endpoints. Specifically, for video conferencing, the need for pricey hardware purchases is eliminated through cloud solutions that are centrally managed and hosted. The possibility of participating in a video conference while on the go, for example, is an attractive one. A program, file or application which can be accessed by a user from traditional platforms like desktop computers and laptops, as well as more modern ones such as mobile phones and tablets, offers a great deal of flexibility in terms of how, where and when these can be accessed. As well as the inherent benefits explored above, cloud computing also has the potential to save businesses time and money through other means, which are not immediately obvious.

Perhaps the most relevant benefit in the current environmentally-aware business climate is the reduction of CO2 emissions that comes with the increase in use of video conferencing software. Attendees at meetings are able to be present without actually being there in person, cutting out the need for travel, which also translates to savings for business in terms of travel costs.

Perhaps what is most intriguing about the rise of cloud computing is the benefits that aren’t immediately obvious. As time moves on and more cloud-based alternatives become available to current software, I think more of these benefits will become apparent. Future considerations for cloud based technologies include data storage, applications, and even entire operating systems – but opinions on these matters are best reserved for another post.

Christopher Lee

A couple weeks ago I was at an alumni event for my alma mater and it brought back memories of being in the library until the wee hours and writing my Master's thesis on email. (Yes I've been an email fanboy for a while. Stop snickering.) Years later I was part of a group of CMA members that created a Guide to Email Marketing. Download a free copy of it here.

I'll admit I've always been a proponent of email and how it can do wonders for us. Would anyone disagree with the notion that email is an integral part of our daily lives both personally and professionally?

Having said that I’ve been thinking about innovation as it applies to business, technology and marketing. And although email was a very innovative creation it can be argued it now stifles innovation. Our inboxes are filling up more and more and we’re struggling to keep pace. We don't have time to do 'work' because we are incessantly checking our inboxes. Inbox owners are losing the war. Some people have resorted to declaring email bankruptcy.

Chris Anderson of Wired and TED fame is of the view that the very purpose of email to improve our time, energy and sanity at work is now actually having the opposite effect. The reason according to Mr. Anderson isn't email itself but that most people are extremely bad at using this tool. His position is that "The total time taken to respond to an email is often MORE than the time it took to create it." I never thought about it that way before.

So Mr. Anderson created an Email Charter with input from the online community. The 10 rules in the charter are simple but could make a universal impact if widely adopted by more users out there - including myself.

Candidly, I'm guilty of some of the transgressions outlined in the Email Charter so I'm now trying to abide by it. In addition to the 10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral, I'm remembering two other small tips I’ve recently come across by people I respect.

1. Guy Kawasaki - Keeping emails to 6 sentences or less.
2. Seth Godin – Ask "If I had to pay $0.42 to send this email, would I?"

[If you have any thoughts, opinions or tips regarding email please add them to the discussion in the comments section below.]

The creation of email is a major technological and communication innovation but if used improperly it can be an impediment to future innovation. It can stifle productivity and waste the valuable time and resources of others. Not to mention how email can be lousy in expressing sentiment and emotion that could be better addressed in a conversation.

The last thing I want to do is contribute to the problem. So it's time to start contributing to the solution. If that means by trying to respect an Email Charter then so be it.

Sulemaan Ahmed
Twitter @sulemaan

Q. CMA: Is social media good for business?

Joseph Carrabis (JC): One could consider that question flawed. However, the flaw is unrecognized and is the source of a problem in the current “social media” environment.

The question as stated implies a "one size fits all" response, something like "Yes, social media is good for business" and that's not correct (me thinks).

Q. CMA: Mea culpa. I was expecting you might say “It depends”. What are better questions, helpful questions?

JC: The better questions are:
1) "What types of social (whatever) are good for what types of businesses?"
2) "What types of social (whatever) are good for what types of business goals?"
And other questions in a similar, more specific vein.

This re-questioning allows for a logical development and implementation process with a self-creating evidentiary trail.

Should things go sour, one knows where, when, how, why and for accountability* purposes, who. Hence things are more easily fixable.

Right now we're seeing a one-size-fits-all methodology even though consultants and companies are "tailoring" the solutions. This methodology shows up in "best practice" manifestos that are either completely general (hence useless) or so siloed that nothing works outside that vertical. If "social media was good for business" then a solution in the automotive vertical would work perfectly well in the sportswear vertical, in the gourmet food vertical, ... and this isn’t true.

To use social media correctly as a marketing tool, you need to be able to use the tools to create truly specific solutions. Right now the "state of the art" is the equivalent of "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" and that's sad.

People aren't spending much time understanding their audience (at least in the terms I consider "understanding their audience") and the results are starting to show up as mass exoduses from various social platforms.

Understand your audience and you’ll know how to trigger loyalty responses rather than simple recency (with no offense intended to recency advocates. It's a reasonable metric that doesn't quite go far enough, in my opinion).

Q. CMA: If gaining audience understanding is so critical, but difficult, do you have any suggestions improvement?

Susan Carrabis (SC): Social Media, if used incorrectly, without understanding the audience and other Joseph words, is a dangerous tool. And please get away from one-size-fits-all.

We do a training based on the experiences of working with companies for seven years, a training based on how we actually work with clients. The whole focus of the training is to create marketing material that exactly targets your audience. You don't need NextStage tools or technology to do this but we learned how to do this by using our tools and technology. By the end of the day students are inside their consumers’ heads in ways they can’t get from just reading a book (except Joseph’s, of course). They look at material the way their audience looks at material, respond as their audience responds, see what their audience sees… It can be either fun or scary and we go for fun.

Q. CMA: So rather than seminars, is practical roll-your-sleeves-up, put your brain-to-work training part of understanding what’s needed?

JC: Seminars are (by my understanding) overview or summary in nature. We are true believers in "Understand the theory and you can apply it anywhere" and the best way to teach this is “Teach Application to Theory to Application”. This means take the student from the familiar to the new so that the new becomes familiar, start with something they’re doing in the real world, explain/demonstrate what’s going on, extract the key elements/principles, then have them apply those elements/principles to their current and similar problems. We taught the class mentioned above to about thirty marketing managers and they were blown away. They all knew the stuff, they simply hadn't 1) thought of it in the way we presented it or 2) performed their practice the way we were suggesting.

Part of that training is to develop a real-world campaign during the class. They were all doing social media campaigns -- the techniques will work for any kind of marketing (radio, tv, video, gaming, web, kiosk, print, down, up or sideload, ...) -- and it was exciting how many things were becoming obvious to them as opposed to their standard methods for campaign development. Not only understanding aspects of consumer psychology and how to reach consumers that they'd never considered, but which channels and media to use when.

This was a very rewarding experience. For us, and when we asked, for them, as well.
So for us it all comes back to knowing the correct question to ask.

Everybody knows I collect quotes and one I use is "It is perfectly useless to know the answer to the wrong question." Right now the majority of businesses are (in my opinion) asking the wrong question. I'll be sharing what I consider the correct question -- and answering it, or at least demonstrating ways to answer it -- in my CMA presentation.

CMA: Joseph, you’ve said that ‘sentiment’ is an exhausted term and the word has been so bastardized and mis-used such that it no longer has any real meaning. How do you define sentiment?

JC: There are lots of good psych and related definitions, all close and few metricable (ie. meaning they are reliably and repeatably measurable).

Following in the steps of Attention, Engagement and Trust: The Internet Trinity and Websites and Meet Online Engagement's Little Friend, Satisfaction and after a day’s research, "Sentiment" is the measure of emotional versus cognitive activity demonstrated by an individual when their attention is focused. This translates loosely to:

"Sentiment is demonstrated by behaviors that are caused more by emotion than they are caused by logic."

This is a definition that is a) accurate, b) metricable, c) teachable to any self-learning, social interaction system (Evolution Technology, for example) and d) repeatably metricable via that system within a reasonable +/- distribution.

This Sentiment definition can determine a visitor's sentiment in real-time while they're navigating your site. It won't matter if they write anything, post anything, comment or whatever. It won't even matter if they bounce. I now know what to have ET look for and we can make a tool that determines a) if sentiment exists, b) if it's positive or negative and c) the degree of that sentiment (companies interested in using such a tool should contact Susan).

Q. CMA: Has sentiment analysis evolved to the point that it can be relied upon? Do we have precision or accuracy, both or neither?

JC: I cannot comment on other company's tools or definitions of sentiment analysis because I only know about them from hearsay.

However, one of my favorite quotes is from a C level person at a major Canadian social media monitoring/analysis firm, "All we need to do is to score a handful of words and then assign polarity. It doesn't matter that different audiences use words differently."

This same individual and company arbitrarily (my opinion) decided that they could standardize their dictionary, meaning that words don't change meaning over time and within groups. I'm sure this company doesn't have any linguists or psycholinguists working for them because such a concept would drive them nuts.

But when that's what vendors are saying behind closed doors, how can what they offer be relied upon?

Take the "sentiment" metric I defined above.

NextStage has (at this point) twenty years of data we can look back on when we create a tool or test a definition.

We know, for example, whether or not people acted favorably or unfavorably -- had positive or negative sentiment -- to something going back twenty years, so when we come up with a possible definition we can test it against lots of historical information to determine its accuracy. When vendors knock on our door with referrals and references we ask for historical demonstrations of accuracy or ability. That’s when they go away.

I don’t know how a business can rely on tools without knowing how they came about, how they're tested, their accuracy and so on.

I also know that our clients -- all of whom want to test our suggestions via A/B and like testing in the beginning -- eventually stop testing and just start doing. There's also the aspect that many of our tools (our Sentiment Analysis tool being one) provide suggestions for better audience targeting. There's nothing quite like holding up a bullseye and saying "Here. Test this" to demonstrate confidence.

As for precision and accuracy, no comment about other tools because all I know of others is based on hearsay. If anything, I’ll go back to the bullseye concept. If anybody’s tool is either making or saving you money, it’s a useful tool. If it’s not doing either, why are you using it? There may be lots of other reasons, and that’s fine, just stop telling yourself you’re using a tool because it’s providing a business ROI.

Joseph Carrabis is speaking on "Measuring Emotional Response - Attaching Dollars to Sentiment Analysis" on June 23 at CMA’s Social Media Conference. During the afternoon “social media monitoring roundtable” session, attendees can ask Joseph directly about social media tools.

albertaatnoon June 20 2011

This is our last Tech and Trends column before we take a summer hiatus. Time to start dreaming up some new ideas for topics for the fall…

albertaatnoon June 7 2011