Preface: Why we should do #WhatTheInternetWants, part two
Winning in marketing today means playing according to the Internet’s rules, but who’s to say what those may be? (read part one)
The Internet demands an altogether new marketing communications grammar, one driven by its inherent tendencies and its effects.
And we need to hop to it because believe it or not, it’s been easy up until now. Things are about to get substantially harder, because the Internet is changing.
While by definition it’s always changing, at this moment the Internet appears to be at the threshold of a new phase. Amongst other insights Andreessen Horowitz’s Benedict Evans outlines in his killer presentation, “The End of The Beginning,” there were two standout takeaways (which, oversimplified, are):
1. The Internet is becoming more capable and robust. It’s getting ready to do even bigger, more disruptive things.
2. The Internet is about to become more chaotic (again).
So as the Internet grows in strength and capability…
As it transitions into a less “orderly” stage…
As the change it accelerates in business and in the world becomes more substantial…
As its dominance over and impact upon us increases…
… and as legacy communications approaches – the “top down thing,” even applied to digital technology – will decrease in effectiveness, the need to do #WhatTheInternetWants will increase.
So, who the hell possibly knows #WhatTheInternetWants? Smart people. Many of them. In aggregate. Certainly not me.
Deliberately/consciously, or through broader insights in their respective disciplines, people like @Benedict Evans @John Hagel, @Douglas Rushkoff @Nicholas Negroponte @Nassim Taleb @Dion Hinchcliffe, @Mary Meeker, @Bruce Sterling, @Scott Galloway, @Ben Thompson, @Grant McCracken, @Faris Yakob are to a great extent dialed-in.
And in particular, @Kevin Kelly. He definitely knows #WhatTheInternetWants. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Kelly’s career highlights include:
- Co-founder of Wired magazine, Executive Editor for its first seven years
- Board member, Director, The Point Foundation, where he co-sponsored the first Hackers Conference in 1984.
- Charter board member of The Long Now Foundation
- Founding board member of the WELL, a pioneering Internet service started in 1985 considered to be the pioneer in developing online communities and social networks
- Author of many books including New Rules for the New Economy, the classic book on decentralized systems, What Technology Wants, his summary theory of technology and The Inevitable, a guide to the technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years.
Kelly’s insights delve deeply into the nature and implications of the Internet, digital technology and ultimately technology itself – which he sees as an extension of our minds.
By filtering the juicy bits of Kelly’s canon though the lens of marketing communications (hence, my go-forward simplification of his broader technology theories into what I refer to as “the Internet”)…
…adding the perspectives from the aforementioned smart kids and more…
…and sprinkling in a homegrown thought or two garnered from experiences across the industry…
Kelly can teach us how to really harness the Internet’s world-changing power.
The series of #WhatTheInternetWants posts that preceded and that will follow this post are an “always in-beta” effort to figure and framework out these lessons.
Accordingly, I reserve the right to be wrong and plan to make changes along the way. As noted previously, the Internet favors a doing-bias and it wants a plan. And so far, I’ve yet to see evidence that it demands perfection.
View "Why we should do #WhatTheInternetWants, part one"
View all #WhatTheInternetWants posts
A hybrid, multi-disciplinary creative/brand strategist with skills developed across the entire marketing ecosystem, Todd Lowe does everything from brand, connections, campaign and content strategy to communications/content ideas and marketing innovation.
As he decodes the marketing lessons from #WhatTheInternetWants, offline he unpacks the underlying strategic implications and applies them to building solutions on behalf of brands, agencies and consultancies.