Adopting the Cluetrain Mindset

"We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it."
Cluetrain Manifesto (1999)

I’ve never endorsed or sold anything on this site but I felt compelled to share a story with you about my phone. I’ve been a BlackBerry customer since they made pagers. The culture at the company hasn't been great for years but I like the phones. I’ve been a (reasonably) satisfied customer. So far.

I live half an hour from their world headquarters. I know people who work there. I also know many who no longer work there. I realize gadgets break down but this is about much more than technical issues I had with my Z10.

Time to Switch

In my case, calls would often go straight to voicemail, the ear bud connection was temperamental, others would often say they couldn't hear me properly. I would contact my service provider and they would blame BlackBerry.

It’s disheartening when you go onto the BlackBerry site and the only people trying to solve issues are other BlackBerry owners. The company was no help and lost another customer. That’s how arrogance loses market share.

We know better

This isn't about mobile devices; it's a contrast of one company understanding that customers want choice and a good experience while the other felt they built the superior device years ago and all others should fall behind them.

The moment you think your company owns the hill, listen carefully for the sound of marching feet on the way to push you into the abyss. Being a market leader is not only about profits, it’s about appreciating what customers want.

After the cash register

Building great stuff is a minimum requirement. Building superior stuff will create loyal customers. Ignoring how you got there will give customers the choice to open their wallets to a competitor. I'm enjoying my new iPhone 6. It's pretty cool.

Celebrate the fact your users, listeners, viewers, buyers, customers, or clients have the choice and ensure you are there to provide them what they need. This is not to suggest you bend until you break but their reach exceeds your grasp.

Deal with it.
__________________________________________________________________
Kneale Mann | People + Priority = Profit

Too Busy For Each Other

Semi-Colon Closed Parenthesis

You are a busy person doing busy things. After all, the job description said you would have to work independently in a fast paced environment handling many duties at once with a calm demeanor. Emails come at you all day and you’re expected to respond to that urgent text you received last night at 9:37 during your one hour of television this week void of interruptions. The promise of a paperless world with a four-day work week has been replaced with much busyness and still no jet packs.

There are meetings and deliverables, research and decisions. And when you get a moment, you check on your social streams. You haven't tweeted in well over an hour and people may have commented on that article you shared on Google+. Your friends on Facebook want your thoughts on the best sushi in town and there hasn't been a fresh blog post on your site in almost whole two days.

Here's Where We Get into Trouble

We are so afraid to miss something we tend to skim over everything. You're probably doing it with this post. Our lives are 140 characters or acronyms on the smartphone. It's okay, they're busy too and we added that semi-colon and a closed parenthesis so they know we're kidding, right?

In your quest to stay on top of everything, shortcuts are taken and suddenly a friend contacts you through one of the eleven ways they can and mentions that your last response seemed a bit dismissive. Suddenly a dozen messages back and forth could have be more enjoyable and far less misunderstood with a phone call.

A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep

There is certainly no time to have a meaningful conversation, we are far too busy for that. And we wouldn't dare show up for that dinner engagement without our mobile device so we can check it half a dozen times before the appetizers arrive.

The tools are great yet we are missing the important nuances that come with human interaction. Tone and feel have been replaced by texts and tweets. Call a friend, meet in person and put the technology away for an hour. It's okay, the earth will continue to rotate. Then you can stop using busy as an excuse not to spend quality time with friends and colleagues.

Or perhaps you are far too busy for all that.

Kneale Mann

image credit: google
I'd be happy to spend 30 minutes with you on a complimentary introduction call
to see where I can help your business. Feel free to contact me via email and let's chat.

The Web in Sixty Seconds

Lovin' Every Minute of It


A fun infographic that has been making the rounds is one that shows the multitude of things that happen online every minute. It was developed by the web design company Go-Globe and when I first saw it, like most, I was impressed. But then it reminded me how overwhelmed business owners and managers feel on a daily basis. How do you keep up? What channels do you choose? Where do you focus your efforts? How can you digest the never ending amount of content?

Some highlights of what happens on the Internet every minute along with some additional items you may experience today.

• There are almost 700,000 Google search inquiries
• Flickr receives more than 6,000 photo uploads
• You surfed that car site instead of making another sales call
• Over 70 new domains are registered
• Twitter gains 320 new members and almost a hundred thousand tweets are sent
• More than 22 million meetings ended with no definitive decisions
• In excess of 168 million emails are sent
• iPhone customers download 13,000 applications
• You read this post
• Over 350,000 minutes of voice calls are done by Skype users
• LinkedIn gains another 100 members
• You started another game of Angry Birds at your desk
• Over 25 hours of videos are uploaded onto YouTube
• 700,000 status updates, 80,000 wall posts and 500,000 comments on Facebook
• More than a hundred questions are asked on answers.com
• Scribd receives another 1,600 reads
• You checked your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles
• Over 1,200 new ads are created on Craigslist
• Pandora streams more than 13,000 hours of music to users

How will you spend the next sixty seconds?

Kneale Mann

image credit: goglobe

Our Gadget Laden Lives

The Power of Next.

If you read or follow or even skim any technology news you know there is a new thing to ogle over several times a day.

Yesterday, RiM announced the BlackBerry Torch. It's in stores in the U.S. August 12th, no Canadian date announced yet.



The iPad took over the news channels when Apple released it. Then Jobs & Co. released the iPhone4 to mixed reviews. Don't worry, the iPhone5 will be here soon.

No less than six manufacturers are working on a tablet solution. Android beat iPhone in sales. Some reports say the Apple Cube in NYC has more visitors each year than the Empire State Building. Uncrate has over a quarter of a million daily visitors, Mashable has just over three million and Gizmodo has almost five million.


We love our toys, we love reading about them, sharing our thoughts about them and comparing them.

Most under 20 year olds use texting and messaging more than phoning on their mobile device and it's growing with older demos.


We have choice and price, options and colors, touch screens and qwerty. And other than wondering if we'll ever get to a truly wireless world or if a battery will ever last more than a few hours, one question remains...

Is it about the gadget or the community?

knealemann
Helping you integrate all you do with all you do.

image credit: dreamstime | channel4 | eikongraphia

Are You Multi-Medium?

Did You Get My Email?

I was emailing someone the other day and realized it was the first time we had corresponded that way in months. There had been land line calls, cell calls, texts, Twitter DMs, Skype and probably even notes via Facebook. Sometimes all in one day. But we hadn’t sent an email to each other in ages.

Have you experienced the multi-medium conversation? You may not even stop to think about how you are communicating because the message is more important than the gadget.

Where is this all going?

At best guess, the Universe is about 14 billion years old and humans have been on earth for about 200,000 years. So the latest iPhone app may not be a big deal in 100 years, or even 100 days. Sorry!

Millennial Influences

In 1999, A&E produced an outstanding series featuring the one hundred more influential people of last millenium.



The list included the famous and infamous, the evil and angelic, inventors and politicians, sculptors and philosophers. It spanned from Martin Luther King Jr. to Nicolas Copernicus and Michelangelo Buonarroti to Bill Gates.

Human Networking

From caves to 3G networks, what remains most important is our ability to communicate. My wonder about email seems rather silly now.

And if you didn’t see the A&E series, any guesses on the most influential person of the last millenium?



It was Johannes Gutenberg who introduced the printing press to the world around 1450. His invention revolutionized communication and helped increase literacy.

What is your favored medium of communication?

@knealemann
Let's create experiences, not campaigns

image credits: domaindlx.com | apple.com | mnsu.edu

Are You Open or Closed?

PCs Need Not Apply

Until the introduction of the iPhone, in order to get inside the walls of Apple Inc., you had to work at Apple Inc. and pass a vigorous series of tests. Body fluids were drawn, brain and fingerprint scans were performed. Even your mother was called for a reference.

There were unconfirmed reports of weeping and crying and …okay, they didn’t call your mother but the wall to climb over was rather high. That was intentional. Okay, and the claim about body fluids and scans was a bit of a stretch too. But not by much.

Feel Free To Promote

No one was allowed in, unless they were invited. Those on the outside were free to promote the great things happening within the kingdom du Jobs but opinions were neither requested nor accepted.

Apple decided while the rest of the world was building open platforms, Mac et al were to be closed. Closed. CLOSED.

Laugh and Point

Many of us PC's drool from afar. Few days go by when I don't hear the snicker in the voice of a colleague when I shamefully tell them my laptop is not an Apple. I know, it's pretty bad.

What often follows is something like: "Dude, you don't have a Mac?!"

What About You?

Is your offering so kick ass that people wait patiently for the drawbridge to lower for the privilege to walk across the mote into your kingdom? Some claim they "own" the social media space or marketing world, others say they have created a community of influence.

Even Apple had to lower the wall eventually.

Can you and I afford to create closed platforms?

@knealemann
knealemann at gmail dot com

Helping clients better utilize all media.
Building experiences, not campaigns.

photo credit: herstmonceux-castle.com

Stuff For Your Stuff

Are you satisfied with the content for your gadgets?
I’m sure you have a few gadgets in your life. You probably have a computer, PDA or cell, mp3 player, digital camera, printer, television, and other electronic entertainment equipment.

There’s Nuthin’ On!
The Holidays are officially over and you may have realized something startling. We seem to have to weed through a lot of crap to get to the stuff we want. Years ago Bruce Springsteen had a song entitled 57 Channels and Nothing On which can be said about most of the gadgets in our lives. Some days there are 300 channels and nothing on!

The Google Stare
Perhaps this has happened to you. Over the Holidays whilst trying to digest more bad food, I was often stuck not knowing where I wanted to go. So out of habit, I would check Twitter and Facebook, then Google Reader, perhaps a music site and the cycle continued. There are billions of sites to visit but why do we get stuck?

Perhaps we still don’t feel we have enough control over our environment – despite our spoiled existence? And that includes living through these tough economic times.

Thingamajigs and Doohickeys
One of the most popular sites in the world is Gizmodo. It has all the newest coolest toys available. It's cool that you can buy a Bugatti for a million bucks, but what good is it if your route to work consists of urban gridlock? And do we really need a toaster radio?

Everything we own depends on other things to make it work. No power, no service. No content, your laptop is landfill. If you are out of cell range, your phone is rendered useless.

What is Stuff?
Stuff is content. Stuff is the device we need to access that content. Stuff is tools for work, games to play, words to read and music to enjoy.

It is fun to play with all applications on your iPhone or Blackberry but once that novelty wears off, what do you do then? You must then search for stuff to put on your stuff.

Possibilities
The great news is we can create whatever we want. If we don’t know how to write that computer code to make that cool thing dance on that website, we can find someone who can do it. If we want to gather a group of people to create a new concept or project we have that ability. The first stop is to ask ourselves - what we want to create?

Are you satisfied with the stuff on your stuff?

km