The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

The presentation dealt with

• TS Eliot,
• Ezekiel discovering that the limit of his knowledge isn't the limit of what is knowable,
• How to have fun with beehives and the people inside them
• and Mighty Mouse

This time out, Beehives and the People Inside them (wherein I make a prediction).

Most people spend their lives seeking identity and they surround themselves with things that reinforce what they believe their identity to be. They do it via clubs, personal branding, any number of things. Their own sense of identity, of who and what they are, is influenced by and influences everything they do. This is the "If I am a thief then you must steal" syndrome so popular in 12-step communities.

Put differently, Sally Field's character in Soapdish will always go to the Mall with Whoopi Goldberg's character so that Whoopi can get the crowd to "notice" Sally Field.

People who were at my Boston SNCR Awards Gala presentation know this as Holmeses and Watsons.

We all want to know we're part of the group, we just want to be sure everybody in the group knows who we are. No matter who we are and what our individual histories are, there is this amazing dualism in our neural coding that -- much like flight or fight -- keeps us moving between anonymity and recognition. The prey creature in us wants to be unseen and unknown while the predator in us wants to be recognized and identified. So while we'll be a part of this:

What we really seek and strive for is to be part of something like this because being either predator or prey is hard work. Doesn't matter if you're in a large crowd and are anonymous or in a small society and well known. The only safety and solace is to be part of a community, a semi-small circle of friends (about 60-75 is tops) where the balance between anonymity and recognition can be easily managed and maintained.

Prediction #1

I think vendors in the blog awareness world might call this "You're known by the comments you keep".

What we've learned and what I'll share is that buzz marketing, word of mouth marketing, viral marketing, whatever you want to call it, will evolve to a very sophisticated "smart mob" environment, a "Hive" mind mentality.

How many people have actually tracked their buzz efforts? How many have actually observed and monitored how rapidly and how far their buzz travels, through whom, how fast, who're the best carriers, ...?

These little charts that look like petri dish cultures gone mad? These are actual charts of the spread of a viral message, each little drop signifies a cluster of 100 people "infected" with a message and spreading it on. There's a reason it's called "viral", you know.

One thing these little charts are showing that is obvious only when you know what to look at is the fact that the message literally spread in one direction only; the direction of "infection" parallels the travel paths of those infected.

The clustering of the "infection" is also dependent on where the most highly infected (ie, the ones most likely to pass your message on) spend the majority of their day. NextStage has someone very knowledgeable in virology on its team and all of this information was anticipated then proven in various trials. Why other groups doing viral marketing aren't employing these types of people I don't know.

Spreading Your Message

You want the message to spread and there are two basic ways to do it with hive mentalities. First, you can have everyone come to your site. The benefit is that you control the message. The detriment is that there will be limits on how many people participate, how long your message stays in public awareness and how far your message can travel.

This is where the pilgrim's wall meets the beehive. Trust, Meaning and Wisdom are lost if you fail to provide guidance beyond the wall, yet every member of a functioning beehive -- or any functioning society for that matter -- knows their role in that society. Trust, Meaning and Wisdom exist and the hive functions as a whole. It simply doesn't let any bees out of the hive and eventually dies for any number of reasons.

Or you can simply put your message out there. This is the bee coming back to the hive and dancing their little tookas off because its discovered your message about an incredibly rich field of flowers. All the bees go, lots of pollenation, lots of honey, new hives form, some go on to greatness and some just go on to other great things.

Totally different dynamics, completely different parameters same amount of risk for completely different reasons. However, you'll never lose trust, meaning or wisdom because you're not in control of it to begin with and you can't lose what you've never had. The bees are taking the risk with the flowers.

But the big payoff is that you'll also learn from your audience. Your offering matures as does your audience to the point where you need each other. Very good. Symbiosis, you have to love it.

This symbiotic relationship is SmartMob behavior at its best. Our current thinking is that SmartMob methods will become the most effective marketing because it is an immediate, highly specific, highly targeted and quickly rewarded call to action.

This is extremely important because people are searching for help understanding all the information in their environment. And few things will get their attention better than a reward right now for something they did right now, something directed at them, something specific they can get done and something they can do without a lot of planning.

Next up, Mighty Mouse.

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Links for this post:

• Society for New Communications Research
• NewComm Forum 2008
• SNCR NewComm Forum Day 2 - TS Eliot, Ezekiel, Beehives and Mighty Mouse
• TS Eliot, Ezekiel, Beehives and Mighty Mouse - Why "Whispering to Be Heard"?
• TS Eliot, Ezekiel, Beehives and Mighty Mouse - TS Eliot does Information Mechanics
• TS Eliot, Ezekiel, Beehives and Mighty Mouse - Ezekiel Hits His Wall
• Controlling a brand conversation
• Mr. Engineer? Facebook is on line 1

• Know How Someone Is Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less Half-day training at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 13 June 08

• International Communication Association's Communicating for Social Impact, the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association at Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22-26, 2008
• SUNY Marketing Professionals Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 11-13 June 08

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