Revealing Research: The Future of the Internet IV

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released its fourth Internet expert study on Friday. The Future of the Internet IV compiles survey responses from almost 900 prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers, and technology developers around five key Internet related topics.

The five topics included (paraphrased): the value of online content, the impact on the written language, the extent to which innovation can be predicted, the freedom of access and information, and the protection of privacy.

Dominant Themes of Discussion For The Next Decade

The value of online information.
• 76 percent believe more information leads to smarter people who make better choices.
• 21 percent believe the Internet could be lowering the IQs of the people who use it.

The discussion, spurred by Nicholas Carr, is underpinned by the thought that people are moving away from a meditative or contemplative intelligence and toward a utilitarian intelligence. (The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking, he says.) There is some truth to the argument, with content being distilled into little nuggets of easily accessed information (sometimes incorrect information). Many arguments against the idea suggest the Internet will change cognitive capacities so people won’t have to remember as much, but will have to have better critical thinking and analytical skills.

It seems that any real direction has yet to be set. With the emphasis on short popular content, the depth and accuracy of information has diminished. However, this seems to be a short-term problem as objective human editors may eventually have a role in vetting information on the net much like yellow journalism gave rise to objective journalism around the 1920s. Of course, Gordon Lightfoot might have a different view.

*Amazingly, many newspaper headlines have actually sold this portion of the study as evidence that the Internet makes us smarter, which makes us wonder if anyone read it.

The Internet enhances reading, writing, and knowledge.
• 65 percent believe the Internet has enhanced reading, writing, and the rendering of knowledge.
• 32 percent believe the Internet has endangered reading, writing, and intelligent rendering of knowledge.

Almost all of the survey respondents seem to agree that the written language is suffering as a result of online communication. However, how the two sides frame the outcome is where they part company. Some suggest language is shifting to be more visual and/or simply different with communication becoming more fluid (but not necessarily better written).

Without question, the acceleration of communication, quantity of communication, and format of communication tend to have consequences. The quality of the communication is often diminished. However, long-time content creators consistently suggest that their writing has improved as a result. It could be that the Internet has simply invited more people who would otherwise not write to write more often, which means the abuse of the language is short term or format related. Time will tell.

The hottest gadgets of the next decade are already evident today.
• 17 percent believe that the applications of tomorrow will not take people by surprise.
• 80 percent believe that the applications of tomorrow cannot be anticipated today.

With rare exception, almost everyone agrees that predicting future technologies beyond broad conceptual thinking is futile. Nobody can accurately guess what the breakout applications and gadgets will be by the year 2020. Only a handful believe that trend spotting provides an accurate glimpse of the future.

Given the advancements over the last 20 years, it seems likely that innovation will follow two paths. There are innovators who enhance existing models, making them more efficient. And then there are innovators who create disruptive leaps forward that undo those enhancements. For example, Photoshop recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Few predicted the explosive growth of Facebook.

The Internet will be dominated by an end-to-end principle.
• 61 percent believe there will be minimal restrictions over online access and information.
• 33 percent believe there will intermediary institutions that control significant amounts of content.

While most believe that public pressure will keep the Internet mostly free, the public will only succeed if they remain vigilant in guarding against government and network takeovers. Pessimistic views point to China and even the United States. In the U.S., the net neutrality debate has only temporarily restrained cable and telcos from exerting centralized control.

With the exception of government intervention (which varies by country), scalability and scarcity will likely be the deciding factors of whether the Internet remains free as people see it today. Mass content creators, not distributors, will likely be those who determine to what extent information and content remain accessible. With more publications attempting to return to subscriber-based content, this stands to be the more viable threat to limiting communication.

The future of online anonymity will evaporate.
• 41 percent believe there will be tighter, more formal controls over the Internet, including scanning devices.
• 55 percent believe it will be relatively easy to remain anonymous without public disclosure.

There is greater and increasing pressure for authentication online. Ironically, proponents of an authenticated world do not always appreciate the severity of privacy abuses nor how such a move hinders concepts such as freedom of speech. The minor majority believes the Internet is well past a need for authentication.

The reality is that online privacy is collapsing under the weight of uncoordinated, unrelated, and unlikely allies. There is pressure from communicators who chastise anonymity, pressure from governments and businesses to investigate dissent, and a general willingness of the public to surrender privacy for the smallest of carrots. The question is not whether online privacy will no longer exist, but when and to what extent.

The full study, The Future of the Internet IV, can be found at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The project is supported by the Pew Research Center, which is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.

Changing Constants: Fresh Content

Communication is in a constant state of change. The tools are different. The news is different. How we find out about something is different. Even approaching blog content is different than it was a few years ago, given the impact of social networks.

But with all that is different, some things are even more different than we imagine and other things are surprisingly the same. The challenge for communicators is to give up on one thing they've relied on for the better part of 20 years. Assumptions.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of February 8

• The Future Journalist: Thoughts from Two Generations.
Sree Sreenivasan, professor and dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism School, paints a picture of what new skill sets young journalists need to develop in order to keep up with the evolution of online media. At the same time, Sreenivasan underscores that fundamental skill sets are still critical in a changing profession: great reporting, great writing, ethics, specialization, investigation, and news judgement.

• Cleveland Cavaliers “Watergate” May Be Dumbest Business/PR Move Ever.
Sometimes people say that having fewer journalists to vet information is a good thing. I don't agree. Left to their own devices, organizations are sometimes tempted to present revenue generating schemes into a public service story much like the Cavaliers did when they shut off water fountains. Bill Sledzik rightly calls it like he sees it.

• 2010 MarketingSherpa Social Media Marketing Guide.
By combining several studies, Brian Solis offers up a comprehensive snapshot of the world through the lens of the Internet. Within each country profiles, there are dramatic and subtle differences in how social media is employed by different countries and cultures. For example, the United States is much more passive about content creation on blogs than China. Expect all of it to change again.

• Stop Adding Value.
Valeria Maltoni reveals that the buzz of adding value is only one part of the social media equation. When all content creators attempt to out value each other, nobody wins. To build a platform (or community), communicators need to consider how they can help other people's ideas, especially customers, shine as much as their own.

• The Albert Einstein Guide to Social Media
Considering how great communicators of the past might approach social media has been a fun and worthwhile mechanism for many writers, bloggers, and journalists. Amber Naslund chose the right one by applying the finer points of Albert Einstein to social media. As a scientist, he was consistent in presenting his ideas in a clear, concise, accurate manner. As a human being, he married intellect with wisdom. Amazingly, wisdom remains constant.

Writing For Public Relations: What Makes News

I never learned how to pitch a story like a public relations professional. I learned the hard way, sending query letters to editors in the hope of an assignment.

Sometimes the letter was more important than a contract. Without one, it was harder to secure interviews. And even with one, you knew the story had to be good. Stories written on speculation were only bought if they were really good or great. If they weren't bought, you would have to rework the story and try to peddle it elsewhere. If they were great, editors were very open for more.

When I was asked to write my first news release, it never occurred to me to write one much differently than a news or feature story (with the exception of following an inverted pyramid lead for those familiar with the term). Writing format aside, I always believed that if editors paid writers for news stories then there was a chance they would accept some for free.

Writing For Public Relations: What Makes News

View more presentations from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink..

The above deck is one of the teaching tools I'm using this year for Writing For Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The intent is to teach students how to find news within their organizations rather than resort to pitching into the wind. Enjoy.

Organizing Lists: Retention Psychology & Branding

Almost everyone involved with online content creation knows it. Lists can be powerful tools for traffic attraction. Search for "3 tips" on Google and it will return 80 million results. Type in "5 tips" for 74 million. Ten tips returns 84 million. So on and so forth.

Okay, people like lists. So what?

Lists can be excellent resources, which is why we like them. But lists can also interfere with retention. In fact, most memory studies conducted by psychologists reveal that the power to retrieve information from our memories decreases with every new bullet item associated with those clues.

In one study (Anderson, 1980), participants were given a list that associated two professional titles with five actions. For example:

• The banker was asked to address the crowd.
• The banker broke the bottle.
• The banker did not delay the ship.
• The lawyer realized the seam was split.
• The lawyer painted an old barn.

When the participants were tested later, they took longer to remember any facts about the banker. Subsequent studies demonstrated that the more facts provided about someone or something, the less likely they were to retain facts unless those facts were well organized and grouped together to form other associations.

For example, if all the banker facts were related to a ship and all the lawyer facts were related to a barn, participants had no trouble retrieving facts about the banker or lawyer. Why? Because the lists were effectively reduced to manageable memories.

The link to retention becomes: banker + ship: three details; lawyer + barn: two details. It becomes a powerful memory.

Creating Organized Context Associations Drives Content Retention

Think about how this applies to branding. In Tiger Woods' statement today, media headlines focused on that he admitted to having affairs and apologized. Afterward, the stories all opined whether or not the apology should be accepted.

On the other hand, a word cloud reveals his focus was on his wife, family, friends, and children as it relates to his behavior.

So why didn't most media pick up on these central points? In looking at the full transcript, the organization of his apology was muddled, leaving the media construct simpler associations that set the tone for the apology regardless of what Woods said. For most people, they are more likely to remember the news snip than the statement.

Think about the last few posts or news stories you read that contained a list. Can you remember most of the bulleted items? Probably not. More than likely, unlike posts that tell a story or have one central theme, you might remember the topic but none of the details.

The good news for the list builder is that people will have to revisit the site to retrieve the information again. The bad news for readers is that the lessons and the author are less likely to be remembered over the long term. This doesn't just apply to posts. It applies to education in general.

In my course material on writing, students frequently tell me that they are more successful retaining my five elements on writing and Ike Pigott's three element on writing than those offered by Don Gale or Ogilvy and Mather.

Although all of the four sets lend value, the difference is in the presentation. Pigott links three frequently associated attributes to his writing, underscored by a kung fu analogy. I employ organized association, reinforcing those points with alliteration.

Why is it important? It's important for bloggers and journalists because while increasing retention might not spike traffic, it will help readers retain information and associate the content with you. Otherwise, they will be more likely to forget the content and the source, eventually conducting a new search based on the headline they remember. Will they find your post again? Maybe.

In closing, I'm adding a related psychology study to my watch list. Richard Elliot Wener, professor of environmental psychology at Polytechnic Institute of New York University, is studying whether highly visible recycling bins remind people to not only recycle but to also be more environmentally conscious in general.

How it that related? The study might have findings that cross over into understanding organized associated content, and whether those associations affect behavior.

Marketing To Genders: Lost In Time

"The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife." — David Ogilvy.

The classic quote from David Ogilvy couldn't be more true today. One study, from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), concluded that women drive $12 trillion in global spending today, which is more than 70 percent of consumer dollars worldwide. The study also estimates that women will contribute an incremental $5 trillion in earnings over the next five years.

Household Responsibilities For Women.

• 88 percent say they have responsibility for grocery shopping.
• 85 percent have responsibility for meal preparation.
• 84 percent have responsibility for laundry.
• 84 percent have responsibility for cleaning.
• 77 percent have responsibility for household administration.

The Economic Shift Toward Women.

• 70 percent of mothers are already working.
• 57 percent of college students are women in the U.S. (55 percent in Europe).
• 40 percent of businesses in the U.S. are owned or co-owned by women.
• 72 percent of consumer spending will be controlled by women in 2028.
• Solely-owned women-owned businesses grow twice as fast as men-owned businesses.

And yet, marketing, advertising, and communication tends to skew masculine. (Even Verizon segments its advertising, suggesting the Palm Pre Plus is for women while the Driod is for men.)

But we're not talking about stereotype reinforcement, which tends to affect both genders. We're talking about messages that don't meet the general needs of the decision maker.

"Companies are failing to meet the needs of women in five key ways," said Michael J. Silverstein, BCG senior partner and coauthor of Women Want More. "Poor product design and customization for women; clumsy sales and marketing; inability to address the need for time-saving solutions; inability to provide a meaningful hook and differentiation, and failure to develop community."

Lynn Truong, sales director of Wise Bread, recently published a post on American Express OPEN Forum that highlights a few suggestions, with the the very first tip reminding marketers that women don't always gravitate to pink. More compelling than dissuading advertisers from painting the world pink, Truong reminds marketers that women are not part of the same audience, simply because they share the same gender.

It's a good lesson that goes beyond gender lines because in the quest to capture larger audiences, some advertisers lump too many different people into the same pool. We can no longer afford to think that men come from Mars and women come from Venus. Not only do both genders come from those planets, some come from Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury too.

Or, to end where we began: The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife, co-worker, client, and boss.

Integrating Communication: Communication-Driven Social Media

Something happens when you integrate strategic communication into organizational communication. Public relations is set free to do what it does best. Advertising is set free to do what it does best. And communication becomes more fluid between the various departments.

That is not to say that a communication-driven social media program is the end all to integrating social communication. Like the public relations-driven and advertising-driven models shared earlier, models tend to be the beginning of developing an integrated communication program and not the end. This is one solution among dozens.

A Communication-Driven Social Media Model

The above illustration (larger version here) represents what a strategic communication-driven communication plan might look as it relates to social media. In this model, advertising manages advertising functions and public relations manages public relations functions. Social media is managed by a corporate communication department (or a similar department), with support from advertising and public relations. For simplicity, we've broken it down into primary functions for each. Shared functions are noted, but not broken out this time.

Communication.

• Maintain, manage, and promote the organization's blog or two-way communication assets on a Web site. This would also include market intelligence (which is shared with the advertising and public relations team), but primarily consists of content development and content distribution that adds value for customers. While blogs are presentation oriented, they do provide for two-way communication.

• Maintain, manage, and develop the organization's social networks. This includes online programs and information sharing that nurtures true engagement and two-way communication in real time. Where advertising plays a role is that most social networks provide vehicles for advertising. If someone doesn't think online ads work, they are either delusional or have bad ads.

• Blogger outreach occurs directly and indirectly as bloggers may source content from the organization's blog or develop relationships with the social media team via any number of social networks. Advertising supports this effort with media buys based on recommendations form the social media team. Public relations supports this effort as part of its media relations component.

• There are some additional responsibilities, including: managing internal communication (with support from human resources), working with executive team members and marketing in development of a core message system or strategic communication plan, assisting executives who choose to be part of the external communication equation, and listening.

Public Relations.

• Managing media relations, which includes press releases, interview pitches, and demonstrations. The function is designed to generate increased exposure. It's mostly one-way communication with journalists vetting information, tailoring content to meet the needs of their readers, and arranging for opinion-editorial pieces.

• Public outreach, which includes programs and communication materials for special publics (e.g., associations, special interest groups, unions, etc.) as well as direct-to-public communication and/or publicity. It's mostly one-way communication, with group leaders providing some two-way communication to specific members.

• Blogger outreach, which includes adding popular bloggers within the media relations mix. Or, it could include bloggers who have been referred by the corporate communication team because they have special needs that are similar to journalists (such as requesting specific interviews, etc.). Public relations can also track cross-over professionals: journalists who blog and bloggers who accept freelance assignments.

• Bringing public relations back to one of its core functions would certainly be an asset. Since public relations is not strapped with the daily operations of real-time communication, it could invest more time strengthening relationships between the organization and various publics by researching trends in the environments where the company operates. There is simply not enough of this work being done at some firms.

Advertising.

• While Web sites are sometimes lumped into online mass media categories, the online environment has changed. One-dimensional, one-way static communication can only exist as an option for the most passive visitors. Social media can help make them consumer functional, but some elements clearly fall within the expertise of advertising as mentioned before.

• Likewise, social networks do not exist in a vacuum. They work better with mass media support, targeted advertising, and communication supplements that span audio, video, and other components. Such support can mean the difference between staffing a "voice" on a Twitter (like Southwest Air seemed to have done given its Silent Bob crisis) and communicating with the public and the organization in such a way that a bad policy can change.

• Managing traditional mass communication, which includes collateral, print, and broadcast. As long as there is mass media, even if it continues to serves smaller niches, the functions remain the same. What is different is that all of this communication has the additional role of helping consumers find two-way communication portals. There are also new distribution points online.

• Promotions, which include direct response campaigns, guerilla marketing, and special events (sometimes managed by public relations), post-purchase communication is managed by the team. Sure, some is interruption based. But, as noted before, interruption-based communication is likely to continue as long as people respond to it.

Model Summation.

In summation, this model represents an approach to communication that delivers maximum impact with minimal means. It is designed to bring the organization and (optionally) its leadership closer to the public. It considers all publics, including internal stakeholders and draws on support from human resources.

The end result of an integrated strategy allows corporate communication to directly communicate with internal and external publics within the context of an organization's mission, vision, and values. At the same time, it creates a two-way communication loop that expedites solutions when the communication is not aligned with delivery of the product or service.

As with all of the integrated models we've shared, it helps establish consistent communication, multiple distribution points, multiple points of verification and validation, and more two-way communication outlets with the public. It also empowers employees (without obligation) to feel informed enough about the company that they can answer questions within their individual personal networks.

Do keep in mind that social media fits differently for different companies. In this model, social media could maintain autonomous distinction and report to corporate communication just as easily as being performed by it, provided it doesn't create an unnecessary layer or continue to nurture silos (departments that operate with little interaction).