Open up your mind and say, ahh...

A hack of our 43rd president’s email account this week netted not state secrets or major scandals–but it did reveal three paintings. We already knew that George W. was an aspiring painter, but until yesterday, none of his work had been publicized (except for a portrait of his recently deceased first dog, Barney). The three grainy shots of his handiwork were released by an anonymous hacker, alongside photos of George H. Bush, Ralph Lauren, and Bill Clinton.

It’s very easy to mock these paintings given their context. And plenty of people already have. Dubya is an easy target for reasons entirely outside of his skill or ambition as an artist. And certainly, when I first saw them, I laughed along with the rest of the Internet. But the more I look at them, the more interesting they become.

The two paintings, which seem as though they were painted in acrylic, show Bush in the shower and bathtub. In one we see his toes sticking out of the murky water as the faucet runs. The former is more interesting: It shows us Bush’s back as he faces the shower, while a reflection of his face stares from a hanging shower mirror. It’s a startling effect, and it immediately made me think of Jan van Eyck’s 1434 Arnolfini Portrait, which shows a posing couple reflected in a nearby mirror. I’m not arguing that Bush’s work is on a par with the 15th-century Flemish genius, but he is using a mirror in the same way van Eyck did–to point out his presence and reject the gaze of the viewer at the same time. There’s also something of David Hockney here, in the luxury bathroom trappings and the gridded tile background.

Write off the other leaked works as crude acts of stress relief if you will, but these two paintings are fascinatingly blunt. We’re seeing a man who’s thinking about his image, his role in public life, and his legacy. Wonderful New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz explains:

I love these two bather paintings. They are “simple” and “awkward,” but in wonderful, unself-conscious, intense ways. They show someone doing the best he can with almost no natural gifts–except the desire to do this. The reclusion and seclusiveness of the pictures evoke the quietude (though not the insight, quality, or genius) of certain Chardin still lifes. These are pictures of someone dissembling without knowing it, unprotected and on display, but split between the promptings of his own inner drives and limited by his abilities. They reflect the pleasures of disinterestedness. A floater. Inert. The images of a man who saw the entire world from the inside but who finds the smallest, most private place in a private home to imagine his universe. Of almost nothingness. Sweet, sublime, oblique oblivion. The visibility of invisibleness.

Read that as deep satire or sincerity, as you see fit. Either way, there’s some truth in it: these paintings put us in Bush’s shoes (had he been wearing any), and force us to look at life from the perspective of a former president who’s currently wildly unpopular. It’s uncomfortable–and isn’t that what good art is all about?

Earlier this year, Ryan Seacrest partnered with Ford for its “Random Acts of Fusion Campaign,” a transmedia effort to promote the 2013 Ford Fusion. Now with the recent acquisition of New York-based marketing services agency Civic Entertainment Group (CEG) through his company Seacrest Global Group (SGG), the multi-hyphenate magnate aims to connect brands with Hollywood and perhaps create original branded content.

Dick Clark & Ryan Seacrest

Like the late Dick Clark, whose career he makes no secret of emulating, Seacrest is an entertainer who wears many hats–American Idol host; NBC News’ Today show correspondent; and, of course, host of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, which he also executive produces. Through Ryan Seacrest Productions, Seacrest produces Keeping Up with the Kardashians as well as its various spin-offs, and other reality series, such as Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset and E!’s Married to Jonas.

Seacrest also has several projects at various stages of development, including Food Fight with Paramount Pictures, a TV version of the book Nanny Diaries, and a game show based on the popular Zynga game Draw Something.

When the television and radio personality initially approached CEG, the company’s co-founders/CEOs Stuart Ruderfer and David Cohn were “immediately intrigued,” according to Ruderfer. “Ryan has this unique vision for building the new model, the next generation media and entertainment brand business,” says Ruderfer. “What it means for us is we can have a combination of Hollywood access with first-class marketing services.”

For his part, Seacrest says he was attracted to CEG because of its “consistent track record of business success.” Specifically, CEG was responsible for overseeing the marketing campaign for the launch of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, including a series of 1920s-era events, as well as other creative marketing services for brands such as A&E, CNN, ESPN, History, NFL, and Southwest Airlines. The 12-year-old company specializes in experiential marketing campaigns that blur the line between marketing and entertainment.

“For History, the cable channel, we had the world’s largest smoker and grill cooking 2,000 hot dogs around the country,” Ruderfer says, as an example of one of their experiential marketing campaigns. “The idea was to help History reach out to its audience and provide a live experience with the brand that hopefully adds to their viewing experience.”

The company has also created restaurant spaces for CNN, the CNN Grill, and a bar and lounge, the Southwest Porch, for Southwest Airlines.

Although Ruderfer and Cohn will continue to head up the day-to-day operations at CEG, Ruderfer said they would rely on Seacrest’s “advice and counsel and access to resources.”

Since both SGG and CEG have expertise in live events, there will likely be an increased focus on them going forward.

“Live events are exciting television, and they repeatedly draw big audiences year-after-year,” says Seacrest. “My production company is interested in stepping up its capabilities in this aspect of the business, which I think is also an area that Civic could potentially be involved with given their expertise with marketing large-scale events.”

Entertainment and marketing will continue to converge, according to Seacrest, and creating entertaining content is key. “There is so much noise in the marketplace for both content creators and marketers that it increasingly makes sense for these two disciplines to dovetail in interesting ways,” says Seacrest.

Crowd Image: Flickr user Haags Uitburo

The model home at Taylor Morrison’s Ladera housing development in Bee Cave, Texas, looks like any other modern house when you approach it from the road. There’s a large front door, five windows and a few plants to bring the place to life. It’s more of the same when you walk through the door either. There’s the landing to your left, a room immediately to your right.

In fact, it’s not until you take a few steps inside the house that you notice things are slightly different.

“This, to your right, is the children’s nook,” Kristin France tells me as I turn inside the house. “It’s got a full-on kitchen.”

“Every kid who comes through here, this is where they stop. They’ll just hang out here while the parents look around the house. I have a two-year-old, and I can guarantee that she’d be in here—and I’d have a hard time pulling her out. ”

What I’m looking at is a doorframe that’s about three-quarters short of normal. It’s nestled into a wall underneath the stairs, and around it is a painting that’s meant to allude to cottages. This is the children’s nook, and on the wall someone has painted a sink and stove.

“This was actually first designed to be here for a dog,” France says. “But any kid would love it.”

Ladera is not your traditional housing development. Rather, it’s a revolutionary social community—a series of what Taylor Morrison considers the interactive homes. For the first time in the history of homebuilding, a development company has decided to crowdsource the construction process. As France explains, every house on the Ladera lot will draw a certain semblance of inspiration from designs the company found on Pinterest.

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest yet, it’s likely that you don’t know any women. The site is the fastest growing social network on the Internet, a behemoth of beauty and inspiration that’s grown to more than 16 million users. The site has become the unofficial wish list for dreamers and believers alike—an online destination for one-stop window shopping. People pour through other users’ pinboards to find the objects they like most. When they find something, they pin it. Thus, their own pinboards become a vessel for the things they like and want.

And while we don’t have the cold, hard numbers to back it up, fromcircumstantial evidence, I feel safe in saying that a substantial amount of those users have filled at least one of their pinboards with a series of things they would like to see in their dream homes: lofty light structures, super modern kitchen constructions, cute little craft rooms and tiny nooks under the steps for their children.

France, a marketing manager at Taylor Morrison, is no different. She’s got a “My Next House…” pinboard with 77 different pins and says that’s how she got the inspiration to build these homes.

“We were doing our frame walk,” she remembers. “We always pick out of floor plans and what we’re going to build before anything happens.

“We were walking through this house and got to the steps, and I said, ‘We’ve got to make that a children’s nook under the stairs,’ because I knew that we had to make it a functional space. I pulled the image up on my phone, and everybody agreed.”

The kitchen design and craft room upstairs played out much the same way. France looked at the framework of the house and then consulted her pinboard. With the kitchen, she found a design that played to a long island and walkway. Upstairs in the craft room, she reverted to an old favorite: a two-sided desk that looks made for creative collaboration.

“We’re showing people that they can have these homes. I think that’s what Pinterest does,” France says. “Your hopes and dreams of what you could have or could create: We’re trying to make that a reality for people who can’t visualize it.”

France says Taylor Morrison is planning to build 260 different houses on the lot, with each pulling different dream designs from Pinterest. And while she laments the fact that the company can’t yet cater to personalized requests, the fact that she and her colleagues are able to show actual visualizations of room conceptions can be a legitimate boost for business.

“After years of hearing people say, ‘I wish you had done this’ or ‘I wish you had done that,’ this has helped create the solution,” France adds. “We’ve revamped a lot of our floor plans in the last two years basically to cater to all those requests.

“We made those decisions based on what’s popular and what these pinners are requesting. We could show that the room upstairs could be a study or craft room or baby’s room. These visuals help people move into them.”

Alright, alright, alright, it’s Monday and time to get this week under way, whether you want to or not. I’ve got a pretty cool infographic for ya’ll today, How People Look in Google and How to Look Better. Now you may be thinking I don’t do much on the internet besides Facebook and the like, there is nothing about me on Google. Well you’d be surprised, after I Googled myself then did an internet search I found there were several links relating to me and stuff I had done that I had no idea was on the internet. None of it is bad of course, being the saint that I am, but it was interesting to find things I had done back in Middle School posted on the internet.

Lucky for me the content that appears when I Google myself is positive but that is because of a conscious effort. When it comes to Google rankings the one link you should be truly concerned about is your top hit. However only half of people own their first link on a Google search with 1 in 4 having no positive content on their first page. If you’re a professional concerned with your image Linkedin is your best friend. It ranks highest in Google so you can provide that clean innocent image using that guy. Be careful with things like Youtube and Vimeo, even though Youtube is more popular Vimeo ranks higher. Everything you do on the internet really is archived. Be careful people and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Click to enlarge

After a mere 6 months on the market, Google released their first major redesign of Google+. If you check your profile now, you should see the latest version. And if your taste is anything like ours, you’ll agree that it feels better in just about every way.

Yes it’s on purpose. Yes we have things coming.

So what did the designers at Google actually do not just to make their product so much more beautiful, but so much more beautiful than Facebook? Co.Design talked to Google+ lead designer Fred Gilbert to unpack the subtle brilliance behind their awesome redesign–a redesign that was completed in less than two months–and his notes are are full of lessons that could hone the experience of almost any product.

“This is probably one of the most unflattering images of our site,” Gilbert tells me, referencing the old Google+ screengrab you see here. Gilbert had just snagged the image, literally as the company was pulling the aging pages from their servers. But it was worth sharing this unadorned before shot to prove a point.

The old Google+

The redesigned Google+

“There are blue links everywhere on the page. It’s very distracting. Also notice how all of our actions except for the +1 are all text. We’ve had users tell us, it looks like we’re doing math. It’s easy for the user and the content to disappear under all of this metadata.”

So the team focused on the absolute core of the Google+ experience, the users and the things they share. That might sound like generalized corporate cheese, but their solution was tied intrinsically to these two topics. Everything on Google+ is now rendered in black and white, except for user avatars and their media. “The only things that are colored on the page are people and their content. They’re the only things that should pop out to you,” says Gilbert. In this regard, Google+ becomes a tabula rasa for the things we value most.

But you can’t just create a minimal interface that’s soulless–not on a site intended to be social. While the Google+ team was removing link clutter, replaced a lot of blue text with iconography–all of which saw an overhaul to become more inviting than it had been in the past.

If someone wants to share that their mom has cancer, it has to work for that.

“You notice, all of our shapes, all of our logos, have been softened,” says Gilbert. “There’s a difference between building something like an appliance and building something for people. For people, you want to build an environment that’s friendly. To do that we made icons that were fun.” You’ll see it in more than the iconography, though. Even within the feed itself, Google+ created a subtle but powerful shift in tone by adding word bubbles around each story. They basically lifted an idea from comics, but presented it with enough formality that it’s casual without feeling hokey.

“You can go too far with this,” warns Gilbert, “because you want it to be a space where people can share things that are good and bad. If someone wants to come on and share that their mom or dad has cancer, it has to work for that.”

The new Google+ has larger photos and videos than before, which span almost edge-to-edge across user posts. People like pretty pictures, so the idea works. But in light of that fact, why not go even bigger with images? Google’s servers could easily push 800 or 1000-pixel-wide photographs to users across the world. So why didn’t they?

“We mocked up column designs that are wider than what you’re seeing,” says Gilbert. “There are problems with that. People write a lot on Google+, and when you pull text out too wide, it gets harder to read.” In an oversaturated market of social media networks, Google+ only has a few core features that make it truly unique. One of those features is most certainly the option to share just about however much text you like. Facebook and Twitter both impose substantial character limitations, but on Google+, users can publish longer, richer content.

Google+ would likely be more beautiful with larger images, but preserving the integrity of a core experience (fast scanning of potentially vast amounts of information) was more important than layering another layer of icing on the cake. Or, as Gilbert explains, matter-of-factly: “To optimize for quick consumption, this is the size that works for us.”

No online product will look the same in a year as it does today. That’s a good thing: The digital space iterates quickly. But how do you manage users who will be perpetually upset by change? How can you manage comfort alongside progress?

Don’t fear being incomplete. Your work will never be finished.

In anticipation of more changes to come, Google+ has started buying pants in a size too big. With their redesign, they moved core navigation from a squashed bar at the top of the page to its own massive ribbon on the lefthand side. “We had like five things at the top. These photos, profiles, circles, there was no way that could grow across the page. We couldn’t add newer features, all these cool things we have coming,” says Gilbert.

Yet, if there’s one thing that defines the Google+ redesign, it might be all this spaciousness–empty air–namely a massive, unbalanced void of white space on the righthand side of the page. “Yes it’s on purpose. Yes we have things coming,” laughs Gilbert. “And we’re moving as fast as we can to make those things happen.” In the digital world, there’s no reason to fear being incomplete. Because, if you’re doing your job right, your work will never be finished, anyway.

Image: NatUlrich/Shutterstock

Disruptive technology is the bearer of tremendous opportunity and equally a harbinger of obsolescence. Technology’s impact on society and business is substantial, if not underestimated. As technology continues to become part of everyday life, it becomes disruptive in how people communicate, work, and connect. The evolution of society and technology happens with or without adaptation or understanding. And, it’s contributing to a very real phenomenon of Digital Darwinism, a situation where organizations are faced with a need to adapt to markets and customer behavior or risk a loss in favor, competitive advantage or worse, irrelevance.

To keep up is a perpetual investment as innovation is constant and it’s only increasing. We are becoming a culture rife with ingenuity. Entrepreneurialism is contagious. The startup way, or the “hacker life” is introducing new mindsets and models and it inspiring all who taste it to code, design, build, invest, and take risks. Even President Obama is calling for attention and support for startups to revive America’s fragile economy. And this is just the beginning. Innovation is a global movement and it’s gaining momentum.

This is a time to take a step back, recognize where we are and where we need to be, examine our strategies and current initiatives, review our investments and opportunities, and consider new areas for change or new pursuits.

The truth is that innovation works for and against us and investing in it with purpose and design is our responsibility. Whether you’re an entrepreneur leading the latest or the next hot startup, a business executive seeking solutions or a competitive edge, a decision maker or a champion for change in any industry, this is the time to see through the chaos of features, trends, IPOs, investments, ballooning valuations, et al. to clear a path for meaningful progress.

Part of the challenge is knowing when to recognize opportunities. While it’s easy to get caught up in the hype, there is a gap that exists between current needs, evolving pains, and the myriad of solutions hitting desktops, smartphones, tablets and digital appliances every day. The problem is that many organizations aren’t designed to be adaptive. They’re designed to optimize efficiencies and processes. But, times have changed and disruptive technology isn’t as easy to recognize nor capitalize on without a greater mission and purpose or an infrastructure to identify trends, experiment, learn, and scale.

For example, businesses around the world are jumping on Facebook and Twitter as each have demonstrated an ability to disrupt the standard fair in how connected consumers communicate, discover, and share. Yet, studying how they attempt to engage with customers reveals that they’re missing an opportunity to improve experiences and overall business opportunities. And, if we look at how organizations experiment with emerging platforms such as Instagram, Foursquare, Google+, Klout, and Pinterest, we’re left to wonder whether a divide and conquer strategy really isn’t just another guise where businesses become a jack of all trades but a master of none.

Disruptive technology requires much more than visibility and activity. To master these platforms requires presence and a commitment to steer thoughtful activity within value networks to the benefit of your organization as well as the experiences of those who define it.

For the purpose of this article, let’s define disruptive technology as the innovations that emerge without expectation to introduce a new market and value network at the expense of an existing market and value network. The reason this is an important discussion right now is that many organizations are investing in emerging technology for customer engagement, metrics, marketing and advertising, internal collaboration and education, HR, product develop, etc., without the clearest picture into overall direction, long term strategy, or even a deep understanding of the expectations and obstacles that exist among customers and employees.

To compete for the future, requires a full assessment of how some of the biggest trends in technology impact your business or markets today and how they will influence behavior in the future. While this list may alter, expand or contract based on your industry, the image below should provide a glimpse of just how expansive the landscape is, and while not every technology is affecting the bottom line today, elements are beginning to change the way decisions are made and how people work with one another. At the very least, the golden triangle of cloud, mobile, and social provides a hub to begin the evaluation of both technology and human behavior.

To chart a new course toward relevance, here are five initial steps to consider…

1. Assume that there is a surplus of confusion among users and decision makers within organizations and customers on which technology is trending versus technology that is showing signs of becoming or already is disruptive. Discovering the difference and prioritizing what’s important is critical.

2. Understand that the role of CMO and CIO is becoming closer than ever before. With marketing investing a significant percentage of the overall technology budget now and over time, the “I” in CIO may need to represent innovation to help lead more informed decisions from the inside.

3. Task an existing organization, external partner or develop a new task force to evaluate technology to improve the infrastructure of how your business works, cultivates relationships with customers, employees, and stakeholders, designs better products and services, and demonstrates competitive advantages.

4. Deploy this team to measure technology against a myriad of factors that are important to your business and assess which technologies are worthy of implementation, financial investment, acquisition or experimentation.

5. Re-align the team against a renewed vision, mission and purpose and train employees to use these technologies to achieve desired objectives at the enterprise, LoB, and functional levels…to meet customer and employee expectations and steer delightful experiences.

These are the times when getting caught up in technology, value, and new technology is often mistaken for innovation that inflates the dreaded bubble. What we don’t need is to invest in the wrong technologies simply because posts are constantly written with the “top 10″ ways to grow our business with said platform. While we can watch them grow, the real focus should be on the development of a formal system that measures impact and prioritizes resources around it accordingly.

Confirming the report from earlier this week, Sony president and CEO Kazuo Hirai said the company will cut 10,000 jobs globally as part of a big “One Sony” reorganization.

The company has five immediate goals: it wants to strengthen its core businesses — digital imaging, gaming and mobile — turn around its TV business, expand into emerging markets, create new businesses and fuel innovation and, finally, realign the business portfolio and optimize its resources.

The 10,000 layoffs and the management shuffling (Kazuo Hirai replaced Howard Stringer as president and CEO in February 2012) pretty much cover that last bit.

The details on strengthening its core businesses include a lot of consolidation — for example, Sony will integrate its smartphone, tablet and VAIO businesses, and reduce the number of product models in its TV business.

As for innovation, Sony is entering medical technology and life science industry, and it plans to “aggressively promote” 4K technology, which brings four times the resolution of Full HD. We’ll see 4K-enabled products in pro equipment, but Sony also promises to bring the technology into the high-end consumer product segment, which means our brand new Full HD TVs might look obsolete in a couple of years.

All of these will cost around $926 million, and Sony projects it will result in net sales of 6 trillion yen ($74 billion) and an operating income margin of 5% in its electronics business by 2014.

Social media is a global phenomenon indeed. Certainly Facebook, Twitter, Google+, in their own way, each make the world a much smaller place. The distance between any two people is shrinking as the number of network connections continues to proliferate. I’m sure you’ve heard at one point or another, that the distance between two people in an offline world is six degrees. In a recent Facebook study for example, the average degree of separation between two people in the network is only 4.74. When focused on one country specifically, such as the U.S., Sweden, or Italy, among others, the number of hops between two people further shrinks to 3.74.

Social networking is the new normal. No matter where you are in the world, there are social networks that only continue to bring us together. In January 2012, comScore published an interesting report, “It’s a Social World,” which opened a window into the world of social networking. The report contained several key findings, which aren’t a surprise to you or me, but they will deliver a wake-up call to the captains of industry who may be on a wrong course toward the future of customer relevance.

According to comScore, numbers show that social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide.  As you can see in the image below, social networking is a global phenomenon. Social networks for many, are the hub for their entire online experience. They introduce the need for any organization with a content strategy to rethink what they create, when, where and how. In October 2011, 1.2 billion users around the world visited social networking sites, which account for 82% of the world’s population. Most notably, nearly 1 in every 5 minutes is now spent in social networks. Within each network, attention is focused on interaction within the social graph where the 5C’s of Engagement must now account for those who at varying levels create, connect, consume, communicate, and contribute.

But social networking is only part of the story as platforms count for everything. Mobile devices are also fueling social addiction. comScore looked at individuals aged 13 and above and as a result, they believe that mobile social networking is going to be the wave of the future.

For businesses developing country-specific programs, comScore also provided a glimpse into the top 10 engaged markets for social networking. This should factor into your prioritization discussions.

1. Israel
2. Argentina
3. Russia
4. Turkey
5. Chile
6. Philippines
7. Columbia
8. Peru
9. Venezuela
10. Canada

As alluded to earlier, while demographics are important, try to also think beyond Boomers, Generation-X, or Generation-Y. Think Generation-C as those who live the connected lifestyle are injecting digital into their DNA. As you can see here, social networking growth is pervasive across the board.

Nielsen also released a report on the “State of Social Media.” While it mostly focuses on the impact of Social and Mobile technology in the United States, there is useful breakout of the Top 10 Web Brands by unique audience around the world.  I believe that this information should be considered in any social and web strategy. Here are the top 10 sites by country in no particular order…

United States

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Yahoo!
4. MSN/Windows Live/Bing
5. Youtube
6. Microsoft
7. AOL Media Network
8. Wikipedia
9. Apple
10. Ask

Japan

1. Yahoo!
2. Google
3. FC2
4. Youtube
5. Rakuten
6. Wikipedia
7. Microsoft
8. goo
9. Ameba
10. Amazon

Spain

1. Google
2. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
3. Facebook
4. Youtube
5. Microsoft
6. Blogger
7. Yahoo!
8. Wikipedia
9. Elmundo.es
10. WordPress.com

United Kingdom

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
4. BBC
5. Youtube
6. Yahoo!
7. Amazon
8. eBay
9. Microsoft
10. Wikipedia

Australia

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. NineMSN/MSN
4. Youtube
5. Microsoft
6. Yahoo!7
7. Wikipedia
8. Apple
9. eBay
10. Blogger

France

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
4. Microsoft
5. Youtube
6. Orange
7. Wikipedia
8. Free
9. PagesJaunes
10.Yahoo!

Italy

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
5. Virgilio
6. Libero
7. Microsoft
8. Yahoo!
9. Wikipedia
10. Blogger

Germany

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
4. eBay
5. Microsoft
6. Amazon
7. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
8. Wikipedia
9. T-Online
10. Web.de

Brazil

1. Google
2. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
3. Facebook
4. UOL
5. Youtube
6. Microsoft
7. Terra
8. Globo.com
9. Orkut
10. Yahoo!

Switzerland

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
5. Microsoft
6. Bluewin
7. Wikipedia
8. Aple
9. Local.ch
10. search.ch

Some interesting findings emerge out of these numbers. First, Google is the top Web brand in each country except Japan according to Nielsen. Second, Youtube is a top 10 online destination in each of these countries. Lastly, Facebook is among the top 3 sites in every country except Japan. FC2 and Ameba are the country’s top 2 social networks.

Revisiting the comScore report for a moment, we can see the overall Internet and Social Networking growth is imminent. As you develop content and engagement strategies for Web, social and mobile channels, consider this…the behavior on the Internet, social networks and on mobile devices is unique to each platform. There is no universal strategy that will cut across all platforms for every community you’re hoping to reach.

This.is.important.

Take a look at the graphic below. The top line in blue represents Internet growth. The bottom line in orange represents the overall of social networks. By reading between the lines, we can actually see a difference in the mindset of customers. The blue line represents the destination Web, i.e. websites, search engines, etc. The orange line symbolizes what I call the Egosystem, a Web experience where information finds people through the connections they make. It is in the understanding of how information travels and how it’s discovered in popular channels and platforms as well as comprehending customer behavior in the destination web and the Egosystem that reveal the keys to meaningful engagement.

So why is this important? In the social economy, there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t followed or haven’t followed you yet.

For global businesses considering any social and web strategies to improve customer experiences and engagement, going global starts within going local. This is not about taking one campaign and broadcasting it around the world from central headquarters—even if it’s translated. This is about localization and true engagement with those who define social networking at the local level. In social networks people do not create an idle global or country-specific “audience,” nor do they anxiously anticipate the next big marketing campaign. This is Generation-C (connected) after all, and they’re connected and among the most discerning groups of customers your business has ever faced. Here, they are the network and organizations, your business, are the guests.

Before you go, I’ve assembled a list with top line thoughts to help guide you in the development of your global, and local, new media strategy…

The Top 9 Reasons to Go Local with Your Global Social and Web Strategies

1. Social Media is the new “normal,” and it is literally making the world a much smaller place
2. Employing a Global Strategy establishes a unified brand
3. Investing in a local presence builds a bridge between the brand and customers
4. Localizing and contextualizing content increases relevance, engagement, and resonance
5. Investing in the 5’s of community completes the last mile to improve customer experiences, increase commerce and promote advocacy
6. Global languages and cultures are extending your opportunity for commerce and community, but localization is the key to engagement
7. Prioritize each opportunity based on local markets that track toward business objectives and language opportunities
8. Think channel experiences and design local experiences to thrive on each platform (mobile, Facebook, web, etc.)
9. Finally, because your local customers and country managers want it that way

As comScore notes in its report, “Social networking behavior both transcends and reflects regional differences around the world.”

Via Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com

As with any high-profile product release, Apple’s new iPad device has been peppered with complaints since reaching consumers’ hands on March 16. Among them: that magazines look terrible on the iPad 3′s high-resolution display.