nrgsphere

2007-01-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

When asked last month about what I think might be next, I said:

Not surprisingly perhaps, I think that digital identity-driven offerings, ones that give people empowering and exciting control over how they are and are not represented in online and offline environments will be at the center of a lot of different kinds of momentum.

Past using technologies only to access media that produce experiences, people will use connectivity in conjunction with digital media as means of manifesting themselves in digital environments where they are paid for their participation in a wide variety of currencies . I think of these as "contexts of consequences" and whether generating various kinds of personae in myspace, youtube or 2nd life, in return for various kinds of fame/fortune, or using game networks to become more/other than one may be in "real" life, environments and experiences that extend, protect and empower and increasingly hybrid definition of self (online/offline - digital/physical) are going to continue to drive add color and dimension to the digital environment. tools that help people do this kind of representation across environments (adding identity to interoperability) are going to come out ahead with the savvy and connected. Whether or not they'll prevail against larger walled garden vendors depends.

In addition to "identity and representation in contexts of consequence" there's the new kinds of of hybridized real/hyperreal/unreal mapping that's happening. As an example of how mainstream this is becoming. Microsoft has it's own 3d web accessible mapping application now. a la Google earth, that can be tagged, etc.

Take things like that, plus VOIP, stunning quality gaming graphics and gaming AI, and a world of quasi-self generating metadata in a world where we're all able to be broadcasting vblogs on demand from wherever we wish to our fluctuating peer group of audience/participants/constituents and it's hard to see how we are not already living in the virtual worlds long detailed by Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and others.

Dystopian optimist (or idealistic pragmatist, take your pick) that I am, I ask, at what cost comes this migration from the real to the virtual? Are these digital environments empowering and liberating, or a retreat away from reality as the unconnected world still must live it? My vote's both. Soo...there's going to be a a disconnect between digital ecstasies and physical miseries, the fleeting delights of the digital and the present dangers of the real, that might cause a backfire in the delivery channel as people seek out the "authentic" in the midst of the artificial, or encounter contexts of consequence with currencies based in something much deeper and ultimately more valuable than bits.

The result may be from a consumer products and service offering POV that a slice of people will go for tech that is less imposing, less status-based, more at least perceived-to-be earth friendly and "softer" rather the "my screen is bigger than your screen" thing. We might ask ourselves, what's the "media hub prius"? Not the technology that jumps in the middle and takes over all your experiences, but the ones (plural) that do something useful along the edges while playing nicely with others. I for one am a lot more likely to buy a wii that a PS3 - cheaper, more kinetic (you have to get of the couch to play, kids!) and somehow retro by being nintendo, with less of a violence and stuff that blows up selling proposition."

2006-11-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

An Eye for an I: Engagement, Identity & The New Digital Deal

“Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context”

Advertising Research Foundation Chief Research Officer Joe Plummer

The term “engagement” as defined above by the MI4 has prompted a lot of conversation but is far from gaining universal acceptance in the realm of marketing communications . In fact, the definition’s simultaneous reductivism and seemingly purposeful obscurity suggests obstacles beyond semantics bar the way to an agreeable solution. The process of standardization is a challenging one, and the authors freely admit there is a lot of work yet to do . Given that lack of universal endorsement and little likelihood of an immediate definition and set of associated metrics, the terms “engagement” is likely to remain a controversial and hard fought subject. A reasonable question is, why?

First, there is real money involved. Depending upon how engagement is defined and subsequently agreed to be measured, it is likely to form the basis of media accountability within and across media for some time to come .

Second, the respective ability of different media to deliver engagement as it is ultimately defined will significantly determine the relative value of those media in the eyes of advertisers. Therefore the debate is not one of “academic” interest only, but instead a matter of critical competitive positioning within an increasingly chaotic marketspace. Media have been competing with one another to establish which among them is most capable of “engaging” the consumer for decades. What’s different is the pressure and competition coming from new media

Third, engagement is a flashpoint at the intersection of larger traditional and emergent media processes . Engagement’s measurability in traditional media is limited to a large extent by the constraints of the delivery channels of those traditional media, whereas interactive media is far less actually and theoretically constrained as to how data about the observable activities and interests of users can be gathered. As a result, the process of defining “engagement” takes place on the fault line between new and old media and even old and new concepts of “audience” “consumer”, “user” or “prospect”. The debate itself may be simply one of the louder creaking sounds at the collision point of tectonic plates.

Fourth, the determination as to how “engagement” is to be defined and measured can’t be made entirely absent consideration of the perspective underlying interests and increasing leverage of the “prospects (often also known as “people”) in question. The “audience” just isn’t a passive mass anymore, in fact, they/we are simultaneously the audience and its opposite, to the extent that they/we are becoming performers and producers in their/our right (even owners of their/our own rights), increasingly able to do some “turning on” and “turning off” of our own.

Fifth, and finally, the debate doesn’t stop at “engagement”, but instead, proceeds from and loops back to engagement, visiting other terms of multiple, debated definitions, including “attention” and “digital identity”. Engagement is getting a lot of attention, but attention may end up defining engagement, and identity certainly will also bear upon the assessment of attention and engagement. The “attention economy” and all its associated permutations, mechanisms and metrics, threatens to usurp the discussion of engagement, just as new media continues its onslaught on the customs, mechanisms and business models of traditional media .

So what’s to be done? What we seem to have now is at least a three way debate with high stakes, to be worked out in public among advertisers, media content providers/distributors and “prospects” (sometimes known as “people”) and their actual and purported advocates. Even were the business pressures not immense, the question of what constitutes engagement is not at all an easy problem. It becomes almost insoluble when there are interests to protect in the face of an unknown future.

Regardless of the vagaries of a media measurement standards process, the days of counting eyeballs are giving way to the task of considering, conversing with and engaging with actual individuals. In this dog-eat-dog world, it’s ‘an eye for an I’ both in the sense that the eye in question is of value only relative to what’s inside the head that holds it, and in the sense that we as individuals (eyeballs and all) will increasingly be trading information about our identities and signaling our intents in return for access to the media which we both consume and of which we are increasingly a part.

The stakes are high indeed. How the mechanisms of media measurement ultimately use attention data and identity data to ‘engage’ individuals within and across media, and what means are used to make such mechanisms accountable, will for better or worse play a large part in defining the conditions, rights and rewards of ‘digital citizenship’. Therein lies the basis of “the new digital deal”. Are we all paying attention, or might we later be paying a tension instead?

identity

2006-04-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'd sure like to think I could maintain some kind of ownership of at least mine - whew! wouldn't you?

transparency -

2006-04-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

I'd be up for that as well..

interoperability -

2006-04-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'd be up for that.