Curated Stories, Weekend Feb. 6 and 7, 2010

by Gregg on February 8, 2010

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Social Media, Analytics and Story

by Gregg on February 7, 2010

Photo Credit: Plastic Girl


Those three converged for me rather serendipitously at yesterday’s Analytics Camp here in the Triangle area. Nathan Gilliatt, the driving force behind the event, and the folks at UNC’s Kenan Flagler Business School and Ornpaka ‘Tong’ V, as well as Ikong Fu, did a wonderful job organizing and presenting this event. It was, without a doubt, one of the best events I’ve been lucky enough to attend. And it was free! Chris Anderson would love it ‘eh? Nathan and all of the presenters donated their time and experience, the folks at UNC donated the facility and services, (and what a facility it is!), Capstrat donated the coffee and pastries throughout the morning and SAS donated what was, without doubt, the best lunch at any event I’ve ever attended. I’ve been lucky enough to eat at all kinds of technology events over the years, sponsored by the likes of Microsoft, Intel, Apple ,etc. and not one of them came close to this. I’ll likely post a review of sorts the first of the week so that those who might be interested and thinking of doing something similar can get some idea of what it was like. For now we’ll get back to social media, analytics and storytelling.

Some of the storytelling leaders of the last 10 years or so have said, on more than one occasion, that “stories work where spreadsheets don’t.” And for the most part, I agree with that. But, we’ve talked before about how numbers play a part in some storytelling. Your business plan, your quarterly and annual stock reports, your sales goals and quotas, all tell a story and all use numbers to help you in that telling.

The same can hold true for analytics if you think about it. They’re a measurement of how well you’re doing at something. And that something could be how well you’re telling your story. Or, it could be that you could use those same analytics to help you to frame a story.

One of the afternoon sessions was led by Adam Covati, of software startup Argyle Social. It was titled “Social Media Impact, Know Your Impact.” I got to the room a little early. It was one of the first sessions after lunch and after eating, checking email, Twitter and the like, I had headed up to get a good seat. I wasn’t the first one there however. A few other people clearly had the same idea. Adam came in to get setup for his presentation a short while later. Once he got his netbook connected to the overhead projector he brought up PowerPoint and started to ready his slide deck. Once he got settled in with all of that, he displayed the opening slide as people continued to fill the room and time drew near for the start of his session.

That opening slide was what looked to be a slight modification of an Argyle Software business card. Front and center on that card was “Social Media Actions Tell a Story.” I almost fell out of my chair. Only minutes before, I was getting acquainted with one of the folks sitting near me and when asked what I did, I responded that I was a freelance writer and storytelling and marketing consultant. She sort of rolled her eyes at the storytelling part. Not an unusual reaction. She did a bit of a double take after seeing Adam’s slide though. I got a few sideways glances as Adam started into his presentation.

He was starting to use stories to frame social media actions and analytics. One of his next few slides said this: “At the end of the day your story is your goal.” I would perhaps expand on that a bit and say that giving people the space to find and see themselves within your story, to give them the opportunity to form those emotional connections that really let you use story to influence and get your point across, are what you should be aiming for. Be that as it may, he’s right on target.

He then went on to ask “What is on the last page of your story?” His point there, I think, being, what are you trying to accomplish with your analytics? In storytelling terms, how are you going to frame and build this story you are wanting to tell? After that he asked about the first page of the story. Where do you start? What are the sorts of things that you measure and analyze? What are you trying to accomplish? He listed the following for consideration:

  • Customer Service
  • Drive Targeted Traffic
  • Raise Brand Awareness
  • Move the sales needle
  • Broaden your reach
  • Increase engagement
  • Improve SEO



    • (As a quick aside, I loved seeing “move the sales needle” up there. What good is any of this if it doesn’t do that?)

    While talking about each of these he even made mention of how they could contribute to subplots within the story. He didn’t expand on that topic but I suspect that had as much to do with time constraints as anything. Story arc and subplots can certainly be key elements as you are framing your social media story and your analytics story.

    He tied everything together very nicely by saying that “now that you know what to measure, you can build your story.” If you were a writer, you might relate measurement and analytics to the research you do for your own stories. That research, done well, will lend credence to the elements of your story and once you’ve completed that research, you go about building your story. The same holds true for that person building a story around analytics.

    I am really curious to see how Adam’s new venture goes about incorporating story into the field of social media analytics. That guy in me who spent 29 years in the software business thinks that Adam and Argyle Social might really be onto something here. What about you? Are you curious as to how story and analytics can work together? Have you stopped by Argyle Social’s site and signed up for the beta?

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    Curated Stories Feb. 5, 2010

    by Gregg on February 5, 2010

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    Curated Stories Feb. 4, 2010

    by Gregg on February 4, 2010

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    Curated Stories Feb. 3, 2010

    by Gregg on February 3, 2010

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    Curated Stories Feb. 2, 2010

    by Gregg on February 3, 2010

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    The Evolution of the Revolution

    by Gregg on February 2, 2010


    That’s the working title of the book I’m working on. The evolutionary part begins with The Age of Gutenberg and moves forward until now, the revolutionary part, and what will likely be called The Internet Age, or something very similar, by historians who will write about it and its effects. Both the evolution and the revolution have everything to do with “re-inventing yourself and your business and telling your story.” One of the things I want to do in this book, or maybe they would be better served in a follow up, is to tell the stories of people who have gone through the process of re-invention. I’ve gone through them, twice, and I’m working on the third. One of the people I hope to feature is Rebel Brown. Mark Schaefer commented on one of her posts about this yesterday. She is documenting her transformation on her blog and it’s wonderful to be able to follow her thought processes as she does so. It’s also incredibly generous of her to share all of that with us.

    She wrote a post the other day titled “Is Life Fair?”. It grew out of a tweet where she shared this quote, “Life isn’t fair. Get used to it. Bill Gates”, noting that it seemed a bit cynical. She got more feedback than she had perhaps bargained for, a lot of it agreeing with Bill’s take on things. And with everything going on around us, I wonder if that’s really all that surprising? Her blog post about this asks some great questions about life and fair, questions you have, perhaps, asked yourself.

    I sent her a tweet late Sunday afternoon after thinking about what she wrote. It quoted a passage from one of my favorite writers and thinkers, John Fowles. “In the whole, nothing is unjust. It may, to this or that individual, be unfortunate.” To me, that’s always been one of those universal truths. When we struggle as individuals, we might want to blame our God, our boss, our co-workers, our spouse, our kids, our neighbors – you get the idea I’m sure. And that’s fine, maybe that’s even human nature. But it doesn’t mean that “life is unfair” or as Fowles says, “unjust.” It just means that you, as an individual, are in the middle of unfortunate times, not unfair ones. There’s a huge difference between unfortunate and unfair.

    Yesterday, she wrote, as promised in the Is Life Fair post, about her beliefs on fairness, We Are Responsible. She is, I think, so right. We make the choices, the decisions. She talks about her own tough times, unfair moments if you’re in that camp, as being the result of her own subconscious beliefs, driving her towards what would be called unfair, if you didn’t have the courage to take the responsibility for those beliefs. Be sure to read it if you haven’t already clicked over there and back.

    Now what, you might be asking yourself, does any of that have to do with re-inventing yourself, your business, your story, and The Evolution of the Revolution? Everything! Because the revolution that is occurring all around us, the one that’s causing financial upheaval, job loss, home loss, health insurance loss, pain, suffering and all of the rest, is not because “life is unfair.” The institutions that are crumbling around us, because of a shift in distribution models, models that have driven our lives for hundreds of years, are not doing so because life is unfair. If you can just recognize and come to terms with this revolution, shift your thinking, just a bit, as Rebel did hers, you can re-invent yourself and hopefully you’ll prosper, almost certainly you’ll be happy. And maybe then you won’t have to worry about fair or unfair.

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    Curated Stories Feb. 1, 2010

    by Gregg on February 1, 2010

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    Curated Stories Jan. 31, 2010

    by Gregg on January 31, 2010

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    Apple, Meta Lessons and Story

    by Gregg on January 31, 2010


    Author and technology strategist Michael Gartenberg just posted a piece on Engadget, Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch. Reaction to the device has been all over the place hasn’t it? And there have been no end to the articles and posts detailing and expressing those reactions.

    Michael’s is a little different though. He’s picked up on two very salient points about the launch and the device. Studying both might help you as you work on your marketing and telling your stories.

    The first is this: “While Apple didn’t create this category of device, it did answer the fundamental question of why this form factor needs to exist. The meta lesson is that the story told is as important as the hardware, software and services being sold…”

    Apple is entering a market where there are many competitors, me too’s if you will. Do they try to differentiate on hardware? Software? Services? Some, but they know that won’t work. What do they do to differentiate? Tell a better story!

    The second one is this: “Vendors competing with Apple in this space are going to need to understand these lessons and in many cases change not only their current products, but the story they tell.”

    How can the other vendors in the space compete? Better hardware? Software? Services? Better understanding of the ecosystem? Sure, all of that will help. But what will really matter is the story they tell. Will they invite us in? Try to form an emotional connection?

    If you’re in a market that’s crowded with a lot of me too’s, how do you differentiate your company and your product? Have you been focusing on features and benefits? How’s that working out for you? If it isn’t, maybe you might want to take a page from the marketing machine that is Apple and work on your story, on forming those emotional connections with your community.

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