Do we really want our audience to participate?

Long time ago I started reading Henry Jenkins Convergence Culture, but must admit I skipped a few chapters. But in this rainy summer I promised myself to start reading the last of a series (I turned out to be many) of book in which I have skipped, browsed and jumped inside the last year.

Last night I read the Tarantino’s Star Wars Chapter in Convergence Culture. It is really a brilliant book written by the founder (and Director) of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program.

There are so many wonderful insights in this chapter so I’ll share a few. I love his differentiation between interactivity and participation, with interactivity being the master plan of the sender, based by their intentions, control and responsiveness of consumer feedback and participation being the respons by the reciever shaped by cultural and social protocols.

Another brillant diversity he adresses is how he categories the players in the media industry on behalf on their response to the changing media landscape as prohibitionists or collaborationists. This is perfect because you can take all players in the industry and locate them in eiter direction. Sadly their is a tendency to the classic media players (being music, recordings and film) joining the prohibitionists, and leaving the collaborative respons to gaming, mobile and internet driven companies.

A way where we see this in action is the ongoing debate on whether the movie industry embrace fan sites using content from their backyard? Disney fought for years to prohibit this, but were happy to make children market their movies anywhere else? This just doesn’t make sense. We fight to create Word of Mouth, but as soon as is spreads to Word-of-Mouse - we panic.

The sociologist Grant McCranken says: Corporations must decide whether they are, literally, in or out. Will they make themself an island or will they enter the mix?”

Especially the gaming industry has left the island and they are conquering the world by letting the gamers not just join the game, but co-creating the universes in where they play. It is estimated that 60 % of the gameplay in the Sims is created by users, and we see how MMPOG’s are defined today - not by the given gameplay, but by the social interaction happening between the users, as mentiond before with machinima Tales of the Past 3.

As you can see I love this chapter and it ends by this interesting quote, where the part about renegotiating relationships are very well spoken ” many of the smartest folks in the media industry know this; some are trembling, and others are scrambling to renegotiate their relationships with consumers. In the end, the media producers need fans just as much as fans need them.”

A good quote on research

Due to a lot of work the last two weeks I’ve been un-plugged from the blog. Sorry. But now it’s saturday and I’m sitting at home with my boyfriend. Just spending time with each our laptop. I slept 2 hours while watching letters from Ivo Jima and it was wonderful. An afternoon nap is the best after a long week.  But now I’m back online remembering why I love my work.

“If you want to study a river you don’t take out a bucketful of water and stare at it on the shore. A river is not its water, and by taking the water out of the river, you lose the essential quality of river, which is its motion, its activity, its flow.” - Alan Watts The Wisdom Of Insecurity

Gaining clients versus keeping clients; Quote of an early morning

Had a bad start of the day. It’s 6 am and I can’t sleep, so my mac is always a good date. So here you go - an early quote, which will get the day of mine kickstarted in the best possible way..

“It is the thrill of the chase” - “Landing new customers is sexy, like cavemen slaying a gazelle on the grasslands. Keeping current customers, like gathering nuts and berries or growing a garden, is hard work”

It’s from Huba and McConnells fantastic Creating Customer Evangelists, talking about how much it cost to gain a new client compared to nursing the existing. But the marketers seems to focus mainly on gaining clints. And I must add, the advertising and media industry is not so much different; the industry keeps focusing on pitches and new bizz… It’s more fun to go hunting! But could we see this in another perspective…? I see the problem as this; it is not the customers being illoyal today - it’s the marketers being illoyal to their exiting customers. And thats is a bigger problem than the other!

Shakespeare on branding

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.”

–From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Found this quote on Faris Yakob’s blog and I like it : )

Read the original post here 

Quote - I just love this

A felt over this quote scrolling the web, and it kind of grew on me… I like the feel and spirit of it, and would love to be brave enough to always work within its spirit…. 

“Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them, and
they flew…”
-Guillaume Apollinaire