digital convergence

Mass Customization – Every Click You Make

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This week, we took a closer look at the concept of Mass Customization and its impact on our online experiences – and how it will continue to change the way we use and interact with digital content into the future.

In short, we’re being followed. As Sting and The Police so aptly put it, “Every move you make. Every step you take. I’ll be watching you.” But in this case, every click you make is building type of online subconscious. And like your real subconscious,  you are not fully aware of your online subconscious but it heavily influences your actions and feelings. Instead of Jiminy Cricket sitting on your shoulder it’s Sirgay Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos. And their silent but powerful message is, “Buy! Buy! Buy!

While it may be unsettling to see that pair of Under Armor boxer briefs following me from site to site, device to device – there are true user benefits that result from web customization. Geolocation, identifying the real-time location of a user anywhere in the world, helps whittle down search results for local business or services, allows news services to pre-filter local and regional information, emergency services to push notifications such amber alerts or weather advisories to their communities. While this type of location tracking may feel a bit too “Big Brothery” for some, the true user benefits help to balance the scales and alleviate the feelings of invasion of privacy.

The question we have to ask is, “What am I missing?” Algorithms designed  to assess what we want and what is relevant to our lives, begin to actually start telling us what is relevant and deciding what we “really” want to see. But in the end, this narrows of our field of vision by shaping our online experience around habits and interests – rather than exposing us to the broad and diverse experiences that the web has to offer. Competing views and alternate perspectives are in effect underreported within our own online experiences, reinforcing our own beliefs and putting up roadblocks to social and political discourse.

What do you see as the benefits and downsides of mass customization online?

Digital Convergence – Turning Marketing into America’s Largest Tech Industry

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As we more closely examine digital convergence, we gain a better understanding of how emerging technology and the merging of media and content on single, accessible platforms is challenging the sense and sensibilities of  traditional marketing and communications industries. I find myself looking back at my own experience, having witnessed first hand how Digital Convergence broadened scope of responsibility for marketing departments, it’s also had a tremendous impact on the size and make up of a modern marketing team and infrastructure.

In five short years, the marketing and communications division for the large non-profit I worked for nearly quadrupled in size. Many of those new positions were added specifically to address new demands in areas like mobile marketing, social media, video and media production – all very heavily rooted in new media. While most of that growth in personnel was dedicated to strategists and creatives, we took a proactive approach by adding our own technical expertise as well.  However, this is where many marketing leaders miss the mark, failing to make the proper investment in technology. And even when they do, they leave the management and support of that technology to outside IT experts.

Gartner analyst Laura McLellan predicts that by 2017, chief marketing officers will spend more on IT than CIOs. – Jeffrey Bussgang, Working Knowledge

Digital Convergence demands that marketers pay much closer attention to technical infrastructure of their own divisions and form even stronger working relationships with their IT partners.  But, it is even more necessary that marketing chiefs close the gaps where typical IT divisions may not have expertise or even interest. While the cost of these creative technology solutions make them more accessible, adding new technology is not the sole answer. The role of creative technologist, now often called marketing technologist, has become a critical for marketing operations trying to maximize impact through the use of newer digital channels.  These specialists bring not only a technical expertise, but an understanding of the creative development and production process – allowing them to better serve the technological needs of marketing divisions.

But beyond the investment in technology and staff – the responsibilities of Chief Marketing/Communications Officer and Chief information Officer are merging into a new role -Chief Marketing Technologist. The CMT takes a holistic view of technology from the marketing perspective but with the expertise of a traditional CIO. Scott Brinker and Laura McClellan expand on this in their article, Rise of the Chief Marketing Technologist

What do you think? What’s the best approach for addressing the growing demands of digital convergence and the need for technological expertise in the communications and marketing space?