10 pieces of content that define today’s marketing reality
UPDATE 27/10/08: I’m going to do a Part II to this post. If you’d like to get hold of it as soon as I do, you can subscribe to my blog here.
I’ve been told by more experienced hands that creating lists is a good way of arranging things for the flitting and information-hungry blogosphere. Makes sense to me.
So this is a list of works that I hope is useful for marketers of all backgrounds. It’s by no means exhaustive so please feel free to add to it.
In no particular order:
1. The Clue Train Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
Authors: Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger
Date: 1999 & 2001
Tags: Markets, conversations, seminal
Quote:
“You have two choices. You can continue to lock yourself behind facile corporate words and happytalk brochures.
Or you can join the conversation.”
2. The State of Social Media 2008
Author: Brian Solis
Date: September 2008
Tags: PR 2.0, social media, social science, listening, community, 2009
Quote:
“Social Media is one component of broader Communications Strategy.”
3. Eric Hobsbawm on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme
Author: Eric Hobsbawm
Date: 18 October 2008
Tags: Economy, free market capitalism, marxism, history, future
Quote:
“It seems to me that, in fact, this is the dramatic equivalent [...] of the collapse of the Soviet Union. We now know that an era has ended…we don’t know what’s going to come.”
4. I believe the children are our future
Author: Faris Yakob
Date: 2007
Tags: youth, future, passive massive, digital natives, interactive, transmedia planning
Quote:
“An industry that developed in the age of passive idea consumption will need to
undergo a similarly seismic shift in order to successfully connect brands to active
idea consumers.”
5. Nudge
Authors: Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
Date: 2008
Tags: behavioral economics, choice architecture, happiness
Quote: (I’m still reading this so will have to get back to you!)
6. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Author: Seth Godin
Date: 2008
Tags: Heretics, leaders, followers, markets
Quote:
“…change is never perfect. Change means re-invention. And until something’s re-invented, we have no idea what the spec is.”
Author: Clay Shirky
Date: 2008
Tags: group effort, collaboration, connection, networks
Quote (citing Cory Doctorow):
“Conversation is king, content is just something to talk about.”
Author: Paul Feldwick
Date: 2007?
Tags: advertising theory, brands, message model, rational, saleability, digital, analogue
Quote:
“We are quite capable of feeling a strong preference for something for reasons which we’re totally ignorant of, but we are good at disguising this to ourselves because we automatically tend to create an apparently rational cover story, which we then believe in.”
Authors: Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod
Date: June 22 2007
Tags: humans, world, statistics, education
Quote:
“Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million:
Radio: 38
TV: 13
Internet: 4″
10. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Author: Chris Anderson
Date: 2004
Tags: niches, hits, demand curves
Quote (citing David Foster Wallace):
“TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.”
excellent list!
and thanks!
FX
Wow!
Thanks for including me and Karl on such a great list. I only have half of these. I’m off to get the other half!
Some good must-haves, also good to share more of the ‘nice-to-haves’. Tribes out of SGs library? Is that because it’s all shiny and new? Will we say Tribes a year from now? Others that left their mark on my thinking…
Zag by Marty Neumeier
Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Finally, how fucking annoying is Snap Pages on your embedded video? – even on the volume control it kicks in and obliterates both the volume control and the video. Surely the worst form of marketing as annoyance.
Faris – pleasure.
Scott – you’re very welcome.
Tim – thanks for your great additions – will have to check out Thinkertoys. Re: Tribes, I think it does a good job of answering the ‘now what?’ after you’ve read the context-setting pieces. You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve removed SnapPages.
Thanks, but I guess all of my suggestions are off brief – mainly because I failed to read the title of the post! Have ordered Shirky on the back of your list – you should have offered me a link you could made some money out of!
At #11, I suggest The Pirate’s Dilemma by Matt Mason. One of the best and historically grounded explanations of remix culture. Know this, and you can better see the future.
Hi Michael. Thanks for your #11 suggestion – I think there’s definitely a sequel to this list in order…
fantastic list! glad you included “Here Comes Everybody.” that’s definitely a new classic.
another suggestion for the sequal: “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” by Marshall McLuhan? much older than any of these, but still relevant, and brilliantly prescient.
Hey Mike. Understanding Media definitely deserves to be on a list somewhere! An interesting one to read in light of all the new media. I wonder what Mr. McLuhan would have made of Twitter…
Interesting list. Thanks. Some great reads on there. I’ve never read the Clue Train Manifesto. Quick question: Is it still worth a read in 2008, some 8 years after it was written? I often wonder if books on social media can stay relevant when the industry and environment is moving/changing so fast…
Dylan
Hey Dylan – Clue Train is definitely still worth a read – as relevant today as it’s ever been, in many respects. It’s less about tactics and more about a way of viewing the world which is why it’s somewhat future-proof…Of course to the generation who’ve grown up with the internet it’s somewhat of an egg-sucking lesson…
Very solid list, Nick. I’m a big fan of Faris and Godin. I agree with an earlier commenter…you should make some money off these, because I’m going to be placing a big order soon.
Thanks for keeping it interesting…
Hello Jake. Thanks for the comment. Glad to hear that you’re going to stock up based on the list! Maybe next time I’ll look at putting Amazon links up there…
Fantastic list – thanks for the curation.
Best
Mark
Thanks, Mark.