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Citizen Marketers: Citizen Kane's Ghost
Posted By: mchale on 1/10/2007 4:43 AM (CST) 500 Points
How much similarity is there between us, the citizen marketers of today and Citizen Kane, the fictional 20th century figure, whose mélange of characteristics were exposed to his peers and the entire world to see? Citizen Marketer states it's all about us. We, the people are the message. That phrase, "we the people" once used to mean the collective community of individuals acting as a group, who by doing so was empowered to effect change. Today, due to the net, it probably would be written, "I, the person."

It focuses on those individuals who have a laser-sharp interest in a specific area that can either delight or (mostly) infuriate marketing companies who once had the power and selfish agenda to ignore the effect individuals could have on their business.

My biggest problem with the book; a microcosm of the evangelism we see on Silicon Alley and Madison Avenue, is that there are very no case studies that illustrate the negative power of the net. It ultimately became plain for everyone to see how Citizen Kane's ego ran amuck and ran ramshod over anything and anyone he so desired.

Which means that new media can empower the darker angels as well s the bette souls of our nature; to use its platform to fool, exploit and harm perfectly legitimate enterprises and/or individuals of one type or another by using the exact same tactics heralded in the book.

I wish someone would write a book that addresses the darker side of new media. Huba and McConnell are uniquely qualified to do so. Their new book uses the tagline, "When people are the message." That assumes it's a good thing. To be more specific, perhaps it should say, "When People Are the "Noblesse Oblige" Message. t would be as exciting and informative to read the next "Citizen Marketer" book with a tag line would read "When People Are the "Riffraff" Message." Like Kane said, "You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man."

.....................................................................................................................
Moderator Note: This discussion refers to the book Citizen Marketers by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell (topic: social media). Click the title to buy the book from Amazon. Then join the conversation. We'd LOVE for you to participate!

Posted by: patsi* Accepted Answer
1/10/2007 8:41 AM (CST)
CK, there are no responses to this so far, and I'm thinking because this is so eloquently written that no one else has anything to say. This is a brilliant essay with many worthwhile points to ponder. We can only hope that there really is a wisdom of crowds when it comes to giving a voice to evil and stupid. - Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad.
 
Posted by: mchale Author Response
1/10/2007 9:04 AM (CST)
Patsi, Thank you for your kind words. I cut the brilliance down :--) What can I say, I am filled with lots of hot air. BTW: I think there's a lot to be said for evil and stupid. I have an open mind! - mchale
 
Posted by: lraul_marroquin Accepted Answer
1/10/2007 10:27 AM (CST)
Mchale, your post drove my attention, after reading two times your essay and googling unknown terms starting with realizing who citizen Kane is, I catched -correct me if I am wrong- your main idea is that active people (citizen marketers) mostly are drived by dark motives to fool, exploit and harm enterprises or persons, and think that will be an interesting point to discuss in next books.

I like to ask you to go further with it, what approach are suggesting? a physcological, ethics, marketing, communication approach? I would like to contribute but don´t know which branch of the tree you´ve just sow do I have to climb or which root do I have to find.
 
Posted by: mchale Author Response
1/10/2007 12:16 PM (CST)
Iraul, For the record, I am on the side of truth, justice and the American way!

I cut down the original essay and probably didn't edit the condensed version. We ALL are citizen marketers. They are us. By and large most citizen marketers are not driven by dark motives. That's a good thing.

Said in another way, using your verbiage: active people (citizen marketers) mostly are NOT, NOT NOT driven by dark motives to fool, exploit and harm enterprises or persons.

But we would be naive to think that that includes everybody. It doesn't. There are bad people out there doing bad things.

My cynicism about evangelist books regarding the power of new media such as Citizen Marketer is that they only focus on how great new media is and the positive effects it can have for individuals and society. Perhaps I've spent way too many hours hanging around conferences which go on and on, preaching to the choir about that. For me it's like, "Hey I got it."

New Media is a great thing... yeah, but wait a minute. People can use new media to hurt people as well. Shouldn't we know about how they do it? Shouldn't we all educate ourselves to be aware, on the lookout for signs and examples where a well-intentioned technology like the WWW is actually being manipulated?

It's like, wouldn't you like to know what house the bully of the neighborhood lives so you can stay away from it?

Books like Citizen Marketer and others don't do that. they only focus on the "good citizens." Well, for me, having listened and read about it for more years now that I would like to count, I think we as a community should take an equally evangelistic approach to explore how bad guys use it. Why? To prevent it. To take measures to reduce it.

1. I personally would like to know how Kevin Mitnick was able to steal credit card names and the ways the net community took to reduce that from happening again.

2. Many CTO's at major tech corporations and their staffs spend almost as much time spending time combating net terrorists and pirates who are working as hard as an SEO to crack the firewall to steal info. How do they do that? How can we prevent it.

3. We hear about how personal ID theft can destroy people's lives. How is it done?

The list is long, selling drugs, sex, exploiting weaknesses, behaviors and addictions of all types....ironically by using tools such as behavioral tracking meant to help, not hurt.

There aren't that many books out there telling people how bad things are done. We all know "why" they are done, but I think there no less than 100 (maybe a 1000) books out there talking about the good stuff about new media.

I think serious and talented individuals such as Huba and McConnell would be doing a great service to all of us citizen marketers out here about the bad stuff going on and what individuals, law enforcement agencies and corporations are doing about it. To me at this point, in my opinion we should do that.

They wrote one of the easiest to understand, very digestible documents to help me be a good marketer. I'm saying, as a precautionary measure, we should explore how some are being a bad marketer.

Does that clarify?

Thanks.
 
Posted by: Mario V Accepted Answer
1/10/2007 1:02 PM (CST)
Dr. Evil and his co-conspirators are alive in radical organizations and small-knit groups of like minded individuals everywhere including:

1) Racism and/or extreme patriotism
2) Eco-terrorism
3) Radical political ideology wings (left or right)
others?

These kinds of CMs will be a mix of Fanatics and Facilitators. The first is obvious; the second implies that perhaps they run a message-board, email-list, chat rooms for community discussion. Then secondly, organizers will enable the community members to respond en-masse TO: outside groups including political interest groups, politicians, NGOs, or other organizations BY: providing emails, phone numbers, addresses, locations for protests/events.

Now as far as other malicious intent, whether through organized crime syndicates or self-interested individuals, the difficulty lies with publication and our Libel laws (defamation). Sure, people can spread lies and try to hide their tracks by simply using internet cafes, libraries, and other public access points. But the authors point out, as well as Thomas Friedman in his book "The World is Flat" (in the case of Wikipedia), that in the online world continued presence and a validated community acceptance is needed to further spread the original message. Thus, this self-policing naturally inhibits the spread of lies.
Yet, I must admit that there are many naive individuals that are swayed to believe lies (Anyone remember the Bonzai kitten hoax?)...they are in the minority.
 
Posted by: Mario V Member Response
1/10/2007 1:10 PM (CST)
mchale, I see your point and I believe we can all agree on the nature of the problem. What we're interested in then, is condensed case studies of HOW these individuals/groups use the community....and when it crosses over into crime, HOW they are caught and preventionary measures that can be taken.
 
Posted by: lraul_marroquin Member Response
1/10/2007 2:14 PM (CST)
Tim, I am glad your point of discussion come out, just was needed somebody took a position and let the chat came along.

I support your idea there is a need to address the downsides the new media brings forth when somebody becomes an evil force: The unavoidable delinquency.

As Mario pointed out, until laws enclose the border less internet we will need to rely on self policies to discern good from evil.

Even it is not a subject of the forum, I would like to know if your intention of using
the verbiage word to describe my post was this: http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/verbage.html

I know forums lacks of verbal expressions and a because of that a word can be misleading. I am sure you are an honorable and courteous citizen marketer.
 
Posted by: mchale Author Response
1/10/2007 2:37 PM (CST)
Iraul,

Wow! Thank you for pointing this out to me! I've been using the word verbiage for years and had no idea that it has the negative intonation you just informed me it does.

You learn something new everyday. I expect most, if not all of the people I've worked with at ad agencies on MadAve do not know its correct meaning either. I heard it used thousands of times as shorthand for "copy." I am going to do an informal poll and ask how many people know its correct meaning.

Apologies for using it incorrectly.

mchale
 
Posted by: Ben McConnell Accepted Answer
1/10/2007 3:49 PM (CST)
"Citizen Kane" is my all-time favorite film, and our book title "Citizen Marketers" is something of an homage to Orson Wells' brilliant and still-influential work.

Perhaps it's too early in the history of social media to say there's a dark underbelly to it, filled with tragic characters. That's why our intention with "People are the message" as a subtitle was to make it a neutral statement -- scolds, cranks and shady characters are as much the message as the inspirational leaders who are making social media a participatory Fourth Estate.

It seems the dark side of social media are primarily represented by stealth marketers and the people who create fake blogs shilling for companies. Thankfully they're being exposed on a regular basis by the thousands of amateur detectives who patrol for truth.

Just as democracy is not perfect -- take Jack Abramoff, for instance -- neither is social media. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows American citizens to take extremist views on any issue. So too with social media. That's the trade-off for living in a free society.

-- Ben McConnell
 
Posted by: CK (Book Club Host) Member Response
1/10/2007 4:18 PM (CST)
Um, I would like to thank Iraul for teaching this marketer as well the correct definition of "verbiage"...a lot of people get that wrong. And for all the money I paid on grad school and how much I use words (writing/speaking), I should have known. McHale certainly didn't mean it in that manner. Not by a mile.

So insofar as benefits from Group Review I can add learning the correct definitions of words to my list :-). Thanks.
 
Posted by: lraul_marroquin Member Response
1/10/2007 4:25 PM (CST)
Ben, it is great to have an author around here!
Social media as other cultural institutions are imperfect, indeed social media is a response from society - a global one- to alleviate the imperfections of the market itself.

In your book you have illustrated an economic phenomenon: How companies are making profits fighting the imperfections of the market they used to take advantage: unaware and less powered customers.

This shift of value from scarcity to abundance that rules internet point to a new business model, hopefully more fair than the existing one.

Thanks for your bright insights!
 
Posted by: Lewis Accepted Answer
1/11/2007 10:20 AM (CST)
The editor in me requires me to set things right. I am not sure where WSU came up with its definition of verbiage (see Iraul's) link but it is just wrong.

The American Heritage Dictionary is the bible for many of the editors and writers I work with. Here are the first two definitions:

1) An excess of words for the purpose; wordiness. 2) The manner in which something is expressed in words.

The word's derivation comes from Old French verbier, to chatter, and Latin verbum, word.

This goes directly to the moderator's point. Social media can be dangerous. While things like Wikipedia and misdefining words are not evil, they can play havoc with facts and language.
 
Posted by: lraul_marroquin Member Response
1/11/2007 11:19 AM (CST)
Lewis, thanks for your contributions, I´d like to defend my point and stress that the meaning of a word does not rely merely on a dictionary definition, it also depends on its context and intention of the sender. Dictionaries changes year after year, adding new words (neologisms) and updating the meaning the words, all because language evolve in natural way as society do. I checked prestigoious dictionary references, among them The American Heritage Dictionary and found its definition was archaic for my (cultural) context, let me clarify it:

I´m spanish native speaker and the corresponding word for "verbiage" in spanish is "verbórrea" a word that I´m been used to know as a peyorative description for someone´s words, it is closely to say someone do nonsense chattering. Even that is the common understanding of the word still is not reflected in a spanish dictionary. If you are familiar to spanish language you can check Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, a prestigious dictionary reference and will find that the definition itself does not imply a peyorative meaning, however as can happen in english or other language, add a context and and intention and the meaning of the word will change.

Here is a lesson for all of us: We urged to turn on our multi cultural awareness, we are constantly faced to cultural challenges, even here in marketingprofs. Geographically I'm a minority group in marketingprofs (I´ve checked the directory members and realized there are less than five members from Central America) but that does not make a difference for my contributions, I have the same room as everyone else (Great internet!)

You are right, social media can be dangerous, specially if we don´t put a broader context of it.

Lewis I hope had gave you a broader view of the meaning of words, following your intentions my purpose is to build knowledge and build bridges for my mind that seems to be with you, the North American guys.
 
Posted by: Lewis Member Response
1/11/2007 12:13 PM (CST)
Thanks Iraul. I suspected we were talking about cultural differences. It is good to know that in Latin America we need to be careful with the word; however, in English-speaking countries the word verbiage is not offensive and should not be considered so.

Language is not about political correctness; it is about specificity within the context of the country in whicb it is spoken. If that were not true, verbiage would not be offensive in Spanish.

So when speaking Spanish, we need to be sensitive to the usage of the word. When speaking English in an English-speaking country such as the US, verbiage is not offensive and should not be considered as such.
 
Posted by: lraul_marroquin Member Response
1/11/2007 12:26 PM (CST)
Thanks for your feedback, I guess using wordiness instead of verbiage (I can´t erase my cultural context)would make the point too.

You are right, in US "verbiage" word may not be offensive (however someone seems to not agree, remember the link). Just one more point, is this forum US territory?

I was just kidding to stress the point that not only in spanish you have to be language sensitive, in Internet you face that challenge too.

Lewis was great to interchange toughts, if there is no need to go further, I hope the discussion initially posted can be on track again!

Luis Raul Marroquin
 
Posted by: rsalazar* Accepted Answer
1/11/2007 2:09 PM (CST)
I think it is a bit presumptuous to argue that it is too early to say social media has a dark underbelly. User generated content is another way of saying community or forum really. Any place, whether it be physical or virtual, that provides an opportunity for people to come together also provides an opportunity for ill-intentioned individuals to exert their influence. Maybe I'm getting a little too philosophical but I think people try to separate the internet from other interactions too much. It is incredibly interactive while being incredibly impersonal. I think that is the main challenge. How do we take what we know and use that knowledge to create a more personal space? At the same time, if we are creating a hyper-individualized space how do we protect ourselves and our clients/customers from the bad guys? We need to keep our eyes to all of the challenges of internet marketing, not just the pressing "How do we move the product?"
 
Posted by: mchale Author Response
1/11/2007 7:56 PM (CST)
We've learned that there is a spiritual connection - if you will - to Citizen Kane and the book Citizen Marketers. In light of that 6 degrees DNA, it might not be that coincidental then that the issues and passions we have been discussing, relating to social media – be they about citizen evangelists fighting the good fight, or of bringing up the idea that it's time to explore the darker side of it – we should remember how Orson Welles became famous; by authoring one of the biggest scams in media history.

For those unaware of Welles' original claim to fame, he used his platform as a radio star slash reporter to reenact H.G. Wells's "War of the World" Sci-Fi classic. Half in jest and half by putting all of his acting ability into it, for the next several hours, many listeners all over the country who listened that evening to Welles' highly rated radio program actually believed Earth was being invaded by monsters from another planet. They let their imaginations fly!

He played it like it was no joke. Ultimately, everyone ultimately learned that it wasn't true, but it was no joke to the families of people who panicked and in their adrenaline-filled fear, lost their loved one's lives from accidents, best illustrated in Steven Spielberg's film, all due to Welles's irresponsible and outlandish behavior.

We won't spend much more time on it other than it qualifies as the spiritual genesis for every scam site and fake-out blog in electronic social media. Today we consider that type of gross/contemptible manipulation of the blogosphere with rage, anger and condescension. Back then, it got him the best movie deal in Hollywood!

Just this week, we read that Howard Stern pocketed another $80 million bucks for his unique style of broadcasting. Maybe the more things change, the more they remain the same.

For the sake of specificity and to also illuminate many of the qualities that I found in the book - which were too long to list in this Group Book Review format - you'll find my original review of the book "Citizen Marketers" on this link, which takes you to an e-zine called The Madison Avenue Journal, www.tmajournal.com.

I hope you are as delighted with this discussion as much as I am so far. I think Jackie and Ben deserve tremendous credit for their accomplishment. The measure of success of any work of art and science is not so much how well it illustrates the present, as much as how it raises questions that should be asked about the future.

Hat's off to ck for throwing this new Group Review party! Nice goin!
 
Posted by: david reich Accepted Answer
1/12/2007 12:25 AM (CST)
Hey Tim, sorry to weigh in so late on this one. Stuck in a client meeting almost all day. (Work would be so much fun, except for the darn clients.)

Like anything, there is/will be a dark side to social media. Like someone here earlier pointed out, there are the scammers and spammers, etc. They may always exist, with Freedom of Speech. But the broader community will find ways to expose them and make it more difficult to succeed. Like the scammers and dark side of any industry, they'll keep finding ways to cheat or cause damage. And we'll just have to keep dealing back with them, like a form of self policing. Or there may eventually be government action or oversight, to minimize frauds and other harmful things from abusive social media.

I think as social media becomes more widely accepted and used, at some point a protocol or gov't or quasi-govt authority might somehow regulate against abuses. But there'll always be those who will manage to fly just slightly above the law. That's life.
 
Posted by: mchale Author Response
1/12/2007 10:52 AM (CST)
David, agreed, and that's just the point. I'm looking at social media from the standpoint of being a media analyst and buyer. My job to monitor how social media is being used.

In 2006, my clients were "very" nervous about allocating any advertising $$ in the blogosphere. That will change in 2007 but by tiny increments. I don't think the book addressed those issues. There was nothing in there to make advertisers more comfortable because there was nothing there that addressed the root concerns clients have. I think we need to address them. We can't ignore theses problems. Advertisers won't. They'll simply remain skittish.

The only way to successfully sell-in social media as an ad vehicle is to get a comprehensive view of it. The book focues on the good stuff. Advertisers are focusing on the bad and/or unknown.

If social media is so squeekly clean why are all of the commercial properties moderated. Case in point, I'm working with a Harvard property whose blog is password protected; and they still moderate their blog.

Getting back to advertising, MySpace and YouTube have 90% or more of their potential ad impressions inventory unsold. They therefore are bonusing those advertisers who are buying ad space on them - such that their CPM's are in the $ pennies per thousand area, which is turning MadAve upside down now since the more established online properties have been charging $9.00 or higher for consumer inventory (trade media sites CPM's are substantially different.) Blogosphere ad networks such as Federated Media - which is one of hte most tame - will have even lower CPM's.

Even with those pricing incentives, at best, MySpace and YouTube will have 80% of their monthly inventory unsold (that does not run through ad networks) by the end of 2007. That tells you that notwithstandng Citizen Marketers' achievement, it will have a tiny impact on $$ ad spend.

If we're going to get to issues that make advertisers scared, we will have to begin create an on-going mechanism to understand them and demystify them ourselves. Maybe it's interviewing moderators. Clients don't have the time or the inclination to do so.

That gives us proactive evangelist and pocketbook reasons to learn more about how social media is used with malicious intent, doesn't it? I find the idea fascinating. I going to investigate some examples over the weekend. I hopefully will get some feedback from readers of this blog about them as well.

I've learned a fair amount jsut from this exchange. I also think it would be cool if we collectively identified a handful of "netiquette" type of helpful hints to enable social media users and advertisers to understand what ying/yang issues are relevant. Citizen Marketers is a great start!

As one of the group reviewers for the Citizen Marketers book - having read many book reviews in Sunday's weekly New York Times Book Review - I interpreted my job to illustrate both the strengths and the weaknesses of their work. I hope I did that with balance.

mchale
 
Posted by: carrie77 Moderator Response
2/26/2007 6:32 AM (CST)
Hi Everyone,

I am closing this question since we’re on to the next book.

I hope you’ve enjoyed participating in our on-line book club. We look forward to your comments on The Origin of Brands when they’re posted.

Thanks for participating!
Carrie (Production Editor)
 


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