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Are markets role playing games? If so, can we change them by making customers more capable? And if the answer to that is yes, what existing RPGs best resemble the game we want markets to become? Say, one where we either kill marketers or win them over to our side? Or something like that?
Those are the questions behind what I just posted here.
Shot this series of pictures, mostly of islands in Boston Harbor, while ascending to the skies out of Logan on Sunday, en route to San Francisco. The one above is Rainsford Island. (And my shot is a lot prettier than the one at that last link, on Wikipedia. They can use it if they like.)
Like many islands and hills in the Boston area, Rainsford is a drumlin or two. Given its shape, I’d call it Fish Island.
Got a lot more pictures from that trip, but they’ll have to wait. Meanwhile, here’s a slide show from the last cross-country trip.
Dawn breaks outside my window in Columbus, Ohio, where I got in after midnight. It’s now 6:07am. Another minimal sleep night, but better than the night before.
We passed through Columbus last September when we drove across the country, but that’s no more Being In Town than one would be flying over it. Charles Kuralt once said that the Interstate Highway System made it possible to go coast to coast without seeing anything at all. Such was our acquaintance with Columbus.
But here I am, about to head over to iCitizen, where I get to listen and participate in discussions today, then give the opening keynote tomorrow. (Here’s the Agenda. Here’s the blog.)
For that I’m looking for a metaphor to describe what VRM will do for customers by equipping them with tools that are theirs alone, and not those of vendor silos. I’ve never done Dungeons & Dragons or any of those adventure games where one acquires special powers while going off to fight bad guys and slay hostile andimals and stuff, but I think what I’m looking for might be in that area. (Though the tools would be for relating, not killing. Maybe stuff along the strength and charisma lines…) Got any ideas?
Dave points to Mark Evans’ post on the Blogging for Bux biz — which produces about as much income as a paper route. But I dunno, because I’ve never had advertising on my blog and never would.
Dave says “professional blogging” is oxymoronic. “It’s like calling someone a professional amateur.” Mark thinks it’s the beginning of the end of the field anyway.
I’m not so sure, but in any case I’ve never been fond of it. Early on I didn’t begrudge good bloggers picking up a few extra bucks by carrying advertising, since good bloggers wouldn’t be corrupted by the practice. That is, they weren’t being “pro bloggers”, just bloggers whose blogs had some ads. But in the last year I’ve seen a lot more real corruption. Here’s Mark:
| I’m starting to think that running a mass-consumption blog doesn’t lend itself to deep, insight writing unless you’re a Robert Cringely. Blogs that attract a lot of traffic are pumping out a lot of posts so they can appeal to a broad audience. And these posts - regardless of the subject - tend to be content snacks as opposed to be meals. |
I wrote about the subject a couple times recently, in Blogging & Flogging and NY Times covers blogorrhea sufferers. Key point from the former:
| …blogging only to make money is actually flogging. So is jumping onto a topic only to goose it up on TechMeme. So is not being original. |
My dream here is that blogging survive the flogging craze. But I’m not holding my breath.
