The Morning News’ Home for the holiday tech support will either make you laugh or cry or remind you of that time you shouted “you’re clicking wrong” at your sister while providing phone tech support.
This article on how an advertising ban won’t end brand bullying reminds me of that scene in Little Women when Amy brings limes to school and has to throw them out. Which might seem weird, but my point is that kids deem certain things “must haves” and bully regardless of advertising.
People’s opinons on Google and the goodness or evilness of the tech monolith seem to be as deeply ingrained and as passionately espoused as views on religion, politics, or which flavor of M&M is the best (pretzel, of course). A long time ago, I accepted the fact that I divvied my e-soul into three parts and gave those parts to Apple, Amazon, and Google. I’m okay with that.
Even so, reading Google doesn’t get people, it sells them was kind of unsettling and a little thrilling (like reading 1984). The GigaOm post covers a talk Don Norman, the author of The Design of Everyday Things gave at a conference last week where he discussed Google quite a bit, including this piece about the controversy surrounding the use of real names on Google+:
“Real names, they say, turn out to be the names on your driver’s license and your passport and your credit cards so that they can track you. Are you happy to be a product?”
While I don’t agree with everything Norman has to say, it’s thought-provoking and it’s good to have your thoughts provoked every once in awhile. It keeps you sharp, and as marketing grows ever more individualized one has to be sharp.
Our ears were burning while reading “The Role of the Creative Technologist” by Scott Prindle at Crispin Porter + Bogusky – and really burning when we got to lines like: “It makes sense to integrate those who live and breath software and utility – creative technologists (programmers) – into your creative and strategic process.”
Yeah, yeah, we probably think this song is about us, or at least written in the key of Nerdery. Shshsh, let’s listen in: “The creative technologist introduces emerging technologies into the creative concepting process.” Prindle asserts that because creative technologists “think in code … and in left-brained, logical, rule-based constructs” that therefore, “the creative technologist manages complexity” and can use a growing development toolkit to tinker constructively in an expanding digital universe, backed by “an in-depth understanding of core computer science and IT principles.”
If you’re a marketer so busy you can read only one slide, skip on down to #85 for a whole-lotta truthiness on getting the most out of nerds (OK, creative technologists). Truth marches on in the next slide as programmers get marching orders on how to contribute to the ad world.
It’s a good kind of burn (this sensation in our ears) because it’s true: “Technology will continue to bring about disruptive change in our business. The creative technologist will play a lead role in creating ideas that carry across the rapidly expanding digital ecosystem.”
