I am very fortunate to have had two grandfathers that were enthusiastic amateur photographers. I have spent many magical evenings looking at the glass negatives (yeah, that old) they have taken. Wondering about the people, the time and the legacy that the pictures represent. And perhaps secretly hoping that my grandchildren will do the same when it is their turn.

About 1200 people between the ages of 20 and 40 died last year in Finland. The internet penetration for that age group is virtually a hundred percent.

What has happened to all the emails, blog posts, photos and other digital things that these people have created? What happens to the Facebook, Habbo and Flickr accounts these people put time and effort into setting up and maintaining? Not to mention that the internet is not just for young people anymore. Everybody will soon have some sort of digital presence. And everyone must pass away eventually.

Even though the internet never forgets, I fear that something is being lost. How will the family members get access to the digital parts of these peoples lives? How will they even find out what these people have been doing online?

The good thing is that most of what everyone has created will go on existing for a long time. The internet never forgets, they say. The bad thing is that most of the stuff might never be passed on to future generations because it will never be found by anyone that cares.

As digital penetrates deeper in to our lives, more and more of the sentimental and actual value that we leave behind will be composed of bits. I think the time to start figuring out how to pass the value on to those it belongs to is now. Before the glass negatives are covered with digital dust.

I think one of the defining characteristics for humans has always been the desire to dream up technology that can help make life easier. We would not be here if our ancestors had not stuck their heads out of the cave and started to explore what they could manufacture from nature’s offerings.

If you look at this from a very wide perspective, all the analog objects that we have can be considered to be life enhancement technologies. Clothing is “skin enhancement technology”. A bed is “rest enhancement technology”. A book is “learning enhancement technology”. Most everything we have has been invented to make life easier and better in some way.

What does all this have to do with digital technologies then?

The digital world is still very young so mostly it has been restricted to its own domain. The digital world has been considered to be virtual and people have been even experimenting with stand-alone virtual worlds (Second Life etc.).  Slowly but surely the digital world is crossing the border and creeping in to the analog one.

Currently the biggest obstacle is connectivity. Most of us have to possibility to be connected at home or in the office, but staying connected while on the move is still quite a hassle. It is only a matter of time when that problem will be solved and connectivity will be ubiquitous.

The constant connectivity will bring with it a new kind of reality. It will be a reality where analog and digital life enhancement technologies merge and bring us new enhancements. GPS-navigation technology is a good example of merging the analog and digital. There is no longer a need for a scaled down presentation of reality (a map), when in essence technology makes the map life-size.

Slowly but surely the analog life enhancement technologies that only have virtual value (the value is not in the physical properties of the object, but in what we can accomplish with it) will begin to slide in to the digital world. Staying on the subject, take for example street signs and maps. There is no value in the signs or maps themselves. The value comes from people easily finding where they are going. In an analog world you have to manually combine two enhancement technologies, the signs and the map, to find the shortest route to your destination.

Today, we think of the virtual and real world as two separate domains. The analog world is slowly being augmented with digital technologies. I am betting that sometime in the near future we will come back full circle and consider analog and digital to just be different aspects of the same real world.

One thing I have been pondering a bit lately is the wear and tear that inevitably happens to things in the analog world. We all own things that are very dear to us. Some of them we (or others before us) have used for a long time. A book that has been read a thousand times. The favorite pair of jeans that feels just right. A chair that looks too worn to sit on. Both the look and feel of these things signify that they have been significant objects that have induced a lot of use.

Wear and tear also often serve as reminders. They remind us of significant events or people that are somehow connected with the objects. There are also some things that we appreciate even more as they get older. Wine, cheese and vintage instruments, to name a few.

There is no grace in the degradation of digital things. Either you have a digital object or you do not. Even copies will look and feel exactly like the original. In a sense, there are no antiques when it comes to digital. You might be able to distinguish older digital objects from never ones by its design, but then again the old one could have been made to look old on purpose.

My question is, should we start to design degradation into digital objects, so that the old and new could be distinguished? And is that even possible?

User generated content is slowly turning into talent generated content. People that truly have talent are finding that they also have an audience. The ones that are not so talented (the users) might still have a few pairs of eyeballs on the content that they produce, but slowly the talent is prevailing.

Many brands are experimenting with giving users tools and material with which they can participate in creating advertising for the brands. With mixed results. The brands that are getting the best results are the ones that have realized that more freedom for the users is better.

Companies that have large marketing budgets are paying large sums to advertising agencies to try to figure out what would entice the consumers to buy their products. Due to media fragmentation the agencies are having more and more trouble finding the audience. General apprehension towards advertising is making it harder for the agencies to find the big idea that will work. The bottom line is, traditional marketing is not what it used to be.

Let’s take all this a bit further (actually quite a bit).

Talent generated marketing.

Instead of hiring an advertising agency to create one-size-fits-all, lowest common denominator, mass marketing, let the talent create the marketing. They know what the right message is. They know the people that are enthusiastic about the brand. They ARE that person. And they have friends that are that person.

Instead of paying the agency a million, pay the talent. Use digital tools to measure and figure out which people are your best talent and pay them. Not one times a million. A thousand times a thousand. Instead of one large expensive agency, a thousand small agencies. Small agencies that know the product and best of all, really know what works for the audience.

Create your own private army of agencies.

Social media was the big thing last year. It will be big this year too, but how big? Is it already running out of steam?

Friendship and social relations are about quality, not quantity. People are realizing that connecting with as many “friends” as possible is not worth the effort. There must be some reason people have not kept in touch in the first place. Surely, a Facebook friend request does not change why you have not had a relationship for many years?

But how many social networks can one person belong to? Everyone seems to be building a website with some sort of social aspect. There just is not enough time in the world for people to be social everywhere.

It is very easy to get carried away with all the hype going on. The fact is social media is just one side of an ever-evolving digital world. A world where change is constant and fast.

My candidates for the next big thing:
1. Aggregation - Sifting through enormous amounts of content and gathering the meaningful stuff.
2. Mobile - The technology is finally getting there. Or is it?
3. Baby Boomers - They are active, they have money and, now that they are retiring, they have time.

What do you think will be the next big thing that everyone talks about, smart people capitalize on and eventually fades away?

Thanks to JanneW for the inspiration. 

Most objects have not entered the digital realm yet and will not do so for many years, if ever. Despite that, all objects do have a digital extension. The digital extension of an object is all the information that can not reasonably be gathered or distributed in analog format. The information beyond user manuals, warranty cards and washing instructions. Questions previously unanswered, maybe even unasked. Who made this? What is it made of? Is it good? Who has used it? Where will it end up after I am done with it?

The digital world, limitless storage space and effortless distribution, has allowed us to start adding these digital extensions to objects. And the importance of the extension is growing day by day.

Think about Amazon. You can not touch the products they are selling. You certainly can not try them out. Basically, you are not buying the product, you are buying information about the product. The accuracy of the information can only be verified once you have received your purchase.

New technologies (sensors, gps, rfid) will give us even more information. It will be entirely possible to trace a product from its birth right down to when it is recycled or ends up in a landfill.

Digital extensions will enhance our experience and help us make more informed decisions but they also come with a price. We will receive information that we might not care for. Information about the origins and ecological footprints of products. Information that will confront us. How do you justify buying something when the data clearly shows that it was manufactured in less then acceptable conditions?

Smart businesses have already realized the value of the digital extension and are turning their information into a competitive advantage. The dumb ones are still doing what they have always done: concealing and evading.

I have been working on segmentation and personalization models for a client for the past few days. In analog the boundary between segmentation and personalization is clear. The line begins to blur when digital tools are used to do segmentation by behavior. Say, people who bought a computer less than seven days ago.

If you do it really well you end up with segments of one.

Segmentation = Personalization

Education, privacy, democracy, copyright, media and commerce. I am repeating myself (see Silence is golden) but I thought some clarification might be in order.

Education

When information was scarce it was essential that people learned how to wade through large masses of text and remember the most important things. Education it was called. Digitalization has made information plentiful. Basically any piece of information that a regular person might need can be found in mere seconds.

Digital tools are even giving the sacred art of writing a run for its money. The tools are giving us the power to effortlessly combine images, video, audio (smell and taste are still going to take a while) and share them with others. Why try to write about something when you can just use the tools to show the real thing? Sure, the most talented writers are going to be able to capture the moment, idea or feeling perfectly but the rest of us are going to use the easy way out.

Education should not be the same as it was before. It should be about creating ideas. Creatively combining information and media to make something new. Something of value.

Privacy

Digital information is eternal. Once you make something public in a digital format it becomes eternal. It might be a bit hard to find, but chances are someone somewhere has it. There have been quite a few campaigns aimed at teens addressing this issue. The argument is always: “Do not put anything questionable online because it is going to lessen your chances of getting a job in the future. The people that are thinking of hiring you will not do so once they find the thing.”

The only flaw in this logic is that the people that are doing the hiring will also have some indiscretion tarnishing their reputation. At it will be online for everyone to see. Once everyone has something, it levels thing out. People are no longer going to care so much.

User generated content is going to change the way we think about privacy. What was once though of as private will no longer be so. And people are going to be ok with it, because humans have been living in small villages and communities where basically everything is public for a lot longer than we have been living in large cities. The only difference will be that this time the village is global.

Democracy

We have already seen a few examples of what digitalization is doing to democracy and politics. The free flow of information is going to wreak havoc on politicians that have something to hide. People are using digital tools to speak up about the issues that they care about. They are forming communities and putting pressure on people that are in a position to change things.

Unfortunately the public sector has not yet opened up the wealth of data they have stored in their massive databases. I bet that once that happens, even politically inactive citizens might find a good reason to become active. Going to vote on election day might still be too tough for them but they would have the possibility to do some watchdogging from the comfort of their own homes.

Copyright

From Wikipedia: “Copyright is a legal concept that gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited period of time. At its most general, it is literally “the right to copy”…”

Copyright is a very good concept. It rightfully prevents anyone from stealing another persons creative work. The problem is that digitalization is making it impossible to enforce the law. Copying, modifying and distributing anything in digital format is just too easy. In fact, digital is the the new punk. Only this time, it is not only about music. It is about everything. Punk news. Punk tv. Punk anything and everything.

So the only way to get out of this mess is to figure out something new. Something that ensures that artist and creators get paid for what they do and the public is not unnecessarily inconvenienced with laws that are unenforceable.

Media

Talk about turmoil. I bet that each and every media company executive in the world is scratching their head trying to figure out what to do.

Problem number one:
The old business model was based on creating content for an audience and inserting ads between the two. The audience has become the content creator so there is no place to stick the ads anymore.

Problem number two:
The internet is a lousy mass medium. By my unscientific calculations the websites per users ratio is currently at a little under 10. And that is only counting sites, not the billions of pages that the websites contain. Even if everyone visited a hundred websites a day the mass would only be a thousand strong.

It is just not going to work out when the business has been built on rounding up the masses and selling advertising based on that. No mass available.

Commerce

Yeah, eCommerce and all that. In honor of the new year I think something more inspirational is in order.

3D printing. Yes, printers that print 3D object instead of text and images on paper. The current 3D-printers are not very useful to ordinary people. Yet. Think about mobile phones twenty years ago. Very expensive, very cumbersome and not very useful, because not very many people owned one.

If 3D-printing technology evolves at the same rate mobile phones did, the next revolution in commerce will begin before the current one is over. Imagine if buying a household object becomes as easy as buying music from the iTunes music store currently is. A few clicks (or a few something else. It would be nice if someone figured out a better interface than the mouse and keyboard by then) to buy a 3d-model of the object and a few more to print it.

Now, that is what I call eCommerce.

Oh yeah, there are some other issues involved with 3d-printing, like copyright, but more on them later.

Working for Gyllene Skor I get to talk to a lot of clients and help them figure out what would be the best way to do business in the digital world. One sector that currently really stands out is media. Each and every media company in Finland seems to be in some sort of turmoil. They have a huge challenge in turning from publishers to relationship companies.

Why relationship?

Digital media is turning content into a commodity. It is impossible for any company to control content once it has been let loose in a digital format. Copying and distributing is just too damn easy. Once something is published in a digital format you can be sure that it will be available somewhere else. Just like that.

Producing content is also too easy. Anyone can do it and anyone will. The media companies have very limited resources compared to the number of citizens so the odds are that someone else will be the producer of the content.

The only way to win this is to aim to be the company that people turn to when they need content. It does not matter what the source of the content is. It does not matter who got it first. What matters is who the consumers are going to turn to when they need their daily dose.

The biggest problem the media companies currently have is that their income model is based on volume. The larger the audience, the larger the bill they can send advertisers. The problem is that there is no way you can build a relationship with, let’s say, 50 000 people at a time. Building relationships is a one-on-one thing.

The second problem is that the media companies have their content stuck in internal organizational silos. If one part of the company has produced content, there is no way any other part of the company can publish the content. But digital does not work that way. Consumers are not stuck to one or two sources of content. Consumers are hopping, skipping and jumping to any place where they can get the content they want.

So, the first step for media companies is to figure out how they can start charging for the quality of the contacts they have and not the quantity. The second step is to take down any internal barriers that might hinder the flow of content from one part of the company to the other.

Then they can start thinking about building relationships. Then they can start thinking about how to deliver relevant content in a timely fashion to each and every one of their contacts. It might not even matter if you are the fastest or not. What matters is providing the content your customer wants when he wants it.

Dagens Nyheter has a nice approach to building relationships. Actually, I really hope they see their approach as building relationships and not just another way to mass distribute their content. What they have done is team up with Nokia to provide their content via a special edition Dagens Nyheter mobile phone.

I can not imagine anything more exiting. Dagens Nyheter will know exactly who their customers are and what kind of news they prefer. And the best thing: they know exactly which ads are working for which customer. Serving relevant content AND ads. Now, that is the start of a beautiful relationship.

I will be the first to subscribe when a media company offers a Kindle-type device as one of their subscription options. I will gladly pay a monthly fee for the device and get my content free. Or am I paying for the content and getting the device for free? It really does not matter. What matters is that I am getting the content that I want and the media company is getting paid for it.

The rapid adoption of electronic surveillance methods has gotten quite a lot of coverage in the news lately.  At the same time people have realized that basically everything that they put online will be available there forever. Adding to that all the data from our cellphones, credit cards and other data sources that we might not even be aware of, it is no wonder privacy is one of the topics that pops up on a daily basis.

The alarmists are crying foul. They argue that our basic right to privacy is being severely compromised and that preventive measures should be taken to insure that our current walls of privacy will not be breached.

On the other hand people are voluntarily unveiling more and more private things in their blogs and via services like Flickr and YouTube. Jaiku, Twitter and the Facebook status update are taking this a step further. They allow you to tell your friends about your location and daily going-ons in minutiae detail.

I would argue that secretiveness is actually a by-product of industrialization and mass media. Our level of privacy was quite different when people were still living in smaller communities. Everybody knew the other members of the tribe and it was hard to keep secrets when news and rumors spread rapidly throughout the whole community.

Digital media is taking us back to a time before we put up our walls of privacy. The tribe will no longer be constrained to one physical location but when it comes to privacy they might as well be. Digital media will make it possible for every member of the tribe to know where everyone else is, what they are doing and what they are thinking about.

Having every detail of our lives plastered online for anyone to see will change the way we think about privacy. Being worried that your future boss can see all the stupid things that you did as a teenager will not be an issue anymore because you will be able to see exactly the same things about the boss. When everything is public there will no longer be a need for privacy.

I am hoping that more openness will force people and businesses to be more civil and think more about the consequences of their actions.