We’re super excited to announce that Robert Tercek is a special guest speaker at ther We First Seminar on February 1-2 at the Marina del Rey Marriott in California. Robert is one of the world’s most prolific creator of interactive entertainment and former President of Digital Media for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, as well as previously serving in executive leadership roles at Sony Pictures Entertainment, MTV: Music Television and several startup technology companies.

So I wanted to share this TEDx talk to give you a little insight into some of Robert’s thinking. At the We First Seminar, he’ll be working on your Social Branding Blueprint for 2012 with a specific focus emerging media and technology so you’re well positioned for success this year and beyond. Specifically he’ll address the following questions:

1. Why social media isn’t just a business modification but a total business transformation

2. How to dialogue with your customers using the latest in social technology and media

3. The skill sets you must possess to keep up with your audience and market successfully in the future

So if you’re interested in what comes next there is no better authority than Robert and along with Carol Cone (Global Practice Chair of Edelman Business+Social Purpose), we’ll be working with you for two days on building your Social Branding Blueprint for this year and beyond. But don’t delay, places  are limited and time is almost up to register. Go to www.WefirstSeminar.com and join us to ensure your success in 2012

You can follow Robert on twitter @superplex

Last week I shared Part 1 of my interview with Sherry Turkle on the ‘Human Cost of Social Technology.’ Here is Part 2 where we discussed the impact of social media on our own sense of identity.

SM:  Hi, I’m Simon Mainwaring and I’m here at IVOH in the Catskills, and I’m here with Sherry Turkle, who is the Professor for the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. I was so enjoying our conversation earlier on that I have to have more of you.  What I’d love to talk to you about is the reality we all find ourselves in now, which is that we all have multiple versions of ourselves. For example, we have the version of our self we present to our friends and even our families in real life, then we have the version of ourselves we have in our private moments with ourselves, we have the version of our self online like on Facebook or Twitter, and we may have secret accounts where we have another version of our self that we prefer to hide from others. Do you see this sort of simultaneous, multiple versions of ourselves as a common problem? What are the dangers?

ST:  Well, it’s a common state of being. I think we have to refrain, for the moment, from calling it a problem because it is how we live now. I think it’s become the norm, and each of us are keeping the fact that it is our norm a secret, almost like a dirty little secret, and when we reveal it to someone else, like saying “I really have five accounts or six accounts,” and people reveal they are having trouble keeping them strait.

The problem is that we perform ourselves somewhat differently in each of these spaces.  There’s good news and bad news. Each time we perform ourselves in each of these spaces, we actually learn something new about ourselves because each of these places is a place where we are performing a different aspect of ourselves, and thus it’s a kind of self-reflective exercise in a way. We get to see different aspects of ourselves in these different spaces.

The downside is that, particularly for adolescents who are just forming their sense of self, it becomes hard to keep things strait. They get a kind of performance anxiety in that sense and performance exhaustion because they’re constantly on. They don’t have a place to go that’s offline. They almost don’t have permission in their life to shut it down, to get off those Facebook accounts, to get off those internet accounts. They don’t have a place to go where they’re not performing themselves and that becomes a problem.

SM:  Let me ask you a question. I can see how that can clearly become a problem.  Is it, in a sense, a new definition of what the self is today, in that our sense of self is now an aggregate of all these different versions of ourselves, or are we just fractured or splintered in different ways and we are losing a sense of self altogether?

ST:  I think we now have a sense of self as multiple. That is becoming the norm, to think of ourselves as a self that is a multiplicity of selves. We are no longer thinking of that as fractured, that’s why I was very careful not to define that as a problem, because actually, there is a truth about the self that the internet is revealing. Rather than seeing it as a problem, I think it’s something we need to learn to embrace and the new goal of living is to move fluidly among these different aspects of self.

SM:  When you say fluidly do you mean authentically and consistently?

ST:  Fluidly will mean different things for different people, but it means that you don’t feel a stress, you feel that when you move in these different spaces you are learning about different aspects of yourself with which you are comfortable, but you also feel a sense of centeredness that you’re embracing these multiple aspects of yourself joyfully and authentically. You’re not saying, “Oh my god, how am I going to put it on and perform here.”

SM:  Is that hard to do when you consider that we’re effectively being led every day by media outlets that train us to perform, in a sense, to present a doctored version of ourselves out there? So the way we’re coming to this is, as media savvy consumers, in a sense, rather than centered beings that want to be consistent and authentic.

ST:  Yes, well now you’re putting your finger on the problem. I tried to put the best face [referring to earlier hesitation to call it a ‘problem’]…well the reason I did that was quite serious. Because I think that when you have a way of being in the world that is becoming the norm, you don’t want to get right out there and say, “We’re all pathological.”

Let me just say again, the positive is that moving fluidly and authentically among these different aspects of self can be a positive experience of living in the world we now live in. But, as you say, people are learning that on different outlets, they have to be a certain way. I met a young person today who said, “When I’m on Twitter, Twitter has trained me that I have to be ironic and witty, and that’s hard for me because I’m not an ironic and witty person, but I can’t get followers on Twitter unless I’m a certain kind of ironic and witty person.

SM:  So you’re saying that the media is the messenger?

ST:  Yes. The way I put it in Alone Together is: Technology is the architect of our intimacies.  Technology is the architect, in this case for this young man, of the self.  If he wants to be popular on Twitter, he has to be an appealing Twitter personality.  Similarly, the people I interview about Facebook, many adolescents will say to me, “I won’t even say on Facebook that my dog died because I want to be, on Facebook, the kind of positive, popular, wonderful person. I doctor the photographs. I doctor my life.” So we’re learning adolescents and young people learn how to be on Facebook, the Facebook way to be, and that starts to be a problem.

SM:  This addiction to what might be called faux celebrity or personal brand management, what will cause a change? Is it a function of age, or is it a function of our integration and sophistication on how we use these tools? We realize later on a better way to use them.

ST:  I think both things happen. I think, as people get older, they start to say, “Ironic?Witty? Okay, that’s my Twitter self, but I’m going to invest less and know that I’m doing that for professional reasons, but that’s not me.” That’s hard if you’re a young person and you begin to be confused because you’re thinking, “I really care about that Twitter self.”

As you get older and more differentiated from your Twitter self, you begin to see that as an other, it’s not really you. So the age thing kicks in, but I also think we are going to get better at dealing with this technology in more mature and sophisticated ways. We are smitten right now.

The trouble with this technology… or I shouldn’t say trouble… I should say, the most powerful thing about this technology, and the reason we’re so vulnerable to it is that it’s an identity technology. It’s a technology that offers us identity. It says, “You can be this.  You can have these friends. You can have these connections. You can have this love and appreciation, followers, people who want to be with you.” Things that people want.  People want this connection.

SM:  So what would be your advice to anyone, young or old, on Facebook or Twitter, as to how to garner the most integrity between who they are as a person in real life (which is hard enough to know in itself) and how they represent themselves online? Any sort of guide from all your research, thinking and Alone Together?

ST:  Yes. The first thing is that, if you’re a young person, a healthy sense of distance that being on Facebook is not being you. When I’m interviewing you, you know that if I’m interviewing you about this, you’re going to be telling me that. Make sure you remind yourself of that regularly. Keep a little bit of distance between that Facebook self and your sense of your own self so you can have a sense of distance and irony that things that happen to you on Facebook, slights, hurts, they’re not really happening to you, they’re happening to that you that you perform. I think that is a healthy use of this medium.  In every aspect that the people we are online… it’s not who we are. Separating the friends from the friended is a very important thing to do.

SM:  I’m here speaking with Sherry Turkle, who has written this wonderful book called Alone Together.  Where can we find you online?  Where can we find the book?

ST: AloneTogetherBook.com, and google Sherry Turkle MIT and all of my webpage with all my writings and research will appear.

In the context of the global economic meltdown, the Great Recession that followed, and the most recent protests around the Occupy Wall Street movement, it seems relevant to consider what fresh responses to trading practices are being volunteered to temper the worst excesses of ‘Me First’ financial practices.  A new book by Michael Martin called The Inner Voice of Trading is a great example. The directions within it sound unlike typical advice you find in books about investment. For instance, Martin exhorts traders to think  the following ways:

“How you trade, what you trade, and the frequency of the trades you make all come down to who you are as a person, not what you know about a specific financial instrument.

“When people want to jump the gun and accelerate their careers to fast, they blow up because they haven’t achieved the emotional knowledge that goes with managing risk.”

“People are drawn to the vehicles that will give them the emotional return they seek, whether they are aware of it or not.”

In re-framing trading in these emotional terms, Martin is effectively seeking to humanize what has become an increasingly dehumanized and robotic practice. In contrast, Martin suggests that traders must develop an inner voice that you can trust and that will ultimately prove to be the most valuable ally.

My hope is that, by re-framing trading this way, Michael Martin and other voices like his can chip away at the self destructive mentality and practices that currently dominate many financial practices. It would be naive to think such financial thinking and behavior will ever disappear or that these institutions will abruptly cease to be self-serving, but by introducing an emotional dimension that relates both to the way business is conducted and the effect that such practices have on the lives of others, Martin’s book plays an important role in changing the current ‘Me First’ mindset a more sustainable ‘We First’ approach.

To order Martin’s book click here, and to follow him on Twitter click here.

Do you believe that traders can do a better job of balancing their desire for profit and a conscience in terms of the impact of their practices on society at large, or do you believe that Wall Street is too blinkered to change?

Each week the We First blog reaches out to an industry professional to provide insights into different aspects of branding or storytelling, and to highlight different strategies for social change. This week our guest is Chuck Carey of Troika which is one of Hollywood’s top creative branding and design firms.

SM:  Hi, I’m Simon Mainwaring, and I’m really excited to be talking to Chuck Carey today, who is president and co-founder of Troika. Can you tell us what Troika is and what it does?

CC: Absolutely. We are a brand consultancy and creative agency. We focus on media and entertainment clients. That could mean broadcasters, cable networks, cable operators, video game creators. Anyone who’s really involved with media and entertainment.

SM:  What do you do for them, and what do you create for them?

CC:  We are engaged when they are looking to maximize an opportunity, to evolve in the marketplace, or to respond to new competitive forces, which, as you know, is happening constantly. A role we can provide is that, they’re often tactically challenged, they’re constantly responding to things on a day-to-day basis. We can be brought in to help get a little perspective on what’s going on in the market, what they’re looking to achieve with their business, and how their branding and marketing can help them accomplish those goals.

SM:  One of the themes I talk about a lot on my blog is the need for brands to listen more effectively because the most successful brands will be defined by their quality of listening.  Can you talk to us about the role that listening plays in building a relationship with a customer?

CC:  There are a couple of things that occurred to me when you asked me that question.  The first is that listening shows a huge measure of respect, meaning that you’re willing to listen to the people that you’re doing business with, or that you’re creating content for.  Secondly, I think that listening applies a level of accountability. If you’re willing to listen, you should also be willing to take action. If you’re not going to take action, you should be willing to explain why you’re not. So, opening up a channel to listen is the first step in a healthy conversation, whether that leads to specific action or simply to discussing why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s about communication. In days gone by or in earlier eras, communication was very one way, which is an isolated level of communication. This other type of communication is immediate, it has the opportunity to be incredibly honest as well as the opportunity to be vulnerable, which I think is kind of interesting.  I think that people respect when people are willing to accept responsibility for their mistakes.  That is a real opportunity to develop a deeper and more connected relationship with your consumers, customers or viewers. There’s a real opportunity there. Is it scary?  Absolutely. Does it have the ability to transform a relationship as well? Absolutely.

SM:  By extension, what is the role of design in storytelling as brands try to be more effective and more engaged with their customers now?

CC:  That’s a great question.  First of all, willingness to embrace design as something that matters to your organization or to the product you create is a great step in saying that you’re willing to be curious, you’re willing to challenge the way things are typically done, you’re willing to ask yourself some really fundamental questions: Who are we? Why does this product matter? How is it different? How are we going to build it better than someone has before? Although these questions may sound simple, in today’s inter-related business environment, those are often very complex questions for people to ask themselves. On one level, in the internal business conversation that viewers or consumers probably won’t see, it challenges people to question their own thinking.  Obviously that’s really healthy.

The second thing is that it becomes very exciting as you take these intangible ideas in a conversation and you start to bring them to life either through symbols or aesthetics.  We don’t limit our perception of design to typography or logo design. They’re wonderful tools, but design can easily extend across how something looks in the physical world, the sound of a voice over, etc. It starts to tread very quickly into what one might consider the tools and practices used in advertising or promotion. It really is all very adjacent to us and so we bring it together. If you do your job well with the client, what you’re going to get is, to some extent, more elegant. When I say elegant, I mean that it just works. It’s clean, it doesn’t have anything getting in the way of what you’re trying to do, it communicates clearly and well. People love surprises. We are in the entertainment world, so not only are we trying to do great design, we’re looking to entertain as well. If what we do from the branding, marketing and packaging perspective doesn’t have an entertainment value to it, then it’s completely disconnected from the market we serve.  So that’s incredibly stimulating to us. A huge aspect of that can be surprise, it can be comedy, it can be great animation. To a large extent, the way people experience it is an aesthetic experience, which is often times a way for people to experience in an emotion.  So the conversation starts in the business, but it ends in people’s guts. That spectrum is incredibly fascinating to us.

SM:  I think every brand out there wants something that is singular, something that is consistent, something that is entertaining.  A lot of people that are reading this blog are either sole proprietors, small companies, medium companies, social entrepreneurs or even big brands that are looking to improve their storytelling. If they were to work with a designer, what do they need to bring to the table to make that process most effective?  What is a designer looking for in a client partner?

CC:  Honesty would be a very important thing to the table. That could be something that you’re fearful of or boundaries that you don’t want to cross. It’s about letting people know what is the world you’re playing in. It’s harder when people say, “Blow us away, do something that’s never been seen before.”  We’ve done that kind of work and people then say, “Oh my god, this is amazing, we can’t afford it.” Or, “Oh, you’ve stepped on something sacred here. We can’t do it.” Designers are amazingly adept at working with constraints. In fact, they can be inspiring. As abstract as designers may work when they’re thinking symbolically, they also tend to be amazing pragmatists. That’s one thing that may not occur to people: Take inventory of the constraints you’re working in.

The other thing to do is to look for chemistry where you feel real trust. Design is about iterations. It’s not about the master surprise. I would look for chemistry with people who are listening to me, who are paying attention, they’re practicing their craft and their art, but they’re factoring in all the variables that I need them to manage. You may have to be uncomfortable for a period of time, but realize that’s us thinking out loud. Just because something is on a piece of paper doesn’t mean we want you to approve it. It’s just us thinking out loud. We’re trying to continue the conversation that we started in an abstract and strategic mode. But priorities can shift.  Once there’s tangible work on the table, priorities really surface. So if there is another piece of advice I could give, it’s to know your priorities. You don’t want to create things that try to be too many things.  That’s going to hold them back. So you may have to let go of one or two lower priorities to achieve that top level priority.

You can learn more about Troika by visiting their website at. www.troika.tv or if you want to follow Chuck on Twitter, you can find him @chuckcarey Thanks so much for your time, Chuck.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Utenti Pubblicita Associati (UPA) conference in Milan where the theme was the future of language and its role in shaping advertising. The other presenters were UPA President, Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi, and Paris Kafantaris, VP for Babycare in Western Europe at Proctor and Gamble. The former’s speech was in wonderful Italian (just a warning) and the latter in English (after a brief Italian introduction) with some powerful case studies of the social contributions that P&G is making including the partnership between Pampers and UNICEF to provide tetanus vaccinations. I hope this is useful, the slides for the presentation can be found here and fire away with any questions.

Credit: Campaign Brief

For those at the seminar who want further information, or for those who couldn’t make it, here are a synopsis, a list of key points and links to the case studies that I mentioned in my seminar at Cannes today.

SYNOPSIS: The advertising world is reeling from change – and it’s not just because they have yet to fully embrace social media in their brand campaigns. The problems in advertising are much more profound—they literally extend deep into the heart of capitalism. The core issue is that advertising and capitalism are dying the same death. Both are being challenged by powerful forces of social change in today’s new world: globalization, digitalization, social media and a loss of values. At the root of these pressures is also a powerful motivator: consumers want a better world, not just better widgets. This is motivated by a growing global consciousness that the world is faced with many severe crises, most of which are due in fact by capitalism’s myopic search for profits.

Today’s talk addresses what the advertising industry needs to do to reinvigorate itself, if not simply to survive. Advertising must first begin by helping brands recognize that the future of profit is purpose.  Brands need to convey to consumers that they add meaning to life rather than simply feeding self-destructive consumer greed. Instead, advertisers and their brands need to show consumers a sincere vision of a better future infused with values, consistency, and transparency. As such advertisers and brands must ultimately become architects of community, helping brands engage with consumers and build sincere relationships based on loyalty, empathy and trust.

The most powerful tool in this transition is social media, the focus of this talk. Advertisers no longer hold monopoly control over the story behind their brands, as consumers are now able to write, distribute and curate brand content around the web. Between social networks, video, mobile phones, and location-based applications, consumers now have the power, the channels of communication, and the personal connection to endorse or condemn brand messaging or behavior. Advertising needs to adjust accordingly. In fact, everything about how advertising communicates to consumers needs to be reversed—push must become pull, talking needs to be replaced by listening, and monologues must transform in to active, daily dialogues.

Ultimately, the future of advertising lies in making capitalism sustainable. To that end advertising must master social media and take control of the stewardship of their brand partners in this new intimately connected global community. By doing so, advertising will not only ensure its own future but transform capitalism into an engine of global prosperity.

Here are the case studies used in today’s presentation:

#1 ADVERTISING AND CAPITALISM NEED EACH OTHER TO SURVIVE.

1. Globalization: GOOD magazine transparency

2. Digitization: iPad magazines

3. Citizen media

4. Social issues

5.  Shifting Profit Centers

#2 CONSUMERS WANT A BETTER WORLD, NOT JUST BETTER WIDGETS

1. Search for Meaning

2. Caring and sharing, not just sales: Bernie Madoff

3. Dialogue and deep engagement: Zappos CEO

4. Social responsibility: Worldwide BP Protest Day

#3 THE FUTURE OF PROFIT IS PURPOSE

1. Vision: Coca-Cola Expedition 206

2. Values: Pepsi Refresh Project

3. Transparency: BP Spill & Birds covered in oil

4. Consistency: Sun Chips Biodegradable

5.  Benefits: HR, CSR, PR

6. Profit: Ethisphere chart

#4 ADVERTISERS MUST BECOME ARCHITECTS OF COMMUNITY

1. Technology is teaching us to be human again.

2. Own the relationship and you own everything.

3. Agencies must become day traders in social emotion: Tiger Woods data

4. Success will be determined by the quality of listening.

#5 REVERSE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ADVERTISING

1. Push is pull: Levi’s crowdsourcing

2. Monologue is dialogue: Nike/Livestrong

3. Talking is listening: Mountain Dew crowdsourcing

4. Image is authenticity: Dove Real Beauty

5. Center is flow

#6 CONSUMERS NOW CO-AUTHOR THE STORIES WE TELL

Technology:

1. Social Networks: The Conversation Prism by Jess3

2. Real time apps: Twitter

3. Location based apps: Foursquare and Twitter Places

4. Mobile apps: iPhone apps

5. Social Web: Facebook Open Graph

Roles:

1. Publishers: WordPress

2. Distributors: Retweet

3. Curators: Old Spice TV commercial

4. Disruptors: Nike’s, Write the Future

5. IP and R&D: My Starbuck’s Idea

#7 THE EVOLUTION OF REVOLUTION IS CONTRIBUTION

Mindset:

1. Adversarial to Interdependent: BICEP

2. Competitive to Collaborative: Nike Green XChange

3. Short-term to Long-term Vision: B Corporations

4. Self interest to Greater Good: UNICEF Tapwater, Earth Hour, Million Project

5. First principles to New media: Pepsi Refresh Project

Execution:

1. New species within marketing ecosystem: Crispin Porter site

2. Cross-sector solutions: Education, Technology, Branding: InterCulture.com

3. New alliances: Government, Private Sector, Philanthropy: Let’s Move Initiative

4. Intersection of media & social & mobile: Morgan Stanley Internet Trend Report, World Social Networking Map, We Feel Fine

If you enjoyed this seminar please subscribe to the blog to receive future posts. As for the rest of the week in Cannes, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of my blog posts that list seminars and workshops related to social media and the future of advertising. I hope you find this post helpful and please ask any questions.