It’s beta form was just showcased at DEMO Spring 2012 in California and it provides brands and customers with new challenges and opportunities including:

- Creating customizable avatars that can try on clothes, chat with others, and buy both virtual and real goods using real and virtual currencies such as Facebook credits.

- New coupons, incentives and rewards specific to engagement within the virtual worlds.

- The ability for brands to build customized stores within the virtual world itself.

This is a far cry from simply having a presence within a social game like Farmville using virtual goods that represent your brand. This requires companies to have a deep understanding of virtual life engagement and the ability to layer e-commerce on top of it.

Yogurtistan’s CEO Cemil Turun put it this way:

We are creating a new experience by mimicking real-life engagement by going from store to store without changing a tab, or entering the web site address of the store. This is one centralized system. I can run into a promotion, a friend, or simply begin to chat with a stranger in the street, all of which is accessible on any browser or even an iPad.

It is yet to be seen whether we see the emergence of a virtual shopping world as comprehensive and compelling as the tactile real world, but its plans are being drawn and built. As such brands would be wise to add virtual worlds to their ‘To Do’ skills sets so they can capitalize on all the worlds that their customers choose to inhabit

Do you think 3D shopping will take off? What advantages does it offer brands?

I finally had the chance to visit Google, a business, brand and creative powerhouse I have admired for years. I spoke there about We First as part of their authors series. Everyone was super gracious and I now understand why it’s such a desirable place to work. They really do everything they can to inspire the best in their people and feed their creativity. So here’s the talk and thanks to everyone at Google for the great day.

Mashable Slides

I had the real pleasure of speaking at Mashable Social Good yesterday. It was a hugely inspiring day with great presentations by Ted Turner of Turner Enterprises,  Alec Ross from the State Department, Scott Harrison of charity:water, David Armano of Edelman, Howard Buffett of the Howard Buffett Foundation, David Jones of One Young World and a Christy Turlington who is doing amazing work for maternal health care.

It was also a really powerful demonstration of effective online engagement as the atmosphere in the room and outside was very dynamic and the twitterstream was non-stop around issues of how to scale social good. So in the midst of so much tough economic news it is so great to see so much positive work going on.

Some people kindly asked me for my slides so I’ve included them above (hyperlinked to case studies and ready for download) plus here is an outline of my talking points in case it helps. Many thanks to those who watched the live stream yesterday and I hope these are useful.

PRESENTATION TALKING POINTS:
Everyone deeply understands how grave the economic situation is, both here in the US and around the world. But hidden within this challenge is an opportunity to create a third pillar of social change to support government and philanthropy. It’s possible now for 3 reasons.

1. Global Recession
2. Consumer Distrust
3. Connected Citizens

So we have a customer and citizen base that is desperate for new solutions, a private sector desperate to earn back consumer trust, and consumers that can make themselves heard like never before. So how do we build a third pillar of social change that addresses these three issues.

1. Brand/Customer Partnerships (Case Study: Pampers/UNICEF)
2. Contributory Consumption (Case study: Zynga/Haiti & Japan Relief)
3. Global Brand Initiative (Case study: Patagonia/ Sustainable apparel Coalition)

By doing so, we can end the false separation between living and giving, between consumption and contribution, between purpose and profit, and create a third pillar of social change that leverages the might of the private sector to massively scale social change in a systemic and sustainable way. This third pillar is not more than a creative possibility. It’s an absolute necessity if we are to survive as a community of people, thrive as a private sector and build a better world for all.

David Shing, Digital Prophet at AOL kindly included me in Adweek and AOL’s  ‘Fueling the Future’ blog series a few weeks ago at the 2011 Cannes International Advertising Festival. He fired off a few questions about what look interesting in the future. He put together a great bunch of people and you can find all the contributors here.

DS: Simon, is the internet making the web more human?

SM: I think it is. Specifically, I mean social media on the internet. On several levels it is teaching us to be human again because, when we can experience the suffering of others or the lives of others in real time, it reawakens in us our innate empathy for each other.  When you can see people in Haiti caught between the floors of buildings in real time, birds covered in oil in the Gulf of Mexico, or the victims of the Pakistan floods it’s really tapping into our innate nature to reach out to each other and support each other. At the same time, it allows us to respond just as quickly, so whether it’s texting a donation or sharing content about something you care about, it allows us to experience the life of someone else in real time, and to respond and help if we want to. If I had to sum it up in one short phrase, it would be “The bliss of ignorance is being replaced by the responsibility of awareness.” Because we can experience each other’s lives in real time, we can no longer ignore it. We can no longer say “That’s happening on the other side of the world or in a different country.” We see it, we experience it and we can respond.

DS: How important is curation for the online experience?

SM: Curation is incredible because, I don’t know what you feel like, but I think five years ago we were all enamored with the Internet. It was like this fantastic banquet table of information. Now we’ve eaten our fill and we can’t stand it any more, in which case we’re shifting from consumption mode of information to filter mode. We’re looking for what’s meaningful to us, and as such, we’re all effectively becoming curators, both in terms of what we take in and what we share. Now there are tools allowing us to do that more effectively. Of necessity, there’s so much information out there that it’s becoming a burden and so we need to filter out what we don’t want to hear.

DS: Do you think that digital and physical experiences can come together?

SM: I think there is an increasing merger between the online and offline world. You see it in virtual currencies. For example, you can by Facebook ad for Amex points. You can see virtual goods in a game like Farmville being used to raise funds for donations towards earthquake victims in Haiti or the tsunami in Japan. The friends that we have on Twitter, we actually consider them friends. They’re not some virtual equivalent of a friend as they were a few years ago. We know their minds even if we haven’t met them in real life.  We’re relatively old, I’m sad to say! But imagine the young kids that grew up post mouse, who don’t even know what a mouse is. I was at a conference and a gentleman showed a photograph of his kid in a diaper, standing up at the television screen, touching it and wondering why he couldn’t change the channel by touching the screen. That’s what we’re dealing with. It’s interesting—there’s some research in China that shows that if you ask young people if they use the internet, they’ll say no. But if you ask them if they use Facebook or some other platform, they’ll say yes. Their Internet is like our electricity.  We take it for granted. That’s the marketplace of the future. Sadly, we’re still relevant, but we’re not the ones driving the future.

In your mind what are the most exciting future trends? Which will be more important, mobile, social or gaming?

I had the great privilege last weekend of participating in TEDxSF speaking on the topic of ‘Me First to We First Living.’ I wanted to post it with you in the hope that you would share it with your community to help get the We First message out there. Shifting the thinking and behavior behind the private sector is a large challenge that requires all our energy as brands stewards, customers and citizens.

Please note the credits for the amazing people that made this video possible including: ‘We-defining Me’ was written and performed by Sekou Andrews (http://www.sekouworld.com). Design and animation was by Troika (http://www.troika.tv). Original music and sound design was by Machine Head (http://www.machinehead.com).

Huge thanks to the wonderful TEDxSF organizing committee, thanks for sharing the tal with your community and you can order the We First book here.

I’ve written in the past about the great relief efforts of Zynga to aid the earthquake victims in Haiti. At the time I saw this as a powerful demonstration of what could become a consistent and transformative force for positive change in our world. In the shadow of the tragic consequences of the tsunami in Japan, Zynga and its game players have once again demonstrated a leadership position that should serve as an inspiration to other brands.

In less than three weeks, Zynga players banded together to raise more than $3 million for Save the Children’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund, as well as Direct Relief International. In a short twelve hours after the deadly tsunami hit, an initiative was launched across 8 games to raise money for relief – with 2 games following suit. What this demonstrates is not just the ability of social games and virtual goods to be enlisted in the service of emergency relief, but their critical ability to respond and scale quickly to match the scale of a disaster. This can serve as a powerful tonic to donor fatigue and fundraising shortages in the face of a series of natural disasters.

Such fundraising efforts can also be tactical. In just 36 hours, Zynga players raised over $1 million – followed by a Twitter “flash fundraiser,” that leveraged a live SXSW Interactive event – rallying top celebrities, including Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher and the Jonas Brothers, to tweet for the cause.  Adding more star power, Lady Gaga upped the ante donating $750,000 to the fundraising initiative with Save the Children through the sales of her Japan Prayer Bracelets.

The power of this approach is the marriage of the fun of social games with the contributions they generate through virtual goods. In the case of the tsunami relief effort, players had the opportunity to donate within games, or using a direct link, with 100 percent of the purchase price of these virtual items being donated to the fund. Here are some examples:

· Café World: Players could place Japanese inspired decorations in their Café to benefit the initiative.

· CityVille: Citizens could plant a limited edition sweet potato crop to feed their population and stock their restaurants.

· FrontierVille: Players could buy a limited edition Kobe cow to place in their frontier.

· FarmVille: Farmers could plant a limited edition daikon radish crop that never withers.

· FarmVille China: Farmers could purchase a medicinal herb.

· Mafia Wars: Players could purchase a limited edition Japanese Fan.

· Treasure Isle: Players could purchase a Shiba Inu to proudly display their support for Japan on their home island.

· Vamps: Players could purchase limited edition items within the game.

· Words With Friends: Players could donate directly by clicking on a Save the Children button inside the game.

· Zynga Poker: Fans going for a royal flush could donate by purchasing access to a VIP table.

· zBar: Players could donate directly by clicking on a Save the Children button inside the bar that sits across the top of their game on Facebook.

Such critical relief efforts are so simple to execute yet so powerful because they leverage gaming dynamics that then escalate the contributions to social causes. By making this possible, Zynga serves as a powerful example of a We First approach to business and social responsibility.

Such emergency relief efforts are merely the tip of the iceberg as the exponential growth and player appeal of gaming can be systemically linked fund-raising to improve the lives of millions in the real world. As the number of gamers explode around the world, as the amount spent on virtual goods increases, and as the importance of virtual currencies rises, the virtual world has the potential to become the most importance resource for rebuilding the real world.

Do you believe gaming should be used to deal with real world crises? What more do you think game makers could be doing?

Image: Tek-Tips

The web pays no heed to language, geographic or cultural boundaries. What began with the internalization of currency and expanded through multi-national corporations is now compounded by the seamless integration of social media users around the world. Our awareness and experience of the intimately connected global community that we now live in growing and this is transforming business

This shift disorientates companies. No longer are bricks and mortar HQ’s the hub of a brand. Nor are the websites they design as destinations. Rather, the center of a brand is constantly migrating within free-flowing conversations across different social networking platforms.

This shift has complicated business strategies, measurement and goals. It has caused an uneasy co-mingling of feeling of freedom and disorientation within the board rooms of companies and ad agencies.

Brands and marketers can either respond with fear or fortitude.

Choosing the latter, they can recognize that the depth of their commitment to social engagement is now their compass. They can become nimble, collaborative, and fascinated with technology and how it helps them hear and understand exactly what their customers want from them. They can embrace their potential reach, resonance and diversity by actively engaging and working with their global communities.

For instance, internally they can use Lingotek’s Collaborative Translation Platform (now integrated with Microsoft Sharepoint) to brainstorm, collaborate and translate all at the same time through crowdsourcing. For marketing they can crowdsource campaigns or product and service ideas like Mountain Dew, Starbucks or Levis. For corporate social responsibility, they embrace their role as custodians of global well being using the web and influencers to expand their contribution as with Proctor and Gamble’s ‘Give Health’ blogivation strategy.

Brands are free of geographic limits and have the opportunity to redraw the map of the business world along brandlines within the web. By doing so they can engage a new and existing customer base, expand brand awareness and reach, and ultimately dramatically elevate their brand. Thanks to the advent of social media, real time tools and translation software, the online world is up for grabs and the business landscape is virtually limitless.

Do you see the online world a place for brands to grow and reinvent themselves? Or do you think the real world still retains control?