12seconds.tv can be best described as the video version of Twitter.  You have 12 seconds to describe what you’re doing, or, say, demonstrate how to open a pistachio nut by running over it with a car.

What’s it good for?

Quick, witty videos.  Have you ever noticed that the crux of many popular YouTube videos lasts only a couple of seconds, while the surrounding three minutes is extremely boring?  Well, in this respect, 12 seconds is a huge improvement for certain types of video.  You cut straight to the important part.  Also, just like everything these days, it will link to Twitter and Facebook.

Who could use it?

There are some interesting possibilities here.  First, it’s an interesting tool in the context of identity management.  You could give your blog, website, and twitter feed all a professional slant, while reserving your 12Seconds channel for interesting personal content.  A few unobtrusive links between the two would allow followers in one network the chance to see your personal side without it being broadcast on the exact same wavelength as your professional communications.  The platform is rather appropriate for the context – While it might take me an entire blog entry to describe an analytics package or a business tool, I can’t imagine needing any more than 12 seconds of video to convey the idea that I built a bonfire in my backyard that was visible from space.

Secondly, 12Seconds has some interesting implications as a method of driving traffic.  If a 12 second video can be made to generate enough interest to stimulate a user to click through to a product site, a blog, or just another piece of content that continues to engage, that little clip is doing its job.

What are its Downsides?

Well, first of all, it’s in Beta, so in some ways it is too simple.  For example, the video upload section states, “We accept many common file types”, while all I have been able to upload so far are WMVs and MOVs.

Second, you only have 12 seconds.  So Total Eclipse of the Heart will just have to stay on YouTube for now.  There are just certain types of content that you can’t develop much in 12 seconds.  While you might be able to answer the question “Will it Blend?” in 12 seconds, you probably can’t really develop much of an answer for “How do I build a website?”.  As a case in point, my fist attempt at using the platform was to try to string together some clips to show how I made rice krispy treats with my kids a few days ago.  I will only say that it was fragmented beyond all hope.

Final Thoughts

The key takeaway on using 12Seconds is this:  If something is the size of a chocolate chip, it’s not useful to make it taste like 17 different things.  Short, sweet, and focused is the name of the game.

In a year of stalking and writing love notes to corporate MBA recruiters, I have ended up doing quite a bit of background research on various companies.  Two of my favorites are Danaher and 3M.  These are multi-billion dollar industrial conglomerates that build a lot of stuff we know about (Danaher makes Craftsman tools, for example, and 3M makes Post-it Notes), along with even more stuff we’ve never heard of but can’t live without (industrial water purification and airplane wing tape, for example).  The two companies are different in the way they approach product development, and comparing the two  makes for an interesting discussion of “What is marketing”.

3M:  Invent something cool, then find a use for it and commercialize it.

If 3M’s development model can be described in a single sentence, this is it.  And 3M’s history of innovation certainly makes a strong case for it.  Ask a 3M employee, for example, how their popular Command wall hangers were developed…  Well I have asked, and the answer is not, “We discovered a need for convenient removable wall hangers and so we set out to create a product that would satisfy that need.”  Rather, the response goes something like, “We invented this totally awesome sticky stuff that would not come off through direct pressure but came off easily when stretched laterally.  Then we went out and found a use for it.”  I suspect the development of products like the Post-It Note and Scotch Tape followed a similar path.

What is the development model here?  It is an initial focus on scientific invention and creative development, followed by an effort to find ways to commercialize what has been developed.

Danaher:  Capture the Voice of the Customer and Invent Accordingly.

Ask any Danaher marketing manager what they are passionate about as a marketer, and you won’t get past the first sentence without hearing the acronym “V.O.C.”, or Voice-of-Customer. This is the phrase they use to describe the process of figuring out what a customer needs or wants, and then inventing a product or solution to meet those needs.  Take the GearWrench X-Beam for example.  After exhaustive interviewing and observation of mechanics in their day-to-day activities it was discovered that it can become a significant source of hand fatigue to pull on a regular wrench day-in and day-out.  Try loosening a particularly ornery bolt with a standard wrench and the problem is immediately obvious – The skinny wrench digs into your hand when you apply a lot of pressure to it.

After making this observation, Danaher set out to use creative engineering to solve the problem.  The solution they can up with was a wrench that is rotated 90 degrees at the shaft, allowing pressure to be applied where the surface is broadest instead of where it is skinniest.  That simple change in design was enough to increase hand contact by 500%, torque by 25%, and net the GearWrench X-Beam the first ever hand tool commendation from the Arthritis Foundation.

What is the development model here?  The exact reverse of 3M’s…  Instead of starting with invention and moving to customer focus, Danaher starts with a focus on the voice and needs of the customer and ends with solution-finding through a streamlined and efficient process of invention and development.

Which is right?

Well, in this case, both.  3M is a science-based company whose strategic vision is to maintain a steady portfolio of newly developed products.  There is arguably no way to accomplish this strategic vision without giving scientists a certain amount of time to just “play around in the lab”, which to some degree is exactly what 3M does.  Danaher, in the strict sense, is more of a conglomerate.  Much of their growth is based on a strategy of acquiring other companies that fit well with their existing competencies, and in the business world Danaher has practically elevated this type of strategic acquisition to the level of art form.  As a result there must be a greater inherent focus on replicable, scalable processes.  And Danaher’s obsessive focus on capturing and responding to V.O.C. is just such a process.

Here’s an Angie’s List recommendation you’ll never see:

I’d just like to post a recommendation here for my painting business.  My crew are all great workers, they never come in late, and they are very careful.  They’ve all worked for me for over 3 years.  Call me today and we will provide you with a competitive price, excellent service, and timely completion!  Free estimates!

Self-promotion on a 3rd-party review site like Angie’s List is taboo, if not altogether impossible to do without blatantly cheating the system.  The very system is set up to allow a potential customer to receive unbiased recommendations from a party that does not have a vested interest in the transaction.

But here’s a Twitter update you do sometimes see!

Well, I just finished up a bowl of [my own product] down at [my own store]… It was sure delicious!  And healthy and affordable, too!  Stop on by [my store] to get out of the cold and try some!

Twitter as a tool is both more powerful and more diverse a tool than a simple third-party review site.  Figuring out how to use it in a business promotional context it can also be a little more confusing.  There’s no instruction manual, no standard best practices or limitations.  If we are accustomed to promoting a business through traditional advertising channels, it is only natural to want to use similar principles when promoting through Twitter.  Just tell people what makes us awesome, right?

Wrong.  People need to find out how awesome you are, but if it comes from you it is rendered invalid.  Unless you’re giving away a specific benefit, you’re not allowed to recommend or promote yourself!!!  It has to come from other people. There are many ways you can engage your customers on Twitter…  Advertisement-style self-promotion is not one of them.  This flavor of promotion is the equivalent of coming to a football game with your baseball gear … You may be doing a great job hitting that ball all over the place, but you’re playing the wrong game.

It has always seemed more or less straightforward to me how a consumer brand might use new capabilities in interpersonal connectedness to develop itself.  Business-to-Business dynamics in this context, however, have always been harder for me to imagine.  Why?  Perhaps it’s because B2B is generally thought of as interaction between organizations, not individuals.  It may also be because many of these types of purchasing decisions are so quantitatively driven that the “conversation” about the product just has a bit less proportional value.

Against this backdrop, I stumbled upon this little matrix the other day, courtesy of Ogilvy:

A glance at this table reminds us once again:  If a conversation can take place about something, Twitter either already is or soon will be a channel through which that conversation flows , and there are plenty of critical conversations taking place in Business-to-Business.

For industries and markets that are lagging in tech-savvy, the implications are twofold:

1. Those businesses that learn how to adopt and leverage these tools internally in spite of industry resistance will realize increased efficiencies that can give them competitive advantages over their peers.
2. As adoption becomes widespread and businesses begin to use these tools as instruments of engagement and dissemination, institutions that procrastinate adoption will find themselves gradually cut off from these new  key channels and markets, with potentially serious implications.