So…

I went to IU’s first annual iPhone Developer Conference today.  I saw that there were going to be some empty seats and then I basically got a personal invitation from the staff to come on in (”Who is going to eat these 37 leftover ham sandwiches?”).  I couldn’t refuse.

The conference was hashed on Twitter (#IUiPhone) and very well documented on Google Wave (with:public IUiPhone), due in large part to @rec54 and @kmakice respectively – Thanks!  Without trying to duplicate what has already been recorded, here are some key quotes from what I would characterize as a set of enthusiastic, insightful sessions…

Steve Hayman

National Consulting Engineer for Apple’s US Education Sales group, trombone enthusiast

From his keynote speech:

There are so many ways to wrap up public data and make it look nice…  If you are already an HTML and JavaScript programmer, creating a web application for the iPhone should seem very familiar.

A key advantage of web apps over native apps is that you get them up quickly and deploy them without any hassle.

I cannot recommend the Stanford iPhone programming course strongly enough.

August Trometer

Co-founder and Lead Developer, Yowza!!

On the evolution of an iPhone app:

How to become a millionaire iPhone developer:  First, get a million dollars.  Then, develop an iPhone app.

The goldrush, the easy money, is over.  Get over it.  Now you need a great product that sets itself apart.

Apple has set the bar very high with their own design standards.  Try to beat them at their own game!  If you are successful, they will notice you.

You should spend 50% of your time on design, 35% on coding, and 15% on testing and debugging.

The new interaction metaphor is the finger. . . Now you can touch your data, interact with it.  The finger is not a mouse!  It’s 55 x 55 pixels, not 1 x 1.  All design considerations must take this into account.

Use real-world metaphors in your design. . . A reader app that swipes like a real page, a tip calculator that mimics the bill you see.

Know the rules.  Read the HIG (Human interface guidelines) over and over!  If you don’t, the app will get rejected.

Focus on user-centered design.  Figure out the easiest way for users to complete the most common tasks.

Paper is cheap.  Prototype your ideas out on paper over and over again.  Sketch every screen, every interaction.  Sketch at the size of the iPhone and it will force you to make the app finger-safe.

When Apple reviews your app it will be rejected, and that’s a good thing.  They go to the shadowy corners of your app to flush out bugs.

You should always be embarrassed by your 1.0 version.  Don’t be afraid of lameness, just get developing.

I’ve downloaded over a thousand apps.  I look at them for inspiration, particularly the shiny, graphically superior ones.

Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones and iPods Touch combined.  If you write an app that’s useful for you then somebody, somewhere, in some niche will also find it useful.

Marie Kerbeshian

Vice President, IU Research & Technology Corporation

On copyrights, patents, and IU’s intellectual property policy:

If you are using university resources and you invent something patentable, it belongs to the university.

Copyright exists the moment you create something in a tangible medium.

It’s the person who solves the problem, not the person who identifies the problem, that gets the rights.

Overall the conference was well put together and well attended (over 200 people!).  Among the attendees were programmers, designers, administrators, students, faculty, and others, and I haven’t met a person yet that wasn’t pleased with the experience.

In fact I’m starting to wish I was notified any time there were 37 leftover ham sandwiches waiting to be eaten somewhere on campus.

. . . Maybe there’s an app for that.

Still thinking about the ladder from Groundswell.

A huge obstacle to many companies right now is that their customers are higher on the ladder than they are.  I can count on one hand the number of non-tech marketing managers I’ve met that fall above the “joiners” rung on the ladder, and most are spectators or inactives.  How should a business school market itself to prospective students and interact with its current ones?  How can a consumer durables manufacturer penetrate a ripe college market in its own hometown?  Generally, how does a manager who sits low on the social technographic ladder figure out how to engage a socially tech-savvy demographic?

Much of the difficulty stems from the fact that many managers don’t yet believe that this flavor of engagement is even necessary.  This is changing and will continue to change, especially as success stories across a variety of industries become more widespread and more public.  So in a sense there are two separate issues:  First, how do you convince someone that they need to move up the ladder, and second, how do you help them actually do it.

As far as convincing is concerned, it must first be noted that not everyone can be convinced.  But a key step in the right direction is to figure out a person’s motivations and incentives and go from there.  Does Joe Unbeliever really think there’s no utility to blogging?  Or does he just not care because it doesn’t affect him?

If it’s a utility issue, there are ways to handle it.

The vast majority of organizations outside Silicon Valley are staggeringly inept at projecting what they see and hear about social media onto their own strategies and tactics. As a result, many managers and other employees within the organizations just don’t see the point of doing it.  The antidote to this type of thinking is to present the utility and the doability of a social media strategy in real, quantifiable terms.  Sales.  Reach.  Return on Marketing Investment.  New customers acquired.

What if you are dealing with a person who not only doesn’t see the point, he also isn’t even evaluated based on those metrics?  Just remember that people can be motivated in a variety of ways, not all of which are obvious.  Consider such desires as acceptance, curiosity, honor, independence, power, social contact, status, safety.

Assuming for a moment that we are at the point where we have a person or group that is ready and willing to start moving up, what happens next?  Some of it can happen more naturally because it is easy to do.  Posting a quick comment on a picture or video is a fairly easy way to enter the conversation.  Other levels of engagement can be more taxing.  How do you get somebody to blog?  Anyone that has tried to coach a prospective blogger into becoming an actual blogger knows that people don’t always just jump up and do it.  In fact they hardly ever do, even when they actually kind of want to.

How do you coach yourself or someone else from standstill to creativity?

That’s an entry for next time.

A lot of people think Twitter is stupid.  I used to, and actually sometimes I still do.  But really, it’s not so much Twitter that’s useless, so much as the way people use it sometimes (myself included!).  It may be largely due to tweets like these.  But if I listened to my 14-year-old self talking on the phone I’d think the phone was useless too.  The beauty of the platform is that it can be used for just about anything, ranging from world-event-shaping to mundane.  Here are 5 twitter users to follow if you feel like you still “just don’t get it” :

@guykawasaki

He’s a famous entrepreneur and founded Alltop.com, which aggregates content in a way that the most useful or interesting rises to the top.  His tweets usually send you back to Alltop.com and range from useful marketing tips to random interesting content.

@lindseypollak

She wrote the book “Getting from College to Career” and is excellent to follow if you are a college student or graduate trying to get a job.

@digg_2000

People surf the internet, find content (pictures, video, etc.) they like, and “digg” the content, i.e., vote for it.  When a piece of content reaches 2,000 “diggs”, it automatically gets broadcast by this account.  The content is sometimes useful but usually just interesting, humorous, or otherwise entertaining.

@techcrunch

This is the twitter feed of the TechCrunch Blog, one of the preeminent resources on the web for breaking technology news and opinions.

@badbanana

This is Tim Siedell, a brand communications director from Nebraska.  The tweets are rarely useful, always funny.  Think Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts plus a web strategy.

I just read Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.  The book reads as a tactician’s guide to succeeding as a business in the world of social media.  One of the most useful and insightful gems from the book is the Social Technographics ladder.

Creators

Creators publish blogs, publish their own webpages, upload their own videos and music, and write and post their own stories.

Critics

Critics post ratings and reviews, they comment on blogs and other websites, they contribute to online forums, and they contribute to and edit wiki articles.

Collectors

Collectors use RSS feeds, add tags to web pages or photos, and “vote” for sites online.

Joiners

Joiners visit and maintain profiles on social networking sites.

Spectators

Spectators Read blogs, watch video other users have uploaded, listen to podcasts, read online forums, and read customer ratings and reviews.

Inactives

Inactives do nothing.  It’s not that they don’t use the internet, it’s just that they don’t participate in its social components.

The marketer’s challenge

The process of engaging people in online spheres is a multi-step process.  The first step is to figure out where on the ladder your customers fit, and the second step is to devise a strategy to engage them in that spot.  For example, if your customers are primarily spectators, attempting to get them to blog or post videos about you will likely be difficult.  If your customers are primarily critics, a successful strategy could likely be built that incorporates reviews and other participation.

I’m starting to think more and more that the power of a tweet or other piece of content can be distilled down to just a few basic parameters.  The two that stick out to me most are utility and entertainment value, though there are sure to be others.  Just sticking to these two for now, take a few examples on Twitter:

@badbanana

This guy seems more like Jack Handey (of Deep Thoughts fame) than the creative director of a Nebraska communications studio:

I didn’t have to chew my leg off to get out of that boring meeting, but doing so certainly sent a strong message.

Utility:  Somewhere near 1/10.

Entertainment: 8/10.

@guykawasaki

Famous internet entrepreneur, founder of Alltop.  A couple of sample tweets:

How to get the most marketing bang out of your next event http://om.ly/bXdm

Reverse graffiti artist http://om.ly/bXbw

Utility: 8/10.

Entertainment: 7/10.

@twitter_tips

Tips, tools, and status.  A running twitter bible, basically:

The lists you are on “tag” you…& make people search better: http://j.mp/1cjOgA –Share: http://bit.ly/1J1hmZ

Utility:  9/10.

Entertainment:  3/10.

So let’s plot this all out…

These strategies are different from each other and each works well to meet the specific goals toward which it is oriented.  What’s common among all three is that they engage by giving, by adding interest and value.  A marketer contemplating social media strategies would do well to consider potential content within this framework.  If it falls in the bottom left corner, it’s probably time to rethink the content.