Can we learn social etiquette from 1908? Tricky. Read on…

I took some flak last week online from a long-time online friend for sending her a LinkedIn invitation-to-connect, but without (gasp) adding a personal message. Now, I was catching up on a bunch of LinkedIn stuff and realized there were dozens of friends and colleagues I wanted to invite. Also, I’ve been using the standard “Dennis Van Staalduinen would like to connect with you” template for years without thinking about it, and never stopped to think how impersonal that might be.

But her reaction got me thinking of Social Etiquette in general and how the online world and the “norms” of the offline and online worlds get a bit muddled up. And how, without a manual, it’s easy to cross lines and offend people without realizing it.

Which brings me to the manual – and yes there really is one. Or should I say “was”? Below, I stitched together a few iPhone / Instagram shots I took from a delightful old book I have in my office from 1908 called the New American Encyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information.

As you can see, things change a lot. But do they really change that much?

The book – which is awesome – was an ambitious project purporting to teach upstart Americans all kinds of “useful” European skills like how to play the violin, dance, speak German and French, and play polo, among other self-improvement pursuits. How about a magic trick where you pull a cannon ball from a hat? It’s in there!

The section on Letters of Introduction is to the right. What do you think? Could that serve as an etiquette manual for introductions on LinkedIn? I’m not sure, it’s pretty heavy. But it certainly sounds like what my friend was trying to tell me about my lapse in social judgement.

But a few things have changed: 1) the tone of snooty confidence,  2) the idea that all things on earth can be contained in one volume (who needs Google?), and 3) the classic old illustrations – including one of an early form of “planking” (see above).

If you’re interested, I can post some more nuggets. Or if you’re really eager, you can find the whole book in PDF form here. (Warning: it’s HUGE.) Particularly interesting are sections on “Health for women” (spoiler: not very progressive), “The automobile” (debates whether steam, electric or gasoline will prevail), and the dancing section (check out the Polka instructions which are just hilarious).

A friend who is a former Brandvelope client recently asked a question I’ve had to answer a lot over the years: what are the most important things to consider when two brands come together? Good question.

Photo by JD Hancock (who is awesome), used under Creative Commons Attribution license

The nature of the beast: risky but potentially awesome

In my friend’s case, his company is going through a friendly corporate merger / mutually agreed upon buyout – probably the best case scenario for a scenario where two established brands come together. It’s not a hostile takeover or a desperate fire sale, and the executive teams are merging as well, so players from both sides get to help make the calls.

But whether it’s a friendly handshake or a bitter feud, any time two companies come together for whatever reason, there is always uncertainty, turmoil, and potentially, lost or confused customers. And one of the touchiest issues is the brand assets – corporate, product, and otherwise.  Which brands, if any, will survive?

But wait a minute. Before you think about any of this, you need to work on one thing…

The one big question you need to answer

What is the big customer win? 

Essentially, you need to figure out as soon as possible why a customer would want your brands to come together. Not you. Not the other company. Not the shareholders or bankers. The people who pay you to do what you do.

I always tell my clients to think of this: “What do you want your key customer contact to tell their boss in plain, human language to keep them calm when they hear a big change is coming?”

Because if you don’t answer that question, they’ll find their own answer. And you may not like what they say.

And you can bet they’re not going to want to say “they’re hoping to make more money” and they definitely won’t quote that bit in your Press Release where you say “this will enable our newly combined entity to maximize market and production efficiencies and better address global supply chain… (etc. etc.)”

The story you want them to tell is the single most important thing you will decide – and it will make all the other decisions much, much, easier.

10 important brand decisions:

1. How and when you will communicate to customers (hint: early and often) . 
2. What you promise them (early and often - about the services they rely on)
3. Who to put on your internal change team (and you need one).
4. Which corporate brand adds more value (not always the bigger company).
5. Whether to merge names or choose one (or consider launching a new brand).
6. What products and projects need to die or be phased out (and do it).
7. What products and services should survive (and be promoted to marquee brands)
8. Whether to use launch as a chance to make a big splash (in the old market or even a new one).
9. Whether to use launch as a chance to refresh approach to technology (CRM / Social media / Web site).
10. How and when to use outsiders like me (because you often need someone to moderate who can say important things insiders can’t)

Oh, and did I mention to keep everyone focused on the big customer win?

 I’d love to hear from you if you have examples of brand mergers that have gone very right or very wrong. What do you think?

Yesterday, a friend linked to the video below, wondering why Ashton Kutcher and advertiser popchips would post such a “racist video”. Then an online debate broke out about whether it is racist or not. I won’t paddle into that one, but I will offer this…

(Guitar Riff. Maniacal laughter.) WIPEOUT!!!

Anyone who’s had a joke fall flat knows that  humour is a tricky balance. It’s like surfing a wave. You’ve got to ride the edge between keeping your audience laughing and “sucking water” (so to speak).

But “edgy” humour is an even bigger wave, and humour dealing with controversial topics like gender, race, is the biggest, nastiest wave of all. Only the most skillful comedians can hold themselves on that edge without making people angry.  Peter Sellers did it brilliantly in The Party by creating a character that with stereotypes, but ends up making most of us love him. Will some people be offended? Sure they will. But most will sense the risk, see your skill, and cringing, go along for the ride.

Ashton Kutcher? Sorry my friend. Stick to the small waves.

Or better yet. Stay on the beach.

Update: The ad has been pulled by popchips.

Brandvelope client EnergyMobile launches new mobile app

Disclosure: This is an article about a client’s product, so we may be a wee bit biased. But we can also get you a free pass, so read on!

Our house. Big power. Lacking cents.

If you’re like me, you prefer not to think about electricity. Or how much you’re spending on it. But a few things have conspired in my life to make power use a real “hot wire”:

• 1) Three growing kids. Suddenly, our house has gone from 2-3 loads of laundry per week to 8-10 loads and climbing. That’s a lot of power, and it ain’t cheap.
• 2) Increasing daycare costs. With three kids in daycare, we’re having to penny-pinch like never before, so suddenly “invisible” costs like food, water, and energy bills are in the spotlight as places to save some money.
• 3) Ontario time-of-use metering. For non-Ontario folks who haven’t encountered this, rates for power are cheaper during hours considered “off-peak” for a given time of year – basically, an incentive to wash your potty-training toddler’s pee-soaked socks (yes I said socks) late at night or really early morning.
• 4) Me being an idiot. As I said, energy has never been a top-of-mind concern for me, so I have no idea what a kilowatt-hour means, and I can never remember what time the price changes, or how much money I’m actually saving.
• 5) Carbon footprint. Last one, but it’s got to be on my list with a seven year old daughter who is becoming militant about making sure polar bears don’t have to swim too far. And while time of use isn’t about using less energy per se, it turns out there are lots of easy things all of us can do to save energy, money, and hopefully, save polar bears without using giant polar water wings.

So we’re trying to save energy, but we need help

That’s why it was so cool to work with Tim Johnson as he developed, refined, and launched this iPhone app (at right). Because it’s really designed for, well, me – and people like me, who want to save energy, but are too busy or forgetful to get into the right habits without help.

Basically, like Tim’s other business Energy Insight (also a Brandvelope client) it’s about making Energy concepts easy to understand and giving people convenient tools to help them do the right thing without getting a degree in electrical engineering.

Here’s the basic idea of Powercents from an Ottawa Citizen article yesterday:

Called Powercents, the smart-phone app by EnergyMobile Studios of Ottawa is billed as a tool to help Ontario consumers make better decisions about household energy use.

“The best way to do that is with good, simple access to information that is not clouded by any specific agenda,” EnergyMobile founder Tim Johnson said.

The main screen is all about Time of Use, and helping you see what the rates in Ontario are right now, and how soon they’ll change, so you can plan a bit better.

But even better, as you can see at right, there are lots of charts to help you understand exactly how much money you’re saving with big power hogs like dishwashers and laundry machines.

So check it out!

You can buy it yourself from the iPhone store. It’s $1.99. And let us know what you think.

Or, get it for free! If you’re one of the first five people to retweet or Like this post, (and you live in Ontario) I’ll send you a code for a free download.

Putting the passion back in your brand.

My sister Sharon, who knows I’ve recently been doing product naming work for a high-end chocolate brand (more on that when it’s public),  sent me a link she said I needed to see. You can watch the embedded YouTube vid below. It’s an absolutely brilliant short film / advertorial by a Hamilton, Ontario student filmmaker Gemma Holdway.  Watch for my favourite line in the ad: “It’s just chocolate!”

Watch this before reading further:

What I love about this

1) It’s clearly an ad, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Like the best viral ads you’ll see on Superbowl Sunday or in a Facebook link, it manages that tricky balance: it’s obviously designed to sell something – in this case chocolate – while at the same time keeping the content fresh and fun with great performances and a great little set-up.

2) It’s clearly targeted, but inclusive. It’s no secret that women are easily the richest target demographic for chocolate advertising. So this ad, and the contest that inspired it, are for, and all about, women. But yet, this ad also manages to be fresh and funny to everyone. Even me. And I’m the Russian judge.

3) It tells a great brand story. The narrative is what elevates this above “just chocolate” advertising. By casting the brand as the hero of a compelling, emotion-laden story, this effort soars above 98.65% (roughly) of product-focused chocolate advertising.

4) It’s not heavy-handed. Divine Chocolate makes no secret that it’s fair-trade and farmer-owned. And the tag line “Heavenly Chocolate with a heart” certainly implies this. But unlike a lot of green or “cause” brands, it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. And this video is nicely in that vein. I might quibble that the “fair trade” idea could have been subtly worked into the script (sweatshop kiss booths perhaps?) but maybe it’s better without it.

5) It Differs. A lazier agency dealing with the name “Divine Chocolate” would have gone with a more obvious angle – like a chocolate version of the ongoing Philly Cream Cheese “Little taste of Heaven” campaign (by Canada’s J. Walter Thompson). But since the name already says “Divine”, it works better to play on other aspects of the brand.

And how many hunky angels and simpering women characters does the world need? Really.

"Is this heaven?" "No lady, it's Philadelphia."

What? Nice things about change?!?

Settle down. Yes, the Differ screams louder than anyone when we think Twitter is screwing something up – like ReTweets for example. We’ve even resorted to plagiarism and forced rhyme (sorry again Dr. Zeuss). Love is like that. But this time, we’re willing to put the Crit aside, because while it ain’t perfect. The new Twitter.com interface is really really good.

In case you haven’t see it. Before I get to the 10 reasons to like the new Twitter, you probably don’t see it yet. Here’s the word from Twitter on why, and how you can get into the New Twitter cool kids as well. For now, you need to download and use their new iPhone or Android app – which is how I got in. But if that’s not for you, here’s a good summary.

1. Classy new icons.

I’m starting with the most superficial-seeming change not because I think it matters, but because it actually does matter. The new top bar icons are lovely and they just make sense.

Okay, not just that. They make sense and they are playfully different – particularly the whimsical little bird house and the little feather they inserted into the Compose New Tweet button. A clear signal that the bird is back.

They main ones are also left aligned, as opposed to having an empty “Search” box at the left. This means the home button is actually where you expect a home button to be – as well as doing what average users expect it to. But more on that later.

2. It’s not for me.

I don’t mean that I don’t like it – I’ve already said that I do. I mean that new Twitter is not designed for power users like me or Gizmodo, it’s designed for those ordinary people who sign up for an account, and their first few Tweets look like this:

“Trying out this Twitter thing!” “Not getting the hype.” “Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?”

Seriously, you remember your first time? Unless you already had a tribe of active Twitter friends, the experience was pretty cold and dark. The new interface means that a couple of exploratory clicks will reward even the most green Tweeter with real, rich content. This is bound to improve the all important new user retention factor by giving people a reason to stick around.

3. Main section 1: Home

Once you click on that little birdhouse, this page has all the same stuff as the old “Home” button but the big change is that, as with all the new pages, the left navigation makes the whole thing make more sense as a home page.

4. Main section 2: Connect

The best part of this is the ability to distinguish between “Mentions” – who’s using your @ handle – and “Interactions” – the mentions plus all the followed / retweeted stuff that has recently been clogging all of our timelines. Love the ability to opt in or out of these.

The worst part is that DM Messages don’t appear here, which is what you’d expect. Instead they’re under the profile icon on the right hand side.

A better way to organize this would be to have the Connect page have Mentions as the default (since that’s what most people open our Twitter pages to see), then allow people to add or remove Interactions and Messages from the left hand navigation. Three options with Simple Check boxes should do it.

5. Main section 3: Discover

This is the main net-new section of the new twitter, and it is BRILLIANT. On the right you’ll see the different elements it brings together. All of which were in odd, non-intuitive places in the old interface. But now they’re grouped as one place to dig into Twitter beyond your own current followers, follows, and streams.

The stickiest part for me right now is Stories – which contains clips of media news items and blog posts that are selected for me based on my interests and how much discussion they’re generating.

But I also instantly found more value in the Activity, Who to Follow, and Find Friends sections.

6. Left hand navigation.

This will make many hard core Twitter faithful angry. But remember, this change not for us. Me, I swallowed my initial urge to Tweet about a massive user interface “FAIL”, and I suggest you do too. It only took a couple of clicks to get used to the new arrangement, and before I knew it, I was no longer looking for things. The one sure sign of Web design success.

7. In-line media.

Pictures basically pictures and movies can now appear right within a Tweet – and this is important – if you want them to. Twitter has been tinkering with this for years, but now it’s here in spades. And best of all, seamlessly in context (see the embedded Tweet in point number 10 below).

8. Brand pages.

I liked ‘em on Facebook, they’re growing on me in Facebook, and I love what I see on the pages of the 21 lucky uber brands that got in on the ground floor.

No, it’s not because I’m a branding and marketing guy, it’s because brand pages help me distinguish between ordinary mortals like this guy and brands like Coke or Pepsi (and yes, they’re both there competing again for your taste-test).

For brands, it gives them a bigger incentive to invest time, staff energy, and money in their Twitter presence, which means they’ll need to keep humanizing themselves – because that’s what works  for the community.

9. Revenue.

The best news for Twitter fans is that they finally seem to have figured out how to make money at this game without annoying users. The new brand pages, sponsored Tweets, and better multimedia will all add up to a more sustainable free app. Which is good.

It also signals Twitter’s bigger ambitions to become a major corporate player. Interesting that NYSE Euronext is one of the 21 chosen brands and not NASDAQ… Hmm. IPO in the air?

10. Embedding Tweets and buttons.

Not for the average user, but for bloggers like me, it means I can more easily share Twitter content. For example, check out this page to create custom buttons and widgets, like this one for an Ottawa holiday party next week:

Tweet #SOHOHO

Or, you can embed a Tweet like the one below, and it’s real live content with intact links and context, and not a screen grab. This means tweets are even easier to share, discuss, and publish across platforms. Like this:

@DenVan working on a #newtwitter blog post now.May I make this my first embedded tweet?

— Tonia Ries (@tonia_ries) December9, 2011

Learning from Punk without being a punk

Two weeks ago, the Differ’s guest post Punk It Loud! Why Social Media Needs More Punk appeared on a new blog Punk Views on Social Media - along with the thoughts of a bunch of other punks he respects and hangs out with online. And of course, it generated *much* more traffic and many more comments than Beg to Differ ever gets (insert humility).  Here are some follow-up thoughts.

Creative Commons License: photo by Christian Holmér

Confessions of a coward

In that post, I “came out” as a poseur punk. I was never actually a punk by the standard social definitions of the times, even though I hung out with punks, listened to the music, danced and generally snarled a lot.  And my life today at 42 certainly doesn’t scream “punk”. But as the comments made very clear: 1) I wasn’t alone, and 2) it didn’t matter. It was the *idea* of capital P Punk that a lot of us poseurs carried with us as we grew older.

One of the commenters, Kyle Judkins responded to this line in my post:

But I was a coward, way too straight-laced to get a weird haircut, body piercings, or any superficial paraphernalia that defined punk at the time.

He thanked me for tagging the safety pins / hairdos etc. as “superficial paraphernalia” because he had originally been worried that we “Punk Views” writers were talking about that stuff. The *fad* of punk. Which would be kind of like a man in his fifties pretending he’s still a 1980′s era breakdancer - as in a TEDx Ottawa talk I saw a few weeks ago. Good heart. Great message. But… um… culturally awkward.

My thought back to Kyle was:

The external trappings of Punk were never actually very punk were they? And I guess the same goes for any revolutionary movement – whether Occupy <fill in the blank> , the Tea Party, or the French revolution, as soon as a movement gains an internal orthodoxy and pecking order it loses its edge. That’s why I like punk as a *verb* rather than a noun.

So yeah, don’t go pulling out your old punk gear in some sad search for your forgotten youth. Punk was never a uniform. It’s a verb.

And as you read these 5 “lessons” that formed the core of that post, feel free to insert the words “brand” “business” “charity” “government” or whatever where it says “social media” or “heavy metal / opera / jazz / whatever” where it says “punk”.

Or don’t. You’re punk. Find your own way!

5 reasons social media (or whatever) needs more Punk (or whatever)

1. Punk doesn’t take itself too seriously. What most people didn’t get about punk was that it was a joke. I don’t mean that it wasn’t important. I mean that at its core, punk was parody, a joke played on the rest of the world. You all dress one way? Fine, we’ll do the opposite. You value top-forty disco? Fine, how about this aural assault? Like the jester at the banquet, the punk is the one who sees through the poses and the pomp, and sees where to poke the holes. On social media, I’m finding the most valuable people are those who take their ideas seriously, but notthemselves.
2. Punk is about playing (loud). The punk attitude is about playing – playing a part, playing with ideas and roles, and playing out different possibilities. Taking them apart. Turning them inside out. Cranking up the volume. This constant state of play is what allows people with a punk attitude to keep evolving, changing, growing new brain cells. And in social media, it’s the attitude that drives creative connections and brilliant moments of serendipity. It’s also why nobody can ever script or template success in social media (beware the “proprietary systems”). You’ve just got to get in there and play it out.
3. Punk says anybody can do it. Punk was the ultimate DIY movement. You didn’t need to be a classically trained musician to play punk, and you didn’t get your clothes – or your ideas – from Woolco. This was the ethic that made punk like early social media: chaotic, confusing, but ultimately a flat playing field where anyone could play. That’s why I feel like I have a right to put my content alongside anyone else’s. Because, actually, I do. Not because I’m special, but because anybody can. As Martin Luther King Jr. never (ever) said: “Don’t judge me by the colour of my Klout score, but by the character of my content.”
4. Punk sneers at popularity. Sorry popular kids. Punks are iconoclasts by definition. We learned in high school that popularity doesn’t equal substance. We learned not to idolize airheaded jocks and bitchy prom queens just because we were expected to.  So in social media, the more popular you are, the higher your follower count, blog ranking, or Klout score, the more the punks will challenge and dissect the work you do. Fair is fair, so we won’t disrespect you as people. But we will demand more of you. To question your ideas and hold you accountable for the very influence you seek.
5. Punk begs to differ. The idea of punk is to try out alternatives. To put a little twist on normal and see it from the other side. I named my own humble blog (warning: link-pimpage ahead) Beg to Differ because I’m obsessed with difference – and from a marketing and branding standpoint, differentiation. How do people and products stand out and get noticed?  And that’s really the point of this exercise too. The key question is: how do we keep social media fresh, democratic, and open to anyone with real value to share?

Cities like Ottawa need to cultivate weirdness. Not weed it out!

A story in yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen got the Differ really angry. Angry enough to.. wait for it… start a Facebook page! Seems an Ottawa bus driver named Yves Roy has made himself into a minor cult celebrity around town by singing behind the wheel. And it seems that after years of at worst allowing, and at best praising Roy for his singing, the management at OC Transpo have decided to “play it safe”. We Beg to Differ.

“Boring” is the weed. Weird is the fruit.

When I used to travel the world as a brand evangelist in the software industry, I got a chance to see a lot of cities. And among them, I had to see way too much of the big three Texas cities. Sorry Texas. But Dallas/Forth Worth, Houston, and San Antonio are not my favourite places to visit. At all. They’re big. They’re nice-ish. I met nice people. But they never made me say “wow”. And what’s worse, they never gave me a story to tell.

Which is why it was so refreshing  to find a little weirdo sitting in the middle of all of them: Austin. It’s a city of about 800,000 – roughly the same size as my home town of Ottawa – and like Ottawa, it’s a capital city, so lots of government workers and bureaucentrism. But what’s nice is that the folks in Austin are fiercely proud of its weirdness – even going so far as to brand a movement to “Keep Austin Weird“.

And I’ll tell you, all around the world, the cities that are the most impressive, the most memorable, and the most energetic, are also the weirdest ones. Great cities throw you into weird, quirky, even unsettling situations, but they always give you a story to tell.

Which brings us back to the singing bus driver

Yves Roy.

The bureaucratic smack-down of the singing bus driver came in the same week that OC Transpo is dealing with nasty public reaction to YouTube videos of a bus driver apparently shouting obscenities at a handicapped passenger and talking on a cellphone on the highway.

And yes, there are complaints. Weirdness always causes complaints. And sure, it can be annoying. As David Reevely writes:

I’ve been on Roy’s bus, in a sour mood after a bad day, and I dearly wished he would shutupshutupSHUTUP! so I could have a moment’s peace while I stared out the window and tried not to think about anything. And I’ve been on Roy’s bus in a better frame of mind and loved every bar, and also loving that I lived in a city that could produce this guy. Both attitudes are reasonable: it’s not fair to force passengers to listen to music they don’t want to hear, and yet at the same time Yves Roy is awesome.

He ends his article by concluding that asking him to stop “is definitely the safe thing to do.” Yup. Safe it is. Smart? Not if you want to build a city that people want to tell stories about.

So here’s my suggestion to the mayor

Yes that means you Jim Watson. Turn this into a positive story of city-building weirdness.

1. Pass a motion in council to create an “Ottawa Super Awesomeness Award” (or whatever you want to call it).
2. Create a policy with OC Transpo that bus drivers are not permitted to sing unless they have been given the aforementioned award.
3. Give Yves Roy the award and make a big deal about celebrating Ottawa’s famous (and only) Singing Bus Driver.
4. Get him to sing the national anthem in Council, and try to arrange having him sing at a Senators game, the National Capital Marathon, or other big events.

Voila. Problem solved. Yves Roy is celebrated as the quirky stand-out he is. OC Transpo gets a policy to make sure not every bus driver with a tin ear decides to do the same.

And Ottawa gets one more weirdo icon to call its own.

Oh, and one more thing Mr. Mayor. Please do “LIKE” the Facebook page while you’re here. Every bit helps.

Can’t we all get along? Nope. Here’s why.

Last week we chronicled a Twitter “cage match” between Social Media gurus Dan Zarrella and Jason Falls - two guys in the same industry who speak at the same conferences, and even hang out together. On the surface, not that different. But yet, they found a reason to have a public and at times personal, argument over what might seem to be a small semantic point: the definition of “science”. And apparently that made one of them mad enough to want to punch a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter…  An aberration? Nope. It’s just human.

Baptists on a bridge

It reminded me of the classic “Baptist Joke” by the brilliant – and definitely different – Emo Phillips.

While you’re watching it, focus on three things: 1) The story he tells. It’s hilarious, but why? More on that later. 2) Emo’s style of delivery – how he plays with the comedy conventions and finds his own oddball path, and 3) How and where the audience reacts. I’ve linked to a longer “horse-face” version of the joke so you can see how he builds on it.

I’ll give you a minute to stop laughing. There. Done?

A bridge too far.

It’s especially funny to me because I come from a similarly schismatic tradition. The Dutch Calvinist / reformed tradition I grew up in has splintered over the years into dozens of tiny denominations – many of which are still busy splitting into still smaller groups.

How bad are we Dutch Calvinists? The scene: it’s late 1944, during the fury of the final Allied push through the Netherlands. The Scheldt campaign is underway and the disastrous “Bridge Too Far” battle fails to capture the bridge at Arnhem. The Nazis have cut off food supplies and 18,000 people are dying of starvation, with millions eating (no joke) tulip bulbs to survive. Harder, more dangerous times than I’ve ever experienced.

But yet, my spiritual ancestors are bickering with each  in a church basement. And that fight turns into a massive, church-splitting battle among themselves over… again, this is not a joke…. whether or not to sing hymns in church!

Seeing the bridges for the girders.

The problem is, like them, we often lose sight of the 95% of things we have in common, and have bloody battles over the teeny tiny 5% extra that separates us. Silly? Yes! Tragic? Definitely! But skipping over the “sames” and going straight to the “differs” is just how our brain works. And it can be a good thing too.

After all, it’s the same instinct that a wine connoisseur uses to tell you with one sip which year, region, and side of an Italian hill a wine comes from.

It’s the same instinct that lets a brand manager build a family of related products for customers (or confuse the heck out of them with meaningless differentiators).

But yes, it also leads people to slaughter their neighbours for looking a bit different, or worshiping a different god.

Which is why the world needs bridges – and jokes

In a divine irony, that “differ” impulse is also what makes a joke like Emo’s funny to us.  Humour relies on a twist in our expectations. As you listened to Phillips, he led you to *think* you knew where he was going. Two guys with a lot in common, find that in the end they really have something to live for, right?

Wrong. The unexpected violence of the ending rips apart the pattern and shows us where a real human flaw lies. And that’s why you laugh. Because Emo used your brain to fool you into seeing the truth.

I’ll wrap up with a  quote from Emo Phillips about jokes in the Guardian when he learned the Baptist joke had been voted The Best God Joke Ever:

Jokes are our safety-release mechanism. Sure they can sometimes be offensive. So can burps. But if you ban them even worse results happen. And believe me, if someone tells a joke that truly offends, he or she will be punished for it. That’s one area for sure where the government can take it easy and relax.

Can I get an “Amen” for brother Phillips?!?

The big A-lister cage match on Twitter

So this afternoon, a fascinating debate happened on Twitter. And the topic? Well, Twitter. Or more specifically, how data and tests about Twitter behaviour are packaged. Can we call the use of those stats “science”? Dan Zarrella makes a living saying yes. Jason Falls begs to differ. The results? Entertaining for the rest of us.

Enjoy the show!

Below, I provide an exhaustive blow-by-blow of their conversation. First, note: I respect both these guys. But I admit a bit of bias. Though Dan Zarrella has lots of interesting insights about how we behave on social media, I’ve always been curious about his characterization of himself as a “Social Media Scientist”. Clever positioning. But is what he does really “science”? You decide.

Background reading if you’re not familiar with the combatants:

• Jason Falls very uncritically promoting Zarrella’s “scientific analysis” (his words).
• Dan Zarrella critiquing the “Unicorns and Rainbows” and arguing for a more scientific approach.

Please let me know what you think in the comments: who won? Does it matter?

You should see the story above. No? Click here for the whole match.

(Images from Flickr used under Creative Commons licenses: Dan Zarrella – by Technosailor. Jason Falls by jdlasica)