Jaffe Juice

Jaffe going cheap (relatively) all in the name of charity

I'm excited to be participating in a very worthy program (experiment) to help fight leukemia and lymphoma.

Conceived by Jennifer Leggio, who is participating in the Nike Women's Marathon on October 21st to raise $10,000 for Team in Training, the fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a motley crew of social media folksingers including Chris Brogan, fellow crayonista Greg Verdino, Joe Jaffe wannabee, Geoff Livingston, Aaron Strout and of course myself, will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

And before you get any ideas, this is about consulting or brainstorming time, not having your way with me...as cute as I am I know.

I decided to up the stakes a little bit and so instead of auctioning off 30 minutes or 1 hour, I've decided to make a truly social experience out of my "lot". So if you choose to bid on me, we'll be breaking bread and brainstorming over dinner. We can negotiate who pays for the scotch, ok?

The starting bid is $1,000 and the lot is valued at $10,000. Get within 50% either way and you're still getting a pretty good deal - all in the name of a good cause.

Update: First bid of $1,000 just received. Keep them coming!

My direct eBay link is here and the auction ends on June 6th so get busy!!!

Digg link here

Jennifer's original post here

Jaffe Juice #109 - American patriotism, eggs, Linkory, Meevio, Hertz and much more

Audio comments to +1 206 203-3255. This episode brought to you in partnership by the USPS and Deliver Magazine. Join the Jaffe Juice Facebook Group.

Direct download here

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0m – Star Spangled Banner from Jump5

2m – Hello from Sao Paulo; I’m going to take on an airline and prove to them that they can’t treat customers like they treated me on the way down to Brasil.

3m41 – I’m an American!!! Shout out to Cam Beck (become Joe Jaffe here). Check out my memory of becoming an American on new crayon client, Linkory.

15m45 – A trilogy of gifts – not only from Cam Beck, but also Robin Browne and Keith Burtis, who fulfills his social media miracle. Audio comments from Robin and Keith

24m35 – Challenges, Professional Communicators and Scaling Podcasting – all from the audio conversation starter from Jay Moonah. Link to Professional Communicator, Eric Eggertson.

(for some reason I keep referring to Eric as a Communications Professional - same thing I guess)

42m – A brief commentary on Podshow’s decision to change their name to Meevio (yo Adam - you might want to check out buying www.meevio.com) Businessweek article link here

47m15 – Conversation starter #11 dedicated to Eric Eggertson

51m30 – Winding down with just a loser of the week – a double-barreled raspberry to Hertz and Ford for their ULTRA-lame taglines that signify utter desperation and laziness.

PS Intel, Amex and Visa, you’re not far behind

59m45 – Zac Martin’s challenge to me (following my challenge to Barack Obama)

Pithy episode takeaway: Taglines are mirrors into the soul and souls right now are tormented

Conversation Killers: Why most viral marketing amounts to lazy, clueless chatter

My latest Adweek article is up. It's called "Conversation Killers: Why most viral marketing amounts to lazy, clueless chatter"

Here's the text:

The movie Rounders contains a life lesson: "When sitting down at the poker table, look around for the sucker. If you don't recognize the sucker, get up and leave, because the sucker is you." Along the same lines, the next time you sit down at a planning table to discuss something viral, look for the moron leading the project and if you don't see him, excuse yourself from the meeting because that moron, my friend, is you.

As an industry, we're awfully good (and by good I mean bad) at bastardizing or perverting pretty much any natural and pure expression of engagement, influence, authenticity or passion. Take word of mouth for example: It's the oldest and most credible form of influence and "persuasion" (insert your choice of chart proving that word of mouth obliterates any other form of marketing, advertising or media), and so what do we do? We add the word "marketing" to form a new compound phrase synonymous with lame and ineffective.

It's the same concern I have with the phrase "conversational marketing," which I either created myself or just took credit for. It would appear that the second we find something that actually works, we do our best to exploit it to the point where it becomes unrecognizable and downright repugnant.

It's the same for the term "viral marketing," which has seemingly sprouted an entire industry dealing with shocking or extreme video designed to ring up "hits" on YouTube.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of the masters of pass along. I don't profess to be expert in how viruses are spread; what makes them infectious and what defines, differentiates or classifies one virus from another. It's terrific when the "world" in "world wide Web" embraces a piece of video (did you see the one where the elephant paints a self-portrait?), site (www.manbabies.com) or idea (moveon.org).

That said, I'm not terribly sure that it's predictable or reliable to plan for this kind of spreading of the word and, even more troubling, I'm not convinced that it actually works.

Here's the thing: In this day and age, all content has the ability to be wildly viral, that is, embraced, internalized, evangelized and disseminated. Rather than plan with the end in mind, might I suggest instead that we focus on the idea itself and the means to achieve that end. In other words, getting back to basics to generate compelling, relevant and engaging content and then liberating it to be embedded, hacked, mashed and showcased accordingly.

Then there's the efficacy element of the viral industry. In many respects the viral video is separated at birth from (in the greatest irony of all) the 30-second spot: Although they live at opposite ends of the spectrum, each is equally ineffective at selling stuff. The latter sells too hard, whereas the former doesn't sell hard enough. Indeed, the viral video seems to be almost apologetic at putting a brand face on an allegedly infectious value proposition.

But what if the goal of the viral is not to sell stuff at all? Heresy, I know, but not unlike 99.72 percent of all unmeasurable paid media that would make John Wanamaker vomit just a little in his mouth. What if the goal is to ring up those "hits," those faceless impressions that are reconciled with a paid media cost of zilch and multiplied by an earned media commensurate value? It's hard to argue with a free lunch, but at the same time, surely our efforts are better served by an agenda that balances quality with quantity views.

Perhaps it is unfair to hold the viral ad to a higher standard than the rest of the peanut gallery. After all, we're still talking about OfficeMax elves, CareerBuilder monkeys, a subservient chicken, Ray-Ban performing dudes and Waspy New England Smirnoff Tea Partayers aren't we? Compare this to the Stupid Bowl CareerBuilder debacle -- or as Wendell, the Miller Lite delivery guy, would say, a most effective anti-drug commercial -- and it surely seems like a steal (versus the real thieves behind the 30-second fireworks display).

True enough. But by the same token, we're also still talking about Apple's "1984," Miley Cyrus' Vanity Fair "exposé" and that incredible Kruger National Park scene with the buffalos, lions and alligator. Great content is great content, whichever way you slice it, dice it, prepare it or serve it, whether as a conversation starter, accelerant or superficial water-cooler fodder.

So let's do our best to keep our eyes on the prize: creating unique and compelling content that is sharable and infused with sociability (conversation). We'll rack up those views sure enough and not have to concern ourselves with cutting corners, reducing costs and duping our consumers into doing our jobs for us.

Fun with Video - recapping Mi-a-mi

3 clips this week from my trip to Miami for Womm-U and our geek dinner:

1. Chatting with my new hero, author JC Hutchins about what can only be called a social media miracle with his book, "The 7th Son"

2. Yahoo!'s Ideologist, Jason Anello, talks about 3 emerging trends to watch

3. "Who are you and what do you do?" - in honor of Mitch Joel, recapping the geek dinner that Rohit Bhargava and myself attended in Miami, organized by ringleader Jay Berkowitz

Do we need the Mainstream Media?

For those of you who read this blog regularly (that is when I actually get to posting! HA!), you'd know my position on Second Life hypeing and dehyping by the Mainstream Media.

...but I got to thinking about the MSM with respect to "fringe" Twitter.

As 1938 Media's Loren Feldman so eloquently put it, Twitter is for "Geeks, Weirdos, Shills, Middle Aged Women looking to get laid" (I guess I would fit into the middle aged woman category then!)

And although the incredible guys over at Common Craft created "Twitter in Plain English", I'm not sure (despite the rave reviews) that this does anything to "rise the tide" and help newbies to take the plunge:

So I guess my question is whether we need to embrace the necessary evil that is mainstream media and accept the inevitable....new technology might tip within the innovator and early adopter through people like Robert Scoble, but in order to break out of the fishbowl, we need the help of the mainstream (media)

fyi, I'm jaffejuice on Twitter. Just over 2,000 followers, but won't rest until I get to 20,000 (surely there are more geeks, weirdos, shills and middle-aged women looking to get laid that read my blog and listen to my podcast???)

Geek Dinner in Miami anyone?

Where: Los Ranchos, 401 Biscayne Blvd., Miami FL
When: 7-10pm, May 8th (Thursday)
Who: Me, Rohit Bhargava, Jay Berkowitz, JC Hutchins and more...
Why?: Just because...

More info here

Immortalizing Memories - The Linkory Tale

Forget the Long Tail, this is all about the Linkory Tale. You see the problem with stories living on forever, is that they need to be remembered and written down first.

Enter Linkory, one of crayon's newest clients. Officially:

Everyone has memories.  We share them with friends and family throughout our lives. Linkory.com is the only place that makes capturing and sharing memories fun, easy and free.

Your posting of a particular memory will act as the first link in a chain. Others in the global community with similar experiences will add to the chain. This powerful and exciting Linkory process will reveal the complete recollection of an event, enhance the experience for all participants, and generate an historical sequence. You will reunite with family and friends and connect with others who share common or related memories.

Recall huge world events:  Where were you when 9/11 happened, what were you doing when you heard about the death of Princess Diana or when the Berlin Wall came down? Were you in Myanmar in September, 2007?  Post your photographs and describe your visit to the 1969 Woodstock Festival, your attendance at the Simon and Garfunkel concert in Central Park or the Olympic Games. Share your experiences with others who were in your military unit , at your university, or at a summer camp with you. You can choose to make your memories public, or you may limit who may view and contribute to your Linkory.

In this small world,  Linkory.com is indeed a powerful collaboration and social networking space that connects all of us, globally.

For the first time, the world's history is being written in real-time, collectively and un-edited.  Linkory.com is the future of history.

Linkory isn't a social network per se; instead it provides a suite of conversational tools pivoting around the simple (yet profound) act of memories; life experiences; personal history or just personalized accounts or interpretations of events as they happened.

Like many start-ups in the conversational space, Linkory's success will be determined by the number of memories and the proficiency and extent to which people tag, link, share, embed and comment accordingly. In many respects I see Linkory as a very busy hub, with millions of commuters passing through on a continual basis. On the other hand, I see the Riddler's giant memory bank in the sky (although less sinister)

Either way, I love the idea of people coming together to share in moments that united, divided, mesmerized or shocked us. It can be as serendipitous as "Remember when South Africa won the Rugby World Cup in 1995" to "where were you on 9/11?". In the former case, two people could have been at the same game at the same time, but sitting in completely different places in the stadium...and yet today, they live next door to each other in San Diego. Or with 9/11, it could be a myriad of people from around the world expressing their pain and shock in unity.

Scott blogged about it here on the crayon blog. He also created a memory for Blogger Social '08 (you know, the one where I feigned illness in order to maintain my high maintenance primadonna reputation!) You'll notice btw that Greg (blogged about it here and thanks to his post, Bon Jovi is seared into my memory for all the wrong reasons!) added to this memory (one of the features/functionality associated with the interface)

I've already added my personal memory (as fresh as Friday), documenting my swearing in as an American citizen. I've also included a few photos and a video.

Check it out and perhaps add your own personal immigration experience as well.

Of course, you can always add your own memories here and be sure to provide a link to your own memories on this thread. I'll send a signed copy of my book to the one that inspires me the most.

It's official. I'm American!

On Friday, my wife and I were officially sworn in as American citizens. We drove out to Hartford with our 2 oldest kids and after receiving our certificates headed to the Capitol building for an amazing tour/meet 'n greet (including registering to vote)

I've captured the experience in more detail, using our new client, Linkory. If you are so inclined, check it out, along with a video and some photos.

I also tweeted about it and someone mentioned that I'm the first person ever to tweet about this kind of memory (you know how much I love being first - grin)

Finally, I have to thank Cam Beck for a beautiful gift (it's a Marine Corps 230th Anniversary Silver Dollar). Cam is testament to both the power of the social media community and what it is to be American.

Friday Fun - How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

Let's see how many responses we can get.

Q. How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. It depends - is it a physical or a virtual lightbulb?
A. Actually I wrote a blog post about it last week...
A. You expect me to answer this in 140 characters or less?
A. A wise crowd
A. The community will decide
A. You'll need to buy my book to find out...
A. I have no idea but I hope they Qik, uStream or ooVoo it live...