This isn’t a textbook, it’s a guidebook to the digital territories for marketers, think travel-guide. Because frankly, we’re over the dull course-reader format. Those who come on our programs can dive into their alumni networks with links and videos and presentations, but it’s still handy to scribble on something during lectures or to follow along on your screen. Or use it as a cheatsheet before meetings or give to a client/boss to explain what your online endeavours mean, and why it’s worth taking very seriously indeed.

It’s still being written, updated, edited, tweaked: it’s in beta, getting better. Currently in use for executive programs at UCT’s Graduate School of Business, Ogilvy’s Digital Marketing Academy, social media program at Gordon Institute of Business, digital media training at Cairo University and ongoing custom programs.

These released chapters are under editing and updated, and you are most welcome to print them as handouts, use portions for posts, build on it – under the conditions of the Creative Commons License. In this case you can re-purpose and share, make derivative works – with credit back (attribution), not for commercial use and that you share under the same license conditions, see below. [..want to learn how to apply 21st century copyright to your works and exercise your right to use other's CC works here].

Content Attribution: from the Digital Marketing Guidebook by Maximillian Kaizen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

FEATURES:
Written in human language, formal voice trounced.
The areas thickened with jargon and 3letter-acronyms like SEO come with handy glossaries.
Bite-sized chunks of knowledge make for brain-friendly infosnacking – for those no longer accustomed to long-form texts.

WARNINGS:
The grammar curmugeon hasn’t been set loose on these editions.
The format is dense but bite-sized for reading in snippets if time – it’s a guidebook, not a textbook – so it’s not for one smooth sitting.
The links are from end 2009 through 2010. Updates next mid 2011.

’nuff said, grab the chapter PDFs >>

Internet Fundamentals 101 (updates at http://www.ogilvydma.com/category/chapter1/)

Social Media 101

Analytics & Campaign Measurement (updates at http://www.ogilvydma.com/category/chapter3/)

Search Marketing & SEO 101 (updates at http://www.ogilvydma.com/category/chapter4/)

Online Advertising 101

Mobile Marketing 101
(updates at http://www.ogilvydma.com/category/chapter5/)

Transmedia Campaigns

The Attention Economy (updates at http://www.ogilvydma.com/category/chapter2/)

Legal Considerations for Digital Marketers

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Genius I look for isn’t solely squeezed into human form, it’s in the forces of nature, technology, culture. Whatever is driving evolution – for good or bad – where there is an epiphany and a marked change in direction. [It happens more often than most of us suspect].
 
Research and reporting back forms part of my day job, but in the course of my explorations I come across extraordinary people doing crazycool things out where there is no precedent. These bits of reconnaissance aren’t that useful for business – which rarely thrives on investing in true innovation but is better suited to adaptive imitation.
But leaders and curious individuals benefit heartily from tales and tools from the edge; of brave inventions, explorers, creators and heroes that drive social contagion. It inspires courage and craziness needed to keep their own genius aglow (genius is fragile). These geniuses, their dazzling discoveries, astonishing creations and epic adventures are not the stuff of commercial transaction perhaps. But they are no less valuable to us as a species.
 
Sharing and debating the freshest phenomena from science, social psychology, behavioural economics, globalization, culture particularly through the digital filter isn’t part of the day job, but a delight of my secret life. And one that I can happily indulge in on the blog and realworld learning events.
 
Yes I do look for human genius too. And help get returns on their intellectual capital where appropriate. I am not a talent agent though. However I do have a trusted group of people who can help you get work that better rewards your brilliance or helps you realise ways to do solo work on your own terms as a specialist. Because interesting people tend to hang out with other interesting people (genius begets genius so the company we keep matters!), if you know someone whose work (day job or secret tinkering has the capacity to reshape the world or us as a species by way of applied genius) please let me know.

“People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live… We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” – Albert Einstein in a letter to his best friend Otto Juliusburger sometime in ’42

 
 
The better part of genius -that doesn’t get subsumed by madness or misanthropy perhaps- is kept alive by the childlike wonder. Wonder from the simple stuff that Uncle Walt drew out in poetry to the ridiculously-cool scientific improbability of human existence. Uncrutched by a blanketing binary religious belief it could do your head in. THAT, if nothing else is what most religion has stripped from us,  the possibility of looking nakedly into the total perspective vortex (thank goodness we had the indisputable genius of Douglas Adams walking with us for a while).. the feeling of entitlement rather than feeling absurdly lucky, is dangerous beyond any cruel weaponry we can fashion.
 
wow, sidetracked. Okay so essentially:
Intelligent fun are us. I’m taking what I do in my secret life (the arcana vitae) and sharing the magic that I’ve seen, woven into everyday urban life and crafting edventures that others might enjoy too. Into social learning experiences, urban games and unusually powerful travel experiences for the slim minority that take delight in learning (even if you’re a grown-up, with the academic papers and debt instruments to show it) rather than just looking cool and together.
 
I’m doing this with a group of brilliant ones like some kind of oldskool Explorer’s Society. Global citizens who are up for adventure beyond cracking the corporate C-suite. We may have mapped the physical but there is still so much yet to be discovered.
Ah, heady delights.
We’d love to do this with you if you too are not entirely convinced that the smug consumers life is the life for you (and you’re not heading out for a monastry anytime soon).

THINK AGAIN. If you are just such a being we’d be honoured to have you join our explorations.
Sign up here >> [click]. Or mail Max to find out more.

(peek at some of our previous Cerebella gatherings)

urban survival camp
CONFIDENCE
lifehacks
lionheart – roaring trade

Generally this kind of thing happens after near-death misses (I’ve had 2 so that’s first-hand talking).

What happens if you suddenly realise how absurd it is living/working/spending your time.money.energy the way you do? And instead of dissolving the irritating awareness in your morning coffee and ploughing back into life.as.we.know.it..

you stop.

And give the idea a bit of room to breathe.

What happens if you don’t want to go back anymore?

————-

What happens if you decide tomorrow won’t follow the same largely predictible script?
Is it even possible if you aren’t prone to multiple personality disorder, win the lottery, fall desperately in love or somesuch outrageous turn of irreversible external circumstance is foisted upon your being?

[Just asking. I'm feeling oddish & it could be contagious. Perhaps more of us are feeling like this.]

One of the joys of digital globalization is sharing moments of brilliance that can burst into viral meme streams. This is one whose RNA has infected many webheads with humour, humanity and heartbreaking inspiration, its Prof Randy Pausch’s legendary Last Lecture :

This is a fairly long video (just over an hour) & not friendly for those on slimmed bandwidth, but if you save up your bits & watch one video this month.
Make it this one.

“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.” – Isabel Allende

(..and no mom, I don’t think I’m dying of any dire disease. Though I do apparently ail from an appaling addiction to alliteration.)

Innovation is one of those spaces that has to bridge both. This often elusive strategic advantage that could catapult you into uncontested territory (with the benefits of time, little competition, easy PR and high desirability in the marketplace) is often seen as the “soft stuff” best left to the creatives/scientists/inventors to envision. Mistakenly.

Never more so has there been such an urgent need for clarity on how to initiate, manage & implement innovation with accelerated competition and tightening resources on a crowded planet.
Companies that realise that the birthing of innovation is induced through rigorous process rather than entrusting it to luck or epiphanies of genius; those who specialise in it, like Google, BMW, 3M, GE, NASA offer insight on how to apply this in our own lives, businesses and careers.

I’m going to be writing 2 posts on innovation from our lecture series to de-fuzz the fluffy concepts around this word so treasured by management consultants. Essentially just as a memory recall for the students, so forgive me if they seem a little disjointed. (though as always you’re welcome to comment and nudge me if something needs more clarity or really connects with you & you want more info)

For me, there were a couple of insights from Dave’s introductory lecture that help discern practical innovation from the trance-inducing concept of innovation bandied about in boardrooms. Something that transforms the way we work, think, connect, play vs. more marketing vapourware.

THE BUSINESS OF INNOVATION

Innovation is NOT invention, nor is it improvement, inspiration or incremental change. Innovation is an idea that when applied has the ability to transform the society, market or holding pattern wherein it is let loose. It is not always positive, but always brings change.
It is a transformative solution to a known problem.

DEVELOPING THE INNOVATION DISCIPLINE

The crucial factor that strips out dumb luck/strokes of genius is to embody Edison’s model: Experiment with relentless determination to crash through a known problem. Successful business incubators like Idealab or pan-industry giants like Virgin or Google embrace the fact that not every dazzling idea will turn into a profitable endeavour, but fast implementation and reality testing are the only way to know without over-capitalising.

Whiteboards line the corridors at the Googleplex, collaboration is fostered actively online, with social spaces and 11 gourmet cafes to gather the multidisciplinary geniuses in realworld, structured brainstorming sessions, and curators of innovation process like Marissa Mayer, the Director of Web Products guide the distillation of bright ideas and get the best into production, fast. Ideas don’t get suffocated by entrenched bureaucratic layers and committees that tame scary ideas to what is guaranteed safe for shareholders before they see the light of day. So there have been lots of failures, but ultimately when the big ones hit they are worth multiple smaller crashes.

[Just in case anyone in the class felt I was being prescriptive and will say here too: This is certainly NOT for everyone, and I'm not pushing this as the only valid path for successful enterprise. It's primarily for those who need to get a tangible grip on how to lead an innovative process, those who want to understand what is called for to gain strategic advantage in an accelerated, progressively complex world. Imitation is as valid a business model, and by far less demanding on your sanity!]

RELEASE EARLY, RELEASE OFTEN

This is Dave’s repeated rallying cry. Get it out there, even if it isn’t perfect yet. In the software development world this is expressed as being in “beta” release. It requires risk, releasing a version that will be built mid-flight, with the help of lead users finding the quirks & bugs for you if you’re lucky.
Few innovations are guaranteed success first round. But the only way to know for sure is to reality test your idea/concept/product in the market and get feedback. Very few of us will take this brave move with ease, because we instinctively veer from potential failure.

FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE

Like safely watching someone absurdly wonderful/sexy/beautiful at a party and actually risking failure by asking them out; so it is with releasing into the market with a daring concept that could make us look foolish (the really good ones, the really innovative ones, always will by the way, or someone would’ve stepped in & done it already). The rewards could be utterly worth some minor terror. Unless you’re an omniscient being, slumming for some reason with us flawed humans, you simply CANNOT know all the reasons something will or won’t work. The more often we attempt, the less scared we are of trying again, the less personally we take the failures and the quicker we’ll be to spot other opportunities.The first rule for innovation (my opinion) is: Assume nothing. In both hunting your innovative idea and when the time comes to act on it.

Thanks Dave for the quote that encapsulates the real force of nature that innovators are:

“Ideas are a dime a dozen, people who put them into action priceless” – franchising pioneer Mary Kay Ash