The information conduit is changing...Get used to it.

The information conduit is changing. Get used to it. The old model of interrupting consumers via an advertisement embedded in content is having to adapt to a new environment. Moving forward, organizations will need to understand the lives of consumers even better and build things that actually integrate rather than interrupt.

Take the Nike and Apple partnership for example. Nike developed an in-shoe pedometer that syncs with an iPod. A website and software were also build to track, share, and measure progress of exercise routines. This break through innovation increased shoe sales and differentiated Nike from its competitors. Moreover the product connected music, running, and measurement to a social network. Integrating and creating lifestyles, rather than distracting from them.

Bob Greenberg founder of R/GA, a media development company in Manhattan, worked on the Apple/Nike integration and campaign. He talks about the power of a simple story to solve complicated problems in a New York Times piece and shares:

"I think things are going to get infinitely more complex, and the challenge is about taking things that are infinitely complex and making them simpler and more understandable."

Greenburg, is a believer in utility and function creating the platform for interaction, even if a loss will be taken at first. Think Facebook and Twitter. More than adding value, products and services must enable us to better sense and belong to the world around us. The product is secondary to the exchange.

Attempts to master the moving target of social exchange will dissolve in to thin air. Building the future must be a reaction to and with it (and preferably one with your products in it). Crowd are fickle and can tell when a commodity agenda is the function of the space. The product then must serve to enable organic interaction within user base.

An organization's communication strategy should act more as a conduit between users than top down messaging. How the user got here should fade into the common and be taken for granted. In other words, you took your Audi TT sports car to the Twins game and had an Oscar Myers hot dog all you remember is the great time with your child/spouse/whatever.

Steps to implement an integrative model:

• Get out of the way of the authentic interactions of your users.
• Fade to a position of seamless support or infrastructure.
• Abandon attempts to maintain the notion of your product as the primary reason to be. 

Ezra Firkins
University of Minnesota
Jour 3279
Blog Assignment