Originally posted some time in late 2009. Still think it’s going to happen. Guess I’m just a…futurist. – dp (writing 6.30.2011)

It’s inevitable. And for many, it’s going to be painful. I’m talking about what happens when the first wave of Social Networking enthusiasts crashes into the rocks of real.

We’ve already seen the first of its victims. Remember that wack mom who faked her Space and quite possibly led to the suicide of a teenager? That was “woh” number one. And there are more coming. Like the Virginia Republican whose ill-timed tweeting allowed the Democratic party to talk a would be defector out of a party switch. DOH! Burned by ill-understood technology. But that’s what happens when you fling a box of power tools into a kindergarten.

Step One: COOL.
Step Two: Howzit work?
Step Three: 911

ONE COIN/TWO SIDES

Social networking (and I’m lumping all the usual suspects into one big chunk) is fantastic. Incredibly powerful/time wasting. Wonderfully entertaining/annoying. Great bouquet/potentially bitter finish.

Like Girls Gone Wild tapes that lead to years of regret, SocNets are a lifetime’s worth of “that’s not what I meant” waiting to happen. It’s almost here, and we better be ready for it. Coming soon to a theatre near you:

– the Senate confirmation hearing that dives deep into some unlucky nominees Twitter detritus
– the job interview that starts with “Does the screen name ‘drunkboy69′ mean anything to you?”
– the Thanksgiving dinner that erupts with “I never thought a son/daughter of mine would ever ___________ (based on photos your friend’s friend’s friend posted of you doing _________ to a ________).

The old hands among us will pine for the days of strictly anonymous BBS flamewars when it was possible immolate your opponent with an arsenal of ASCII while safely ensconced behind a nearly impossible to track nom de ‘Net. Good times.

Don’t get me wrong. Marketers, you have to embrace this trend, craze, fad or whatever you want to call it. And for y’all regular folks: Face/Tweet/Space yer @$$ off. SocNet is a communications tool of immense utility and power. But never, ever think its incapable of biting that self-same @$$ when you least want/need/expect it.

So while the growth curve for Social Networking is staggering today, it will peak, flatten and eventually mature into a mundane tool that everybody uses for what it’s good at while avoiding what it’s bad at (just like jet travel, feta, merlot, and Jerry Seinfeld). The Wild West always ages into the Mild West.

…sigh…

- dp

PS: Sue, can you take that photo of me off your Facebook page? It’s kinda embarrassing. Thanks.

Originally posted some time in 2009. Re o t d oo re ak a oin . – dp

You see it all over the place, every day. Puzzles. Games. Invitations to engage/enrage/enrapture. Pattern recognition: it’s fundamental to our very survival and has been hard wired into our brains since Ogg figured out those things in the dirt pointing in one direction meant there was food on the hoof somewhere over that a way.

People really, really enjoy p z l s. They like room for them to engage with the communication. So why doesn’t that fact figure into more American marketing? Like this. Or this.

You don’t have to be an evolutionary anthropologist to understand the natural draw of such things. Just look at the popularity of global, cross-language phenomena like Sudoku and KenKen.

As a writer, it pains me some that wordplay doesn’t factor much here (although this is really nice), but the reality is that in a truly global village games everyone can play, regardless of Mother Tongue, will displace language-dependent styles to the margins.

But that doesn’t answer my big question: Why isn’t there more room in American marketing for a little audience engagement?

Pick up a copy of Lürzer’s Archive and you’ll see page after page of universal visual puzzles that invite, nay defie, the reader to figure it out. They’re generally fun, occasionally challenging, and the best of them creatively align message with brand to make a memorable image that demands a piece of your brain’s precious real estate.

Now take a look at who’s creating this stuff. Sure, it’s a Euro-publication, but still. It seems like the entire world’s playing a different game that we Gringos just don’t get—exactly like soccer.

So why doesn’t American advertising do more of that and use puzzle techniques in marketing? I think a big reason is that we all speak the same language. And that our culture as a whole fetishizes the overtly direct and plain spoken over the subtle, the poetic, and the not immediately obvious. It’s bullet points  over brain power. The PowerPointilization of American Communication. …sigh…

Yes, time is at a premium, but consider much of that time is spent looking for games to break the monotony of everyday life. Couldn’t, shouldn’t marketing take note of this and run with it? It’s certainly worth           about.

-dp