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The Dawn of the Age of Influence 2.0

Welcome to the new Influence 2.0 blog. You may be asking "What is this new name all about?" Let me explain:

The worlds of marketing, public relations, customer service and all market-facing functions know that the old mass media/marketing models are broken and major change is afoot. There are myriad new formats, channels and tools, but no new framework to make sense of it all.

So Cymfony is putting a stake in the ground: we are brashly declaring the Dawn of the Influence 2.0 Era.

Why Influence? Because, despite the different ways marketing, public relations, and customer service professionals work day-to-day, their fundamental goal is the same: to influence the perceptions of, and preferences for, their companies and brands.

Why 2.0? Because we believe this isn't solely about new channels which companies can use to push one-way messages. It's about the creation of what the Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 calls “market conversations”. This will require far different approaches than the Influence 1.0 world.

Why now? These changes have been emerging for a while. They seem to be accelerating. Traditional media and social media, which used to be separate and distinct, are increasingly converging. The pace makes it hard for professionals to step back, look at the macro trend, and develop new kinds of thinking to fully take advantage of these changes.

Cymfony plans to play a central role in helping business understand the new strategies, tactics and practices needed to harness the new dynamic of market influence. We hope to kick-off an industry-wide dialog around this idea to expand it clarify it, and capture the best thinking about how to respond.

So in addition to this blog which will report our findings and perspectives, we are launching two initiatives:

The Influence 2.0 eBook: The first chapter is available today at (link) that will present our first attempt at putting a framework around these changes. We have three more chapters in progress which will be released over the next couple of weeks.

The Influence 2.0 wiki: But I consider this only a draft. I know these changes are bigger and more complex than I alone or even all my Cymfony colleagues can fully explore. So we will post the entire eBook to the wiki and invite all interested parties to read, contribute, expand, revise. Like a martial arts master, we want use our opponent’s strengths to turn the encounter to our advantage: the great strength of the Web 2.0 world is the ability to harness the collective intelligence of the community to fully explore and understand how Web 2.0 will change our professions.

Come back often to see how our thinking evolves and our understanding deepens. Check out the wiki as new chapters, examples and ideas are added. Join us on the wiki to contribute your knowledge and learning.

Welcome to the new Cymfony blog. Welcome to a new era. Welcome to Influence 2.0.

Posted by Jim Nail on June 17, 2006 at 09:20 AM | Email this post Permalink

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Dawn of the Age of Influence 2.0:

» Welcome to the World of "Influence 2.0" from PR Squared
As much as it pains me to admit it, there's more to the emerging communications landscape than the PR 2.0 principles I espouse here.  Public Relations is just one of many marketing elements being forced to evolve by the... [Read More]

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» Influence Peddling 1.0.1a pre-Alpha from NMM Business Continuity
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» Welcome to the World of "Influence 2.0" from PR Squared
As much as it pains me to admit it, there's more to the emerging communications landscape than the PR 2.0 principles I espouse here. Public Relations is just one of many marketing elements being forced to evolve by the... [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 4, 2007 3:47:58 PM

Comments

Hopefully, the "2" in Influence 2.0 means that all the influence isn't one-way, i.e., from big companies and powerful people to everyone else. But the influence flows back from the "wisdom of the crowds" to those who should be providing goods and services they want (or running governments, etc.). And that by bandng together, "We the People" collectively have more power than the powerful. But maybe that's my child-of-the-sixties side talking! Thanks for your comment.

Posted by: Jim Nail | Jul 24, 2006 6:20:37 PM

Well...we can't deny the fact that it is human nature to "seek to gain control or influence on others," so I agree with what you said about corporate or media influence.

In fact, there were some rumors about an organization which "shares" its research findings with its members and partners...members of other powerful organizations and such.

It seems as if the trend of "influence" has become a human-race disease...

I think the following is the email I received from a friend (just copied and pasted it from my inbox):

Rumors of a new "power-motivated" club has been spreading on the Internet. The "club" claims to have members which seek to gain more power and influence in their territories. Tactics related to brainwashing, mind-control, influence, information dissemination, mind-altering drugs, information control, etc., were said to be this club's main focus.

There were also reports that this "club" investigates and studies manipulations of the law for its own agendas.

Personally, such is an organization which I have no plans of fighting against.

-----

Errmmm..it sounds more like a scam to me, but, who knows? As I said...influence is a human disease. lol.

Posted by: Chris | Jul 21, 2006 5:38:24 PM

Hey folks nice to see this effort. Came across your work via Andy Lark.

FWIW RedMonk has been talking about similar issues, notably in the industry analyst space, in posts like this one
http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001548.html

be in touch - it would be interesting to see if there any opportunities...

Posted by: James Governor | Jun 20, 2006 9:31:12 AM

Let me contribute my part to kicking-off the industry-wide dialog. First off, I like the choice of the word Influence. It reminds me of Robert Cialdini's book, Influence, which talks about the 5 principles of persuasion that strike a chord so deep in us, that it verges on mind control. You can see them in play every time you watch an infomercial.

Next thought, is to not ignore the "new shape of business" as described by Chris Anderson in the long tail demand curve. As distribution channels improve, and the ability to search the worlds TRUE variety of goods and services, mainstream hits become less important, and eclectic, diverse needs and tastes become more important. Commerce starts to more truly reflect culture, instead of having predetermined "hits" shoved down our throats.

My third point is how this fragmenting of markets creates a unique "influence" challenge, because the difficulty of the difficulty of knowing where to drop your marketing penny. Fragmentation simultaneously means more difficult and easier targeting. The broadcast model breaks down. The geotargeting and dayparting models improve. But also, reverse-targeting (search) becomes massively important.

And the long tail concept has been applied to search for awhile now in paid keyword campaigns--larger, more complex keyword buys that make taking bid management in-house more difficult, and SEM companies in business. But what everyone is overlooking is the role of natural search in the influence equation. Aren't people most likely to be influenced, when THEY performed the search, and are finding their answers in the "un-biased, editorial" component of the results? Of course! That's why HitTailing is such a rapidly emerging trend in influencing prospective customers.

Posted by: Mike Levin | Jun 18, 2006 9:36:52 AM

Hi Jim & All -

Thanks for the initiative, I relate and support, I strongly think that the industry overall and marketers will benefit from such initiative...and am glad to see that you relate as well to what I've personally supported, listen first to conversations, to then be in the conversation to eventually influence... but through a collaborative model rather than the traditional top down approach... The ones that will not change and get in the conversations sooner rather than later will soon be in trouble. So, as a group, lets' help others join the crew and together lets' shape new and better marketing!
Thanks

Posted by: Laurent Flores - crmmetrix | Jun 18, 2006 4:00:18 AM

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