Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

Pay Attention--Attention Pays!

As a follow up to yesterday's post, let's dig a bit deeper to fully understand why the proliferation of recognition for the power of Surprise, straight from the mouths of three brilliant Web 2.0 gurus, Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal and current CEO of social network widget factory SLIDE), Chris Anderson (author of the book and creator of the concept The Long Tail) and Seth Godin (well, you know who).

Levchin believes that the future of advertising relies less on how many people see/hear an ad, but how "engaged" consumers are with them.  As he says:

"The metrics for success
are going to shift away from
who can provide the most reach
toward who is paid the most attention."

Meanwhile, Anderson's next great debatable theory (as discussed here a few weeks ago) is the rise of giving things away, to be solidified in his next book "Free."  As Brandweek puts it in a short piece on the author/thinker:

"Free's argument is that
in the digital age,
it's more important to get attention than immediate payoff."

The last word goes to Godin, who in commenting on Anderson's theory said that:

"Attention is a valuable asset
that used to be a commodity."

Who is paid the most attention will rely heavily on how one generates the most attention...the all-important catalyst best left in the capable hands of Surprise marketers.  Generating attention is our raison d'etre.

Yeah, I know there ain't too many of us around.

Yet.

Apple A Surprise Target

In delivering the crucial continuum of Surprise, few companies do it as well as Apple.  Thanks to Steve Jobs and his continually challenged cohorts, the value of the strategy that's been touted here at Surprise Central for years is starting to be appreciated by the mainstream business press.

To wit, this from the cover story on Apple in the most recent Wired magazine:

"Part of the joy of being an Apple customer...the Surprises that Santa Steve brings at Macworld Expo every January."

One example does not a trend make, though.  Which is why I was equally delighted to read the following about Target in Fortune, which outlined the company's deep commitment to the flow of Surprise:

"To encourage, or rather ensure, a steady stream of bold new ideas, managers with a proven record of hits must duke it out for portions of their budgets every year. 

"So although the events team won a big chunk of the 2007 pie with its idea for a holographic fashion show, it had to come up with something equally compelling if it wanted funding this year. 

"This helped generate such out-there ideas as a temporary store floating in the Hudson river or and a vertical fashion show where acrobats 'walked' down the side of a building. 

"That element of Surprise, it turns out, has been part of Target's DNA for some time."

Any company can pull of some sort of one-off "stunt."  But real corporate longevity (Target, as Target, has been around 46 years), customer loyalty and buzz with a long trail of zzz's, comes when the company maintains the consistent delight of Surprise.

A Real Surprise Sale

Ahh...the power of Surprise once more rears it head in the off-price retail  space.

Over a year ago, I laid down this post about Costco being a "retail treasure hunt."  Well, Canadian discounter Liquidation World is going one step further by playing the Pow! card to the max in its new multi-media "brand-building" campaign.   As per Marketing Magazine:

"The campaign revolves around market research Liquidation World conducted a couple of years ago...(which) revealed that the chain’s customers go to browse and explore, which is why the store focused on promoting the experience of finding an unexpected deal rather than price."

The company's TV commercials end with the tag line:

“Come Find Something Unexpected"

...while its in-store posters are shout out:

“Even We’re Surprised by What People Find in Our Store”

and

“Find Exactly What You’re Not Looking For”

As I've said many times before here, shopping isn't necessarily about searching for something, but discovering something...hence the value of pushing Surprise.  Ironically, it's the discounters who seem to understand and exploit this far better than their high-falutin', regular-priced brethren.

Best of the Worst

The biggest rise Stephen King has given me since that hand in Carrie came in last week's Entertainment Weekly, where the maestro of horror captured a whole slew of Pow! moments in his back-page column.

The subject of the piece, recalling your worst-ever entertainment moment, was a compilation of stories he received after putting out the query on his own website a few weeks prior.  The results were not just hysterical and easily-relatable, but a perfect example of what I mean when I espouse The Highlight Reel of Life. 

Like the zombies and viruses that King has written about on numerous occasions, great Surprise stories live forever and spread fast & wide.

Do yourself a favor; kick off your week by reading the column here, then check out the trove of stories on his site. 

Surprise TV...Sort Of

Ahhh, 2008. A new year, filled with hope, promise and resolutions that should be broken by about the time you finish this sentence.

One honkin’ big diff that has warmed the hearts of all of us at Surprise Central is the change of direction—and name—of what once was Court TV, which since Jan. 1 is known as TruTv. 

Focusing its programming and spirit on “Actuality. Not Reality” (their new slogan, not mine), TruTV trumpeted its rebirth in some relatively unconventional mediaplaces, most notably the Wall Street Journal. 

In that bastion of capitalist news and thought, the network took out an upside down full-page ad. While not as effective as the similar tactic used last year by UPS (and highly hoorayed here), what was impressive was TruTV’s commitment to the essence of Pow! with its stated programming pledge:

"What Makes
Real-Life Stories
Exciting
Is That They’re
Unpredictable"

Welcome to the club, TruTV! Now go ahead…Surprise us. Again and again and again!

Or else.

If It Ain't Already Been Done, It Soon Will Be

In a post last week I tongue-in-cheekly suggested that the only space left for the weed-like coffee giant Starbucks to expand would be in "mini-kiosks throughout shopping mall parking lots."

Well, there's a lesson to be learned in our wonderful world of marketing:

Today's tongue-in-cheek
is tomorrow's carved-in-stone

Seems that as I was typin' up the post itself, the century-and-a-half-old Eight O'Clock Coffee company was, according to Brandweek, "setting up shop in malls' parking lots to create coffee klatches among customers eagerly awaiting the openings."

The promotion was one of a handful free coffee giveaways to mark this year's Black Friday, and while others provided samples in malls and even at tollbooths (hello Maxwell House!), only Eight O'Clock corralled shoppers as per my what-once-was-facetious-but-is-now-gospel vision (and did it with the name Black Coffee Friday).

Gotta be careful where I stick my tongue...

Color My World...But Precisely

About a month ago in a similarly-named post about GoSmile White, I yammered about "Corporate-sponsored colors" (like Tiffany Blue, UPS Brown and Target Red) and suggested their rise is due to the fact that we are running out of inanimate objects (a la "peach" and "avacado") to name colors after.

Profound, no?

Well, methinks me worried too much, too soon.  Over in Paris (where else?) Jean-Gabriel Causse's uber-hip Bluebretzel has expanded the parameters of the rainbow by producing high-end cotton/cashmere t-shirts in unique hues such as "Mona Lisa's Eyes Brown," "Caviar Kaspia Beluga Caviar Black" or "Earth Blue as Seen by Apollo 17." 

This ain't no mere gimmick; the company painstakingly researches and matches the pigment of these iconic shades in a highly-complex, significantly scientific manner (check it out at left).

The end result is a t-shirt that sells for 60-75 Euros (depending on long or short sleeves), and is generating all sorts of buzz in the fashion world.

More importantly, a la Nudie Jeans, Causse (whose background is one of advertising, not fashion, go figure...) is breathing new life into a commodity product.  Not since Dov Charney's "Made in L.A./Sweatshop-Free" American Apparel has there been such a compelling "story" to tell about the lowly t-shirt.  When was the last time you bragged about yours?

Even more kudos to Causse--the Bluebretzel website not only explains the details of his color search, but is home to perhaps the friendliest, most intuitive and store-replicating shopping experience on the web.  Worth every minute of your time to check it out.

Better save up, though...

Pow! To The Max

Bob Thacker is a smart guy.   And other Surprise Central hero.

As SVP Marketing and Advertising for OfficeMax, he's been responsible for, as Brandweek put it, adding "some levity and fun into the stodgy office supply category."  Recent tactics include Punk'd-styled pranks on kids and the creation of the world's largest rubber band ball.

His strategy for the company captures the Pow! spirit and distills it to two simple words:

"Unexpected events."

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Steve Listens

Got this email from Mitch Joel while in San Francisco, only minutes after Microsoft's Steve Ballmer delivered his keynote address at CTIA:

Did you whisper this sweet-nothing in his ear?

http://www.news.com/beyond-binary/8301-13860_3-9802647-56.html?part=dht

 You have been saying that line for only about a half-decade or so ;)

--Mitch

As someone who used to work for us at Airborne, Mitch has heard me spout adages and aphorisms ad nauseum, but I still had my doubts.  So I checked out the interview I did with Adweek earlier this year and found the following:

You've referred to the mobile phone as being the "remote control for people's lives." Can you elaborate on that? 

Most companies replicate the desktop or a television [with the phone], but ... we see it as a tool to interact with the rest of your world. It's not just a screen, it's more like a mouse. We call it the "inside out" approach. ... Just watching a television show on it is like getting a computer just to write letters.

So Mitch, thanks for pointing this out.  I'll give you 50% of the royalty cheque when Steve sends it.

Standing Up For Standing Out

As a follow up to the recent posts about standing out (like this one here, and this one), I came across this quote while perusing Fortune Magazine over the weekend.  In an essay entitled Creativity To The Rescue, former Young & Rubicam CEO Peter Georgescu spun these words of vindication:

"Commoditization--what I see as the cancer of 21st century commerce--has fueled ferocious price competition. 

"With price as the only real differentiator, producers are left with a challenge:

They must find a way
to stand out in a crowd."

This ain't about being flashy, or merely grabbing attention; it's the core of today's commerce.  Stand out or be stomped on.

Pow! Goes Legit

I read it every two weeks, cite it quite often, but here's an article from the uber-respected Marketing Magazine I won't be quoting from any time soon...due to redundancy issues:

(To read the entire rant in a more eye-friendly manner, click here.)

Big shout out for Danny Kucharsky for corralling all my wildly-spouted words (jeez, that Suzanne Somers story still comes up after all these years).  And Dan Ward, your book gets yet another plug!  Jeez!

On a serious note, when the concept of Pow! Marketing is treated with such prominence in such a prestigious and widely-accepted journal, you know we're onto something here at Surprise Central.   

Today, Marketing Magazine.  Tomorrow, a major publishing house!

What The Fork Is He Talking About?

Said it before (as recently as Tuesday). 

Will say it again.  And again...

But like when others say it best.

Here's Ryan Karpeles' take on little things that mean a lot.

Out of context.  And right on target.

(Thanks Mark Goren for the stab!)

My Word...And Welcome To It

Way back when, when I was in college, I read one of the seminal marketing books of our time, Al Ries and Jack Trout's classic called Positioning.

Along with my prof Don Tobin and author Roger von Oech, this book was a key influencing factor in my decision to dump Liberal Arts and dive into Marketing.  And one of the things from Ries and Trout's treatise that has stuck with me was their explanation of "owning" a word in consumer minds.  For example, in the car biz, Volvo owns the word "safety"; you think of the brand, you think security...and vice versa.

So here's where I'm going with this.

Over the past two weeks, EIGHT smart marketing types (most recently Rick Spence) emailed me the Paul Potts video; that "from nowhere" opera singer that first took Britain, and now the world, by storm.   In their emails, they explained that, while immensely talented, the incredible Surprise of hearing that mellifluous voice emerge from such an obviously uncomfortable and unlikely source was what made it truly special.

And thus, made it perfect for me.

So that's when it hit me.

It took me nine months, but looky-looky...in the words of Ries and Trout, it appears that I have come to OWN "Surprise."

Fret not, I will continue to share it with y'all, but it is indeed satisfying to know that the concept is resonating.

Which, I must admit, is a most gratifying Surprise for yours truly.

Knowing What Wii Wanted (Great Surprise Quotes Redux)

Back in November, I kinda predicted that Nintendo's Wii would take the world by storm. 

While this is far from a Nostradamus-like feat of prognostication (truly obvious to anyone who ever picked up the gyro-controller), it is heart-warming and gratifying to see that a seemingly down-and-out, also-ran can stick to its guns of Surprise and Pow! an entire industry.

The accolades have been fast and furious, and the most recent ish of Fortune Magazine gushes over Nintendo's success.  Within the piece, written by Jeffrey M. O'Brien, are several Surprise quotes that vindicate the type of strategies spewed within this blog for months.

Quoth O'Brien:

"More difficult to comprehend is how a company founded 118 years ago as a maker of playing cards came to be pummeling Microsoft and Sony. The answer has something to do with reinvention.

Nintendo has shown a knack for leapfrogging its industry. Sure, some initiatives failed but the company rarely fails to surprise.

This time, in changing perceptions of gaming, Nintendo has surprised even itself."

This from president and CEO Satoru Iwata:

"We are not competing against Sony or Microsoft.
We are battling the indifference of people who have no interest in videogames."

And the final word goes to Nintendo's legendary videogame designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the soul of the company for decades:

"What I want to do, is to make it
so people can actually feel
something unprecedented."

Mission accomplished.

Until the next time...

My Swan Song

I was enamored with Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book Fooled By Randomness, so needless to say, I was one of those Amazon.com pre-order geeks when I heard about his new one, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

And while I'm still plowing through the magnum opus, preliminary skims have resulted in yelps of joyful vindication throughout Surprise Central.

Yup, a lot of what Taleb says provides credence to the ramblings of this blog, but holy jumpin' jeez, the way he says it truly humbles this blog's author.  So without further ado, here are a couple of pertinent excerpts.

On Surprise in general:

"It is easy to see that life is the cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks. This extends to all businesses. Think about the “secret recipe” to making a killing in the restaurant business. If it were known and obvious, then someone next door would have already come up with the idea and it would have become generic.

"The next killing in the restaurant industry needs to be an idea that is not easily conceived of by the current population of restaurateurs. It has to be at some distance from expectations. The more unexpected the success of such a venture, the smaller the number of competitors, and the more successful the entrepreneur who implements the idea."

On the importance of generating it:

"Living on our planet, today, requires a lot more imagination than we are made to have. We lack imagination and repress it in others. Our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown, and the very improbable (improbable according our current knowledge)—and all the while we spend our time engaged in small talk, focusing on the known, and the repeated.

"This implies the need to use the extreme event as a starting point and not treat it as an exception to be pushed under the rug."

Couldn't have said it better myself...although I wish I could come close.  Can't wait to get through the rest of this.

 

Idol's Secret Formula

This from an article about (oy...) American Idol in Time Magazine:

PEOPLE LIKE TO BE SURPRISED
BY WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW

Idol has figured out the challenge of mass entertainment: how to please an audience that craves novelty but rarely rewards the jarringly new.

The New Old is the aesthetic of mass-market America...The ideal Idol performance--a hip hop Sweet Home Alabama, a beatboxed Time Of The Season--mashes up old and new, letting viewers feel cool in their squareness.

In other words, as has been said here many times before, and foist upon by FOPs ad nauseum:

"The audience isn't as hip
as you think they are...
or want them to be."

and

"Everything new is old again."

Con Of Outtext

More vindy on my "Out of Context" concept first unveiled in The Westmount Drunk.

In an enlightening, and somewhat scary, article in Business 2.0, Paul Sloan talks about Yahoo's brilliant--and VERY scary--head of research and data Usama Fayyad.   Well worth your time to read,  but in a nutshell, Fayyad talks about Yahoo's "behavioral targeting," where the company sells ad space NOT based on a site's content relevance (as would be expected in traditional media), but on a consumer's online behavior instead. 

In other words, spend time surfing car sites, and Yahoo will deliver you car ads next time you're on Yahoo Sports, Finance, Showbiz, Comics...site context be damned.  Your previous surfing habits will define you, and like your cologne, follow you everywhere.  Extrapolate this for a second and perhaps you see what I see in the near future--"adult" banners on CNN.com, Hallmark.com, Amazon.com...every.com, frankly.

Actually, something similar (although thankfully a little more benign) has already popped up in the offline media world, as State Farm Insurance has started placing TV ads on Nickelodeon. 

It can all be easily explained by demographics (the State Farm target market spends time in front of the tube with their toddlers, so...), but it is a little unnerving seeing a car insurance spot during Spongebob Squarepants (although he does sort of have that insurance salesman look about him, dontcha think?).  By the way, this doesn't stop with TV; like a good neighbor, State Farm has also bought ads in the Nick Jr. Family Magazine and is sponsoring the Go Diego Go Live show.   

And if that ain't out of context enough for you, the American Association of Retired Persons (better known by their less age-painting AARP acronym) have adopted the classic Buzzcocks punk anthem "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" for their new TV campaign.

Pretty soon, everything's gonna be SO honking out of context that being IN CONTEXT will be the only way to stand out; or put another way, In Context is the New Out Of Context. 

And the wheel in the sky keeps on turning... 

 

I Knew We Were Onto Something...

I logged-in in this morning and the Surprise Central Inbox was overflowing with WILDY CAPITALIZED email, all saying just about the same thing:

"Did you see what
Seth Godin said
about SURPRISE?"

Well, I did now.  Here's an excerpt:

"There's nothing wrong with not surprising people. In fact, most of the time, you don't want to surprise people. I don't want to be surprised when I use an electric drill, and I don't want to be surprised when they're doing surgery on me.

But if you want the word to spread, if you expect me to take action I've never taken before, it seems to me that you need to do something that hasn't been done before. It might not feel safe, but if you do the safe thing, I guarantee you won't surprise anyone.

And if you don't surprise anyone, the word isn't going to spread."

That's some major, major-league vindication.

Read the whole thing for yourself, and feel the Pow!er...

Vindication Veekend

Well, no more big hair pictures, so I guess the next best thing on this chill-out Saturday is to let smart people back up the ramblings of the folks here at Surprise Central, specifically the Valentine’s Day rant of Submission Marketing.

So, to my point, why do people only tell the truth behind marketers’ backs? 

Because they don’t trust ‘em.

A recent study from the Yankelovich Group revealed that a walloping 76% of consumers don’t believe that companies tell the truth in ads. 

That’s more than three in four.  In essence, an ad is wasted money before it even hits the page or the airwaves.

Ouch.

And as per the Garbage In/Garbage Out theory of those surveys we are forced to fill out, Strategy Mag reports (see? No hard feelings, Claire...)that at the recent Research Industry Summit in Chicago, the following stats were bandied about:

Just 0.25% of the population supplies
32% of responses to online surveys

50% of all survey responses come from
less than 5% of the population

No wonder one senior researcher lamented: "We're perpetuating a fraud."

Uh, have a nice weekend. 

The Why Behind The What

Way, way back in the Surprise Central time machine, October 27, '06 to be exact, I explained the essence of this blog's logo, calling it:

"...the semblance of a face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed...the epitome of what we look like when we're Surprised."

Well, the brothers Heath--Chip and Dan--take this explanation a step further in their excellent tome Made To Stick.  (Actually, it's their expansion of The Surprise Brow, a term coined by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen in THEIR book "Unmasking The Face"...but hey, there's a limit to how much I can read.)

The Pow! logo is what we look like when Surprised; here's why we look like that:

"When our brows go up, it widens our eyes and gives us a broader field of vision--the Surprise brow is our body's way of forcing us to see more."

Surprise doesn't stop with the eyes, though.

"In addition, Surprise causes our jaws to drop and our mouths to gape.  We're struck momentarily speechless."

You know what?  This stuff doesn't merely vindicate the ramblings of this street marketer; it's actually quite interesting.  So one last intellectual look at Surprise before I let you go. Go ahead, Heath bros., add some more importance to my beloved subject matter:

"If emotions have biological purposes, then what is the biological purpose of Surprise?  Surprise jolts us to attention.  (It is) triggered when our schemas fail, and it prepares us to understand why the failure occurred.  When (they) fail, Surprise grabs our attention so that we can repair them for the future."

Pow!--Not just fun and games, but clinically proven to be important.  And recommended by four out of five doctors.

Higher Education

Surprise marketing ain't just for the guerrillas, the street-fighters, or--as Tom Peters calls 'em--the "weirdos and freaks" no more.  We're part of America's most hallowed hall of academia, bay-bah!

Biggest Surprise of all is not just that Pow!has been usurped by Harvard Business School Executive Education, but how they've gone about promoting it.

There must be something "special" in Boston water these days, because Harvard's ads for their four exec marketing management courses are spiced with terms like "Break Free.  Start thinking and acting differently" (sounds like Steve Jobs or maybe even Timothy Leary may have got to 'em as well), and resplendent with a variation on the U's classic coat of arms (check the adage above).

If the boys at Hah-vahd Yahd (well not just boys anymore, given that the school just named its first female President) are embracing their wild side, imagine the ramifications for the Fortune 500 in a few years.  Yee-hah!

iBalls

Way way back, in this blog's first post, I said the following:

"I have always shouted that consumers don't know what they want.  Well, I lied.

They know what they want. 

They WANT to be led.
They WANT us to lead them.
They WANT to follow.
And they WANT to be surprised."

I've never been a big believer in focus groups.  I have found that people in 'em are more concerned with giving the right answer than actually coming up with something revolutionary, something that will break through the constraints of what they already know. (On the other hand, I believe whole-heartedly in observing the consumer in his/her natural habitat and learning from that, but that's a whole other ball of whacks.)

And it seems that I have a kindred spirit in Steve Jobs.  In last week's Time Magazine look at the iPhone, Lev Grossman says:

"Jobs' zeal for product development--and enforcing his personal vision--remains as relentless as ever.

I can't think of a comparable company that does no--zero--market research with its customers before launching a product."

One more time:  ZERO MARKET RESEARCH WITH ITS CUSTOMERS.

This goes against conventional marketing wisdom, of course, but designing consumer products can be likened to the weather--everyone complains, but few do anything about it.  Consumers can tell you what's wrong with their phones, what they hate about 'em, but ask for improvement ideas and you'll get minor adjustments, incremental band-aids. 

At the recent CES show in Las Vegas, every cellphone manufacturer--EVERY SINGLE ONE--announced some sort of new handset.  I guarantee each one went through a laborious process of consumer study, research, focus groups, hand-wringing and anal probes. 

Yet only one truly captured our attention, broke through the clutter, and set tongues a-wagging.

Bringing consumer products to reality ain't no YouTube.

It takes a real marketer to bust through and have the balls to lead consumers to the promised land.

To some, the best customer market research is done at the cash register.

The Truthiness About Discoverability

Last year, in its 16th annual vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as its "Word of the Year," an impressive feat for a term coined by comic Stephen Colbert.

In the marketing world though, the less truthiness the better (just what we need; another corporate credibility scandal!).  Which is why I am happy to report that in its annual vote, Brandweek chose as its "Best Marketing Buzzword" one that is near and dear to those gathered at Surprise Central:

"Discoverability"

The magazine goes on to explain via this example:

"For a year or so, Reef has marketed sandals that have a bottle opener on the heel.  But the company never advertised it or noted it in the packaging, preferring to let users discover the attribute by themselves and tell others."

So lemme see if I got the process straight:

Start with Surprise, which leads to Pow!, which leads to people talking and doing your marketing for you.

Sounds like something readers of this blog discoverabled themselves a few months ago...

Good call, Brandweekers!

Over Usered

And while we're on the subject, Brandweek's "Worst Marketing Buzzword" of 2006 was the overused-to-death

"User-Generated Content"

...which (thankfully!)  gives credence to, and vindicates, my shout-outs in Marketing Magazine this week.

Is Big The New Small?

So, what happens when Intimacy Goes Big, which I intimated in the blog post of the same name?

Well, as a corollary I guess, Big Goes Intimate.

Or so I would believe after reading a piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal (dig the re-design big-time, by the way) about the new stadium being built for the Dallas Cowboys, an architectural behemoth of over 2.3 million square feet that will be able to seat about 100,000 when it opens in 2009.

One of the key selling points of the place is the 180-foot long video screens suspended over both sides of the playing surface, which will serve to--get this!--replicate the at-home experience.  As the article explains:

"Mr. Jones (Cowboys owner Jerry) believes that in the years ahead the Cowboys' biggest competition for fans will come from the increasingly sophisticated home-entertainment industry. 

"To counter home media, the 180-foot boards inside the stadium will...provide fans with the equivalent of watching the game on a 52-inch plasma screen from 12 feet away. 'You'll be able to see the sweat on their foreheads,' says Mr. Jones."

Ironic, ain't it?  Now if they could only change those clanky plastic stadium seats into couches...

See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Wear Me

Seth Godin hit the nail on the head and hard with his post on The T-Shirt Rule.  I've been braying about this for years (even here in Pow!).  Along with stickers, this is today's tangible acid test of cool among Teenagers 2.0. 

And jeez, you should see my t-shirt collection!  Boxes full.  My current fave features the Robert Crumb drawing of Boy Howdy, mascot of Creem Magazine (my rock 'n' roll bible growing up in the '70s and '80s; currently reborn on the web).

And your fave?

Virals Go Viral

What timing! 

Yesterday morning, I mention that it's Surprise that makes viral videos viral.

Yesterday afternoon, I get this Holiday Card from Twist Image, that encapsulates the year in--you guessed it!--viral videos.

Follow it through, see how many you sent and/or received throughout 2006...

...then let my point sink in even deeper.

(By the way, the Twist Image card itself became somewhat of a viral phenomenon, finding its way around the web faster than a speeding Line Rider.)

No Surprise, No Net As We Know It

If the subject matter of this blog was insignificant...if I didn’t believe in its extreme relevance and importance...I would’ve tossed in the towel a couple dozen posts ago.

But every now and then, something comes along to inject a new dose of adrenalin into my veins and make me realize that perhaps this whole Surprise thing is bigger than even I suspect.

In other words, Vindication File, open wide and say “Ahhhhhhhh!”

A few days ago, Mark Goren turned me onto authors Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (hey, I try to know ‘em all, but what are bloggers for?), for the possibility of bringing them to town for a book bash/conference. Spent much of the week leafing through their new book “Citizen Marketers: When People Are The Message,” and had my cranium crunched by their captivating theories and anecdotes.

The nuclear Pow! though, came when they explained how and why memes spread (and they had a captive, converted audience in me after the past two weeks of “Five Things” and “Z-Lists”).

The secret, it seems, is Surprise. The mechanics of most everything we share virally throughout the social media depends on it. They explain in a succint, five-point plan:

1. Bloggers spread a story that has a surprising development
2. The story is filled with numerous and concrete details
3. The story documents a tangible form of injustice
4. The story reaches a plateau of recognition among a number of well-known blogs
5. The story reaches a worldwide plateau

Obviously, Ben and Jackie explain this in greater detail and pepper their explanations with examples (come on folks, there’s only so much of their book I should give out for free). But as well-documented and well-formed as their plan is, you don’t get to #5 without passing through #1.

Put another way, you don’t go worldwide without Surprise.

Yes, the authors talk about “stories” (like the “Dirty Secret” iPod battery scandal video or the sleeping Comcast technician), but think for a second about just about every email or video you received from—or sent to—a friend.

They’re about blenders that turn marbles to dust.

Or mints that convert Diet Coke bottles into geysers.

Or unknown artists who perform four-minute histories of dance or choreographed routines on treadmills.

Or some sort of rumour about the insidious behavior of our favorite multinational.

Or seemingly impossible photos that reveal conspiratory secrets.

What they’re NOT about is the mundane, the usual, the expected. A photo of my dog Shaydee (see below), no matter how cute, will spread about as fast and as easily as frozen peanut butter. A video of my son Hayes playing goalie for his Midget “A” hockey team will perhaps delight his grandparents.  Unless, of course, he makes an impossible save lying down after a mid-air dive and somersault. Then it becomes a Pow!, and a candidate for sharing.

How important is Surprise? Well, it goes way beyond Citizen Marketing. In fact, without Surprise, I’d venture to say there’d be no YouTube. Without Surprise, MySpace would be the ramblings of that boring kid you do your damndest to avoid. And without Surprise, North Korean kook Kim Jong II would be Time Magazine’s Person of the Year instead of us.

Surprise is what makes viral, well…viral! Without it, the Internet as we know it would be spinning its wheels, stuck in neutral.

My dog Shaydee: Adorable yes, but not exactly viral (unless she licks you).

You Will Read This Post

Ahhh, if it were only that easy, I'd be so rich right now that Bill Gates would be my secretary, and Sergey Brin (left one) and Larry Page (right one, watch the laces!) would be shining my shoes. 

And if it worked that flawlessly, you'd already know I am posting about Predictive Software, the next stage in the online search business.   You'd have also already bought the book.  And the t-shirt.  And attended my speech on the subject.

In a fascinating piece in Fortune, Jeffrey M. O'Brien profiles a handful of companies--like Slide, WhatToRent, and my old fave Pandora--that are making great strides in the coming up with the next "next big thing," namely the programs and applications that will "get to know you better than you know yourself" and make piles o' cash by recommending you products and services you really want.   

And in doing so, he shoves another gold certificate into my rapidly thickening Vindication File.  Says  Jeffrey:

"The web...is leaving the era of search and entering one of discovery.  What's the difference? 

Search is what you do when you're looking for something. 

Discovery is when something wonderful that you didn't even know existed...finds you."

Fortune's dictum echoes what I said in my