How Samberg and Social Media Saved SNL
In the seasons following the exits of Ferrell and Fey, Saturday Night Live seemed to struggle not only amping up talent and (let’s face it) laughter, but also viewership. Hold up, I know SNL has had some prior low-points and that in its nearly 4 decades of seasons, it’s had some not-so-stellar stints (that are before my time – Yes, I know who Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd are), but, I would argue that when Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon cleared out, things looked pretty grim.
Enter salvation in the form of:
ANDY SAMBERG
It was a sinking ship until a fresh-faced comedian and writer, Andy Samberg, joined the cast in 2005, bringing with him his two Lonely Island partners Akiva Shaffer and Jorma Taccone as writers and an updated comedic direction. “Lazy Sunday”, one of the first of SNL’s “Digital Shorts”, was one of the most widely-viewed and talked-about SNL creations since Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush impressions.
This video garnered much attention from the media, which was only heightened with further Digital Shorts like Iran So Far, featuring Adam Levine of Maroon5, and Emmy-winning “Dick In A Box”, with Justin Timberlake (coincidentally, LaunchSquad client, Barely Political created a parody video called “Box in a Box”)– all of which were written by the Lonely Island team for SNL.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Digial shorts: Samberg, who stars in the online-only videos, and the Lonely Island team, spearheaded these seemingly amateurish videos, that created such a sensation that when “Lazy Sunday” was posted to YouTube (illegally) it was viewed five million times before NBC pulled it for copyright infringement.
YouTube leads to Hulu: Fans can now find clips on YouTube, but that was not always the case. The short “Lazy Sunday,” which aired on SNL on December 17, 2005, with its massive viewership caused quite a stir in pop culture, but also helped legitimized YouTube as a viable medium for brands like NBC to invest in. In late 2006, NBC began uploading SNL digital shorts on YouTube themselves. The short “Dick in a Box” which aired on televelision in December 2006, was viewed more than 28 million times on YouTube.
NBC advanced its online video campaign, realizing that many of us go online to watch TV and and expanded into Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and News Corp. The video network provides high definition (if often incomplete) versions of the episodes and allows users to comment.
This brings up a larger point of the growing trend of online television: according to today’s article by Brad Stone and Brian Stelter, “Some Online Shows Could Go Subscription-Only”, the online video network yields a huge viewership, boasting 5 million unique viewers in February. Sounds like NBC really took a cue from YouTube and took it to the next level, but it’s interesting that this service that’s saving not only SNL, but the network, could switch to a subscription model when part of the reason it’s so popular is because it’s free.
Video embedding capabilities: In October of 2008 Mashable reported that SNL producer, Lorne Michaels, was planning an on-demand Website featuring popular clips as well as providing the embed code so that bloggers and news sites and… well anyone can embed the videos anywhere.
—
It’s the virality of these videos that inspired to NBC to wise up and embrace outlets like YouTube and Hulu, a decision that allowed them to reach not only a far more massive audience but also a young audience. This audience not only lives online, like the videos now do, but relates more to Samberg’s “in your face” and often brazen comedic style and also appreciates his savvy talent pairings with high-profile pop stars Justin Timberlake and and T-Pain. These attributes ensure that Samberg and his Lonely Island cronies are very well-suited for the task of recruiting the next generation of Saturday Night Live fans, restoring SNL to what it was meant to be – relevant and funny – and by God, he delivers.
Old School Education, Wake Up Academia
“In all cultures members tend to share certain common activities, the ’signature activities of the culture’ …For those of us living in the information age, signature activities include reading, writing, computer literacy, and using electronic media… Signature activities require training and cultural experience and lead to the development of a new, specially wired brain.”
- Norman Doidge, M.D. from ‘The Brain That Changes Itself‘
Among other things, I’m passionate about education that’s very accessible, effective, and widespread as a cure for lots of societal problems (my mother is a teacher so I think that’s where it comes from). Now that the information age is upon us, we have new resources that let kids around the globe work together, compete, and learn about different cultures. On top of that, we’ve got ever-improving teaching techniques backed by the latest research in cognitive science, just look at the research done by Sesame Street.
Hey Teacher, Don’t Leave Those Kids Alone…
For K-12 there are a lot of creative teachers out there already using web 2.0 to bring a new style to the classroom. Some are setting up Skype accounts for their classes so they can conference with other classrooms around the world. There’s Teachertube.com with lots of short, easy-to-digest clips about all kinds of subjects including jingles! Putting something to music like the State Capitals is huge when it comes to recall. Then there’s @Brightstorm_, one of our clients, an online learning network for teens that matches them up with cool teachers to prepare them for placement tests. We all knew people that were just good test takers back in grade school, it’s a skill set like any other that you have to develop.
All Your Kids Are Belong To Us…
Educating our young ones is a long and difficult process that takes lots of time and resources. The question is how to keep information relevant and useful, make it as easy to digest as quickly possible, then reinforce it so that kids become fully functioning members of a society that continues to move faster and faster. Digital Natives like myself consume much more information than our predecessors and much quicker, but from entirely different mediums (like blogs and RSS feeds for instance). Our attention spans are short and getting shorter, but higher education hasn’t been as malleable and as quick to accommodate as we’d like.
While blackboards and overhead projectors were fine for concrete memorization as a kid, even with the addition of PowerPoints in college, these mediums left something to be desired when it came to absorbing complex, abstract concepts later on (See ‘A Vision of Students Today’ by Michael Wesch). Web 2.0 adoption within the groves of Academia might be slow at first, but the recent flock to online courses is evidence of a pretty big change under way. That’s pure conjecture, this recession skews my point like crazy since online courses are a much less expensive alternative to brick-and-mortar schools…I just realized I used ‘brick-and-mortar’ to describe education, that’s a good tangent for later.
Business schools in the US used to rake in students easily, but the recession has changed all that. Students from foreign countries are electing to get their MBAs in their homelands instead of coming to America. Maybe now Business Schools will have to compete and, if we hold to the principle that competition is better for everyone, in a few years our B-Schools may look entirely different and be more relevant and beneficial for students.
Some good signs: web 2.0 education content is appearing across all types of platforms, even Twitter. @educationweek tweets about the latest education news, @pbsteachers offers content resources for K-12 educators, @patrickstrother is a professor who tweets about PR and Advertising, and tons of other educators are out there using new mediums to connect with their students and find relevant content. Can’t wait to see how classrooms change in the coming years, maybe some will even move into the virtual realm, but that’s for another post. How’d you like to take a class in Second Life or something similar?
*This post is dedicated to @DonorsChoose, an online charity where teachers post what they need for special projects in classrooms and anyone can go online and decide which projects to make donations to. Find their site here.
Five Cool Things that Happened at SXSW Interactive
Last week, I got a chance to attend part of the SXSW Interactive Festival–the coolest tech/geek conference anyone could possibly go to. Where else could you see @garyvee swear profusely on a panel in front of 900+ people, get photographed for the Entertainment page of the local newspaper, and meet some of the most innovative and influential people in tech? Before I went, I spent a significant amount of time perusing the SXSW Web site, debating which panels were worthwhile, reading up on party etiquette and figuring out just how I was going to balance it all. In the end, the experience was even more powerful than I expected. While much has been written about what goes on at SXSW and how you can make the most of it, I thought I’d dive into my personal experience and why I now believe that any creative, driven and passionate person should try to go to this thing–at least once! Below is a brief rundown of 5 cool things that happened at SXSW:
1. An impromptu lunch/dinner with some really cool folks: at SXSW, throwing out your insecurities and shyness is probably the best way to go. People attending the conference are excited by the prospect of meeting cool people, so if you want to meet someone–say hello–and suggest lunch! While at the conference, I got a chance to have dinner with Boxee, Evernote and Cliqset, and an impromptu lunch with the founders of a San Francisco-based company called Foodzie, who showered us with delicious samples of truffles, granola and lollipops.
2. Watching Gary Vaynerchuck (of Wine Library TV) talk about ‘the hustle’ in front of a packed room of people–where, no one was ashamed of self-promotion when going up to the microphone to ask questions.
3. Getting our picture in the Austin Statesman’s Entertainment section: priceless.
4. Talking with the founder of Moo, the makers of tiny Moo business cards–and awkwardly handing him my business card.
5. Going up to the microphone to ask a question at a panel that generated a good five minute discussion between all of the panelists–lesson learned: if you have something to say–say it!
Overall, the message that I took away from the event was to be aggressive–whether it be attending as many parties as you can, pushing your way through to meet a panelist/CEO/blogger, or running around between the Convention Center and the Hilton Hotel to get into as many panels as possible.
SXSW: Distributing Ideas on Distribution
Digital content distribution was a recurring topic among many of the panels at this year’s SXSW Interactive conference. Content distribution models have been steadily evolving across the film, television, music, news and gaming industries, leading to a tremendous amount of analysis and debate, but in many cases very little progress for increased revenue. One of the key issues for most digital content mediums has been the role of piracy. Dealing with how easily content can be shared and stolen online has been a truly painful experience for almost any industry that produces original content, but how companies have attempted to solve piracy problems has varied dramatically.
“Online Content: Transforming Piracy into Profit,” a panel at this year’s SXSW conference examined ways that companies have built business models and technological solutions that create legitimate revenue opportunities from the ways that people already share and even steal online content. A key takeaway from the discussion was that for content creators and distributors to effectively make progress against the problems caused by piracy they need to facilitate new ways to make the transition from piracy to syndication. The panelists Jameson Hsu CEO/Cofounder, Mochi Media, Matt Robinson VP BD/Partnerships, Attributor, Joyce Kim Fortis General Counsel, Roy Schwartz VP of Business Dev, Politico, Jason Oberfest Senior Vice President of Business Development, MySpace each provided examples of new strategies that their companies have employed to leverage the viral capacity of the Internet to create revenue opportunities. Some great soundbites were recorded by Daisy Whitney in her article on the panel for TV Week.
As the music portion of the SXSW panel gets underway, one has to wonder when the music industry will be able to accomplish this transformation of piracy into profit. With overall music sales continuing to plummet, it is generally being questioned whether selling music will actually be a viable busines model in the future. Clearly there is still a massive appetite for new music, but there has debatably been less progress in monetizing the way people share musical content online than in any other content medium. The SXSW panel Policy Trainwreck: How Copyright Law Failed the Digital Age touched on some of these issues, though as the title suggests, the observations were somewhat gloomy. While the discussion at this panel was often disconcerting for someone who wants to see the music industry find its way out of its current problems, there was also a strong sense that while the distribution solutions and the new music industry that will be born out of them are still not yet upon us, they will come.
A Different Kind of Geek
Last week, I attended the AlwaysOn Going Green conference in Boston; in the midst of the economic meltdown and corresponding malaise, it was very refreshing to hear from and about a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators that are focused on, well, changing the world. Hearing about how coal can be efficiently converted into cleaner energy (see Great Point Energy and CoalTek), wastewater can be quickly transformed into clean drinking water (Oasys Water and Hydropoint Data Systems), or biomass can cheaply produce high quality ethanol (Zymetis), really gets one excited about a profoundly different future for ourselves and the planet.
I’ve worked with a handful of upstart green and clean technology companies recently (this is a relatively new market of course), but most of our clients over the years have been of the more conventional computer technology variety. Software, hardware, networking, Internet and the like.
The conference got me thinking about The Next Big Thing, and how the world of technology and innovation are likely to shake out in the coming decades (I lost track of how many times someone at the event mentioned a year like 2030 or even 2050). The last 30 years or so have been dominated first by the computer/PC and then the Internet revolutions, which affected pretty much everything and have had a huge impact on our lives. Consider what things were like before we had a computer at work (or home), a mobile phone, or web sites that sell you anything you want or give you access to any piece of information in a moment.
Those revolutions were spurned and driven by folks like Bill Joy, Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates, who were at their core engineers and programmers, aka Computer Geeks. They were brilliant people at the right time and place who used their science and math-based minds to create world-changing technologies.
But in this new wave that is upon us, we’re talking about a whole different kind of geek. The people behind the new ideas and companies that will spark the green/clean tech revolution are for the most part not electrical engineers and computer scientists. Instead, they are of the more traditional (and I guess original) geek variety. We’re talking about biologists, chemists, geologists and other ists most of us have never heard of. Just your everyday, straight-on scientists.
And to be sure this is quite a different breed. These are people that aren’t naturally inclined to sit in front of a computer screen for weeks at a time writing code and loving every minute of it. These folks like to play in the sand and get dirty. They wonder at nature and all its various elements and nuances. They like to mix things together and make explosions. They look at the sky and ponder what’s out there to be found.
It’ll be very interesting to see how this coming revolution evolves, and how the different traits and skills among this set of geeks manifests itself.
The Open-Source White House
A couple of weeks ago, Tony Hsieh, also known as @zappos on Twitter, sent this Tweet to his almost quarter million followers:
Meeting at White House tomorrow to discuss ways to help economy that administration may not have thought of yet. What are your suggestions?
139 characters and an open invitation to offer your ideas for economic recovery to the White House. At first, it was interesting to see that the CEO of an online shoe company founded only 10 years ago was being called on to share his ideas with the new administration. Also, while he may have taken some liberties here, the way he positioned his meeting — “that administration may not have thought of yet” — implied that the administration was open about the fact that they may not have all the answers and are looking for outside ideas to spark discourse and new ways of thinking. Most significantly, however, was that Hsieh was offering to take ideas from his Twitter followers and submit them to decision makers in the White House.
I could not help but see the parallels here between this approach to government and the open-source software philosophy. Much like open-source, the foundation for governance was laid down, but it had also been opened up to the outside world. The administration started this process by inviting Hsieh, but social media finished the job by enabling him to connect with his audience to solicit ideas.
It’s a huge shift in how we think about a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” that will hopefully spread throughout various areas of government and even business … even if writing the solution to our economic recovery in 140 characters (or even 140,000) may prove to be a bit challenging.
Thin Mints 2.0? Not So Fast
Every year as girl scout cookie season rolls around, I think back on my first forays into sales and the art of effectively hawking the mass-produced, yet deceptively delicious baked goods that have come to define many a girl’s early springtime. Standing before each foreboding doorstep, staring up at the closed door ahead and nervously gripping my clipboard and ballpoint pen, I remember being filled with a distinct sense of fear crossed with nervous excitement — who would be waiting on the other side? Would they be nice, rude or indifferent, and most importantly, would they buy?
It has now been over a decade (wow) since I (not so begrudgingly) abandoned my Girl Scout sash, but it’s amazing to see, for better or worse, how little the cookie sales program has changed. In this week’s Newsweek, reporter Kurt Soller writes on the issue, highlighting the program’s resistance to even a gradual shift towards E-commerce and larger seeming opposition to technology in general.
Soller mentions the story of 8-year-old Wild Freeborn, whose tech-savvy father created a YouTube video of Wild in her Girl Scout outfit repeating the oft-used sales pitch: “Buy cookies! And they’re yummy!” While simple, the video proved effective, generating more than 700 orders in two weeks.
However, Wild’s seemingly innocent plea was not met with friendly high-fives from other parents (jealous, perhaps?) or local Girl Scout officials. Freeborn was instructed to take down the site and questions were routed back to the organization’s FAQ, which stated, “The safety of our girls is always our chief concern. Girl Scout Cookie activities are designed to be face-to-face learning experiences for the girls.”
Yet it doesn’t seem like safety could possibly be the issue here. Perhaps I have become a little too ensconced in the Web world, but I can’t see how selling cookies online could be markedly more dangerous than sending young girls wandering door-to-door? I understand the organization’s wariness and the fact that standards and rules must be clearly established before a formal E-commerce strategy is initiated — yet, it seems the organization is already (at least) a few years behind the times.
It’s 2009 — and adolescents live on the Web. If the Girl Scout organization doesn’t wise up and find a way to appropriately evolve and acknowledge this fact, both the cookie program and perhaps even the organization as a whole may risk becoming irrelevant.
I don’t mean to say that Girl Scouts should stop selling cookies on street corners, but why should technology be shut out? I know I’m not the only one hoping to be able to buy my annual box of Peanut Butter Patties for years to come — so let’s give three cheers for little Wild and here’s to hoping that soon the rest of the organization follows suit.
Google, Meet @Zappos
There’s little doubt that Google is one of the great technology innovators of all time. The pace at which they introduce new products and features is staggering and I use a host of their products personally and professionally.
That’s why when LaunchSquad began to grow and as our technology needs became more complex, we made the shift to Google Apps. With the premium edition, we have a great, ad-free email program that’s easy to set up and manage and seamlessly works across computing devices. Google Docs provides an easy way for the team to share documents, which is particularly useful for collaboration between our San Francisco and New York offices. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed a boost in productivity around the office since we’ve made the switch.
Unfortunately, just as Om recently broke up with his iPhone due to continuous service interruptions, I’m seriously considering a break with Google Apps. In our case, the problem is two-fold: 1) we’ve had a growing number of service outages, and delays and lost emails and 2) Google’s customer service and support sucks.
I get that Google Apps is either free or very low cost for users. Indeed, Forrester recently reported that cloud-based email is the cheapest option for companies with fewer than 15,000 employees. And, generally speaking, companies want to keep support costs low for products that don’t generate significant revenue (Google is generating a miniscule $10 million from its Apps suite.)
Henry Blodget says Google Apps doesn’t bring in the dough because Google is having a hard time converting free Apps customers to paid ones. I say it’s because Google doesn’t have customers, or customer service, in its DNA. Maybe the two are connected. After all, you wouldn’t expect a company with its roots in search algorithms and advertising optimization to have a soft spot for IT admins and information workers.
If Google wants to keep our business and remain threat to Microsoft and its Office Live initiative, it should embrace customer service as its #1 priority for 2009.
Google, meet @zappos, aka Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.
@zappos is building his online shoe business into the Nordstrom of e-commerce and the legend of its customer service grows daily. As BusinessWeek’s Keith McFarland wrote last September, Zappos offers extremely fast shipping at no cost and will cover the return shipping if you are dissatisfied for any reason at any time. As important, customer service reps are given a lot of leeway to make sure every customer is an enthusiastic customer.
Google on the other hand, makes it difficult if not impossible to get customer care. Support questions are managed almost exclusively via email and, in our experience, are rarely answered (we have half a dozen or so out there somewhere). Google aims to help customers self-support through a knowledge base and user forum, but it’s poorly moderated and lacks depth of solutions. Most of our problems are so fundamental (emails getting lost or bounced or service downtime), that forums don’t help anyway. We’ve been able to get live support once when a team member and former Googler pulled some strings with a former co-worker.
So while Zappos is building its brand on customer service and accesibility, Google is alienating customers and hurting its long-term prospects in an enormous market. Why can’t Google, a company with more than 10,000 employees listen and respond to customers? Not that I have high hopes, but I’m @throck if anyone has the answer.
The Elements of Style Celebrates 50 Years of Good Grammar
“Omit needless words.” So says The Elements of Style, a small (105 page) guide to writing that has proven to be a trusted companion for writers, students and everyone in between. The book celebrated its 50th birthday on February 16th, and inspired me to write this post. For a grammar book that I’m now just skimming through, it has some serious, unexpected punch. Perhaps it is the author’s devotion to writing succinctly that makes every page speak and address the reader in the clearest of terms. In my own writing, I’m trying to eliminate ‘needless’ words and pay closer to attention to words that I tend to use profusely, but as I’m learning, mean nothing (hopefully, anyone?)
In a world of short form (blogging, email, Twitter), style often tends to get neglected. To clarify, the proper language that has long been taught in grammar schools seems to have become less and less relevant. I’ve been known to lazy out of writing “by the way” in lieu of BTW. Reading a bevy of blogs (from tech to food, design, news and everything in between), I’m often struck by how style-less writing seems to be these days (at least from the grammar rules perspective). I’ll admit, I too happily write run on sentences and misuse punctuation marks on my blog because I can. But style, it seems, can be taught. And it doesn’t have to be a rigid, bad thing.
Even Twitter, it seems, can have a style guide. In a world where communication is increasingly more micro, The Elements of Style is a little book that seems to hold the key to writing that speaks volumes, without a microphone. As someone whose job depends on clearly communicating a story, I find the message behind The Elements of Style relevant to every medium that I use to communicate. In fact, I find myself concentrating hard to understand exactly what I am trying to communicate. When looking at an email window, I always ask myself just how important the stuff below the line is. If the story is compelling and it’s clear, the main message should fit in the first paragraph–the rest is just anecdotes and logistics.
Reading this little book makes me appreciate the art of writing in a new way–and in a way that I think transcends whatever medium I’m using–be it Tweeting at someone, sending a brief pitch, writing a blog post, or even a thank you card to a dear friend. As newspapers face uncertain times, and the blogosphere continues to become a more and more relevant source of information and entertainment, it’s important to remember that with change, we shouldn’t forget tradition. Few rule books have stood the test of time, and true devotion of so many talented people, like the Elements of Style. As the media world continues to adapt to new mediums, the fundamental core of clear and concise writing still remains the foundation of the message.