More than just 5 words

Reporting live from the St. Regis Resort at Laguna Beach, California, your faithful interactivity reporter Sandra Niehaus scopes out the newest, hottest web conference around, Webby Connect.

What’s so great about this conference?

For one thing, it’s organized by the folks who produce the Webby Awards. Which means there’s a “deep bench” of speakers across a broad spectrum of specialties. How does having Arianna Huffington, Michael Eisner, and Vinton Cerf as keynote speakers strike you? And which also means they know a thing or two about organizing an event. Take their choice of venue (see the above photo) as an indicating factor.

Today was the first day of this three-day conference. Activities actually began the previous evening, with a welcoming get-together hosted on a patio overlooking the hotel grounds, for networking and catching up.

This morning’s official schedule began with a continental breakfast and great conversations, then on to a series of panel presentations. (All photos by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images for The Webby Awards, available on Flickr).

Your Favorite Video is a Commercial

The first presentation, titled “Your Favorite Video is a Commercial” included Tommy Means of Mekanism.com , Rob Master, who has the enviable title of “U.S. Marketing Director, Skin” for Unilever, and Rick Webb, co-founder and COO of the Barbarian Group. The moderator was Teressa Iezzi of Creativity Magazine. This presentation focused on the uses of branded content and online video as a marketing strategy. Some highlight points were:

• An online or digital component is useful as a centerpiece of a 360-degree advertising effort. So, for instance, an interactive web site or group of online videos that are promoted via multiple methods. One example used was Mekanism’s “Clearification” campaign for Microsoft’s Windows Vista. This campaign featured an interactive web site that was gently - not overtly - pointed to by multiple methods including an HBO comedy special, live comedy concerts, etc.
• When creating a branded, “viral” online campaign, it’s all about the storytelling. The episodes become soft, wrapping stories around the brand and becoming more about the brand’s ethos than about the brand itself. An example of this was Unilever’s “Axe” body fragrance and body wash campaigns.
• Having a very clear sense of brand ethos is supremely important. If you know who and what you are as a brand, you’ll be more comfortable with, even embrace, any reactions to your advertising efforts. An example was the multiple parodies of the multiple award-winning Dove “Evolution” video.
• The choice of using interactivity depends on your audience’s willingness to engage. Low desire = text communication. Medium desire = video. High desire = multiple videos or repeated viewings of a video. Higher desire = other interactivity, such as gaming or creating one’s own videos on the site.
• Measuring success for a viral campaign is not straight-forward. Some insight can be gained from straight metrics - how many views a video receives, how many visitors visit the site, and so forth. But the panel quoted use of multiple indicators, including views, traffic, blog chatter, and other audience feedback. Metrics reinforce, but don’t tell the whole story. They don’t show, for instance, the cultural impact of a truly successful viral marketing campaign.
• Having a fluid approach to a viral campaign is important. Put the campaign out there, watch indicators and feedback, and adjust the messaging based on metrics.

Experts. Masses. Who Knows Best?

The next session began after a generous break to allow for further networking plus a bracing cup of coffee or tea. The panel included Garrett Camp, Founder and Chief Product Officer of StumbleUpon, Nan Forte, Executive VP, Consumer Services for WebMD, Catherine Levene, COO of Daily Candy, and Joshua Schachter, co-founder of del.icio.us. Jamie Pallot, Executive Director of CondeNet, moderated the session.

This discussion clearly showed that user-generated content is valuable for some business models such as Del.icio.us, but not for others. Here’s the breakdown between the companies included on the panel:

• Del.icio.us - at the furthest end of the user-generated content side of the spectrum, but relies on the pre-existence of content that can be bookmarked by users. Considers itself a “shared memory” site where users can save important items and make them available with others. Search is an important component of the site. Each user becomes an information filter, in a sense, gaining credibility and reputation based on the quality of their bookmarks and groupings. Some companies, such as Adobe, have used Del.icio.us as a way to group and share online content related to their products that is not contained on their own web sites.
• StumbleUpon - a recommendation site in which users can influence the future web experience of other users by categorizing and recommending web content. Users can also gain reputation based on the relevance and value of their recommendations.
• WebMD - This site is a mix of expert and user-generated content. It contains largely expert-created content, but also some user-based content that is vetted and some community-building areas which allow for support group-type interactions. The main message here was that while health is definitely an area where expert input is needed, since each person’s health is individual and doctors’ opinions can differ there is also a distinct need for community-based sharing of more informal “I’ve been there too and here’s what I did” information.
• Daily Candy -This site is pure expert content, and it is this consistent quality that has gained the site a highly desirable advertising profile. Subscribers know they can trust the recommendations given. Advertisers know they can depend on the site to deliver highly qualified customers. Everybody wins.

One of the recurring themes of this session was credibility and reputation. Whether the content is generated by a user or an expert, the accuracy, relevancy and source transparency of the content over time supports or degrades the contributor’s reputation — and everything else flows from that.

Disruptive Innovation: Game Changing Ideas

After yet another networking break, during which many of us scurried to the patio to get warm in the sun, the third session began. This session’s panel included Beth Higbee, Senior VP and General Manger of Scripps Networks Emerging Ventures, and David Rudolph, entrepreneur and former SVP, Strategy & New Products, Turner Broadcasting. Spencer Ante, Department Editor, Computers, for BusinessWeek, moderated.

Both presenters had been tasked with creating innovation within a large corporation. In other words, to innovate in such a way that was not building existing brands or initiatives (because other groups handled that) but trying new, disruptive ideas. Both presenters spoke at some length about the difficulty of achieving this goal within a large organization because innovation can be seen as threatening, as low-ROI compared with doing the usual, and even as simply uninteresting. David Rudolph pointed out that most successful startups change their business models up to six times before becoming successful, so an innovative initiative within a large corporation can be seen as a waste of time and effort.

Both presenters stepped through a basic step-wise guide to “disruptive innovation” development. Beth Higbee presented what she termed the “Super-Basic” WRENCH guide she shows to other Scripps employees to acquaint them with the overall idea:

• W - Who: unsatisfied customers. These are the opportunity area for disruptive innovation. For instance, homeowners who are dissatisfied with using real estate agents to buy and sell homes.
• R - Reasonable: reaching a”good enough” solution quickly. For instance, a resource web site could be a “good enough” solution to serve the dissatisfied homeowners.
• E - Easy: the solution should be simple, convenient, accessible, and/or affordable for the “who”.
• N - Nons: these are the ignored customers or overlooked situations. For instance, real estate agents would be a ‘non’ in the case of providing a solution for homeowners who’re dissatisfied with real estate agents.
• C - Cheap: keeping the solution low-cost, using iterations to improve when needed.
• H - Holes: competitive weaknesses and blind spots provide opportunities for innovation.

This session was definitely more high-level than the others, but highlighted the efforts some major companies are making to stay fresh and innovative. However, these efforts seem somewhat doomed by inertia, politics, finances and legal restraints. Which is why people leave large corporations to start their own businesses.

Arianna Huffington

Last but not least on the program was keynote speaker for the day Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post among many other achievements. Arianna was a warm, confident and definite speaker, touching on many topics. She spoke about the lack of courage evidenced by current Presidential candidates (all quotes are paraphrased, because I don’t have a recording chip built into my brain quite yet): “They’re so afraid to say the wrong thing they forget to say the right thing.” About the need for reporting external to the usual reporters’ pool: “When I followed campaigns as a reporter, we reporters would all cover an event then go across the street, have drinks, and talk about what we just covered. And we’d all come away with essentially the same viewpoint.” She spoke about how the Huffington Post deals with credibility and accuracy for their reports and blogs: “If something is found to be inaccurate, the author has one day to correct it or their login is deleted.” And she spoke about what she sees as the next thing on the web: “We’re all so connected, I think the next thing will be ways to connect in order to de-connect.” Meaning, going online and meeting with others to find ways to balance one’s life.

The sessions and keynote address were followed by lunch, surfing lessons (while other, less ocean-inclined, attendees went shopping or visited the resort spa), and a fabulous dinner served under the stars.

All in all, not a bad first day! I’m looking forward to tomorrow.