November, 2011

B2B Memes

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“Content Is Power”: Q & A with Mark W. Schaefer

B2B Memes

Mark W. Schaefer. A couple of years ago when I started B2B Memes it was my plan to focus exclusively on trade publishing. But as I looked around the blogosphere/Twitterverse, it didn’t take long to realize that the most enthusiastic and informed discussions about B2B communications involved not publishing, but marketing. For me, a journalist, this came as a jolt.

Content 125
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Process vs. Product: Six New-Media Principles, No. 6

B2B Memes

The new-media principles of transparency and openness discussed in my last two posts mean that readers can both see and participate in the process of journalism itself. They are no longer handed the finished product in the form of an article and asked to move along. For both reader and writer the change can be liberating, exciting, and rewarding. The downside, of course, is that the process is messy and prone to mistakes.

Process 116
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Transparent vs. Opaque: Six New-Media Principles, No. 5

B2B Memes

Because one of its foundational ideas is openness, as I described in yesterday’s post , new media encourages and rewards transparency. Traditional media organizations have tended to be opaque, aiming not to reveal much about the people and processes behind their product. But the nature of new media is to reveal everything, to make everything public.

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Open vs. Closed: Six New-Media Principles, No. 4

B2B Memes

One of the key distinctions in the digital world is between closed systems and open ones. One example of a closed system, from the early days of the online experience, would be the original America Online or Prodigy of the 1990s. These “walled garden” systems restricted who could participate, and relied on custom-built, proprietary systems that could be difficult to use and impossible to adapt.

Media 112
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Personal vs. Corporate: Six New-Media Principles, No. 3

B2B Memes

In last Wednesday’s post, I described how new media make the reader an equal partner in journalism, able to talk back to, as well as compete with, the journalist. The same dynamic similarly changes the journalist’s relation to his or her employer. Journalists no longer need a traditional publisher in order to talk with readers. Formerly, most journalists were, to readers, little more than a name on a page.

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Collaboration vs. Control: Six New-Media Principles, No. 2

B2B Memes

In yesterday’s post , I described new media’s foundation in conversation, the preference for dialogue over monologue. Today’s principle is closely related. Conversations are only truly conversational when they are collaborative. If anyone controls the conversation, it ceases to be one. But for traditional journalists and marketers alike, the notion of giving up editorial control can be challenging.

Media 112
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Dialogue vs. Monologue: Six New-Media Principles, No. 1

B2B Memes

As I wrote in yesterday’s post , over the next six days I will be discussing six new-media principles, adapted from my forthcoming e-book, the New-Media Survival Guide. Today’s principle is based on the importance and power of conversation, reflecting new media’s emphasis on dialogue rather than monologue. Doc Searls and David Weinberger: "Markets are conversations" In 1999, when Doc Searls and David Weinberger wrote in The Cluetrain Manifesto that “ markets are c