Having been overtaken by events in London last week, I found it untenable to get out a daily blog post covering IQPC‘s Information Operations (or IO) Europe conference. There were also quite a few concerns from some conference-goers about how new media dorks like me attending could potentially bust up IO Europe’s tradition of “Chatham House rules” where none of the gathering’s discussions were attributable let alone reportable.

Wrestling with this personally, I’ve decided to go ahead and write up my thoughts on the conference because I believe the discussions are important to the wider global communications community. I will, however, decline to name some names to protect the guilty.

That said, let’s see what’s new in another year of IO.

True Best Practices Are Usually the Most Controversial

From what conference-goers told me, this year more than ever saw more status quo-challenging presentations than ever before at IO Europe. The IO community, being as small as it is, tends to attack points of view that make these challenges. IO being a military discipline tends to rely on structure, plans, and doctrine that do not evolve. This runs counter to the promise of the Now Media Age (with apologies to MountainRunner) where we see communication innovation happening every day. And before people rail against that assertion claiming that our most popular conflict environments are in traditional media dependent regions, we also saw plenty of controversy that had nothing to do with the internet. Ed O’Connell – late of the Alternative Strategies Institute, which has now been acquired by Blue Hackle – gave a rousing talk about how he has conducted “interventions” into historically denied areas. The influence effects of Ed’s work dealt with providing forums for locals to air grievances in ways they had not considered before.

Ed’s a controversial figure in the IO world. He’s rankled quite a few feathers but his effects are undeniable. He is a fearless believer in personal, face-to-face rehabilitation of societies that have been brutalized by everything from violence and terror to poor economies. As much as we would like to put a new media solution on everything, there is still need for the de-radicalization work of someone like Ed.

Image courtesy Science 2.0

Most IO Pros Fear the Internet

Despite traditional approaches being successful and warranted in our current conflict environments, most of the IO pros I ran into at IO Europe are still massively afraid of conducting operations on the internet. While we have seen a huge ramp-up of media monitoring and analytical capabilities (i.e., programs that scour the internet for operationally relevant information and intelligence), very few organizations are actually doing anything with the information gleaned. Most arguments in favor of this fear have to do with limited policy and legislation governing influence operations on the internet but in my conversations with people, I detected a marked lack of motivation to even understand the online world. Many used excuses like “I’m too old to get it” or “My boss doesn’t care about this.” Worse, we even had a cybersecurity exercise one day lead by a facilitator who claimed to care nothing about social media and still professed to be an expert in online security operations.

IO Policy Still Stuck in the Dark Ages

Such fearmongering is exacerbated by onerous IO and strategic communication policy. There were more discussions on what simple terms mean than I could count, and when you factor in the international perspectives from the US, NATO, the UK, Canada, and many other nationalities represented, doctrinal debates became comical. Because of these debates, IO policy (and its overriding legislation) is still clawing for relevancy in an information age that has already left it behind. While professed IO policymakers and “experts” continually disagree over the meaning of “strategic communications,” citizens are moving on to the next platform, the next online game, the next social network, the next INNOVATION.

This facet of IO Europe upset me a little because this was one of the reasons I got out of the government business a while back. One of my former bosses used to say that government is about maintaining the status quo NOT innovation. Because of that, we will never see an IO or influence organization that thinks and operates ahead of the curve.

That Doesn’t Mean Innovation Isn’t Happening Though…

Quite a few private sector companies talked about communication systems monitoring platforms and methodologies. As we all know, entrepreneurial creativity occurs in the private sector. I met a number of companies who claimed to have technical solutions that provided end-to-end monitoring and sentiment analysis capabilities in multiple languages. Unfortunately, none of them were on hand to demo, something I would challenge all of them to rectify next year. IO Europe could be a great conference if IO pros could cycle from table to table to see the latest innovations in online data analysis.

Aside from tools, there were some great case studies of innovative approaches to operations. Hats off to the gents from Bell Pottinger for a supercool study of their strategic communications work in the Horn of Africa.

For Every Jerk You Meet, There Are 10 AWESOME Mofos

The IO community has its share of smarmy turd biscuits slinking through events like IO Europe, whether they’re government reps or otherwise. However, there are just as many, if not more AWESOME people hanging around with amazing stories, conversation, and things from which you can learn. I made twice as many friends at this IO Europe than I did last year, and these are folks with whom I anticipate having lasting professional friendships as well. The value of so many international perspectives in one place is hard to calculate, but may of the non-Americans at the conference gave me tons of new things to think about. I especially have to thank the gents from M&C Saatchi who recruited me to speak, offered some great conversations about music, and – in one case – hosted me at their home for my last day in country.

Final Thoughts: Be Better, Do Good

Ultimately, IO Europe was a great annual get-together for those of us in the community, but I think we can all do better. Too many of us got wrapped up in our own organizational prejudices, focusing on selling something or satisfying a government requirement. Instead, I think we all need to take a step back and remember why we’re in the influence business. For me, it’s all about experiential sharing – the process of understanding the complex global ecosystem in which we live that is made manifest by online means. At the end of the day though, all of us need to recognize a passion for communication, whether we’re a NATO PAO or a PR firm VP. There are too many people in this business who are just punching a clock, and that’s a shitty way to communicate with other cultures even if all you’re doing is approving comms plans.

See y’all next year.

Related articles

• Engaging in a Now Media Continuum (mountainrunner.us)
• Now Media: engagement based on information not platforms (mountainrunner.us)

The big news yesterday hit that DC Comics will reboot their entire line of comic books beginning in September: all new #1′s, all new creative teams, all new continuity from which to tell all new stories about their classic characters. In the wake of their currently ongoing Flashpoint event, apparently some kind of event will occur that will reset the DC Universe to 0. Rolling out their big guns to show how serious they are, DC announced the first title in this reboot launch for August 31: The Justice League by writer Geoff Johns and acclaimed artist Jim Lee.

DC's rebooted Justice League. (Image courtesy of Newsarama)

For comics fans alone, this was a bombshell of an announcement. The hits didn’t stop there though as DC announced that in conjunction with this reboot, everyone one of their new titles would be available digitally same day as print.

That’s right. That noise you just heard was every comics retailer in the country shuttering their doors.

The comics Internet has, of course, exploded into fanboy rampage as the dwindling numbers of comics retailers express their outrage that DC is leaving them in the dust. They’re correct, too. DC isn’t just leaving them behind. They’re bending them over first and giving them a right good evening of buggery.

I’ve written before on the state of digital comics and how upset I am that there isn’t a better selection and a better on-time delivery date for new comics to digital apps. With this announcement, DC is coming down squarely on the side of the future, where people consume their content digitally. Pay attention to that Amazon announcement where books sold on the Kindle outsold print books? Yeah. DC did too.

I dig DC’s decision to jump headfirst into the digital arena. This is a great first step for them, but if they really want to bring the AWESOME, they need to take a couple more key steps to become the reigning giant of digital publishers:

1. Make digital titles less expensive than print titles.
2. Sell bundles or collections of stories at discounts, similar to affordable trade paperbacks.
3. Make an effort to get their entire library in their digital store.

Like a friend of mine said, I want to reread Preacher in all its glory, but I don’t want to pay $2 per issue for the complete digital edition (for a total of $132). It makes no sense. Sell that at a massive discount and I will by the entire series, like I will with other complete series like The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, and Justice League International. For what it’s worth, I think DC is on the path doing these things; they’re probably just waiting for their competitors’ next moves in the digital arms race.

One thing is clear though: retailers, your day is DONE. No more will parents have to worry about what their children are being exposed to in shifty, dank stores run by unkempt and unclean comics fanboys. Those retailers that survive will be the ones who innovatively design their store experience, as James Sime has done for Isotope.

As for the rest of you, I will not miss your terribleness one iota.

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• DC Comics planning day-and-date digital comics publishing for relaunch (mobile-ent.biz)
• DC Comics Rebooting Entire Universe (grumbleltd.wordpress.com)
• DC Comics Is Rebooting Everything and Going Digital (blogs.forbes.com)
• DC Comics to Relaunch Entire Line, Including Day-and-Date Digital (techland.time.com)
• DC Comics Relaunches Everything, Announces Day-and-Date Digital/Print Publication (wired.com)
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• DC Comics Rebooting Entire Universe Back to #1 (escapistmagazine.com)
• “Time for a Reboot.” – DC Comics (geeksaresexy.net)
• DC comics to simultaneously release print, digital versions of comic books (teleread.com)
• DC Universe Will Reboot This August; Digital Issues Available at Time of Physical Release (collider.com)
• This fall, DC Comics will restart every big superhero comic at issue #1 [Comics] (io9.com)
• DC Universe To Be Rebooted; How Will It Affect the Justice League Film? (screenrant.com)

I had a great time last week talking with my buddy Dr. Craig Hayden in his Public Diplomacy class at American University in DC. Craig and I are sometimes-partners-in-crime at the MountainRunner Institute (along with His AWESOMEness, Matt Armstrong, and “Georgia Peach” Shawn Powers). We have a lot of interesting discussions about public diplomacy, strategic communication, and the nature of information and influence in today’s post-digital world.

Craig asked me to bring my perspective on those discussions to his class. We managed to film parts of the conversation, so I’m going to be chopping them up into bite-sized morsels of BADASS AWESOME for you, my loving public, to digest. In the first of these videos (all of which will be hosted here on my YouTube channel as well), Craig asks why I chose the metaphor of the “double facepalm” in last week’s introductory blog post about my experiences in public diplomacy and government. (Larger, HD versions of the video are available via the YouTube link.)

I’d like to give a great big THANK YOU to all the AU students I met during this discussion. It’s really heartening to me to see so many potential citizen diplomat rockstars in this soul-sucking town. Great talking with you, and I hope we can continue the conversation outside the classroom.

Speaking of which: I know a lot of you are blogging as part of Craig’s class and on your own. Please be sure to call yourselves out in the comments section of these video posts. I’d really like to promote some of the student-led commentary I’ve seen since the in-class discussion. We build our audiences socially, so I’d love to feature some of your opinions and content on Must. Be. AWESOME!!! dot com.

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I am extremely honored that Dr. Craig Hayden has invited me to speak to his public diplomacy class at American University Thursday evening this week. I met Craig through shared colleagues at the MountainRunner Institute, and we have since collaborated on a number of things. He’s a great dude, loves beer, and I thought it would be cool to throw up a landing post for me, him, his class, and anyone else who gets PO’d by the sure-to-incense incendiary fire that will come burbling out of my Macallan-addled lips Thursday night.

I have a love-hate relationship with public diplomacy. Coming from a background in the Department of Defense, I did not understand the peculiar delineation between PD and other forms of government communication and influence until my own graduate work at Johns Hopkins. Upon discovering the very simple definition that PD involves a government’s communications directly to foreign governments’ citizens (and thus bypassing that foreign government), I became instantly enamored of the idea. After all, in DOD, when you “communicate” with a foreign population, you’re usually dropping a bunch of comic strips from the sky written so badly that the recipients think all Americans really are retarded.

My work generally involved finding ways to improve the U.S. government’s communication capability, be it PD, public affairs, IO/PSYOP, or other means. One of my mentors, the late Jeffrey B. Jones, called all of these disciplines strategic communication, a term that has since entered the DOD lexicon and gone on to confuse and infuriate virtually everyone else in government. If DOD does one thing well, it defines its doctrine exhaustively, and an integrated communication and influence doctrine is something our government has needed for a long time. I became a fan of Jeff’s definition from the get-go, and I proceeded to execute my work under such a fashion.

This is how it feels like working in public diplomacy EVERY DAY.

How does this affect public diplomacy? Well, aside from all the other problems in the U.S. national security apparatus, PD practitioners have been almost historically kicked in the ass by said interagency apparatus. Since the U.S. Information Agency – the premier public diplomacy institution of the Cold War – was folded up into the State Department by the Clinton Administration, PD has been regarded as a largely unnecessary, unneeded career field.

However, some of the brightest information warriors I have ever met have come from PD backgrounds. Some still serve the State Department. But they are a dying breed, and State is not adapting fast enough to the 21st century to train, educate, and deploy PD officers of the future. Many communication and diplomacy experts have even called for the dissolution of the public diplomacy career field, arguing that others do it better in today’s day and age.

I come down on this issue very simply: communication is influence. Period. Call it public diplomacy. Call it public affairs. Call it public relations. Call it fuck all, I don’t care. It’s all the same shit and these penny-ante fights government gets into over who owns influence planning and execution are mere dick measuring exercises to protect budgets and retain standing within our own ranks. If any of us PD “professionals” had a whit about us, we would (re)read Unrestricted Warfare by Senior Col Qiao Liang and Senior Col Wang Xiangsui and understand that global communication, global influence, requires the strategic, national integration of ALL government branches and agencies and their communications initiatives. It requires, to borrow an analogy, for America to conduct herself as a composer would an orchestra, creating multitudes of musical movements that all combine into one big, beautiful symphony.

If you’re a student in Craig’s class, drop me a line in the comments. Send questions, concerns, or even challenges, and I promise to answer them to the best of my ability in class on Thursday.

Related articles

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• WikiLeaks and the sham of “public diplomacy” (salon.com)
• John Brown: Public Diplomacy: “Out” for the U.S., “In” Overseas? (huffingtonpost.com)
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After enjoying JWT‘s roundup of radness from their 2011 predictive trendspotting BIZINT department, I inferred a couple of times that they my have missed some things to watch in the coming year. I struggled with whether or not I was going to do a 2011 predictions post of my own (especially with all of the other great [and TERRIBLE] ones out there). As I intimated in the JWT post though, it’s tough to maintain your street cred as an armchair futurist if you don’t make some play calls – good or bad. It’s not like I can go on TV and just fry motherfuckers with my brain like Jamais Cascio:

Image courtesy of orderofchaos.soup.io

Here then is the Must. Be. AWESOME!!! 2011 Predictive Tapdance:

The Elephant in the Room: Islam

For all the loveliness that “hope” and “change” brought us in 2009, 2010 saw a whole lot of retrenching when it came to comprehending and engaging Islam. Look for the debate about what constitutes Islam, Islamism, what various groups of modern Muslims want in today’s world, and popular revolutions in the Middle East to ratchet up. Also keep an eye on what the Muslim Brotherhood does in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation: they will telegraph a lot of the conflict about modern Islam.

More Mashups, More Memes

I don’t care what anybody says: mashups and memes will continue to provide ample entertainment to We People of the Internetz. Look for advertisers to begin capitalizing on meme-trending and mashup-producing. Performance indicators: the next acquisition/website startup from the I Can Has Cheezburger collective AND Wieden & Kennedy after hiring the creator of this AWESOME video–

Cloud Seeding

As gaming continues to seep into the popular consciousness through applications like competitive geolocation (i.e. Foursquare and Gowalla) and passive social gaming (i.e. Farmville), look for more creative approaches to “seeding” the cloud with various types of content. Be it for advertising or grassroots mobilization purposes, effective influence and content promotion campaigns of the future will unfold via a variety of platforms. StickyBits and other QR code scanning apps are good indicators of tactical implementations of a cloud seeding strategy.

Hacktivism Triumphant

If WikiLeaks has taught us anything, masses of anonymous hackers can make or break online footprints. With Anonymous’ mobilization against Amazon and other deniers of service against WikiLeaks, it is apparent that all-out online cyberwar can and will occur at a rate of minutes and hours. Government will continue to play catch-up to the independent entities playing havoc with cybersecurity. DDoS attacks will become typical tools of the trade, and countermeasures against such attacks will demonstrate a new “arms race” in evolving security and attack technology. We will also see cyberwars play out in days between entities if not hours and minutes, the extent of which will run the gamut from mere inconvenience to full-on revolution (there’s a reason why Mubarak shut off the Internet, yo). It is possible that a wild 4channer will crack U.S. cyber defenses in 2011 and perhaps provide a 9/11-like impetus for government to begin getting serious with policy and legislation to operate in the digital age.

Nobody Cares About Public Diplomacy

Barack Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech demonstrated that the U.S. government will continue to centralize public diplomacy initiatives in the White House, leaving State Department assets twisting in the wind as hollow emperors in the field. U.S. legislators will increase the depths to which they could give a shit less in 2011 about PD because PD does not create jobs for Americans. Meanwhile, 20th century institutions of public diplomacy like Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and the Broadcasting Board of Governors will continue to wither and die in the digital age as on-the-minute social reporting and citizen journalism make them further irrelevant. Funding for PD initiatives will continue to stagnate while implementers will find more creative methods of achieving strategic PD goals, mostly via the private sector tech sector and citizen diplomacy organizations. China and some European countries will continue to lead with non-obvious but concerted national efforts in global influence, the effects of which will remain undiscovered by their targets (i.e., US) for years.

Passive Social Gaming EXPLODES

Related to my concept of “cloud seeding,” 2011 will see an explosion of social games in the vein of Farmville. Already, 2011 has seen Zynga publish a suster game to its masses-tranquilizing hit called Cityville. Transmedia, alternate reality gaming, and other episodic social gaming entities will experiment further with audience acquisition, retention, and profit conversion this year. Advertisers will cash in on these mechanisms en masse, driving ad-tired audiences from game to game and forcing ad strategists to begin thinking in different ways about social advertising. We will also see a continued harmonization of transmedia and ARGs cross-platform, online and offline, for social gaming experiences that will, for example, weave in and out of Facebook, Twitter, iPad and other mobile apps, and in-person performance art. More and more people will join longer term games socially as new genres are introduced on social networks. Performance indicator: keep your eyes peeled on LinkedIn for a business-based social game that trains executives in a number of administrivial and professional functions.

Location-based Services Get Profitable

Also related to “cloud seeding,” location-based app services such as Foursquare and Gowalla will rapidly get profitable this year. While many detractors continue to ridicule the small audience size these services carry, their growth will continue by orders of magnitude in 2011, so much so that advertisers and marketers for brick-and-mortar businesses will pay oodles of dough to access their users. Look for more unique rewards for users who check in to local places and events as well as the beginning of an actual value system based on fictional goods (i.e. Gowalla’s items).

People Begin To Realize All This Social Stuff Really IS Creating Socialism 2.0

Marx said it would take capitalism to run its course and fall out of favor before true socialism could take hold of the world. Macro-philosophers and economists will slowly begin to see that that is happening on a mass scale in 2011. Group buying services like Groupon and Living Social, crowdfunded charity programs, realtime crowdsourced news reporting, and near-realtime media curation will continue to prove that power really is all about the people. Democratization of content and price will, therefore, produce The New Socialism or Socialism 2.0. This will freak out conservatives and create performance indicators on conservative news networks that decry not only a socialist presidency but a socialist economy beginning to develop. Look for influencers that combat these conservative perceptions as the emerging leaders of the Socialist 2.0 movement (which in and of itself will never be referred to as an organized, network movement with a solid objective… it will just happen). Parallel to this, fortunes will begin to change hands as sales for various product areas crash: for example, the comics industry will continue to lose sales in print as consumers demand more digital, interactive content.

We Need a New Narrative

No more Harry Potter. No more Lord of the Rings. No more Star Wars. What’s the next big franchise? 2011 will see experimental repurposing of old ideas into new franchises. My money is on Thor and Captain America to be the starting point for a huge Avengers movie franchise in 2011 and 2012 (with reams of associated multimedia content) while Green Lantern and Transformers: Dark of the Moon tank.

What Do You Think?

Got some predictions of your own? Think I’m off-base about some of these things to watch? Let me know in the comments.

I specifically waited for Telltale Games‘ episodic Back to the Future game to come to the iPad. I had heard great things about the PC and Mac desktop experiences, but when the studio announced that they would also adapt this continuation of one of my favorite movies to the iPad, I knew I had to experience that. What I got, unfortunately, was a game port rife with bugs and glitches.

The Story

I do, however, want to emphasize the AWESOME of this game. BTTF: The Game picks up the BTTF mythos where they left off. It’s now 1986, and Marty McFly is worried about Doc’s disappearance after the end of Back to the Future III. The city is selling off the contents of Doc’s lab, much to Marty’s chagrin. All of a sudden, the DeLorean (once thought destroyed) reappears with an audio note from Doc telling Marty that he’s in trouble. What follows is an earnest thematic sequel to the BTTF franchise where you play as Marty trying to discover where Doc has disappeared to and how to rescue him.

One of the things that I love about Back to the Future is the on-the-fly screwiness of everything. Doc and Marty are never adequately prepared for the adventures they get into, so they have to improvise as they go along: using a 2015 hoverboard to sneak up on Biff’s car, rigging a pair of walkie talkies with giant batteries in the Old West, etc. This theme gets pricelessly reflected in BTTF: The Game. Marty – a character that, let’s be honest, is kind of a dumbass when it comes to science – has to cobble his way through the game’s plot, and this leads to really fun gameplay that involves engaging zaniness. It’s no surprise that this game feels like a Back to the Future sequel: Bob Gale, who wrote all three movies, acts as a story consultant to Telltale’s developer crew.

Episode 1 begins with a curious twist on a classic BTTF scene.

You can tell that the Telltale crew are rabid fans of BTTF, from the spot-on use of Alan Silvestri‘s original movie score to A.J. LoCascio’s eerie dead ringer impersonation of Michael J. Fox (complete with a “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” moment in Episode 1). It’s that kind of fan-favorite attention to detail that makes BTTF: The Game such a rich and fun story experience. And before you ask, yes, we do get to the bottom of how all these paradoxes are possible after BTTF3‘s seeming end to everybody’s favorite time machine.

The Tech Specs

All of these positives make it such a shame that the iPad port clunks along. Framerates are choppy and skippy right from the opening menus. Video integration is just as bad: character dialogue often skips like a scratched CD between scene and level changes. What’s worse is the dizzying degree to which some of the character and art rendering doesn’t measure up to the iPad’s HD resolution. Characters’ clothes in particular look jagged around the edges. For a $6.99 app, Telltale could have spent MUCH moe time ensuring a bug-free port from the desktop version of the game.

Image via Wikipedia

The Value

Is BTTF: The Game worth it? If you are a fan of the Back to the Future franchise, absolutely. The obvious technical limitations of the iPad app are far outweighed by the fun and engaging story. Each episode will be released as a $6.99 app, so you’ll be looking at around $35 for the entire “season.” It’s about $10 less to buy the entire season online for desktop play AND a better gameplay experience, so your mileage may vary. IPad apps for subsequent episodes will be released quite a while after the desktop versions (Episode 2 is out now). I for one have to believe that Telltale will see the mass of criticism over the iPad port for Episode 1 and endeavor to fix many of those problems for its Episode 2 port. I really enjoy the interactivity of the iPad version of the game; it’s much more of an interactive movie than a hardcore shoot-em-up or driving game, so the story is allowed to breathe more.

If you’re not a huge fan of BTTF, I’d wait for the entire series of episodes to be released. It’s possible Telltale will release a “game pack” of the entire season at a discount, either through the iPad app store or online.

Either way, this was a tremendously fun game for me, and I really enjoyed revisiting the BTTF characters. It’s a damn sight more entertaining and cooler than that awful cartoon they did in the ’90s.

Related articles

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I got quickly overloaded by the abundance of “2011 predictions!” posts, white papers, and other internet ephemera that started spouting before the turn of the new year. As an armchair futurist and a self-described Challenger of the Unknown, I have to pay attention to a lot of the thinking bubbling up from the cesspool of teh Interwebz just to maintain a reputable degree of “cocktail party talk.”

No single source really jumped out at me as AWESOME in the 2011 prediction glut until I came across JWT‘s 100 Things to Watch in 2011 presentation on Slideshare (embedded below for your reading pleasure). What really struck me about this preso were a couple things:

1. JWT leads with its track record. Not a whole lot of people out there honestly self-assessing their prior predictions. I can respect companies and people who are willing to include the credential of their work, positive or negative, before making predictions about the future. How accurate was JWT about 2010? Two words: BACON EVERYWHERE.
2. They call Foursquare a “mobile gaming app.” This is the most accurate description of what Foursquare really is and how it works. Most netizens like to describe Foursquare as a geolocation social media tool, which completely misses the point. What makes Foursquare special is that it’s competitive, and that’s how you bring back users time and again.
3. The preso’s author, Ann Mack, is credited as Director of Trendspotting. That is the BADDEST-ASS title I have ever encountered from a PR firm.

For these reasons alone I ascribed enough of a degree of credibility in JWT to actually consider their projections for 2011. Here now are the ones I found most AWESOME:

Auto Apps

I’m very intrigued by the integration of social and smartphone-type apps to vehicles of the future. The obvious one that JWT identifies is Pandora, which is the internet nerd’s answer to mobile radio. But think about where this goes: Security systems that tweet your iPhone when someone jacks with your car. Shutdown options for stolen cars. Intelligent maps that ask you if you’re interested in stopping at some AWESOME attraction while on your road trip. Lot of potential here.

Biomimicry

Design that takes inspiration from naturally occurring shapes and constructs? Love this concept. Sounds very posthuman to me.

Breaking the Book

Glad JWT sees that redefining the way we read is going to explode even more in 2011. They briefly touch on the future of publishing with Kindle Singles and the concept of serialized e-publication, but I think there’s more to it than that. With the advent of the tablet market, I think books are about to be redefined as a medium en toto.

Detroit

Everyone knows how sad of a story Detroit has become since the economic recession of the past few years. JWT proposes that Detroit is in for a turnaround this year, an idea I find curiously sticky given my sudden fondness for Detroit-set TV shows like Hung. Could Detroit become the playground for a new Silicon Valley-type creative ecosystem? We’ll see.

Group-Manipulated Pricing

I think this is a gimme just based on the data we all saw in late 2010. Things like Groupon are going to become more and more popular because it’s a social enterprise that crosses online and offline worlds. While people will gravitate to services like these to get monetary and consumer deals, I think they’ll become more popular because of the social act the service brings. People ENJOY saving money together, and this may even cross the geo-location boundary at some point when people get better deals by checking in somewhere as a group. The even more amazing facet of this phenomenon (which JWT missed, surprisingly) is how democratizing prices in this fashion looks VERY similar to a socialist economy.

Ignorance Is Bliss

JWT posits that if information becomes ubiquitous, as it seems to be doing via internet-age enabled apps and services, more people will simply stick their fingers in their ears and choose not to care. I identify with this to some degree because I do it all the time: do I really care that much if everyone on the planet knows I just checked into Samuel Beckett’s Irish Gastro Pub? Blow that up to the next logical question: If no one cares, are we bound for a sudden slingshot backwards in technology and progress?

Nanobrewers

I know TONS of people in the DC area that brew their own beer. The idea that these folks can sustain their own businesses by doing something they love is totally rad. The larger question, I think, is what’s the magic number that turns your hobby into a sustainable business? People will always want to drink a cold beer, but how well is that helping other more esoteric businesspeople (see Etsy).

Near Field Communication (NFC)

This concept is similar to RFID in that it involves the exchange of information between mobile and other devices within a four-inch zone. JWT sees utility in this for ticket purchasing, wallets, etc. Once that proves out as a useful method for data transfer (and it will), I’m more interested in the propensity for NFC-enabled wetware in humans. Why carry ANY device when you can embed it subcutaneously and turn your body into a digitally transmitting wallet?

Objectifying Objects

Love the idea of “fetishizing” – as JWT calls it – obsolete physical objects into decorative accouterments or other re-purposeable items. My wife and I buy things like this from the French Market in New Orleans all the time. She has two clocks up in her office that were made from old vinyl records painted in new artistic ways. I’m real interested to see new expressions of this “recyclable” art form this year.

Odyssey Trackers

JWT’s example is more extreme than mine, but this concept involves the aggregation and broadcast of all social and personal media information from people who go out to explore the world. I’m looking into some innovative storytelling uses of this when I trek across the country in a few weeks.

Older Workforce

I dont actually think this is AWESOME as much as it is alarming and shitty. My dad always told me he expected to work until the day he died and I should too. Data is clearly indicating that there is no way national entitlement programs will be able to satisfy their constituents without immense tax increases (something our already bloated deficit can’t handle). So the alternative is to continue to work past your retirement age. After all, what the fuck am I gonna do with $265 a month from the Social Security Administration when I’m 70?

Social Networking Surveillance

We’re living in a post-Wikileaks world now, people. If you don’t think there are little nondescript buildings at Fort Meade where tons of poorly-paid federal contractors are poring over your social media output, think again. Take it from a guy who’s participated in studies of social media and social networking in more oppressive societies (like Egypt): there is no more privacy.

Social Objects

Love love LOVE the concept of making THINGS social: attaching personal information, reviews, or other data to objects to advance the knowledge of a community of consumers. I thought JWT was going to miss the emergence of “cloud-seeding” in 2011 (I’ll talk more about this in a subsequent post) but their identification of this phenomenon coupled with apps like StickyBits makes it all better.

Space Travel Goes Private

FUCK. YES. It’s about fucking time. It’s the 21st century, for Chrissakes.

Storied Products

Transmedia Producers

JWT describes the first concept as something that involves consumers demanding more of a personal connection to brands they love. I actually think these two things on JWT’s list are interconnected in such a way that they deserve to be together. Transmedia producers have had a really hard time finding mainstream access and recognition beyond mere marketing effects (see the “Why So Serious?” campaign instituted for The Dark Knight). The more studios and companies blur the lines between marketing and production, the more transmedia’s reach will be seen. In the meantime, I actually think we’ll see more transmedia pros find better paying and better recognized work creating transmedia experiences for products on behalf of brands.

Temporary Tattoos Go High-End

According to JWT, there are places in Dubai that sell temp tattoos in actual gold. I actually think upgrading temp body art to designer levels (e.g., Chanel) is a new form of posthuman body modification. Up till now, I’d seen body mods as purely utilitarian and ability-expanding instead of cosmetic or vanity-inspired. So combine the functional with the fashion and what could you get? Solid gold Prince Alberts that deliver electrical shocks during sex? ZING!

Tintin the Movie

JWT’s calling this the next big franchise, possibly the new age replacement for Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. With Spielberg AND Peter Jackson at the helm, I don’t doubt that it could be HUGE. But I’m not sure it hits the imagination highs required of big summer tentpole films like Harry Potter or Star Wars. Unless of course Spielberg and Jackson do some reinterpretations of the original source material and Tintin fights a robot zombie or something.

What Did They Miss?

Despite how great and how comprehensive this 2011 list is – and I encourage you to check out the entire preso – I actually think there are a lot of things JWT and other futurists missed. We’ll explore those next in a subsequent post.

In closing, I’d like to point out that this report is published annually by JWT Intelligence. Key in on the italicized word there and think about that for a second. From my experience, having worked in what many consider “real” intelligence (i.e. the U.S. government Intelligence Community), I find fascinating how many communication and public relations companies are choosing to characterize their future endeavors in the vernacular of intel. The term “business intelligence” has been around for quite some time, but I think its use in commercial enterprises like JWT implies another, more sinister intelligence-related word: espionage. So if this report compares as an intel assessment for JWT’s 2011 operations, what do you think its competitors and their communities of interest are doing with it?

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I have some fundamental problems with the way comics publishers are approaching their digital publication strategies. Marvel and DC – the two biggest publishers on the block – seem to be the most egregious trespassers against the simple 2.0 adage of “Everything: anytime, anywhere.” Here then follows a discussion of some of the ins and outs of the issue.

The Instant Catalogue

The thing that bugs me the most about how The Big Two have handled their digital offerings involves the massive back catalogue both companies possess. I should be able to download Paul Levitz‘s entire original run on Legion of Super-Heroes at a reasonable price. Currently, virtually all digital comics run about $1.99 and day-and-date releases can cost up to $3.99 depending on the publisher. With so much available content in their vaults, comics publishers can EASILY adapt whole swaths of comics runs for mere pennies in overhead.

Image courtesy Comics Alliance

Instead, what we’ve been seeing so far are limited runs or storylines from popular comics that get offered in digital stores and are sometimes taken away after a period of time. There are so many comics runs that I would pay for to have digitally on my iPad, but I’m leery of the cost… especially if they’re only available for limited amounts of time and there exists the possibility that the publisher may offer those comics again at discounted bundles.

The bottom line comes down to ABUNDANCE: there are so many comics available, why not sell them ALL digitally? I know there are obvious business reasons for this, and we’ll get into those in moment. But for a fan and reader – someone who is going to spend their scratch on comics – to not offer these extensive catalogues digitally and at reasonable prices is simply retarded.

Price & “Bundling”

Traditionally, comics are sold at a per issue price and then discounted for graphic novel or trade paperback collections. This has become the common practice in the comics business particularly because publishers make more money off trade collections (which can be reprinted) that are sold in traditional bookstores (versus scary comics shops). This has created two separate classes of comics readers: the periodical reader who buys issues as they come out, and the “wait-for-the-trade” reader who wants to read an entire serialized story in one volume.

Digital stores can go either way here. Dark Horse Comics – which will launch its own online comics store very soon – is actually undercutting other comics publishers by offering individual issues of their comics for $1.49 and larger discounts for “bundles,” which will contain multiple issues comprising a full storyline. Dark Horse has also been experimenting with releasing graphic novels and trade collections as separate apps in the iPad store at prices much lower than their print counterparts.

Image courtesy myappworld.com

Dark Horse’s example provides the best look at how well this digital comics economy can work. At the end of the day, there is NO REASON why digital comics should cost as much as their print versions. The overhead has already been spent (aside for some small costs in adapting the print version to digital readers), so it’s almost pure profit, which gets split between the company and the creators (and Apple). Dark Horse’s comics become a much more attractive buying option for those readers who are looking for affordable ways to get into comics, stories, and characters.

I still believe these prices are overinflated (music costs $0.99 generally), but I also understand that the economics of the comics business are such that some compromises have to be made. We’ll get more into that later.

The Direct Market

The comics industry pivots on the direct market, which is best defined as comics specialty retailers who preorder, stock, and sell comics out of their own stores. Beginning in the 1980s, the comics direct market sprung up to replace newsstand publication as the primary source of sales for all comics publishers. As such, comics publishers court comics retailers because that’s been their primary method of sales.

Digital comics changes all of this. The third party between me and the comics I love switches from the high-touch retailer to the virtual comics store app like ComiXology and the platform on which I’ll read them (i.e., Apple). This has created a huge uproar in the retailer community, which cannot compete with the prices digital comics can promise to readers. Some retailers offer discounts off regular subscriber orders, but digital essentially kills further instances of the walk-in customer, which has been on the decline anyway for years. Because of the relationship comics publishers want to maintain with their retailer industry, I can understand how it’s important for them to price comics similarly to what they charge in the direct market… so as not to shoot retailers in the back.

However, I believe digital comics is a needed wake-up call to retailers. Look up your nearest comics store and go visit. It’s not very pretty, is it? Usually, it’s a dark, scary hole in the wall run by swarthy longhairs in white-stained T-shirts full of unkempt pop culture product that may or not include statues of anime babes getting tentacle raped. There are exceptions to this perception of comics retailers: James Sime’s excellent Isotope in San Francisco, for example, is designed as a lounge instead of merely a comics store. But for the most part, comics retailers are the same subhuman basement-dwelling nerds they’ve always been. If digital comics don’t force them out of business, then maybe they will force them to at least take a shower and start selling comics as respectable professionals. Speaking as the former manager of a comics store myself, I can tell you that this is a kick in the pants the direct market industry sorely needs. Otherwise, they deserve to close their doors.

Periodical Versus Collected Reading

The great thing about digital comics is that you can have your cake and eat it too. Love a series so much you HAVE to get the latest issue on the day it comes out? BOOM. Buy it at full price from the digital store. Want to wait instead to read that comic when it’s been collected into a larger storyline? BOOM. Buy it as a discounted collection. This is possible RIGHT NOW. It just takes comics publishers having th balls to do it instead of catering to their direct market fanwanks.

One of the greatest examples of this is Robert Kirkman‘s AWESOME zombie epic The Walking Dead. Through its own iPad app, Kirkman sells every issue of this comics series for $1.99 and $2.99 for brand new issues that are available on the same day as their print release. Furthermore, he offers collected editions that contain full storylines at $9.99. I still think this is too expensive, but the availability of the comic and the options Kirkman gives readers is what’s important. He GETS that the more options he can give his fans to consume the content – and the more barriers he can lower to new fans’ entry – will result in more downloads and more access.

Stupid Sales Tricks: The Perception of Scarcity

Probably the worst, most offensive sales tactic the big comics publishers have tried out with digital comics involves the perception of scarcity. Marvel, for example, has developed a “Vault” in which they’ll place digital comics after making them available for a short period of time. Similar to what Disney does with its home video releases, this creates a false sense of scarcity– “If I don’t buy Daredevil #24 before February 1st, it’ll be gone forever!”

This tactic completely defeats the purpose of Long Tail-inspired digital product sales and marketing. It does nothing but demonstrate that the comics publishers do not understand digital content at all. NOBODY owns the comics you download from an app or a digital comics store. They are merely CONTENT one CONSUMES. Scarcity and value only have meaning in a physical world where only so many copies of a given comic are available and must then be traded at prices determined by the collector market. To try and engineer this system within digital comics stores is flat-out wrong and stupid.

The worst offender of this tactic lately has been DC Comics, who made a huge to-do about all the great new digital comics offerings they were going to sell via their online stores. Sure enough, they released initial runs of some very popular older comics like Preacher and Transmetropolitan. Go look for those comics now. They’re gone. With nary an announcement or a discussion, DC simply pulled them from their digital stores. So now, the next time they decide to put them up, there will probably be a run on digital sales as digital consumers rush to get these titles before they’re taken away again.

This is terrible, offensive practice that needs to come to an end immediately.

Image courtesy 148apps.com

So What’s Next?

The good news is that digital comics are still in their infancy and have a lot of room to evolve. I think within the next year, we’ll see a drop in prices for most digital comics. Within 2 years, we’ll see more innovation in terms of bundled or collected editions. DC or Marvel will probably release an entire title’s run as an experiment at some point, possibly at a high price point or as a separate app to determine how well something like that would sell. While this happens, smaller comics publishers and independent comics creators will beat the big guys to the punch by releasing their comics at the same time as print editions and even exclusively online.

For my money, here are a couple comics publishers that I think are doing it RIGHT:

• Dark Horse currently offers some Frank Miller graphic novels (Sin City, 300) and a Serenity collection as inexpensive iPad apps.
• IDW has separate apps for many of its licensed titles (e.g. Transformers, G.I. Joe) and is beginning to offer original graphic novels as apps (e.g., Darwyn Cooke’s Parker adaptations The Hunter and The Outfit).
• Boom! Comics, while not quite day-and-date yet, are beginning to offer more and more of their comics close to publication date.

Got any good digital comics recommendations? Send ‘em to me in the comments section!

Related articles

• Dark Horse Comics’ Digital Initiative Promises Innovative Ideas, Lower Prices (wired.com)
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• They’re Selling Comics On The iPad The Wrong Way [Comics] (kotaku.com)
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