Ryan C. Miller.com – Social Media, Business & Small Things -

12/05/11 – Brooklyn

Posted on December 5, 2011 by MillerNo Comments

12/04/11 – Big Apple

Posted on December 4, 2011 by MillerNo Comments

12/03/11 – Underground

Posted on December 3, 2011 by MillerNo Comments

11/24/11 – Supper

Posted on November 25, 2011 by MillerNo Comments

Picasso Gets Social

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Miller4 Comments

This past weekend I hopped down to New York City to spend some time with some amazing friends, but also to check out one of my favorite bands ever, Over The Rhine. The show as awesome, to say the least but I thought I’d just share a couple of observations that I had while schlepping around Manhattan.

Since I had an afternoon all to myself, I went to MoMa for the first time and had a really wonderful time checking out all the exhibits. To be able to see some Warhols, Polllocks and amazing amount of Picassos all in one place was really cool. The piece that was simply a 12 in section of torn cardbord in a frame….well, I’m no art critic but there were definitely things I didn’t understand or appreciate.

I did however notice that an amazing amount of people were scurrying through the different floors and photographing every work of art that they liked or had seen before as a dorm room poster, with their cell phones. Hundreds of people, shooting hundreds of shots, textures, and group photos.

MoMa also has a pretty decent audio tour and iPhone app that guides you through the museum and provides some context to the exhibits and more famous works. I really felt like visiting this museum in particular was very much a social experience as much as it was a cultural or art-centric experience. Why do so many of us feel the need to take a low resolution cell phone photo of the piece we had as a poster in our dorm room, or have seen online? There are hundreds of pictures of Henri Matisse’s The Dance online – do we really need a cell phone version? No, but what the integration of the MoMa app, and a relatively lax photography policy has fostered is that going to MoMa (even alone) has become quite a social experience. We want to share the highlights of where we were, give our online network some context and content of where we are and what we’re about.

But is it good for art? Does it enrich the experience of visiting an art museum like MoMa for art’s sake? Do those cell photos posted to Facebook help expose people to fine art who wouldn’t normally take the time to look? Or does all this sharing take away for the experience of sitting (or standing) and reflecting on the emotions a piece brings out. I don’t know. But I suspect that Picasso could never have dreamed that his work would exist as cellphone wallpaper on thousands of phones. Regardless, I think MoMa understands that everything is now both a digital and social experience through social media and mobile technology, and they have for the most part embraced that same tech to provide visitors with some background and context of the pieces in their collection while also recognizing that some folks just want the social proof of sharing with their network where they are…or a Picasso as their cell phone background. What’s your take?

What Wal-Mart (And YOU) Can Learn from Whole Foods

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Miller1 Comment

The 99% Conf. – Scott Thomas

Posted on April 21, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

Scott Thomas

Over the weekend I was in NYC to attend The 99% – a conference that focuses not on the 1% inspiration, but rather the 99% perspiration that it takes to make an idea happen. The 300 + crowd got to chill at the Times Center and hear from a pretty incredible lineup of speakers on the first ‘content day’, then engaged in different activities that were going on around Manhattan.

Though everyone’s talk were great (except Jill Greenberg unfortunately – she gave one of the most awkward talks I’ve ever heard, but did show photographs of monkeys and crying babies), I want to take a few posts and highlight the best of the best, as well as some key points which were generously donated to me via @rararararachel.

I want to start with Scott Thomas, who was the Design Director of New Media for the Obama presidential campaign. Scott was incredibly articulate and I got the sense that he was still overwhelmed by what he and his team accomplished over the campaign.  Essentially, they created what was the most effective online political campaign and outreach effort in history.

He likened working for the campaign to ‘building an airplane while you were having to fly it.’ There was no learning curve for their project, and though there were many many good ideas, it was important for them to realize that not all ideas need to come to fruition.

The Message – There were a couple of main themes when Scott talked about executing their brand and their message.  The first was that they wanted to convey both the historic nature of Obama’s campaign as well as show a message of Hope,   They blended traditional imagery of campaigns with what he called ‘instant vintage’ (like placing some of Obama’s remarks on paper that looked old and important (think Declaration of Indepedence).  This style would be present throughout Obama’s online (and offline) collateral.  It was this visual discipline across messages and mediums that allowed the campaign to combat the accusations of inexperience which were thrown their way.  As Scott put it ‘through consistency of design can you show experience and a sense of balance.’

Yes We Can -One of Obama’s huge strengths during the campaign was his engagement of his supporters nationwide.  His eloquence in oratory combined with the excitement of his candidacy and the message of community allowed for a perfect storm of engagement that the campaign took full advantage of. Scott talked about how there was a conscious effort to make the message ‘We, not He.’ For instance, there was a large asset page that contained branded artwork which was accessible to anyone with a web connection.  It allowed the community to take initiative and control of the message while still keeping a consistent visual.  The campaign could ‘triage’ ideas within the community in real time to see what people thought worked and what didn’t.  Local campaigns could adapt official artwork and blend it with a custom and effective message and use it on the ground in their own communities.

One huge takeaway for the group was an example of how to know your community when designing their online brand.  In short, they found that people HATE long ass forms.  They also hate giving away all sorts of their personal information.  Thing about how many times you have left a site because of the length of the form you were required to fill out, or the information they wanted to collect from you.

Instead, the campaign would make all of their forms and data collection pages simple.  Step by step.  They asked only one question at a time.  Only after completing that one question were you able to go on.  This did a couple of things.  It didn’t reveal the whole form at once, which may have stopped some people from leaving their info.  But more importantly, by using step by step forms, the campaign could see where people abandoned the forms or had trouble with providing an answer to a particular question.  They could then go back and tweak their data collection to where it was an exceptionally user friendly and not-too-invasive experience for the user.

It certainly was evident to me that Scott was a remakable individual, working with other remarkable individuals, to pull off something completely remarkable.  His passion for engaging people and executing was infectious. And I think that this kind of a Web 2.0 campaign was a natural fit for Barack Obama.  It just wouldn’t have fit with anyone else.  The historic nature of his campaign as well as his ability to connect with people, needed a campaign that was run in a new way, and that could connect individuals and groups on a massive scale.  I just coulnd’t see this kind of energy generated by John McCain, no matter how good of an online team he may have had.