Capacity for Opacity — February 4, 2019

Transparency can go a long way toward trust; facial recognition may be getting better; A.I. for Marketers ebook; integration of mobility services is seen as key to success; global digital trends for 2019; creating value with marketing; the future of journalism is questioned; digital grocery loyalty is time-dependent; how to increase your Instagram followers; Twitter may be nearing an edit function; five executives doing social media well; Apple's streaming service coming in April; Spotify may be acquiring Gimlet for a huge sum; the percentage of companies that sell your data; which words are best to use with customers, as analyzed through big data; advice on thinking, decision-making and banking; and more in the Capacity for Opacity edition of The Full Monty for the week of February 4, 2019.

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Top Story

In our last edition, I talked about lack of trust — in particular, how Facebook (once again) fell afoul of our trust, and how many of last week's links concerned breach of trust in some fashion.

But it got me to thinking about what's at the root of distrust: that is, why we end up being duped, willing or otherwise. Part of it exists within our own desire to believe, but it's exploited by companies that decide to withhold information, or make it particularly difficult to determine the truth.

Case in point: Facebook (sigh, again) has been accused by ProPublica of cutting off access to tools that let the public see exactly how Facebook users are being targeted by advertisers. That is, ProPublica and others such as Mozilla and Who Targets Me created a means for consumers to see how their data are being used — something you'd think that Facebook would have created and made apparent and easy to use.

Facebook's response? "We regularly improve the ways we prevent unauthorized access by third parties like web browser plugins to keep people’s information safe," according to a spokesperson.

Oh, they're protecting us. But "Rebuilding trust is the company's total focus," right?

These slippery explanations are designed to obscure the truth: that Facebook wants control over what you see and discover, and even the most well-meaning public watchdogs are not welcome.

If they bothered with even a little transparency, we might be inclined to trust them. Even McDonalds brought us inside a facility to see how Chicken McNuggets are made, in an effort to build trust and make the truth known.

Transparency doesn't mean giving away your secrets. Transparency means confidence in your business operations that lead to a willingness to be honest and show how the sausage (or McNuggets) are made.

It's abundantly clear that Facebook prefers being opaque.

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About this week's image:

James McNeill Whistler completed Nocturne of Grey and Gold - Picadilly in 1883. The image may evoke fear and mystery, with obscured buildings and people, and the knowledge that something—many somethings—must lurk beyond what is visible. For artists, the fog is beautiful, as Whistler attests in his Ten O'Clock Lecture (1885): "Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artists alone." But for others, the fog is a shroud that disguises the poverty, commercialism and squalor in the city on any other day.

Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

The latest in A.I., machine learning, and bots; mobility and autonomous everything.
Aʀᴛɪꜰɪᴄɪᴀʟ Iɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ / Mᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ Lᴇᴀʀɴɪɴɢ

Summit, the world's most powerful supercomputer, broke a record for the fastest-running machine learning experiment. The experiment used algorithms to detect extreme weather patterns such as hurricanes out of a huge dataset of climate simulations. (Wired) These kinds of experiments set the ground for other uses of machine learning across industries.
IBM released a new, annotated dataset for facial recognition called Diversity in Faces, or DiF. The dataset contains 1 million facial images sourced from Creative Commons that are labeled using ten different coding schemes. (Venture Beat)
In what appears to be an effort to condition searchers to use voice, Google added voice input and spoken results to mobile web search. (Search Engine Land via Pam Moore) Given that voice search works on all phones, Google is more likely to be the winner in voice search than any other platform. Right, Alexa and Siri?

Be sure to download a copy of Christopher Penn's AI for Marketers: An Introduction and Primer (Second Edition). You'll find the kinds of questions you should be asking vendors, five practical applications of AI for marketing, what it will take for you to succeed on your journey, and more. (Disclosure: affiliate link)

Aᴜᴛᴏɴᴏᴍᴏᴜs / Mᴏʙɪʟɪᴛʏ

Could Waymo be the de facto victor in the autonomous vehicle race? (Financial Times) Perhaps, but they still need to get their vehicles from somewhere...
Argo A.I. has a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California. California is the fifth state where Ford's A.V. partner is now allowed to test its technology. (TechCrunch) While some debate the efficacy of OEMs vs. tech companies in autonomous vehicles, Ford's hybrid approach is one to watch.
Autonomous vehicles could make urban transit more efficient, but what's really needed is intelligent digital platforms to integrate different modes of transportation into a personal travel plan that's optimized for consumer preferences, like shortest travel time or lowest price. (Axios) There's no one-size fits all approach for A.V.s, even within a seemingly homogeneous place as a city. Multi-modal mobility options are essential.
Amazon is hauling some cargo in self-driving trucks from Embark. Embark integrates its self-driving systems into Peterbilt semis, rather than building its own vehicles completely from scratch. (CNBC) Kind of like Waymo...

Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.

We Are Social and Hootsuite revealed the latest annual report Digital Trends 2019: everything you need to know about mobile, internet, social media, and e-commerce use around the world in 2019. (The Next Web)

Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢʏ / Mᴀʀᴋᴇᴛɪɴɢ / Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ

Consumers have more power over your company’s success or failure than ever before, and it’s time for a new metric that captures the return on your investment in them. Enter ROX - return on experience. (strategy+business)
Marketing creates three types of value: cultural, business, and consumer. What value do you create? (Hackernoon)
Keith Weed, Unilver's CMO called for systemic change in advertising, beginning with trust. “Without trust, advertising has no future. A brand without trust is just a product. Advertising without trust is just noise.” (Campaign)
Video works for more than just brand awareness. According to research, consumers use video at every stage of the customer journey. (Think with Google)
Some stats about ~~Super Bowl~~ — excuse me, Big Game ads, from cost to ad effectiveness to top categories and more. (Marketing Charts)

Jᴏᴜʀɴᴀʟɪsᴍ / Cᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴs / Rᴇᴘᴜᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

With layoffs at BuzzFeed, HuffPo and other big digital publishers, we're left to ask what went wrong with digital media? (The New York Times) There's plenty of blame to go around, over a long timeline. Perhaps we should look toward successful digital pubslishers like The Guardian, The New York Times, the Washington Post., etc. and ask what went right.
Journalism is changing. First, the pivot to video. Then, the pivot to podcasting. Now, the pivot to subscription. (Medium) What's next?
How can journalism survive? A good mini-history of what got us here. Here being consolidation, layoffs, and a disinterested public. (The New Yorker)
Instead of seeking out stories, a better option is letting stories come to you, preferably through email. Going all Marie Kondo, Mat Zucker suggests bringing joy to your inbox with these newsletters. (Forbes)

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Retail Apocalypse

Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is — is undergoing a historical metamorphosis.

Like Jet.com before it, Shoes.com is changing the way Walmart sells online. (Footwear News) Walmart.com and the other two sites co-exist, each serving a different segment of shoppers.
Retail is broken. Apple's SVP of Retail Angela Ahrendts has a plan, and it includes opening fewer, larger stores so that you can get the full experience of everything that’s Apple. (Vogue Business) A key part of succeeding in retail in 2019 is understanding that the experience matters, from IRL to digital and back again.
H&M is closing 160 stores amid a profit slump and a late entry into digital retailing. (Retail Dive)
More than half of digital grocery shoppers surveyed by Capgemini said they would be more loyal to a grocery retailer that offered 2-hour delivery. An even higher percentage (61 percent) of respondents said same-day delivery would increase their devotion. (eMarketer Retail) What do we want? Stuff! When do we want it? Some time today!
Amazon's Q4 profit passed $3 billion, making it the most profitable quarter yet (but still short of analysts' expectations). (NBC News)
With Amazon's control of ad placements, it can and does promote its own private label brands higher in search results and also sometimes at the bottom of brand competitor listings. (eMarketer) When you control the platform, you control the visibility of products.

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Platforms

News to know about relevant social media and technology platforms that may affect your business.

Russia created a playbook for spreading disinformation on social media. Now the rest of the world is following it. (The New York Times)

Related: someone took credit for coining the term 'fake news' but doesn't want to accept the responsibility for its impact. (The Hill)

Fᴀᴄᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ / Iɴsᴛᴀɢʀᴀᴍ / WʜᴀᴛsAᴘᴘ

If you want to get away with posting fake news on Facebook, just change your website domain. This has allowed a number of previously debunked sites to fly under the radar of fact-checkers. (Poynter)
Researchers at New York University and Stanford University found that deactivating Facebook for just four weeks could alter people’s behavior and state of mind, making them less informed but happier. (Washington Post)
Desperate for data on its competitors, Facebook has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity. (TechCrunch) But trust them.
How to increase your Instagram followers without resorting to hacks, buying fake followers, or unscrupulously turning your profile into an egg. (Medium via For the Interested)

Tᴡɪᴛᴛᴇʀ

Twitter's head of content partnerships says the social media network wants to work closely with publishers to ensure Twitter is correctly handling content they are creating. (AdWeek)
According to CEO Jack Dorsey, Twitter is trying to figure out editable tweets. One possibility is having the original still show. (9to5Mac)
Twitter cut off access to its API for follow/unfollow services including ManageFlitter, CrowdFire and StatusBrew. (TechCrunch) While helpful for finding and unfollowing spam and bot accounts, these services have been gamed to allow unscrupulous users to follow and then unfollow accounts quickly, to boost their own numbers.
People who tweet are more open-minded than those who only post on Facebook. But they also tend to be more Machiavellian as well. (Insider) But not you—you're better than that.

Oᴛʜᴇʀ

Five executives doing social media well and what we can learn from them. (Hootsuite) Having advised many C-level executives on social media, I can do the same for your company. Feel free to get in touch.
Reporter Kashmir Hill spent six weeks blocking Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple from getting her money, data, and attention, using a custom-built VPN. Here’s what happened when she stopped using all Google services. (Gizmodo)

Lessons from not checking my email for a month. (Fast Company)

Media

The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.

Vɪᴅᴇᴏ

Apple told studios and networks to be ready for a launch of Apple's streaming service by mid-April, the same month investors see a Disney+ preview. (The Verge)
The Criterion Collection just announced that the Criterion Channel will launch with 1,000 classic and contemporary art-house films in April. (Variety)
MoviePass competitor Sinema is cutting prices and allowing subscribers to roll over tickets from one month to the next. (Engadget)

Aᴜᴅɪᴏ

Spotify is in talks to acquire Gimlet for $230 million. (Recode) An astounding number, considering that podcast advertising generated $315 million in 2017. But one that will continue to push podcasting into the mainstream.
The 15 best business podcasts right now has content for entrepreneurs and established folks as well. (Small Business Trends)
One key point in this profile of Bill Simmons: "Podcast advertising has grown quickly—it increased 86% from 2016 to 2017—but it still represents less than 1% of the overall U.S. digital ad market." (The Wall Street Journal via Tom Webster)
Program of the Week: Retales from the Front Line brings you insights from some of the most well-known voices and thought leaders that retailers, brands, and media have come to rely on to better understand the retail industry, consumer behavior, and which commerce strategies are most effective.

Please subscribe to The Full Monty podcast, our own 5-minute weekly business commentary. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

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Privacy / Security / Regulatory

Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more.

Pʀɪᴠᴀᴄʏ / Sᴇᴄᴜʀɪᴛʏ / Hᴀᴄᴋɪɴɢ

Apple takes on Facebook over privacy, but does it even matter? (The New York Times)
In an encouraging statistic, about 70 percent of companies do not sell their customers' data. The more important question is: why do some companies sell customer data? (eMarketer)
New York's attorney general is cracking down on selling fake social media activity in the state. (CNN Business) Say goodbye to the practice of buying and selling fake followers, likes, and views.

Rᴇɢᴜʟᴀᴛᴏʀʏ / Oɴ-Dᴇᴍᴀɴᴅ Eᴄᴏɴᴏᴍʏ

Uber is leaving Barcelona (again) after new regulations make it illegal to compete with taxis. (TechCrunch)
Recharge is adding homes to its supply of on-demand spaces. Since its 2015 founding, Recharge says it's had 50,000 bookings with an average stay of two hours. (TechCrunch) Hmm. What could people be doing for 2 hours in a private space?

Measurement / Analytics / Data

The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.

A team of experts used big data to analyze which words are best to use with customers. (Harvard Business Review) In short, be human, speak as an individual, and share their words.
Investing in marketing automation has benefits that go beyond lead generation – in particular, with helping marketing and sales to work more effectively together. (CleverTouch)

Speaking

How can you energize your team and give them actionable ideas for boosting customer engagement? It's all about applying Timeless Wisdom to your process — practical and relatable lessons drawn from historical and literary contexts.

Combine this with Fortune 10 executive experience and some great stories, and you'll be happy that you spent a fraction of what it costs to send your team to a major conference. I'll spend anywhere from an hour to a whole day with your team and give them the power to develop trusted, lasting relationships with your customers.

Let's chat and see if I can customize a session for you.

Mental Nourishment

Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.

An expert on human blind spots gives advice on how to think. It helps that it's psychologist David Dunning. (Vox) The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.
Your life choices aren’t just about what you want to do; they’re about who you want to be. The Art of Decision-Making. (The New Yorker)
For anyone that does creative work, Gabrielle Bellot’s poetic piece is a salve for the times when we’re plagued by artistic self-doubt. (LitHub)
If you'd like something to do, browse these 55 places where you can download tens of thousands of books, plays, and other literary texts for free. (nothingintherulebook)
A report of a pothole in Florida led a public works crew to discover a tunnel under the road. The tunnel was leading straight toward a bank in the strip mall on the other side of the road. (Miami Herald) Anyone who's read "The Red-Headed League" saw this one coming a mile away. The police? Let's just say they aren't that wide-read, remarking, “I’ve only seen something like this in the movies."
Let’s hear it for the Font Detective, who demonstrated in court that the documents provided by defendants in a recent case were in fact forged by identifying the typefaces. Calibri and Cambria, developed in 2002 but not available for public use until 2007, were the typefaces used on documents allegedly created in 1995. (Naked Security via Rebecca Romney's Book Curious newsletter).

Top image credit: Nocturne of Grey and Gold - Picadilly (public domain, Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, Massachusetts)

Monday, February 4, 2019