Private (To Us, at Least) – March 11, 2019

Facebook opts for more intimate, private conversations; cameras under the watchful eye of A.I.; darker skin and autonomous vehicles don't mix; the percentage of marketing executives who'll increase their budgets this year; advertisers continue to overlook women over 40; retailers are eliminating innovation labs; the hotly anticipated Infinite Dial 2019 shows a dramatic increase in podcast consumption; Facebook's reputation took a hit last year; the only growing social network; Airbnb is going mainstream; one network's attempt at quashing anti-vaccination content; businesses are collecting a 'rolling hairball' of data but have trouble with insights; the problem with nostalgia; and more in the Private (To Us, at Least) edition of The Full Monty for the week of March 11, 2019.

Special thanks to colleagues who inspired me with link-worthy stories: Chris Brogan, Tom Webster, Jay Baer, Ann Handley, Jason Falls, Mark Schaefer, and Josh Spector. All of these fine folks crank out some amazing content on a regular basis. Check them out.

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Announcements

On March 12, 2019 at 1:00 pm ET / 10 am PT, I'll be giving a webinar for AdWeek in conjunction with Sprinklr titled Is Your Corporate Culture Transformation-Friendly? What's at Stake.

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The building blocks of strategic transformation
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Top Story

It was inevitable.

In the last decade, we've spent so much time accumulating friends and followers on various social networks that it's become impossible to truly follow all of them. This is a vestige of our DNA: in Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, Yuhal Noah Harari referred to "the tens of thousands of years during which our ancestors hunted and gathered."

So, we hunted and gathered on social networks as well, to the point where we've got more than what Dunbar's number suggests we can handle. And now, like any pendulum, it's beginning to swing the other way.

Mark Zuckerberg's 3,200 word manifesto on the future of Facebook indicates that it will increasingly shift its focus away from public posts to private, encrypted, and ephemeral communications on its trio of messaging apps (Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp). How they'll be able to sell advertising against fewer public data points is something that Zuckerberg hasn't addressed. But Zuckerberg was more emphatic in his focus on safety and the spread of misinformation.

Here's the thing: while it may make users more comfortable that their data aren't public, the fact remains that users' data will still be on the platform. Facebook might as well have said, "Your secret is safe with us." Not to mention that by forcing publicly odious opinions and fake news to go underground via private messaging, it's going to be even more dangerous and insidious because of Facebook's (or anyone else's) inability to track it.

Bottom line: Facebook isn't doing this because they heard our concerns about privacy and are now turning over a new leaf. Facebook's plan is to dominate private messaging.

But if you've shared a secret on their platform, your secret is out. Given their past performance on data and trustworthiness, is it reasonable to expect them to perform differently under these new circumstances?

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

– Benjamin Franklin

If you enjoyed this commentary, please sign up for Timeless Wisdom in addition to this newsletter. I'll be sharing some additional thoughts about this move by Facebook.

About this week's image: The Raft of the Medusa is the work of Théodore Géricault, who took a contemporary news event and transformed it into a timeless icon. In 1816, the French naval vessel Medusa sunk off the coast of Africa, which left 147 sailors adrift on a hastily constructed raft. That number dwindled quickly, with only 15 remaining after a 13 day ordeal at sea that included incidents of cannibalism among the desperate men. The larger-than-life-size painting captures the moment the raft’s emaciated crew spots a rescue ship.

Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

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

Vaak, a Japanese startup, has developed artificial intelligence software that hunts for potential shoplifters, using footage from security cameras for fidgeting, restlessness and other potentially suspicious body language. (Bloomberg) Hmm. A.I.-powered cameras that presuppose criminal behavior? Sounds an awful lot like Minority Report.
Just a reminder that airlines have cameras in the screens on the back of passenger seats. American, United, Delta, and Singapore Airlines say they have no intention of using them, though. (USA Today) We'll let you be the judge.
Google has announced a new module for its machine learning framework, TensorFlow, that lets developers improve the privacy of their A.I. models with just a few lines of extra code. (The Verge) We're glad someone is using A.I. for increasing privacy.
No more midday golf and boozy lunches: An A.I. tool is auditing expense reports to find and flag questionable spending decisions. (WSJ)

Aᴜᴛᴏɴᴏᴍᴏᴜs / Mᴏʙɪʟɪᴛʏ

Tesla is dealing with the failure to achieve full self-driving vehicles by moving the goalposts, as it continues using its customers as unpaid safety drivers for its technology. (Ars Technica) Did we say you'd be able to summon your car autonomously to Los Angeles from New York by 2018? We meant "future use of these features without supervision is dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience." Or something.
Researchers have developed a smart stop sign that will flash a light at the right moment to make sure drivers don’t roll past the sign altogether, therefore raising the risk of an accident. (New Atlas)
A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that individuals with darker skin are 5 percent less likely to be detected by autonomous vehicles. (Vox) Good grief. Algorithmic bias, most commonly reflecting human biases, is a big problem in the world of A.I. and machine learning. That's because the algorithms rely on training data from the real world—including content from media outlets like Vox.
BMW and Mercedes Benz maker Daimler recently announced that they’ll collaborate on ride-sharing and mobility services as part of a €1 billion joint investment. (CNBC)

Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

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

Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢʏ / Mᴀʀᴋᴇᴛɪɴɢ / Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ

Good news – 55% of marketing executives say they expect to increase their budgets this year, by an average of 14%. (Advertiser Perceptions)
Four B2B marketing trends to watch in 2019, including video, account-based marketing, and a slowing of advanced technology. (Marketing Charts)
Do consumers dislike personalized ads? It's the usual conundrum: consumers want personalized ads, but don't want to give up the necessary data. (eMarketer)
It's time to put more effort into your email newsletter. One reason: it's slow-cial media. (Emma) It's one of the few things over which you exercise as much control as possible.

Jᴏᴜʀɴᴀʟɪsᴍ / Cᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴs / Rᴇᴘᴜᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

Women have never been more engaged, more motivated, more in control of their lives than ever before. And brands are missing out as they continue to overlook women over 40. (AdWeek) Interesting finding during the week that included #InternationalWomenDay.
People would not care if 77% of brands disappeared. However, more than three-quarters (76%) of consumers expect brands to contribute to their quality of life and well-being, according to a new report on meaningful brands. (Havas) It's time to start making consumers care – by caring about what matters to them.
New research finds that as Generation Z and young Millennials exhibit much greater price sensitivity and much lower brand loyalty than prior generations—a challenge for brands looking to grow loyalty with this elusive group. (Agility PR) As if we didn't have enough generational challenges already.
And if you need a positive boost about the power of humanity as a new brand gets off the ground, check out this Twitter thread. (Twitter)

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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.

There was a false alarm (updated, via AdWeek) that Amazon abandoned thousands of third-party wholesalers, with no notice. It is pushing third-party vendors to sell directly to consumers. (Quartz) This would obviously be disruptive, but could also be seen as a potential anti-competitive practice, as such vendors may not be set up to go DTC and Amazon is guaranteed to win. Further, with continued investment in private-label products, such a move by Amazon could be seen as a way to clean house to make way for its own products.
Beginning in April, Amazon is closing all 87 of its pop-up stores. (CNBC)
Dollar Tree sharply marked down the value of its Family Dollar chain and announced plans to close nearly 400 Family Dollar stores and rebrand hundreds of others this year. (WSJ) The discount business is not cheap.
More retailers are doing away with "innovation labs" and instead simply integrating innovation into their operations. (Digiday) As it should be. Innovation should be a cultural thing, not the responsibility of a single department.
Alibaba and Office Depot are launching a co-branded online store that’ll target small and medium sized businesses. (AP) Appropriate, as the orignial Ali Baba was the son of a merchant, and a small businessman himself.
Returns are one of the biggest issues for e- and m-commerce, but they could also hold the key to helping keep stores relevant, if technology can be used to make returns work more effectively. That's what kiosks from Happy Returns are designed to do. (Internet Retailing)

If you haven’t taken a moment to recommend The Full Monty in the past month, please find a couple of minutes. Three effective tactics (do one, two or all three):

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Platforms

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

Part of Edison Research's Infinite Dial 2019 (see more below in the Media section) included social media usage. Here are nine key discoveries in 2019 social media research. (Convince and Convert) This one may surprise you: only one network grew last year.

Fᴀᴄᴇʙᴏᴏᴋ / Iɴsᴛᴀɢʀᴀᴍ / WʜᴀᴛsAᴘᴘ

Now Facebook is allowing anyone to look you up using the phone number you provided for security purposes only. (Fast Company) But "trust us." Also: "private." And "encrypted."
In an Axios Harris Poll of U.S. adults, Facebook's reputation dropped from 51st to 94th in 2018, following myriad scandals. (Axios) Seems like a good time to double down on data privacy.
Instagram introduced “branded content ads,” letting marketers promote their influencers’ paid posts to audiences beyond their followers. (Ad Age) Interesting note: when Twitter debuted ads for brands and I was in charge of Ford's strategy, our very first promoted tweet was someone else's content.

Tᴡɪᴛᴛᴇʀ

As Twitter has shrunk, it has become a place where users mostly retweet politicians and celebrities. (Washington Post) It's short-form entertainment.

Oᴛʜᴇʀ

Pinterest's CEO says the success of the app is in how it mimics the best parts offline shopping. (AdWeek)
Pinterest has unveiled a Catalogs feature; it enables marketers to showcase multiple product images, sorted by category, and make them into dynamic Product Pins. The company has also added Shopping Ads to its self-serve Ads Manager platform. (Marketing Land)

Media

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

Vɪᴅᴇᴏ

There's only one Blockbuster store left in the world. What's its secret? (CNN Business) Hint: there's one kind of content is provides that Netflix and Amazon don't.
The new streaming service from Disney, Disney+ will feature the company's entire catalog –including items that have long been in its vault. (Collider)
Netflix is a threat to the entire Big Media establishment – and Big Media is coming for Netflix. (Axios) It's not just coming from one direction. With Hulu, Disney+, Amazon, WarnerMedia, and others, this is an ongoing battle.

Aᴜᴅɪᴏ

The New York Times is growing its audio business, with five new hires to grow The Daily and more. (New York Times)
Podcasting shows explosive year-over-year growth as gains in spoken-word audio mark the 2019 Infinite Dial Study by Edison Research and Triton Digital®.

Among the U.S. population ages 12 and older, the total number of people who have ever listened to a podcast passed 50% for the first time.
An estimated 67% of the U.S. population listened to online audio in the last month, and 60% listened in the last week.
In-car listening to podcasts increased more than 13%.

Infinite Dial 2019 from Edison Research

Program of the Week: The featured show is Consider Our Knowledge, an award-winning home for the best NPR parody that we know of- where the news is fake, and the jokes are real.

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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

An email validation company left over 800 million records exposed online. (Ars Technica)
Even as North Korea and the U.S. met, North Korean hackers were at work hitting over 100 targets in the U.S. “For 15 months, they haven’t tested weapons because of this negotiation but over those same 15 months they have not stopped their cyber activity.” (New York Times) Because no one can see those.
A U.S. Senate report details the efforts of the Russians regarding Brexit. The senators also challenged the adequacy of the investigations by Facebook and Twitter into the allegations of widespread social media interference by the Russians during the referendum. (The Guardian)
Deepfakes—completely fabricated images and videos—are a terrifying prospect, but are they a real threat? (The Verge)
Facebook is doing its part to quash anti-vaccination content in an effort to combat misinformation. (NPR)

Rᴇɢᴜʟᴀᴛᴏʀʏ / Oɴ-Dᴇᴍᴀɴᴅ Eᴄᴏɴᴏᴍʏ

Airbnb is finally entering the hotel industry by buying HotelTonight. (Quartz)
Regarding the sharing economy: ‘sharing’ was supposed to save us. Instead, it became a Trojan horse for a precarious economic future. (OneZero) Virtually none of the sharing economy startups have demonstrated a cash flow-positive business model. At the center of it all: when you leave decisions up to society as a whole, people will chose the cheapest alternatives, and things will tend toward chaos rather than order.

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.

What is the true business value of social media engagement? It may be difficult to tie to specific financial events, but here are eight conclusions to consider. (Mark Schaefer)
What social media metrics matter? It depends. (Jason Falls)
Data science and analytics will be the technical skills most needed at digital ad agencies worldwide in the next two years. (eMarketer)
Many CMOs have tried to buy their way out of the marketing landscape’s issues with adding more marketing technology. But that's a short-sighted fix that's only causing more headaches. (Agility PR)
All sorts of businesses are collecting a ‘rolling hairball’ of data on their customers. Whether they can use their insights to transform into tech companies is another matter. (WSJ)

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, updated to inform business growth.

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.

A visual representation of how Daylight Saving Time affects the country, as a cartographer mapped hours of daylight and darkness across the U.S. (Mental Floss) If you need me, I'll be in the dark in Michigan in the morning.
Harvard researchers say this is what successful people do when making small talk. (CNBC) So many great nuggets in this one.
Wearing rose-colored glasses always leads to an unfair distortion — looking back on the best of the past while comparing it to the worst of the present. The Problem with Nostalgia. (Longreads) Or, Nostalgia Ain't What It Used to Be. Just ask my kids.
Great futurists know the secret to unlocking accurate predictions. (Timeless Wisdom)

Top image credit: The Raft of the Medusa by Jean Louis Théodore Géricault, 1818-19 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)

Monday, March 11, 2019