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Tuesday
Nov032009
Three Ways to Thrive in the Age of Streams
Young Urban Professional
The images above should strike fear in any one who seeks attention - be it a brand, a politician or an individual. They come from Nielsen. The first (87) is the number of domains the average American visits in a month. The second (2600) is the number of web pages the average American visits in a month.
This funnel is small when you think about the infinite choices we have today - an era of information abundance. And given that human attention doesn't scale, I anticipate these stats will remain stable. So how do you break through? Here are three steps I am considering in my work as a communicator ...
1) Limiting all writing to 400 words or less - that's what Leo Baubata is doing and I think he's on to something. (You can do the same with email.)
2) Doing more with visuals - most of my PowerPoint decks don't have bullet points and I am doing more with mindmapping. (According to the book Brain Rules, if information is presented just verbally orally, people only remember about 10 percent. This jumps to 65 percent if you add a picture.)
3) Embracing a hub and spoke approach - it's difficult to expect anyone to come to you. This is why I like Posterous. I can start something here and engage with it everywhere via their auto-posting feature
Is your message being heard? And if so, how are you coping
Reader Comments (19)
been following you for a bit now. you are so right on, particularly with the "more is less" bit. make the impression last.
Great points, Steve. I'll disagree on auto posting which I try to avoid. I'm turned off when I see it.
65/10 in favor of pictures? The ratio surprises me. 400 words or less is cool with me.
This is very insighful and has inspired me to consider some radical changes :) by the way I was just reading about how a mobile novel (m-novel) has become a hit with young people here in South Africa. Guess what the chapter length is? 400 words. Great post thanks! Steve
This is slightly geeky, but I'm curious how they are defining "average American?" Avg. Americans who are online? Enjoyed the simplicity of your message, and completely agree with your points. It seems we are all thinking about how to stay relevant and not get lost in a stream, or group. I have been mindmapping ideas out for years, and find it a valuable tool for visuals and idea generation.
Echoing @skyle - I have to ask the same question, how are they defining an avg. american - it would be interesting to see.I like your ideas...I am fan of small posts. However, I must say, some of the longer ones I've read, I've enjoyed much more than the small ones... I guess both have their place.
I really dig tips. They make me brainy.
Excellent analysis and recommendation. I have fallen in love with Posterous for the same reasons and have reserved my "blog" for in-depth articles... thinking now that dividing into parts might work better.
To point number 2: Why not add videocasting to the mix? I'd love to see you on camera presenting, talking, sharing and... even singing? ;) The entertainment value would be huge.
@Charlene thats a good idea.
Intrigued by your "limiting all writing to 400 words or less" statement. Something to consider but certainly only applicable in the web environment.
400 words... ouch! My last post was over a 1.000.
Steve,i made a comment on Friendfeed,i got no reply (is that because you have stopped using it)I was wondering because,now i have problem managing the information flow from twitter,google reader and friendfeed,not to mention facebook. Have twitter lists replaced your google reader subscriptions,just like robert said? And one more, why do we need Twitter lists when we had that option from Friendfeed ages ago? What is your view on this and how much time do you spend a day reading from what kind of sources? Last lifestream from you picture,showed friendfeed as a main source.Mine is Reader and FF right now
Hello from beautiful Montana:Thanks for these great tips and tricks. it is amazing how all the little ideas soon merge into a great big Aha.Looking forward to setting up an posterous account.Judy H. Wright aka Auntie Artichoke, family relationship author and speaker
Looking into a posterous account. What do you think about it? Tell me.
Thanx for the valuable information. simply fantastic... Excellent analysis and recommendation. keep posting. Will be visiting back soon.
Steve, regarding the "hub and spoke approach" -- what worries me is that cross-posting might get you penalized by search engines. Have you seen this? I'm all for the idea but wouldn't want to shoot myself in the foot.
Judy, while you can of course use any blogging platform to your advantage, I like Posterous' psychological approach: blogging is almost like writing an e-mail (and as you know, that's exactly how you can use Posterous). An additional benefit being that you're probably more comfortable with your e-mail app than your blogging app.
@Kimmo re search engines. I have heard that. This is why all content remains here but I syndicate links out. The exceptions are photos and videos.