remarkable communication

Squidoo vs. Knol

Google has announced a new beta project called Knol, described by some (ok, me) as the mutant love child of Wikipedia and Seth Godin's Squidoo. I'd explain more about how it works, but honestly, that just about covers it.

(Disclosure: I'm a moderator on Squidoo's forum and I do some volunteer testing & such for them. Of course I have a bias. What could possibly be duller than a blog without a bias?)

I can't figure out What problem Google is solving with this. What problem for customers and users, that is, not for Google itself. Knol isn't baked yet, so maybe it's going to get a lot more fabulous. At the moment it looks a little, well, underwhelming.

It's not going to be easier to use than Squidoo, unless Google has a new technology that detects brain waves and translates them into code (I'm not writing that possibility off). And individual author creation means that it's not likely to develop the authority (notwithstanding the None of Us Is as Dumb as All of Us factor) of Wikipedia.

So what does it do for us that we can't get now?
It's Google, which means they have unlimited resources, brainpower and capital. That puts it in contrast to Squidoo, which has a tiny staff and gets a little frayed around the edges. Once in awhile Squidoo has system outages and their staff tends to say stuff like "we can keep you informed or we can fix the problem, which do you want?"

(I am far from the most hardassed boss in the world, but that particular post would have resulted in a subsequent apology to my customers. Not important, moving on now. Still, if you aren't Squidoo, don't do that.)

Squidoo is little. It's messy. Sometimes things don't work in IE, or you can't quite find out how a feature works. It's really good, but it isn't perfect.

It's also got a passionate community of "lensmasters," a great look and feel, and six million unique visitors a month. People create their own Squid graphics. They build Squidoo chat and information sites and training videos. They ponder what they will wear to the first Squidoo conference. They make up silly names for themselves. They proudly identify as Giant Squids or Squidizens or Fresh Squids. Some of them even make folding money from it. (Like making a living on eBay, it takes time and work, but it's possible.)

People who make Squidoo lenses have a relationship with Squidoo that matters to them. They care about it, not just because it's a potential source of income.

Know anyone who makes up funny names for how they're using AdSense? Me neither.

Squidoo is, for lack of a better term, loveable
As my bias and I look at this new Knol creature, I see the potential for something that's perfect but not very good. I'm sure the software is flawless, or at least that it will become flawless in short order. But looking at the page, I don't see what will make a Knol loveable.

Since I have no objectivity whatsoever, how about you? I'd love to hear what you think of the two side to side.

Insomnia screen shot of a Knol
Insomnia Squidoo lens created by Seth, repurposing the same Creative Commons content

So it's scrappy, smart little Squidoo vs. the new Borg, Google having officially taken that title from Microsoft some time this summer. There are a couple of competitors--HubPages comes to mind--but this is the first serious one. Who's going to win the insanely-easy-to-create focused knowledge Web page war?

Not sure, but it's bound to be an interesting game to watch.

Related reading: Seth's classy post

(P.S. The "Knol" name has given some of us some problems. It looks a little too much like LOL, maybe. I think this is a real opportunity to improve Knol's loveability, though: Knolcats. Remember, you saw it here first.)

Do something amazing

I ran across this Squidoo lens and was deeply touched.  Their project is amazing. Volunteers knit cute, easy-to-make dolls that are used as packing materials for medical supplies sent to HIV clinics in Africa.  The dolls are then given to children in the community, including clinic patients with AIDS, who love and cherish them.  Children with AIDS are often buried with their "comfort dolls."

The project builds on this by using the dolls in promotional fundraising activities with famous musicians.  So you get to help raise money for a wonderful cause, give some love and comfort to a child who needs it, and feel absolutely excellent about your few hours of time spent.

I’m planning on knitting a few of the dolls--the pattern is right here and looks very easy.  There’s an address on the same page to mail the dolls. I’m also planning on slipping a check in when I send them.  Never hurts, right? If you knit, I encourage you to join me. If you don’t, email a link to someone you know who does.

I’m knocked out by the expressions on these children’s faces.  Little children, especially when they’re facing hardship, get so much from having a doll to love and take care of.  This project is easy enough for beginners, and there’s nothing else you can work on this weekend that will make you feel as wonderful.

I really liked this quote from the woman who organizes the project:

No matter how caught up I get in writing letters to bands and their managers for photo ops, no matter how frustrated I get when I don't hear back, or I get a 'no' answer, no matter how many dolls I knit that look goofy to me--I always keep in mind who my partner and I, who these bands, who my friends who knit furiously after dinner each night--who we are doing this for in the end.

Why Squidoo is a great communication vehicle
Check out the difference between the Squidoo lens and this MySpace page (turn down your speakers) created by the same person. The Squidoo template brings unity and visual harmony to the message, and provides the right number of tools to add information like images, links, Wikipedia references, whatever.

If you have a project that you want to get the word out about and you’re not a communications pro, I can recommend Squidoo as an easy and smart way to do that. You might even make a few dollars from your pages, which you can put in your pocket or donate to charity directly from the lens. I’ve been putting lenses together for a few months now, and so far I’m impressed.

Tending your Web presence garden

"The greatest fertilizer is the shadow of the gardener."

I've been a passionate gardener for many years. I heard that quote a long time ago, and it's the mantra I live by for my garden. The more attention I put into it, the better results I get. It's not a question of hovering--the seeds germinate and the plants develop at their own pace. But daily attention lets me capture small problems before they get big, notice my successes so I can create more of them, and create the right environment for my garden to flourish.

Can you sense a metaphor coming on? (Gardening is one of those great uber-metaphors--it works for everything.) The same daily attention that lets my garden flourish also helps my Web presence to grow organically.

(OK, metaphor veering into bad pun territory, sorry.)

Start with the soil
You won't be able to grow anything more interesting than dandelions if you don't understand your soil. Know (and fix) its deficiencies whenever you can. Understand what it's going to grow well and what it will probably never be able to support.

To translate this to your Web presence, your "soil" is probably your understanding of your market. This doesn't have to be commercial--your market could be your customers, your nonprofit donors, your church, your PTA--whoever it is that you want to influence and create a relationship with. Notice that it's your understanding of those folks that matters. You need to know what they want, what they worry about, what they value. If you don't have that, any other work you do will be hit-or-miss, with more misses than hits.

That said, there's not a gardener worth his salt who will wait until the soil is perfect before he starts planting. Soil is never perfect, and neither is understanding. Know when to get them to "good enough" to get started, and then keep amending.

Remember, too, that different soil is good for different plants. If you have alkaline clay and brutal sun, like we do here in most of Colorado, your desire for rhododendrons is going to be a painful and labor-intensive one. Try and communicate with folks you already have a feeling for. I'm never going to excel at the mass market or the ultra technical. That's completely fine. I can reach millions of people with the messages that come most naturally to me.

Don't plant a monocrop
Creating different Web points of contact is like planting different plants.  There are dozens if not hundreds of options now. Blogs, e-newsletters, static Web pages, Squidoo lenses, HubPages, ezine articles, Gather articles, Facebook, Tumblelogs.  Create a nice assortment to get the cross-pollination you need.

Remember not to create more sites or touchpoints than you can take care of. Each little content corner you create should be visited regularly, spruced up as needed, tested for broken links, and generally given some love and attention.

Different content types have different needs. Once your ezine (or Gather, or any of the other similar sites) article is written and published, you need to check it for errors that were introduced in the process, and then it will pretty much live on its own. You might check it every six months or so for broken links, but that should do it. On the other hand, to stay effective, you need to keep feeding your favorite article sites with new content, to build and maintain a reputation as a worthy authority on your subject.

(On that subject, I don't recommend submitting the same article to multiple sites. Google discounts duplicated content. You can write dozens of articles on the same subject---just develop new examples and new metaphors. You can borrow the gardening analogy any time you like.)

Squidoo lenses do best with a fertilize-and-prune every couple of weeks. Add a content module, consider removing one that's not performing, or update some of your links with fresher, more exciting stuff.

Contributing to social sites like Facebook or forums depends on developing trust with your friends--you probably want to check in at least once or twice a day. And opinions differ about how often one should post on a blog, but twice a week is probably the bare minimum, and most successful bloggers post at least once daily.

Always have a flat of seedlings to plant
I got this particular method from Ed Dale over at Thirty Day Challenge: create Google News, Google Blogs, and Technorati watches on the subjects you like to write about. Subscribe to all of these in an RSS reader. When an interesting story comes up, clip the most relevant points into a product like Backpack or Google Notes. I like to create a text file with 3-5 possible points I want to cover, and any juicy quotes or connections.

You're a lot less likely to get shut down by writer's block if you have plenty of irresistible idea seeds just waiting to be grown into solid content. Dale uses these to create tiny articles--just a few paragraphs--but the idea works just as well if you're long-winded like I am.

For another source of ideas to develop, make a habit of tucking a few blank 3x5 cards into every book you read, whether for work or for pleasure. Copy down quotes (and identify them as such with very clear quote marks and a page number--you don't want to become an accidental plagiarist). Scribble ideas, especially any connection you can make to something else. Every day, take your 3x5 cards for the day and transcribe them into your online tool. Paper is magnificent, but bytes win this one hands down.

And always credit the book where you originally found the idea--it's just good manners, and it enhances your credibility. No one expects you, especially in the 21st century, to grow all your own ideas from the ground up.

Related viewing:
Darren Rowse's nice video post on how blogging is like growing a lawn.

Capturing the micro attention span

I've been very fortunate to attract a lot of attention with the Squidoo lens I created on Pema Chodron. There are usually multiple reasons why a particular piece takes off (Pema's tremendous wisdom and the power of her writing and speaking are obviously central), but I thought I'd examine one component that's relevant to anyone trying to create awareness on the Web.

Short Attention Span Theater

Every successful Web experience today starts with a little piece of Short Attention Span Theater. While you've got a few folks (hi mom!) who make a point of visiting your site, most traffic comes from some form of referral. You might get a link from a popular blog, hits from social media sites like Digg or StumbleUpon, or you may be having a good Google day. Even RSS subscribers are being "referred" by the RSS reader technology.

Those referrals have two things in common: they don't owe you anything, and they decide in an instant whether or not they're going to take the time to read your post today. You have a period of anywhere from 1-3 seconds to make an impression. That's all the time you're given to grab attention and let people know why they want to keep reading.

I suspect that the Pema lens owes about 85% of its success to its first two sentences. Yes, the rest of the content follows up on the promise delivered by those two sentences, but without them, no one would look at the rest of the content.

(In case you're trying to remember where the phrase comes from, the original Short Attention Span Theater was a Comedy Central show in the early 90s.)

What works about this intro?

She's funny, she has kids and grandkids, she has an opinion about how Cher looks after all the plastic surgery. She's not your parents' Buddhist nun, in other words.

The first sentence describes a person who's not too remarkable. A lot of people have kids and grandkids, most of us think we are funny, and having an opinion about Cher's plastic surgery doesn't stand out much. But none of these are what we expect from a Buddhist nun.

The photo reinforces the paradox. An ordinary-looking woman, someone you might see at the grocery store in Des Moines or Kalamazoo, wearing traditional Buddhist robes.

Questions immediately start to fire off in the reader's mind. "Buddhist nuns can have kids? So, what, is she married? And if she's thinking about Cher, does she watch television or read People, or how does that work?" Our expectations have been jolted. The world doesn't work exactly the way we think it did. Our attention has been grabbed.

Most Web articles on Pema Chodron don't get a lot of traffic, even though she is relatively well-known (in the small world of American Buddhists), because most of those pages are a little stodgy. They preach to the choir. They're interesting to people who already know they're interested.

But what's interesting about Pema is precisely that she isn't stodgy. And that she has a real ability to take something that seems esoteric (Buddhist teaching) and make it feel useful and ordinary.

To put it in crass marketing terms, I was marketing a remarkable product. All I did was write two unremarkable sentences that point to what's remarkable about her.

Start fast

The most natural thing in the world is to begin at the beginning. An introduction just begs us to set out all the background. If you write books, you can still do that (quickly). If you write for the Web, it's a luxury you can't afford.

One nice thing about the SquidWho pages is that they insert a Wikipedia module for you right after the introduction. That's a good place for background. Either my interest has been engaged and I'll settle in to learn a little more, or it hasn't and I've moved on to the next site. I was fortunate that the Wikipedia article itself has a good strong intro, which draws readers further in and starts to flesh out the story.

I wish everything I created got the same attention, but so far, I'm afraid it doesn't. But if you want a very different example of a Squidoo lens about a remarkable individual, have a look at my lens on El Rey. As I look at it, the intro just isn't as strong, is it? I still like the lens. He's no Pema Chodron, but he might make you laugh.

Generosity

Another great question from Seth Godin—if you weren't looking for anything in return from a friend, customer, or prospect, What's the most generous thing you could do? I'd probably build them a Squidoo lens.

I'm indebted to Godin for writing a lot of stuff that's improved my thinking, and more recently for linking to my SquidWho lens about Pema Chodron. A friendly howdy to those of you finding your way here by that path.

It's the benefits, darling

I originally called this "It's the benefits, stupid," but this morning it occurred to me that a campaign slogan from the 1992 presidential campaign now officially qualifies as ancient history. Dang, I'm old.

Anyway:

I don't think anyone, anywhere has combined Leonard Cohen, the iPod, and cleft palate surgery in one piece of writing before.

New definition at Sonia's marketing dictionary: benefits, not features.

Write your own dictionary

I've been working lately on a marketing dictionary. Ok, I've written two definitions so far. But as I run across marketing terms that are a little jargon-y to normal people (that is, those of us who aren't marketing geeks), I go ahead and create a new one.

Creating a resource like this is one way to create marketing that gives value before you get a return. You're digging the well before you get thirsty. When you create value that's appealing and easy to find, you start to build a brand of helpfulness, trustworthiness, and expertise.

I used Squidoo because its tools are well-designed and easy to use (the technical part of creating a lens, not counting writing your copy and selecting the right images, takes maybe 20 minutes). Even nicer, Squidoo's architecture can quickly give your lenses a decent Google ranking if you find the right topic. Adding links back to your site or blog from your Squidoo "lenses" (which are essentially tightly-focused micro Web sites) will help you do better on search engines, too. There are a lot of excellent white hat techniques for increasing SEO (search engine optimization), but Squidoo is one of the easiest.

Give me an example . . .

OK. Let's say you own a winery (you lucky sod). You might create individual definitions for a number of wine terms. I'm not suggesting you create a true exhaustive dictionary. Instead, come up with 5 or 10 mini essays about selected terms that mean something to you, and that wine lovers want to know more about. Each definition needs to be personal, engaging, and interesting. Don't just define brix, talk about how it applies to your experience of winemaking and their experience of wine tasting.

Think of the kinds of interesting conversations you have at a good party. That's what you're aiming for.

Then, on your Web site or blog, any time you happen to mention brix, link it back to the definition you've created. Your readers get a little gift of extra information when they click on it.

The definition lens itself should end with a paragraph about your winery and what makes it wonderful. The more personal, the better. Talk about why you love it. Talk about what your customers love about it. And make sure that people who are engaged know how to get hold of you to find out more.

Then what happens?

The interesting part is, you don't know. All kinds of fascinating things happen when you cross-pollinate this way, especially when you don't predetermine the next step. (There is a place for predetermining the path you want prospects to take, but consider throwing a few wild cards like this out as well.)

There is no call to action (or if there is, it's a friendly invitation to come find out more about you). You're not trying to sell wine from a Squidoo lens. All you're doing is creating some additional doors for interesting opportunities to knock on.

Running a business is basically about doing something that you know how to do and your customers don't. Leverage that knowledge to start building trust and recognition.

• Figure out what your customers want to know more about.
• Break interesting, useful information into chunks.
• Put it where people can find it.
• Make sure they know how to find you to continue the conversation.

It's not an overnight strategy, far from it. But it's a powerful one.

The marketing dictionary

I'll throw the new definitions in here as they get added.  Updated August 22, 2007.

• Benefits, not features
• Call to action
• Split test

Squidoo lens on 21st century marketing techniques

There's a ton of marketing information on the Internet, and about 99% of it is awful.  Unfortunately, most of what you'll find with a simple Google search points you to dubious get-rich-quick schemes or various flavors of spam.

I created a Squidoo lens (essentially a tiny Web site) to talk about some of the legitimate oportunities that exist to market your business with Internet and Web 2.0. The lens will point you to books, links, and other resources to learn more about whether or not you want to explore some of these ideas further.

Check it out at www.squidoo.com.