by jenks

community management IS image management


crowd at LIB07
photo by: fightingwords

this weekend, at a do lab birthday dinner, the other half of the do’s community management team started giving me shit about removing a particular video from the LIB youtube group.

it was this weirdly psychedelic video that didn’t even really show much of the festival (i think most of it was a strange, imovie effects-laden loop of a girl in a tutu) and the reason i took it out was because the soundtrack was a song (also totally unrelated to the LIB music style) with the words “cunt” and “fuck” repeated over and over. since LIB happens to be very much an all-ages, family friendly event, this video seemed sorta…uhh… inappropriate. it’s not like i told the creator that he had to remove the video from youtube entirely, and i also didn’t just X his video out of the group in silence. i sent a message to the creator and explained that the video wasn’t actually all that appropriate for the group, and that if he had any other videos that were more palatable we’d totally love to have those included.

apparently, the other half of the team thinks this makes me a prude. i think it’s just effective image management, and it’s an integral part of what’s ENTAILED in the community management process.

the thing about a real community is that it is a group of people who understand each other in a way that people NOT in the community do not. inside jokes get reinterpreted literally by those not in on them, inside norms are judged by the mores of the outside world, and all these things bear the potential for an untold number of misconceptions about your brand and your product, just waiting to create controversy. any significant community management then isn’t JUST about “getting people involved” (if your product is relevant, people will get involved, believe me), it is to a huge extent, about image management.

think about it like this… when you’re 17 your myspace profile isn’t all about the fact that you got a perfect score on the verbal SAT, that you’re the editor of the school’s lit mag, and that you’re a state champion sax player. no. your page has a photo slideshow of you playing beer pong at a party with your friends last weekend, and it’s covered in a million inside joke comments that in no way bolster your college recommendation letters. let’s say this 17 year old is a “brand” that you are trying to sell to a potential university (as many a 17 year old brand is), if any admissions officer happens to check up on the myspace profiles of applicants, then what you’re facing is a case of tragically BAD image management. however if this 17 year old brand is trying to be popular in high school, then you’re doing a fantastic job; keep it up. (also, congratulations, facebook: i just used myspace in an analogy and felt stale.)

the truth, of course, is that you (the 17 year old) are actually responsible for managing both these conflicting images of yourself simultaneously. and likewise, managing a community is very much about navigating the balance between outside and internal expectations while staying true to BOTH! if your approach to “radical transparency” is entirely negligent of the vital impact of context, then you’re just gonna piss a lot of people off (not the least of which will be your community for approaching their representation quite so carelessly), and screw your brand over. this is not to say you can’t ever break the rules of cultural context–in fact, in the cases when adhering to these rules is a detriment i’d actually say that breaking them is definitely a direction to consider, (if you do, however, you have to understand what that means, and all of the repercussions that it entails) but this post is not about breaking the rules of context. that happens all too easily on its own. this is about the much more complicated, much more sensitive, and much more precarious process of balancing them.

the reason i took that video down is because of the impact i felt it could have in a very particular context: potential LIB08 attendees checking out the youtube group, who’ve never come to a do lab event before, and are considering bringing their kids. while we don’t have any hard statistics, i think the amount of families with little kids present at LIB this year can be adequately reflected by the word: shitload. even though the video in question wasn’t adding anything particularly enhancing to the overall community its general irrelevance could simply be dismissed, but it’s off-putting choice of soundtrack, however, was too close to being a detriment for comfort. had such a video been added to a group for lucent delirium, for instance, the do lab’s “twisted tribal affair,” or any of our other late-night, dance-till-it-hurts events, i probably wouldn’t have cared. not, however, a weekend camping festival taking place during mother’s day. (even though the words fuck and cunt are indispensable to motherhood, they’re just totally not gonna go in a video group for the festival. sorry.) and for the record: that sentiment does not make me a prude, it makes america a prude. i’m just here makin sure we’re keepin’ things in context, yo.

the deeper conflict in this situation, of course, is that our particular community is comprised of some VERY uninhibited, counter-cultural artists and all their freaky friends–i mean, we’re a circus for god’s sake! and while even just up until 2006 the dolab’s events were all underground, and the community that has nurtured and supported us is used to this outlaw mentality, we no longer have the luxury nor, frankly, the interest in producing unpermitted, below-the-radar events. the scale is too big, and so are the stakes. this means we now not only have to take permits and fire codes and laws in general seriously, but it also means we have event publicists and work to deliberately cultivate relationships with the mainstream press. yet at the same time there is absolutely no way we will risk jeopardizing the free and bohemian vibe that we are known for, and which our community expects us to deliver… if you happen to think the juxtaposition of these conflicting cultural contexts and expectations might be complicated to manage…. yeah, i’d agree.

the week leading up to LIB was a hardcore community management vs. publicist smackdown battle in which we all struggled to find some kind of balance between what was best for our community, our brand, and for our overall image in the glare of the growing exposure which we are very much courting. amazingly, after a bit of initial fumbling, in the end it all went off without a hitch, and i’d say in no small part due to the very fact that these kinds of issues were critically considered and addressed.

you know… as much as dealing with publicists (even when they’re OUR publicists) really is NOT the highlight of my day, i think that it’s pretty critical that the people in charge of the inward-facing image and the outward-facing image know what the other side is up to. the message may not be different, but the translation most likely needs to be, and if there is not a direct line of communication between the community dept. and the PR dept., and if either side is not conscious of the considerations required by its context, then your brand is setting itself up for a potentially very messy spill in the image management aisle.

i wonder if anyone else out there has any stories or experiences dealing with similar kinds of dilemmas… how did you handle them? what were the results? what’d you learn in the process? i’d be very curious to hear.

    



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by jenks

blog and the city

right after i’d written the cult of the gate-crasher post i found an op-ed video of sorts made for the wall street journal by scott karp, responding to the question of whether bloggers can be journalists, and i’ve been following him since.

today i just saw this very interesting piece he wrote: Should Newspapers Become Local Blog Networks? among a lot of other thought-provoking things, he writes:

“The word “blog” has way too much baggage — it’s too often equated with opinion. But a blog is just a content management system, and you can use it to publish shrill opinion, or you can use it to publish traditional journalism…or you can use it to publish journalistic reporting with a bit more point of view.”

he’s totally right. the word blog does have a lot of baggage, and i personally refuse to carry it even though i actually even have… you know… one of those things. i practically never say the word, and i certainly don’t think of myself as a “blogger.” (don’t take it personally, i went to burningman when i was 18, and am inextricably enmeshed in the burningman community in l.a., yet i refuse to say i’m a “burner” either. i’m equal opportunity when it comes to defining the difference between something i do, and who i am.)

what i am is a writer. and there happen to be quite a few other writers out there, with the same sort of approach to articulating a combination of insight and opinion, and publishing their writing using the same kind of content management system that i do. a blog IS just a content management system, and lumping all the people who use the same system into one category, rather than actually examining the difference in the content being produced, is kind of ridiculous.

in a lot of instances a blogger (that is, the content creator, not the system user in this case) is nothing different from what has traditionally been called a “columnist.” you know… opinionated and personal, yet creating something informative and entertaining enough to get to see the light of print. i mean… look at the layout of a blog! they all even LOOK like a column. there may be a nation of blogges out there who all use the same sort of content management system, but i think i’ll claim my allegiance to the nation of columnists.

    



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by jenks

create culture

the do lab’s hope flower, 2006
photo by: Natalia Valik

it’s the middle of summer. this means i’ve been spending time lately putting together the next issue of the Do Lab Artist Network. it started in the winter, when a ton of the producers we work with at the do were making noise about the new noise they were making, so i got the idea to put together an email from the dolab covering the latest moves happening in the music in our music-driven scene. i realized even then that if we were to do this on a quarterly basis, we could time the spring issue to coincide perfectly with the peak of promotions for lightning in a bottle, the do’s music festival. it just so happened that there were a bunch of new videos (music and doc-stylie) coming out of our community at that time, so the spring issue was dedicated to this multimedia explosion. with LIB over, and my move to a freelance lifestyle giving me insomnia, i started sharing work space with skin.graft designs in an effort to curb the sensation that my home was my office, hoping this would get me back to sleeping normally. it’s no surprise then that summer is going to be the do lab artist network “vogue” issue with a focus on fashion designers/photographers.

as always any do lab project inevitably becomes more than just the sum of its parts. (the do motto is “go big” after all). a great part of the reason that i cherish what i get to do with the do is that at its most profound, my ideas and projects develop into all sorts of insights on everything from branding, to campaign strategy, to business organization, the artist network publication is now no exception.

for the past seven years the do has been producing events, and in the past couple of years is when the scale of these productions has begun to grow exponentially. we now count such companies as redbull, scion, lexus, and the coachella music festival among our portfolio of clients (and before the fall issue of the artist network comes out we will have added summer sonic festival in japan, electric picnic in ireland, virgin festival in baltimore, and that’s all i can keep track of so far). on top of this we are still also producing our own events. we had our biggest creation ever (LIB) go down just a couple of months ago. creating events for our community is what the dolab was doing before any big corporate brands ever knew our name, and it’s still where our heart is and always will be.

what we do isn’t just about entertainment. it’s about taking people’s breath away. people come to our events to have visions, make discoveries, get inspired, fall in love, (among other things you don’t mention in polite company). we design super dynamic, interactive environments, and our creations move people. it’s hard to describe what it’s like to see people ride up to the giant hope flower, and look up at this insanity that was pulled out of the ether of magic and heavy machinery, speechless, tears streaming uncontrollably down their faces.

then a funny thing happens when you are the consistent purveyor of epic, life-changing, reality-bending experiences… you end up developing a very dedicated and suuper engaged community.

people not only keep coming back to event after event, but people spend the time in between telling their friends about it, or talking to the new friends they made there about it. people become interested not just in participating in the experience, but in actually being a part of the creation process itself. our events run on an army of volunteers, and everything we build is the result of a kaleidoscope of collaboration. the fact that an event production crew said “sure, let’s do it,” when i suggested we start an arts publication is testament to this collaborative spirit.

(…. and thank god that segue brings us back to the point–i was getting so far into back-story exposition there, i was kind of getting worried about how i’d be able to suavely transition us back to the action. did you notice?)

in the process of brand development there are elements that are the well-established usual suspects. experience and design are crucial, “content is king,” and community is…. well, you know. but there is such a vital element that is so often neglected.

culture.

in all the time i worked at house of blues, the only kind of communications we ever sent out to our huge database of avid music fans were emails bugging them to buy tickets. there’s a never-ending stream of popular musicians touring through the clubs at any given moment, and yet the idea of leveraging these relationships with culture creators into, say, a house of blues publication, that could, for instance, offer its readers exclusive interviews with the artists, conducted over drinks after soundcheck…. would have been considered ridiculous. instead it was all just emails about show pre-sales and desperate reminders. cuz what would a concert promotion company get out of becoming a publisher, right? (you know… just thinking about the out of control drinks at the house of blues restaurant–a chocolate vodka concoction that sips like an alcoholic tiramisu, margaritas that are so whipped you’ll feel like any other margarita is cheating on you thereafter–i’d be down to read an interview even with the bartenders.)

anyway…something really strange and amazing happened to the open rates on do lab emails that we were sending out leading up to our music festival. they kept getting better with each one! which is unheard of in the land of event reminder emails. the difference between the kind of “reminders” that the do sends vs. house of blues–or, i suppose, really any other major concert promoter–is that we make sure to approach each communication with our community as not just another opportunity to send a banner ad into their inbox, but as culture creation. that is, a transmission of the aesthetics, sound, news, and values of the community.

not like hiring the words “culture” and “marketing” as a team to model your brand’s latest collection is all that new. in fact, no less a sage than faith popcorn has already hailed “culture as the new medium,” pointing out that in the future (and by that i mean, you know… the present) brands need to find ways to “embed” themselves within culture to stay relevant and competitive, and that considering a “culture plan” is just as important as a “media plan.” culture marketing, however, depends on the process of co-opting existing culture. and hey, i’m not knockin’ that. the hippies, hipsters, and hiphop-sters are all equally entitled to free redbull, and brand logos on their flyers. it’s all love, baby, fo sho. but i’m not talking about “embedding” your brand into culture here. (most “sponsorship” at this point has devolved into essentially nothing more than just getting a new place to put a billboard.) this post is called “create culture.”

it’s about brands being platforms of cultural expression. in the ballyhooed (what the hell kind of word is ballyhoo?) future where “brands are the new networks, and advertising agencies are like Hollywood producers” you can think of culture as… cable. mtv, in fact, is THE perfect example of a brand creating culture. (in case you didn’t really think i meant that the concept should be applied literally, you’re wrong.)

ok, but not every brand is mtv or house of blues or even the do lab for that matter, that has cultural content literally walking through its doors, right? and by the same token, not all cultural content is created equally relevant to your particular community (though music is almost always a good place to start). either way, it’s not necessarily about brands needing to create their own proprietary cultural content (we’ve totally got enough of that already, thanks). but perhaps partnering with culture creators to license their stuff would be a direction to consider. after all, the do lab artist network is not us stroking our own egos on our decor and lighting designs, it’s about the many varied cultural creators relevant to our community.

culture not only facilitates communication within a community–it is a medium for expression and communication at its core, after all–but it’s a way to build brand value! think of it like the advanced level you get to in the game after you beat the koopa at the end of the “creating community” level. and this level involves giving something back.

Go Big!

    



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by jenks

feed your head, SF

for anyone up in the bay….

from jason:

Hey, Everyone!

Here’s a reminder about this weekend’s book swap:

This coming Saturday, SwapSF will once again be creating a bookstore with a three hour shelf-life and a party atmosphere at The Phritzery ( map). Features thus far (but new stuff will be happening up until the last minute:

  • breaks by poolboy
  • your first round of rather strong drinks is on Going.com
  • free coffee from Meth
  • tons of books donated by a number of Bay Area bookstores
  • the chance to empty out and refill your shelves with some tasty new lit
  • make out with the bartender!
  • the opportunity to shop for books while drinking (not counting for your late night, regret-laden eBay purchases…)

Please post this info on your blogs, your friend’s blogs, your Goings, your MySpaces, your Yelps, and your neighborhood laundromats!

xo,

//jason
www.swapsf.com

 

    



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by jenks

the cult of the gate-crasher

 

 

“We’re the most permeable membrane in show-business. Anyone who thinks they’re part of Mystic Family Circus probably is.”

– Mystic Family Circus in Freaks & Fire: The Underground Reinvention of the Circus

ok… i’m going to confess: i didn’t read the cult of the amateur (and i’ve read enough reviews of it at this point to be fairly certain that i will never want to) but i’m sure whatever the book is trying to say, it’s got it wrong.

wait, no, that’s not right… we can’t begin this way…

this isn’t even about the book. the book is just a a timely incarnation of a widely-held perspective that there is, and needs to be, a set dividing line to separate creative expression of worth from that which is worthless. and without this line there would be no way to distinguish between that which is moving culture forward, and that which is, as andrew keen says, “killing culture.” what the book is wrong about is this perspective in the first place.

i’m going to give the majority of the credit for why i’m not going to read the book to this fantastically insightful customer review of it on amazon. (i actually can’t think of a more amazingly ironic sort of fate for a book that’s a polemic decrying the worthlessness of the web’s content! can you?):

Although The Cult of the Amateur is highly thought provoking, it is marred by sloppy thinking. For one thing: “Amateur” is never defined. Professionalism is a complicated concept in the fields of literature, music, visual arts, and dance (the last is a field this book does not cover, but it is one I am familiar with as a performer and teacher). Professionalism is often not defined by whether the person makes his or her living as a writer, musician, etc. Most people in most arts fields, including some highly skilled and well-known artists, simply cannot earn a living working in the arts full time because the pay is typically too low. Professionalism is sometimes defined by whether the artist has passed “gatekeepers,” in the form of publishers or producers, or by winning contests.

yes… this is where we should begin.

right there.

artistic expression of worth, i.e. “professional-quality,” as defined by whether the artist has passed “gatekeepers.”

see this is where the cult of the amateur is wrong. in the very concept of its title! there is certainly no lack of amateurs out there–those that haven’t passed through the gate–but the cult isn’t about them. no, all they get is a club. and they’re quite happy with it.

the cult…is about the gate-CRASHERS! these are the people who don’t give a shit about the gate.

see, despite whatever the book is (i’m told) trying to assert, it’s not REALLY about how web 2.0’s proliferation of “amateur content” threatens “our cultural standards and moral values.” it’s not really about how a static volume of books edited by a bunch of white guys who determined what was and was not worthy of inclusion is “better” than a universal wiki-encyclopedia. it’s not REALLY about how news written by a professional journalist working for a publicly-traded corporate-owned media outlet is better than a blog. it’s probably not even about concepts for determining the merit of creative expression in a more complex way than “created by someone who has passed through the gate” vs. “not.” no, it’s not about any of that nonsense…. what it’s really about is a huge degree of fear and anxiety from the cultural conservatives within the gates, who will pay money to read a book that might allay these fears by discrediting the unwashed barbarian insurgents outside threatening to undermine the very foundation of the elite’s worth as artists, not to mention their authority.

hold up a second…. let’s pause for a brief history lesson on “degenerate art“:

Entartete Kunst-

In 1927, the National Socialist Society for German Culture was formed. The aim of this organization was to halt the “corruption of art” and inform the people about the relationship between race and art. By 1933, the terms “Jewish,” “Degenerate,” and “Bolshevik” were in common use to describe almost all modern art.

Viewers of Degenerate Art Exhibit In 1937, Nazi officials purged German museums of works the Party considered to be degenerate. From the thousands of works removed, 650 were chosen for a special exhibit of Entartete Kunst. The exhibit opened in Munich and then traveled to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria. In each installation, the works were poorly hung and surrounded by graffiti and hand written labels mocking the artists and their creations. Over three million visitors attended making it the first “blockbuster” exhibition. Many of the artists included in the Entartete Kunst exhibition are now considered masters of the twentieth century. The following are some of the better known artists whose works were ridiculed in the exhibit. Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Kandinsky, Die Brücke….

woops. looks like someone messed up on their art history final. oh wait…. hitler was never accepted to art school in the first place…

“All my life I have wanted to be a great painter in oils … As soon as I have carried out my program for Germany, I shall take up painting. I feel that I have it in my soul to become one of the great artists of the age and that future historians will remember me not for what I have done for Germany, but for my art.… As for the degenerate artists, I forbid them to force their so-called experiences upon the public. If they do see fields blue, they are deranged, and should go to an asylum. If they only pretend to see them blue, they are criminals, and should go to prison. I will purge the nation of them.”
– Adolf Hitler

he really really tried to feature picasso’s work in the entartete kunst exhibit too, unfortunately picasso could never be proven to be jewish enough to fit with the theme.

ok, you know what?…. that was a pretty extreme example. don’t lets get carried away, aight? alls i’m sayin’ is…. it ain’t like discrediting gate-crashing artists out of fear is a new thang. it’s got quite a robust history. ironically, angstily revenging your rejection by the gatekeepers by wiping them out isn’t really what gate-crashers care about. really, more often gate-crashers don’t even care whether they are accepted or not.

that’s part of what makes them so dangerous. see, whereas some “amateurs” really might get all despondent (and in very rare cases…genocidally psychotic) if a gatekeeper won’t let their art through, to a gate-crasher the idea of getting discouraged if they didn’t make it is like getting discouraged from sneezing in the future just because you didn’t get a “god bless you.” they’re going to create art no matter what. it’s a disorder. they generally can’t help it. and i’m not talking about all those poor tone-deaf souls with pop-star delusions that american idol relishes for its gag reel. that’s not about compulsive creative expression, that’s about feeding the fantasies of narcissism. and while the two very often come hand in hand, they are very easily distinguishable.

the self-identified “professionals” inside the gate, however, like to lump all the people on the outside into this one big tragic wannabe “amateur” category. it’s a lot less threatening that way. call them all pestilent “amateurs” and it helps delay the need to critically address any revolutionizing impact of the gate-crashers among them. generally the rule is to scoff at the barbarians with spray cans overtly tagging the walls of the hallowed gate until such time as the side facing out has itself turned into a new kind of canvas, and the gatekeepers have figured out how to move the gate to a more accommodating locati–i mean, monetize the new art.

even arguably the most impenetrable gate on earth (i’m not counting heaven) moved when hollywood was financially forced to stop staring at its on celluloid navel. once upon a time hollywood was adamant that there was no way that any entity but an established studio could produce quality movies. after all, how could they? beyond the impossible hurdles of the huge amounts of money and all sorts of other resources required, producing movies that the public would be interested in seeing was a craft, requiring years of professional training and dues paying. this just wasn’t the kind of thing any amateur could do. that is, until miramax’s independently-produced, $1.1 million sex lies and videotape performed better on a cost-to-earnings ratio than the $50 million batman. four years later disney bought miramax, and now now, over a decade later, the concept of an “independent” film is basically an anachronism. (seriously, like when was the last time you went to see an “independent”?) hollywood’s totally cool with good (profitable) movies coming from wherever it is that they come from now–it’s too busy just scrambling to figure out how it’s going to continue to make money on distributing them to care about defending it’s Ahhht gate anymore.

as the auter’s (not amateurs) of the 1990’s independent film industry attest, “outsider artists” are not necessarily all that interested in paying their dues and waiting in line for the chance to get their shot. nor are they particularly resourceless when it comes to finding innovative ways to create and distribute the fruits of their creativity on their own terms. these things hold true for gate-crashers in all creative fields. from film, to music, fashion, entertainment, to business, and even to the creative expression of lifestyle itself.

this is all a great opportunity to reevaluate the question: is creative expression worthless unless it has prestige? does it have to have “superiority” (i.e. better than the stuff outside the gate) to have value? both the “polish” of industry and “ingenuity” of independence lend their respective expressions different kinds of caché, but is there perhaps a way to decipher the inherent value in creative expression regardless of origin? can expression be judged on how insightful it is? how entertaining it is? how relevant? provocative? fresh? without that measure necessarily being a reflection of how many gates it did or did no pass?cuz see, the funny thing about the gate, is that the gate doesn’t actually CARE about the art. well, it sort of does. but mostly, it just cares about perpetuating itself. this is why it’s so difficult for people on the inside side of it to break out once they’ve gotten too far in. (oh, so you want to be a political essayist but your major success is in illustrated children’s books? roiiiight.) this is also why true gate-crashers are defined not by having been able to do so from the outside in, but rather by continuing to crash through the gate, no matter which side they’re on. see: paul simon’s foray into mbaqanga music of south africa on the Graceland album, 1986. According to allmusic.com, “Graceland became the standard against which subsequent musical experiments by major artists were measured.” totally a gate-crasher move.

i’m not saying that traditional training is unnecessary, i’m just saying that it’s not a consistent enough determinant of quality to rely on too heavily for the judging. “self-taught” is not a separate art category. and i’m not saying that gates don’t matter, they are, in fact, crucial. without them, the gate-crasher could not exist. what i am saying is it’s time to give the gate-crashers their due recognition. the experimenting, the visionary, the curious… these qualities that are ignored, denied and discredited by the word “amateur,” these are the qualities that fuel the innovators that are not only not killing culture, but in fact, have always been the ones reincarnating it.

    



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