Our friends over at Capterra created a spoof commercial parodying software that tries to be everything to everyone. Everyone here at eLynxx Solutions had a good laugh at “…why be laser-focused on just one thing when you can be regular focused on 216?” because, sadly, we see so much of that in real life and its the opposite of our own philosophy.
Check out the video and while you’re at it, stop by out our listing on Capterra.
If you need me in your life at around 4pm EST on a Wednesday, your best bet is to dive into #PrintChat on Twitter. #PrintChat is a weekly discussion about integrated marketing and all things print. Look around and you’ll find me rubbing zeroes and ones with influential members of the online print community.
Towards the end of a recent chat, Deborah Corn of PrintMediaCentr (our host) asked about the books on our summer reading lists. I named a few including a new favorite that has started to seep into how I introduce eLynxx to select print buyers.
Smarter Than You Think is Clive Thompson’s thoughtful consideration of how technology enhances our cognitive abilities and an exploration of the anxieties that emerge with every innovation.
Socrates feared writing would destroy the capacity to memorize information and ruin Greek traditions of debate and dialectic.
Ye Mengde of 10th century China worried that the wider availability of written records made possible by China’s advanced printing technology would weaken memories and cause errors to be repeated without end.
Tools and palaver across 15th century European coffee shop conversations, 19th century novels and periodicals, 20th century telephone calls, and 21st century social media were all supposed to render us into frivolous blockheads and/or anti-social narcissists.
Take a breath. As Thompson documents in each of these instances, our species adapts.
As we adapt, we offload, enhance, and extend memory and cognition to and through our tools. The memory of thoughts and information captured in writing, audio, video, and photos is of significantly greater volume and fidelity than individual human memory.
The external memories captured through our arts are then available to us for deeper analysis, consideration, sharing, and collaboration. We see trends and patterns. We access stories, facts, templates, and instructions. Machines become what Thompson calls “transactive memory buddies” throughout our daily lives.
Our connected tools have increased our capacity to quickly and effectively use external memory while also providing us with new capabilities and opportunities for play. Through blogging and social media, we engage in public thinking and experience “ambient awareness” of the thoughts, activities, and locations of others. We leverage “multiples.” We google the terms I’ve placed in quotes. Regular people have resources to coordinate unprecedented collaboration for games, problem-solving, art, exegesis, education, advocacy, “sousveillance”, and all types of activities including buying print.
If you are reading this, you are a mythic beast (or a cyborg)
Thompson introduces readers to a new meaning for “centaur” that emerged among chess players who play in concert with specialized chess software. In this context, “centaurs” are people who engage challenges and the world itself as composite beings: part human and part information technology.
Centaurs are common, and if you are reading this, you probably are one. Google is your co-pilot. Your ambient awareness tells you which hoaxes are frightening your Facebook friends and whoever you stalk on Twitter. You hire rides with Uber to get to restaurants you found with Yelp or OpenTable. You got escorted out of the restaurant, but you did it for the Vine.
If you’re one of those special print buyers who for some reason elicits full-frontal geekitude, here is where the book might creep into our conversation. While we’re chatting about your current print procurement process and the eLynxx platform, I might switch out “centaurs” for “cyborgs” and say eLynxx is in the business of helping print buyers become better cyborgs. At that point, either hang up or strap in for the ride we’re going on together.
Chess players have software to complement their human skill and judgment while choosing game strategies and moves. Project managers, accountants, nurses, and salespeople all have purpose-built software for their professions.
eLynxx is software purpose-built to empower and support print buyers. It is the “transactive memory buddy” with templates and guidance to enable robust specification writing. Through dashboards and custom reporting, it tracks open tasks, records every event and activity, and provides the capability to easily see metrics, patterns, and opportunities that would otherwise be invisible. eLynxx remembers the verified capabilities of vendors and how they have performed on each job. It links every actor in the print buyer’s supply chain together for collaboration, communication, and compliance.
Better cyborgs equal better processes and better results. And, yes, there is someone who has heard eLynxx described as her “transactive memory buddy” for print.
Sometimes those conversations spin out of control. Hopefully the fun won’t deny me the presence of mind to invite my new friend to a software demo. But we could go on. There is so much more to learn, discuss, and enjoy in Smarter Than You Think. Check it out for yourself. Also, Printerverse citizens will likely be inspired to go deeper into subjects like the history of libraries and Paul Otlet’s Mundaneum.
What’s on your reading list?
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Connect to get ambient awareness of Andy Solages on LinkedIn and Twitter (@andysolages)
Explore eLynxx.com or call 717-709-0990 to learn how eLynxx empowers print buyers and producers to achieve better results with fewer hassles.
Female centaurs flanking Venus (Mosaic from Roman Tunisia, 2nd century AD) by Giorces (Own work) [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
When I began my career in marketing communications, back in the mid-1990s, television was the Holy Grail of marketing channels. A decade and a half or so later, when I was managing communications at what was then a prominent online printer, nothing much had changed. Our ultimate goal was to have an ad air during the Super Bowl. That never happened.
In all honesty, maybe because of the industries in which I have worked , I’ve never been too enamored with big time TV. If you’re a major brand, with billions of dollars to put toward marketing, television campaigns might make sense; the audience is there, it’s targetable and with that kind of budget you can afford it. But, even if you have the budget to support TV, is it as efficient in building brand awareness as other channels like print media and mobile? A 2014 study say no.
With the intent of discovering the impact of mobile marketing as a channel in an overall campaign, the Mobile Marketing Association conducted the Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness Study (SMoX). In one case study, SMoX looked at a 2013 AT&T campaign for Moto X smartphones. National television, print media, online desktop and mobile channels were used. Of course TV had the largest share, 93%, of the budget. Online desktop had the next largest share, a whopping 5%, leaving print media and mobile each with a mere 1% of the budget. The 18-year-old demographic was the target for this campaign conducted over a six-week period.
The study looked at the efficiency of each channel used in the campaign as a factor of individuals reached per dollar spent. The results are rather surprising. Consuming the overwhelming majority of the budget, national TV reached the most people. In terms of efficiency, however, it reached 1.5 people per dollar spent, edging out online desktop by a half a person per dollar. Mobile doubled TV’s efficiency at 3 people reached per dollar spent. Print media, however, showed the most efficiency at 6 people reached per dollar spent.
The study goes on to suggest, based on efficiency and other factors related to the campaign, an optimum mix of spending across the four channels. With a reduction from 93% to 72%, TV takes a hit but still gobbles up most of the budget because of its cost. Out of the rest of the channels, mobile, naturally, tops the list at a suggested increase to 16%. Print media, however, comes in
second with a suggested increase to 8% and online desktop remains constant at 5%. Long story short, the message here is that for a big brand that can afford national television, the next two most efficient communication channels are mobile and print media.
While print in this circumstance is referring to paid advertising space in printed magazines, the fact that it was the most efficient of all channels with an 18-year-old audience is significant. This audience is native to all things digital. This audience is thought to shun anything that’s not on a screen and preferably a screen that can be put in a pocket. But this study indicates otherwise. It indicates that physical, printed graphic communication has not only not lost its power, but its power is enough for it to be suggested as an excellent companion to the channel of preference among this demographic.
Although direct mail, direct marketing and other forms of physically printed communication were not in the scope of this study there are relationships and similarities that can be drawn between the them and magazine advertising. If old fashioned print mass media can efficiently reach 18-year-old smartphone buyers as part of an integrated campaign, well-targeted direct marketing with a great design can too, as long as the production quality, timing and price are optimized. If you are relying on paid channels like online, mobile and certainly TV, optimization is an area of obvious concern. But are you optimizing your printed marketing communications? Are you getting the best combination of quality, service and price with no compromises? You could be, you should be and eLynxx software can help you do it with the people, processes and vendors you already have in place.
