Google Logo Celebrates Barcode Invention

Google changed its logo to celebrate the invention of the barcode today on the 57th anniversary of the barcode patent.

Originally designed for the railroad industry to label car, it wasn’t until the early 1970’s that the barcode was introduced commercially in the supermarket industry to automate checkout systems and introduce a cost reduction in the labeling of supermarket products.

Read more about the barcode on Wikipedia.

Google’s Visual Communication

Google uses its logo as a form of visual communication, to create conversations across the web. In changing its famous and highly recognizable logo, Google leads inquiring minds to discover noteworthy items, historic dates and points of interest via key words on its search page.

See previous posts about Google logo changes on Ghandi and on Samuel Morse and the intervention of the telegraph here.

Brand Influence

One of the most influential uses of brand changing or remixing is the image of Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.

A photo taken by a journalist during the campaign was artistically adapted and made into a poster to express. The effect of  Obama’s highly recognizable image (brand) being changed to convey a message proved overwhelmingly powerful; probably the single most indelible image of the President. The artist, Shepard Fairey, was instantly catapulted into to fame with the image seen round the world and shared widely on the internet.

Barcode as Art

See an ABC News Story on artist Scott Blake who remixes art using barcodes.

Conversational Marketing or Artistic Interest?

When have you modified your brand to create conversations or influence others?

Post a comment here.

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Amos White is a Social Media Marketing Evangelist and public speaker.
Follow Amos on Twitter @Mos42

The Rise of Women in Social Networks

Brian Solis’s recent analysis of the 20 Top Social Media sites reveals interesting statistics on who is using these social media sites.

Most notably is more than the presence of women, but their clear dominance throughout the socialsphere.

• In 16 of 20 top social media sites, women equaled or dominated men in number of users.
• Women dominated in the top 2 social media sites, Facebook (57% women, 70.27M users) and MySpace(64% women, 70.25M users)

In interpreting the data, Solis challenges marketers and PR specialists is to participate as community managers, in contrast to the standard modus opendi of top down, one-to-many marketing.

The key lesson for marketers is a choice to participates as a social member in these sites to discover and mine the richness and network complexities.

Each network possesses a vibrant culture and ecosystem that is powered by context and connected by influential social graphs.

Inclusion begins with consistent demonstration of trustworthiness via presence, sharing, support and contributory content of value.

For complete statistics, read the full post here.

Sound off
How do you assure your marketing strategies are participatory and sensitive to community member needs?

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Amos White is a Social Media Marketing Evangelist and public speaker.
Follow Amos on Twitter @Mos42

CNN Money offers small businesses innovation in Six Steps

Small businesses innovation
or productive creativity can be daunting when considered within the context of what adds to the business bottom line.

Managers and chief executives are wary enough of employees losing valuable work time to social media chats and water cooler gossip.

But consider this- if your business is not improving (read: growing) when you keep doing the same things, isn’t it worth enabling and supporting you staff in trying something new and different?

CNN Money’s post on Six steps to creative breakthroughs listens to industry leaders share how they effectively leveraged existing resources to produce innovative changes that improved their bottom line.

Here are some lessons learned from the “6 Steps”:

1) Look behind you.
Always look back to see what did and did not work.

2) Lose the routine.
Make time to read widely.
Move more quickly in your own life to find your creative impulse.
Attend a trade show or seminar about an unrelated industry.
Try spending a day in the life of a client.

3) Use the brains you hired.
“Give people the license to take risks and to fail often enough
to realize that they will not be punished for doing the right thing.”

4) Get cozy with customers.
“Your guests are going to tell you how to be successful.”

5) Share the load.
Get outside feedback and vett new concepts with partners.
Use student interns: they’re not afraid to tell you something is dumb.

6) Try to fail quickly.
Once you find a good idea, commit to it.

Read the full post here.

Lessons Tried?
What has worked for you in moving your business out of the box?

Google’s homage to Gandhi

Google is just a class act.

Today Google posted a minimal home page homage to Mahatma Gandhi.

Google’s Tribute to Gandhi

Their long tail approach to sharing information through images linked to searches inspires us to connect with the stories of other great artists, factoids, historic dates, etc.

Its sort of a geeky way to join in a world community, learning about people, places, and things not so much larger than ourselves, but that had great impact on our world or impressioned others around them.

International Day of Non-Violence
Today is also the Internal Day of Non-Violence.
It is led by the United Nations as inspired by Gandhi.

Learn more about Gandhi.

Building Community
What conversations will you create to bring more peace into this world?

Who owns my pics? Zee calls out media sharing services

In a recent post, Zee, Editor of The Next Web, cautions against using third party, Twitter media sharing services due to the potential risks of loss of control over your personal branding.

His overall message is important: find and use a platform that you can own and control your media as hosted.

However, what Zee intones can largely be seen as true, it overlooks and discounts the disposable behavioral dispositions for many people who actually “choose” to post multi media they consider disposable, ephemeral, and of the moment: “pop.”

Come on, Zee. When wasn’t the last time you saw a Guy Kawasaki photo-op of him standing next to his latest conference host? Personal brand value? Ok, so this means he’s human and can take those in the moment shots. But do I want to consume this as part of “the magic” of Guy Kawasaki? No, its just a momentary reference image to codify an event.

Not all information needs to be owned or even wanted by a user. Just ask any teenager with a cell phone, or look at your own travel pics of the Cinque Terra. (No disrespect nor offense meant, Zee. They were nice and showed how sweet and human you were, but I’m sure a host of other people just want to follow you for you marketing and social media insights. They’ve seen a gazillion pics of Italy’s famed coast and harbor.)

The coastal harbor pictures or the sky pics were in the moment.

A cup of cafe: in the moment. Why not just share them on Twitpic or any other third party app?

Information that is not a “keepsake” nor of positive brand value is quickly used as referential media- to connect with and to share with others about an immediate experience. This kind of disposable media does not necessarily have to “owned” nor even wanted by the user who considers its value trivial since its in the moment (e.g.; a coffee picture in any cafe while at a conference) and thus of little or no “personal brand value” to a user other than to say “I was here.”

I still think and find Twitpic and other third party media services to hold much value as media intermediaries and repositories for such disposable information.

The beautiful and value added media I reserve for my blogs. This higher quality information is what for my followers, fans, etc. truly appreciate in poignancy, relevancy and quality.

Why not post the detritus of the moment to and thru these other services as errant comments, rants, giggles and fancies caught in one’s eye?

For more, read the full post, “Why you should NOT be using TwitPic, TwitVideo or any other Twitter media sharing service.”

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Amos White is an Social Media Marketing Evangelist and public speaker.
Follow Amos on Twitter @Mos42