The Art of Context
As a writer I find it odd how entrapanuers try to build businesses without context. As Seth Godin says, you can no longer do that. Some people got this of course but many kept telling the same company story. What I call the art of context is a new perspective on how to add it in
The art of context is a simple concept. Writers have ways to add context, to get exposition out of the way in ways the audience never sees. The same is true for companies today.
- As Seth Godin says, what’s your story?
- How do you tell it?
- And you can never forget that you have to have context
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Seth Godin says you need a story. What I call the art of context is pretty much the same thing but focuses more on how to tell that story. People rarely give you the time to tell a story and most companies tell the same story, how can you difreinetiate yourself?
The real problem is misintepreting technological success for context. Twitter won because it was the first mover and the context that surrounded it
What I’m calling The Art of Context is something I’ve just begun to play with. It sprung from two simple maxims.
- Without context story is fleeting
- Content demands context
As business is beginning to acknowledge the power of story and use it, it’s interesting to explore what these maxims might mean for business. In addition to that, story is really about context so learning more about it and how to apply can only help.
It’s not just what’s our story but how will that story be told?
Everything is becoming Entertainment
We think in story so it isn’t surprising to see story cut across every aspect of business. Generally though, business is thought of as providing utility, especially in Silicon Valley. Business produces a product that solves a problem or fills a need – it’s faster, cheaper, or better. However increasingly life is becoming about entertainment and such the products we consume are as well. eBay is all about utility, it makes selling and buying used good easy. Although from another perspective much of its business is based on the entertainment it provides.
But the real and simple reason is eBay is no longer fun. Over the years, it has lost online ground and eyeballs to pure entertainment destinations such as YouTube and social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Entertainment though has traditionally been the domain of Hollywood not Silicon Valley.
Three trouble areas for Silicon Valley
This migration to entertainment will necessitate the integration of artists into Silicon Valley.
Movies did not flourish until the engineers lost control to artists – or more precisely, to the communications craftsmen. The same thing is happening now with personal computers.
- Paul Heckel from The Elements of Friendly Software Design
However true that is, we can probably also be a little more constructive. I see three problem areas for Silicon Valley.
1) Rely too heavily on simple stories, especially creation myths
2) Skip context to broaden audience and maximize time in front of customers
3) Use business models that mix utility and content
Move beyond the creation myth
Al Ries and Jack Trout explained in their book Positioning that the proliferation of marketing messages aimed at consumers forced marketers to move the battle field to the mind of customers. However they established the concept of Positioning in the early 70’s and the amount of marketing messages has only increased. Today Seth Godin explains that we need authentic stories that spread. However most Silicon Valley companies only use the most basic of stories - creation myths. Yahoo! being started by two graduate students from Stanford, eBay and the Pez dispenser myth. Over time these wear thin.
If you don’t provide superior utility or context you’re fleeting
Story can be expressed with context or without.
the wedding cake in the middle of the road
The short pithy phrase obviously lacks context yet has the inspiration for a story. It’s also fleeting.
However if I add context to the phrase I’ll most likely lean it toward being a romance. Or maybe a mystery. Or perhaps a comedy. Either way I go I’m splintering my audience – some people will never like romances.
Being in Silicon Valley where it seems like we’re all building a platform, splintering your audience is almost a cardinal sin. Not to mention that the added context would also add to the size of the message. Companies have a finite amount of time in front of customers so why waste it on context.
However if I never add context to the story it’s fleeting, can the same be said for businesses that offer little or no context? I’m sure if the business is providing superior utility it’ll have staying power. Or maybe if it plasters everything with their message. But if it loses its superiority or stops the ads it’ll most likely fade away as well.
Utility and content business models don’t mix well
User Generated Content (UGC) is all the rage these days, however many of the same companies employing the model also try to be utilities. YouTube is a great example. They’re the easiest way to encode, upload, and distribute a video. They offer superior utility. But to be successful they also need content. Content however demands context. A book store is chalk-full of context. The manga section is next to the American comics section but never intermingled. True the bookstore itself offers little context but it also competes in a physical world of constraints. Their is little if any constraints on the Internet.
Think of it this way. Al Ries and Jack Trout taught us about positioning, you have to position the product in the mind of the customer. For UGC you have to get into the mind of the artist. Artists value utility but they value context even more. With the removal of the physical it’s difficult to compete using both business models.
Google Lively as a case study
Google Lively is probably the shortest lived service from Google ever. It was probably shut down for a multiple of reasons, however the fact remains that it never caught on with users. The initial enthusiasm was fleeting as the graph shows.
Google Lively let you customize your avatar, chat with strangers and friends from around the world, and decorate your own virtual rooms. And unlike Second Life you could access all this through your browser. Granted the interface took a little getting use to, but this was a pretty solid product. It was also completely void of context. Club Penguin on the other hand forced you to be a penguin and carried through with the ice and cold theme. The incredibly successful WoW is chalk-full of context. Even SuperSecret is rapped in the context of a teenager and getting older. Google Lively and SuperSecret offer pretty much the same feature set however Lively gave their users nothing to truly hold on to. It was great to play with for a few minutes but if it’s utility I’m looking for I can get it elsewhere – 2D chat, instant messaging, forums, etc.
Further examination
Entertainment is going to become a bigger facet of business and with it, context. So much of what we love about story is actually in it’s context.
It’s not just what’s our story but how will that story be told?
