The Network is the Message

Now that the inter­net is rapidly dis­plac­ing tele­vi­sion as our dom­i­nant form of pub­lic dis­course, we need to eval­u­ate com­mu­ni­ca­tion dif­fer­ent. #

I’ve spo­ken with most any­one I’ve col­lab­o­rated or done busi­ness with in the last two years about why effec­tive­ness for the mod­ern brand means becom­ing interactive. (I’m cook­ing up a post with more details about this, and will link to it from here as soon as it’s done.) #

For this dis­cus­sion, what’s impor­tant is that when I talk about an inter­ac­tive brand, I don’t mean a brand that pri­mar­ily expresses itself through the inter­net. I mean a brand that has absorbed the biases and prin­ci­ples inher­ent in internet-​based com­mu­ni­ca­tion into its very oper­a­tional struc­ture and cul­tural expres­sion. (In fact, it’s entirely pos­si­ble for an inter­ac­tive brand to have lit­tle or no direct web-​presence. Unlikely, but pos­si­ble). #

At the very least, this means con­sid­er­ing the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks of open­ness, col­lab­o­ra­tion and the hum­ble hyper­link and how they increas­ingly change the lens through which we view the world. #

One of the chal­lenges this poses for tra­di­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­als is how to eval­u­ate per­for­mance. #

Ad agen­cies, com­mu­ni­ca­tions firms and “new media” com­pa­nies love to reas­sure skep­ti­cal clients with the fairy­tale called Measurement. In it, all the client’s fears about wast­ing sig­nif­i­cant swaths of their oper­at­ing bud­get are laid to rest by the magic of num­bers and the power of the noble knight Metrics to slay the evil dragon of uncer­tainty. Don’t worry, your money’s in good hands— we have met­rics! #

Well, things are chang­ing, and even Google Analytics can’t really help you mea­sure whether or not a cam­paign or an ini­tia­tive or PR work is really all that suc­cess­ful. It can only mea­sure clicks and traf­fic— not how many peo­ple told a friend good or bad things about you. #

In real­ity, even before the rise of the inter­net, the value of mea­sure­ment had already been dis­puted— are you suc­cess­ful because of that multi-​million dol­lar media buy, or do you have a multi-​million dol­lar media buy because you’re suc­cess­ful? #

This doesn’t mean that mea­sure­ment is impos­si­ble in the inter­ac­tive age, it sim­ply means that it has to be an entirely dif­fer­ent kind of thing. And as uncom­fort­able as it seems, that mea­sure­ment is likely to be far more qual­i­ta­tive than quan­ti­ta­tive. #

The net­work is the metaphor.

Measurement will need to start by defin­ing the net­work that you want to influ­ence, plot­ting your co-​ordinates within that net­work at present and gaug­ing the move­ment and strength of your influ­ence within it over time: #

How pow­er­ful of a node has your brand become within the net­work? How many incom­ing and out­go­ing sig­nals are there? How strong are they? How far out into the net­work do your pings reach? Have you achieved “hub” sta­tus? Are you able to lever­age your net­work to influ­ence other net­works? #

The net­work is the message.

Which net­works do you belong to? It’s an impor­tant ques­tion. In the inter­ac­tive age, it’s how you will be defined, and mea­sur­ing your move­ment, influ­ence and sta­tus within it will be how you mea­sure suc­cess. That mea­sure­ment can only hap­pen from within, by the peo­ple who form its nodes, relays and repeaters. #

What does this all mean? Well, to be hon­est, we’re still fig­ur­ing it out. But one thing that’s cer­tain— it’s going to be a lot more like know­ing when you have become part of a group and a lot less like count­ing beans, eye-​balls or even sales. #