Do consumers view technology as magic?

More than a hundred years ago, sociologist Max Weber wrote that secularization—or the “disenchantment of the world”—lay at the heart of modern society. He argued that due to the industrial revolution and advances in science, the modern world had become less mysterious and more predictable to individuals, and society as a whole had become more rational and bureaucratic.

Last week, in a talk here at Columbia, Russ Belk, professor at York University in Toronto and a leading consumer culture researcher, argued that consumers view new technologies—computers, the internet, and nowadays social media—at first, before they get used to the technology, as magic.   His argument is quite intriguing. As evidence, just watch the resurrected video of Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh—appropriately dubbed “the magic moment” by TextLab, the discoverers and restorers of that film.

Belk points to the possibility that our modern world never fully rationalized, that there was always an emotional and magical undercurrent, and that the “theme of magic” now, paradoxically, manifests itself in consumers’ admiration of the very device that was supposed to erase it—technology.

BY BERND SCHMITT

Crowdsourcing in Action: One Step to Build a Company

There is growing evidence that a company can strengthen its brand by listening to customers and even sourcing business ideas from the crowd. But just what does such an effort look like in action?

Entrepreneur Aaron Cohen used his speaking slot at the BRITE ’09 conference to conduct a live crowdsourcing experiment with the attendees. Cohen described the basic concept and unique assets behind a new company he was about to lead, AnyClip.com, and then sought out suggestions that might turn these raw materials into a breakout media brand. Here is a video of this “crowdsourcing in action.”

Cohen assumed the role of CEO shortly after BRITE, and AnyClip is now moving forward along some of the tracks discussed during the conference. AnyClip (now in beta launch) lets users find, watch and share short clips of their favorite movie scenes online, and it has already secured the rights to host films from most of the major Hollywood studios. The company won rave reviews for its recent demo at the TechCrunch50 competition, walking away with the coveted Audience Award.

One of the key ideas in Cohen’s crowdsourcing discussion at BRITE was to open up the company’s film clip database to the software developer community — so that anyone can build new applications, services, and revenue streams based on AnyClip’s platform. Cohen discusses this strategy in a recent piece he wrote for The Business Insider, including the use of an “open API” (application program interface). Opening a new platform up to development by other entrepreneurs has been a critical part of the success of both Twitter and the iPhone App Store.

Open APIs are unique to technology brands. But, whatever industry you are in, there are ways to solicit ideas from your stakeholders and strengthen your brand through collaboration with your customers.

BY MATTHEW QUINT

This post originally posted by Matthew on the BRITE Conference blog at: http://www.briteblog.net

It’s Time for the New York Tech Community to Brand Itself

This week I attended my first Clickable Interesting Cafe event with Fred Wilson, a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures, providing the talk. What stood for me was how much Fred’s discussion about the growth potential of the New York tech community was about branding, and yet he never couched it in those terms.

Fred spoke of the issue as a matter of perception: the more established web industry players still don’t see New York as one of “the” places to build an influential start-up company. Changing these perceptions will be about building a strong brand for this community.

He had no specific plan about what to do to show off this potential, but he’s sure that “we need to get the word out.”

Well, you may not have tackled the how, Fred, but you laid out some clear brand attributes of the New York web industry.

My favorite of the “factors” he discussed were:

• New York can excel in building web applications
• New York is a media obsessed city
• International trade and business thrives in New York
• New York is the world’s biggest stage, and
• (my absolute favorite) New York will call you on your bullshit

The event also reflects the broad way in which our center thinks about brands–they are not just products, services, or companies. To drive even greater successes for the New York tech community, a brand will need to be built that combines both community and place.

Chris Dixon, founder of Hunch, provided some counterpoint to Fred’s talk, but also sees the potential for a boom in the New York web world (as he noted in his blog this summer). He described the need to “build a firewall” so that the great ideas and minds that form on the East don’t get pulled away to grow in the West.

In the end, I think that innovative tactics to “get the word out” will eventually come, in part, from the new web communications tools that are being built by this very community.

But I also think that a good old fashioned idea and tactic is in order here: the formation of a “New York Tech Industry Association.” The networking is already there (in places like NY Tech Meetup), and leading players like Fred and Chris are in place, maybe it’s time to bring all of this together within a more organized structure.

(For more of Fred’s “factors” you can watch his presentation from the Web 2.0 Expo).

[Photo by Benjamin Ellis (Flickr)]

BY MATTHEW QUINT

This post originally posted by Matthew on the BRITE Conference blog at: http://www.briteblog.net