Back in the 1960s I can remember my father referring to our Black and White TV as the “goggle box”.

Those were the days when getting a fourth channel was revolutionary and we’d wait impatiently for each afternoon’s BBC Testcard and associated muzak to suddenly become a world of children’s TV, before the news ended our fun at 5:40 pm.

Although I feel some nostalgia for that period and the ‘innocence’ of controlled choice, looking back now it seems all very predictable and well, downright boring.

Our goggle box was practically a member of the family, holding court like a stuffy old relative who’d bore one and all with jokes and tall tales told once too often.

Now you’d think that the arrival of ‘interactive’ cable TV with its proliferation of channel choice might change how goggle box and gogglers got along together.

Not a bit of it!

Sure, you can choose from more of the same but once chosen, the goggling (abusive?!) relationship proceeds as planned. Because behind this flimsy curtain of choice hide magicians of interrupt advertising who can simply not be denied their pounds and dollars of viewing flesh.

Until, of course, the curtain’s unexpectedly pulled away and people see the smoke and mirrors for what they are.

I think today’s Internet is the digital equivalent of Dorothy’s dog, Toto, snapping at the heels of advertising folly and leading the engaging way ahead. You only have to observe young people to know that getting attention is a two-way process, not a command-and-control (TV) executive order.

And as marketers of technology solutions to more and more people who will have grown up immersed in the world of engagement entertainment online, we would be well advised to pay attention. Not the other way round!

I doubt that TV is dead as an entertainment (and advertising) medium but its influence is certainly changing and waning. How long before the nursing home of the airwaves beckons?

Television is a drug. from Beth Fulton on Vimeo.

I found the clip above in a post by Tom Chandler at his wonderful copywriter underground blog.

The post’s title?

“Television is a drug“.

Yeah, years of goggling will do that!

- Mark ‘Jackanory’ McClure

When is it appropriate to use humor in a white paper aimed at IT professionals?
If you’re thinking “never” then I’d agree with you in most cases.

But there are exceptions and here’s one that does the job well in my opinion: “The Demarc Extension and its Critical Role in Enterprise Network Telecommunications Infrastructure”

The “layer 1 cabling stuff” is often regarded as “out of sight, out of mind” by most IT staffers who have never seen the inside of a data center or wiring closet.

However, for network and cabling teams who must provide a rock-solid infrastructure on which the majority of business information flows depend, it’s a very serious matter indeed.

For example, a network outage due to a faulty or mistaken cable patch on a WAN-facing router or switch can have hordes of irate and sleep-deprived senior managers on a late night global conference call within minutes… and all of them looking for blood to spill…

Reading this paper I was struck by how well the cartoon-style illustrations captured the depth of emotions that enterprise-wide cabling issues often cause among users of the network; people whose jobs depend on connectivity being “always-on”. And that made the serious nature of the text that much easier to both understand and relate to.

Some closing observations on this paper:

1- I found the online version much easier to scan and read than the two-column approach of the downloadable version (it’s also available at the link above.)

2- Using web links within the paper to additional online diagrams was a great idea. Now, if only there was a lead capture form on the landing page to capture email contact info in return for another paper, terminology mini-course or even an invite to view a special recorded webinar etc.

3- Admittedly, there is a subtle ‘call-to-action’ (CTA) at the end of the white paper (just after the terminology section) but I think it’s somewhat weak in impact (contact us) and it would be worth split testing a stronger CTA. (see #2 above.)

Kudos to ace white paper copywriter, Jonathan Kantor, whose White Paper Pundit blog featured this paper at “The FREE White Paper List: Week of 05.17.10“.

- Mark McClure

A recent post on Jonathan Kantor’s blog all about ‘generating more leads with video white papers‘ got me thinking.

So here I am on a Sunday evening trying to imagine what technology white papers will look like maybe five years from now.

Will they still be pdf documents that people look at on computer screens or print out on paper?
Or will they be available on ‘flexible e-paper’ that can be carried around… and maybe even updated to the latest version on demand?

Then I came across this Nov 2009 TEDIndia presentation by MIT’s Pranav Mistry.

I don’t usually get excited about technology talks but this one was different because Pranav (and team) are already able to demonstrate how, in his words, “computing will merge with the physical world.” And all for a few hundred dollars…

I’d encourage you to watch this 14 minutes video and then have a look at the screenshots underneath because I see some fantastic times ahead for creators of technology whitepapers and case studies.

Wasn’t that breathtaking in its vision and reach!

Pranav believes that efforts like this will “help us stay human” as we learn to more easily relate digital information to the physical world – and vice-versa. And if you thought social media was a ‘pattern interruptor’ in the ways that people communicate and connect with each other around the world, just wait to the open source implementations of this technology gain critical mass.

I also think it’s a real game changer for many who are ‘scared’ of digital technology and all the input methods and geeky devices deemed necessary to join the reality within our virtual worlds.

Anyway, enough of my futurist babblings!

Here are three screen shots taken from Pranav’s talk that capture just some of the exciting potential this technology has for how white papers and case studies could be both created and consumed.

1) Creating And Surfing Between Physical and Virtual Worlds:

This is only prototype equipment but note how compact and light it is.

2) ‘Writing’ white papers may never be the same again!

It’s almost like making a movie Notice in the video how Pranav pulls info between both digital and physical worlds.

I can see how even creating a whitepaper draft from customer-provided tangible and virtual documents could be a real blast!

3) ‘Real-Time’ or customized updates for Whitepapers

Take a look at the updated newspaper weather forecast or of watching President Obama speaking live at MIT, and then imagine similar updates to a case study or white paper.

For example, a ‘living’ white paper on data center racks could provide updated information on how new rack cooling designs or cabling systems could change how IT managers plan for future cloud computing infrastructures.

I can also see how a reader of such a document could get access to additional ‘on-page’ information (streaming webinars, live access to a product specialist etc) simply by providing authorization info. I doubt that will be an email address – possibly a trusted digital ID/certificate that identifies both parties securely.

Wow! I gotta stop now. So many possibilities….

I shall be keeping a copywriter’s digital eye on Pranav and his ‘SixthSense Technology.’

- Mark McClure