Web Ink Now

How to create and edit articles for Wikipedia

Wikipedia is among the top ten most visited sites on the Web. When there is a Wikipedia article on a topic that you search on, I'm sure you’ve noticed that article usually appears as one of the top few results, frequently in the number one position.

There's no doubt that Wikipedia is important.

However there are few people who understand the inner workings of Wikipedia and how the more than 3.8 million articles in the English language (and millions more in 282 other languages) are created.

Sure, Wikipedia is an open platform and anybody can create or edit an article. But it's more complicated than that. A lot more complicated.

I asked my friend Colin Warwick to help us out. Colin is a Product Marketing Manager at Agilent Technologies. He writes the popular Signal Integrity blog and tweets at @SignalIntegrity.

David: How did you get interested in contributing to Wikipedia?

Colin: "Around 2004, a colleague at MathWorks - Ned Gulley - gave a talk on the crowdsourcing phenomenon: What it was, why it was happening, and Wikipedia was his prime example. His point was the success of Wikipedia is surprising. How can a bunch of unmanaged volunteers compete with the resources of, say, Microsoft (who had Encarta at the time) or the venerable Britannica. There's that famous quote: 'The problem with Wikipedia is that it works in practice, but not in theory'."

David: So why does it work then?

Colin: "It's true that a naive application of a theory like the tragedy of the commons would predict failure. But in the case of Wikipedia we get the inverse outcome because the cost of a contribution is much less than its value over time. For example, it costs very little for a contributor to enter knowledge from their experience into the servers, and very little for Wikipedia to serve that information over and over again to readers, generating great value over time. Unlike the pasture of a physical commons, information isn't degraded much by use. So the value of Wikipedia increases over time attracting more readers, some of whom become contributors, forming a virtuous cycle."

David: So you got sucked into the vortex?

Colin: "Yes. I became intrigued and started to add little facts I found here and there. The interaction with other contributors was startling at first but I began to realize that in questioning my assumptions I was not only contributing but pushing my own understanding to a higher level."

David: Give us an example.

Colin: "In my work, I had to learn about a new technology we wanted to enter called ODB++. I started researching it and gathered and read a ton of web links. But I noticed there wasn't a Wikipedia article about it. So I started one."

David: Just like that?

Colin: "Just like that. The best way to start or add to a Wikipedia article is to gather good web links first. Web-based versions of newspaper and magazine articles. Books. In Wikipedia-speak, it's called reliable sources."

David: What about blog posts and other social media?

Colin: "Ironically for a user-generated content site, Wikipedia looks down on user-generated content. Blogs can be a reliable source if the blogger is notable for something other than blogging."

David: Interesting. I didn't know that before speaking with you. So what happened next?

Colin: "Other editors started contributing to the article as I was writing it. At first it was really irritating to have some unknown person editing 'my' article as I was writing."

David: Wasn't it your article?

Colin: "Technically, no. If you contribute to Wikipedia, you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons license. And they warn you 'If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here'."

David: That seems harsh. So what's the value for contributors on Wikipedia if that's the case?

Colin: "Well, once I got over the irritation, I began to see a benefit: I learnt whole new perspectives from the other contributors that I didn't even know existed. There's a discussion page behind every article where you can ask: 'Why did you delete what I wrote?' It's kind of addictive. Who's going to end up right or wrong or what compromise will be reached? You can see why Wikipedia contributors give each other virtual barnstars as a token of appreciation in at those moments. It's evocative of communal barn building in certain rural communities. I had my barn-building moment on that article!"

David: The article you wrote wasn't directly about your company. Many people want to know if they can create an article about their own company or its products and sevices. I'm asked that a lot. Can you do that?

Colin: "You can but it's very difficult to not run afoul of Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules, COI in wiki-speak. Other editors can smell marketing puffery a mile way and will delete it as advertising in a heartbeat. The only workaround is to put Wikipedia's goal of a neutral point of view (NPOV in wiki-speak) first, and then either proactively seek what's called a COI review, or simply let nature take its course. As with all articles, you have the best chance of your edits 'sticking' if you come armed with reliable sources: don't simply add your opinion."

David: Cool. Finally after many years of using Wikipedia I feel like I know a little about how it is put together and how someone in business can benefit from contributing. Hey Colin, you should write a book about all this stuff.

Some smart editor or publisher who is watching this blog should cut a deal with Colin to do a book.

Brilliant Newsjacking alert - The Artistifier

My friends over at Urgent Genius released a terrific little application last night during the Academy Awards called The Artistifier.

The Artistifier allows you to turn any YouTube video into an "award-winning" silent movie in the style the Oscar-winning film The Artist. You can even add your own captions before sending your finished black and white masterpiece via Facebook and Twitter.

I turned one of my speaker videos into Artist-style and it is really cool.

Fun with Newsjacking

This is a terrific example of Newsjacking. The idea of taking something that is being talked about in the news and drafting off of it in order to get media mentions and social sharing is a fantastic strategy for real-time PR.

However, the vast majority of PR people are still in campaign-only mode. They focus on what's important to them and not what's important to the media and the public. If you think in real-time and create content that is valuable for the moment you can use Newsjacking to get ink and shares. Sometimes you can get a lot.

If you're going to the South-by-Southwest interactive festival in March, you can hear me speak about Newsjacking. Stop by and say hello.

SXSW Friday March 9, 2012 at 2:00
Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas

In addition, the team behind The Artistifier will be at two SXSW panel discussions:

SXSW Saturday March 10, 2012 at 11:00
Real-Time Newsjacking & a Cold-Blooded Tweeter

Monday March 12, 2012 at 12:30
The Not So Allied Forces of Social TV Comedy

My second favorite Super Bowl ad of all time

Last night I had dinner at my friend Brian Halligan's place. Brian is CEO of HubSpot and my co-author on our book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History.

Also at dinner was Joe Grimaldi, CEO of Mullen. We got to talking about my second most favorite Super Bowl ad of all time, which was created by Mullen Advertising: When I Grow Up (1999) for Monster.com.

This commercial tells a powerful story. It doesn't talk about the product directly. Yet there is no mistaking what the benefits of the product are even though they are not spoken. The spot uses humor but in a powerful way. It is memorable.

Ever since I first saw the ad in 1999, keep coming back to it as a model of what a good Super Bowl ad can be.

Others agree because "When I Grow Up" makes most “top” lists such as the number 18 spot on this 100 Greatest Super Bowl Ads Ever list.

Another sign of respect is that the ad has had dozens of parodies made of it. This one When I Grow Up I Wanna Work in Advertising is particularly good.

Don't talk about the product.

Okay, so what's my number one most favorite Super Bowl Ad? It’s Tabasco Mosquito from 1998. I spat up my beer when I saw it live. And I've watched it on YouTube dozens of times. It just works in all the ways that the Monster.com ad does. And it uses humor with no words spoken at all.

Ads like these get talked about.

The ongoing PR value, even a decade later, makes producing them worthwhile. I'm generally not a fan of big-budget ads, but with work like these, I make exceptions.

Newsjacking via a real time Kindle book

Here's a new book you can get on your Kindle: Linsanity: The Improbable Rise of Jeremy Lin

What?! Jeremy Lin has been the hottest sports story for less than two weeks and there's already books about him?

Welcome to the new world of Newsjacking via Kindle.

This book is by Alan Goldsher and according to a Fast Company author interview with him, it took 72 hours to write a 15,000-plus-word manuscript, 36 hours using Vook technology to build the e-book, and then another 24 hours to arrange distribution.

And now we're not only talking about Lin the basketball player, we’re also talking about Lin the book and about author Alan Goldsher.

Newsjacking

Whenever there is a hot story in the news, there is an opportunity to create and publish original content that the media will find and will get you coverage.

Newsjacking can be by writing a blog post, doing a YouTube video, creating an infographic, or even publishing a book on Kindle.

Business-to-Business and Nonprofits too

In B2B markets, I'm imagining a scenario where a new regulation hits an industry and some smart person does a speedy analysis of what it means for the industry and publishes that as a Kindle book.

Or in the nonprofit world, a natural disaster strikes and people are looking for how to help the victims and how to protect themselves in the future.

Write the book quickly and get it out fast. Then blog it, tweet it, and send a media alert about it.

The Newsjacking aspect comes in because the media, looking for background on a story, may read and then cite the book in their stories on the new regulation.

Newsjacking is cool. It's fun. And it gets you ink!

A hat tip to Tony Faustino who alerted me to this story. Hey Tony, you newsjacked the story of the Kindle newsjack of Jeremy Lin. Nice work!

Great service as lead generation

When you provide superior service, people talk about you online and that drives new business.

I caught up with my good friend Doug Weil recently. We used to work together in Tokyo in the 1990s. Like me, Doug moved back to the USA and now runs his own business.

Doug's business, Clearly Resolved, provides video calibration services to customers throughout the Midwest. Video calibration is the art and science of adjusting high-end video displays (such as those used in home theaters and sports bars) so that the on-screen image matches original source content. When a video system is properly calibrated, the image looks just like in a movie theater or ballpark or concert stage. If not, the colors can be out of whack, sometimes dramatically, because factory settings are optimized for showroom floors and are typically way too harsh.

A proper professional calibration requires expertise, equipment, and several hours. Since starting his business in 2002, Doug has calibrated over 1,500 systems.

Lead Generation

I asked Doug about how he generates new business.

Turns out many people find him through the reviews that his happy customers post on video and home theater forums and blogs such as this one in AVS Forum (scroll down to read the review).

Because Doug provides superior service, his reviews are excellent, driving people to seek him out.

It seems so simple.

Provide excellent service and people will talk you up.

But there’s one more step. Make sure that your business is listed in appropriate places where people will look once they hear of the great work you do. For Doug, that means his listings in ISF Forum and other similar places. Note his Clearly Resolved listing and how he provides excellent content describing who he is, especially his bio description of how he was bitten by the video bug.

Are you providing great service? And when you do, are you making it easy for people to find you and providing the content that gets them to reach out to you?

KLM social media Meet and Seat

My friend Gerard Vroomen, who lives in Amsterdam and flies KLM frequently, alerts us to KLM Meet and Seat.

Gerard (who tweets at @gerardvroomen and has an excellent blog) is a co-founder of Cervelo, the premier high end racing bike company. He built his company by focusing on a great product for his buyers (including road racers and triathletes) and by building a huge and passionate following through social media. So when Gerard brings something to our attention it is certainly worth checking out.

The KLM Meet and Seat lets those booked on certain KLM long-haul flights find out who else will be on flight too. With Meet & Seat you can view other passengers' Facebook or LinkedIn profile details and see where they'll be sitting – long before the flight leaves the ground.

You might search for people who are going to the same conference as you. Or someone from the same industry.

Opt-In to Meet and Seat

The KLM Meet and Seat service is opt-in. You can still be anonymous if you want. Or you can share your Facebook or LinkedIn profile through the KLM Manage my Booking interface. Once you share yours you can see the profile details of other passengers as well as their seat assignment (you can even try to sit next to someone interesting).

"I think this is a great way to use the capabilities of social networks," Gerard says. "Let's face it, many airline offerings are very similar and the consumer focuses on price a lot, so any time you can get your customer to think about something else, that's a good thing. Of course, KLM has to be careful it doesn't backfire, you can't run before you can crawl. Their website has had problems in times of crisis (Icelandic volcano, snowstorm at Schiphol airport) where online management of bookings wouldn't work, and their call centers would only play a recording telling people to manage their bookings online and then hang up on them. If you offer fancy services but the basics don't work, you'll take a real beating. But presuming they got the basics working now, this is a great addition and it also shows the benefits of being original; people will talk about it simply because you're the first to implement it."

KLM is a social media pioneer. When Foursquare first took off, they created a KLM Surprise program for those who checked into their flight on Foursquare at the airport gate. Sometimes, KLM staff would surprise you with an upgrade or travel bag or some other gift.

Each of these interesting KLM social initiatives are designed to get people to talk about the airline on their social networks. Imagine being seated next to your next customer or business partner (or even your future spouse) as a result of the social matchmaking.

Interesting stuff. Thanks Gerard.

GoPro focus on buyer personas sells millions of cameras

Back in 2007, I enthusiastically gushed about the GoPro digital camera, which I had purchased to take photos and videos while surfing. I was a very early adopter (the product had only been out a month or so). Here is a link to that post: Marketing 1-2-3: 1) Find a problem to solve 2) Build a product that solves it 3) Encourage your customers to tell your story.

In my post, I said: "[GoPro] should focus on user-contributed photos [and videos], but the product was only introduced a few weeks ago, so I’m sure that with a product like this, more will come very soon."

Let your customers tell your story in social media.

Wow, have they ever tapped the crowd! The GoPro Facebook page has nearly 1.7 million "likes" and many people post photos and videos to the page. For a taste of the sorts of things people post, check out this awesome video (direct link on YouTube here.)

Buyer personas

GoPro excels because they are focused on the problems people are willing to spend money to solve (in my case, someone who wants to shoot photos and videos while surfing).

Not long after my original post, I interviewed Nicholas Woodman, founder & CEO of GoPro for a story in the book Tuned In I co-authored.

"The larger camera companies are building product on such a massive scale that it is not interesting to sell to a small niche market," Woodman told me then. "GoPro’s cameras are more specialized and compliment your regular camera. You still take your Canon to a wedding, but out in the surf or on the mountain you need something else."

What's so fascinating about this example is how different buyer personas articulate problems. Photographers said, "How can I protect my camera in the water?" But surfers asked, "How can I take photos while surfing?"

Buyer persona research yields surprising information and when you are tuned in to a problem people are willing to spend money to solve (in this example, the desire to shoot photos while performing an already difficult task). When you build a product that solves it, you are on the road to success.

Since my original post, the company has expanded way beyond surfing.

Soon, Woodman tuned in to buyer personas representing other extreme sports.

"Because surfing is so demanding from a usability and environmental standpoint, our product also worked very well for other adventure sports," he said. For other sports, the core camera is the same, but the associated accessories and mount is different. For example, GoPro adapts to mount onto bicycle handlebars and onto helmets and other body parts for sports like rock climbing and kayaking.

When adapting the camera to a new sport, Woodman told me that he has several prototypes built and then goes into the field to ask people to use the product, beat it up, and give feedback. "One of the great things about the markets we sell to is that they are made of passionate people," he said. "The things that we think of could never be thought of in a boardroom. Ideas come when we are out playing. We go straight to the source. We don't ask our grandmother what she thinks about our motorsport mounts apparatus; we ask race car drivers."

So how is GoPro doing now, five years after I first spoke about them?

In an article on the front page of today's Boston Globe Helmet cameras grab the slope action is this: "Sales tripled from 2010 to 2011, to 1.3 million units, according to Chris Chute, a research manager with the Framingham office of International Data Corp., a global market research firm. The devices, known as hands-free or wearable video cameras, generally retail for $200 to $400, depending on the model and accessories."

Holy cow. That's hundreds of millions of dollars. From zero five years ago. All based on buyer personas!

Are you focused on your buyers?

By breaking down buyers into distinct groups (such as surfers, race car drivers, sky divers, and others in the case of GoPro) and understanding what problems each one has and how to solve them, you make it far easier to create breakthrough products like the GoPro camera and its associated mounts.

Buyer Personas also make it much easier to market your products. Rather than web content that is simply an egotistical spewing of gobbledygook-laden corporate drivel, you actually create content that people want to consume and are eager to share.

However, this approach is utterly different from what most organizations do: either not segmenting the market at all (creating nonspecific marketing for everyone) or segmenting based on their own product-centric view of the world.

It is so exciting to see GoPro's extreme success.

What, say you?

Content Marketing and Brand Journalism at Boeing

Back in May, 2010 when Boeing embarked on a fledgling brand journalism program, I interviewed Todd Blecher, Communications Director, for a blog post I titled The Plane Truth: Brand journalism and the new Boeing site.

Since then, I've been using Boeing as an example of an organization that is creating great content but until yesterday I had never met Todd in person.

We both spoke at the Purina Digital Summit "Feeding the Beast" event in St. Louis. What a perfect tag-team: I talked about how companies can create excellent content and how journalists make excellent content creators (print journalists, photojournalists, and broadcast journalists) because they are skilled storytellers, then Todd outlined how he is doing it at Boeing. Todd and I are both looking forward to Purina taking up the ideas for their marketing programs.

Brakes on Fire!!

For a great example of the sort of content that Todd and his team create, check out this video Boeing 747-8F Performs Ultimate Rejected Take-off where a fully-loaded 747-8 Freighter with worn-out brakes attempted an aborted takeoff on a California runway. The rejected takeoff or maximum brake energy test is one of the most dramatic for a new airplane. The resulting video has 680,000 views as of this writing. The video is great because it is not a product pitch. Rather it is branded content that people want to consume and that shows Boeing in a great way.

"We publish content that supports business objectives and fosters positive opinions about Boeing," Todd told me. "We're not (directly) selling planes. We’re selling Boeing."

Todd understands that brand journalism is not a product pitch. It is not an advertorial. It is not an egotistical spewing of gobbledygook-laden corporate drivel.

Interestingly, many Boeing communicators were former reporters. Todd himself was a former real-time wire service journalist at Bloomberg News who now among other duties manages the @Boeing Twitter feed.

Effective brand journalism is about telling stories. Like newspapers, magazines, and television news reports, Boeing brand journalists publish their by-line with their reports. This shows that real people are behind the stories.

I also like that Boeing's reports end up serving as fodder for the media. They repurpose content all the time, promoting it via social media the Boeing site, on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. And they pitch their homegrown stories to the media.

Here's a quick discussion with Todd on how brand journalism is done at Boeing.

Direct link to Todd interview on YouTube.

Thanks Todd. Keep up the good work.

MYTH: "My buyers are not on the Web"

I frequently hear from people that their buyers are not on the Web. This myth is used an excuse not to create a valuable Web site and to avoid creating content.

Sorry to deliver a reality check, but the truth is that very few people are offline, particularly when you include lower cost mobile technology.

In fact, there are more mobile phones in the world than toothbrushes. Of the 6 billion people on the planet, 4.8 billion have access to a mobile phone.

I saw this phenomenon in action this week while on a one-week expedition in the Panamanian jungle. Together with seven other international business executives, plus guides, and support staff on a trip organized by Earth Train, we hiked and kayaked the Cangandi River in the autonomous indigenous region called Guna Yala, traveling from the Pacific side of the continental divide all the way to the Atlantic ocean. What an amazing trip.

Even though I was "off the grid" for the vast majority of the time, I ran across people in some of the most remote parts of the world connecting to the Web.

In the village of Cangandi, with about 250 inhabitants, I saw dozens of people on mobile phones. This village has no running water (they drink from the river), they build their own houses from local wood, and they grow their own food. There is no electrical power, so they use solar panels to charge their mobile devices. They built the community on the top of a hill partly to take advantage of a distant cell phone tower.

If you are still clinging to the fiction that your buyers are not on the Web, you might want to ask if they own a toothbrush. I think you're living a myth.

Image: Photos of Former Secretary General of the Kuna General Congress (and Earth Train board member) Enrique "Kike" Arias while in Cangandi, Guna Yala, Panama.