Exploring links between physics and information theory

Just as physics builds on an elementary, indivisible entity (the quantum: which is defined by the act of observation), so does information theory. Its quantum is the binary unit (the bit). While exploring links between physics and information theory, John Archibald Wheeler became convinced of the importance of information. Reality might not be wholly physical, but a participatory phenomenon, requiring the act of observation, and thus consciousness itself.

Beginning in the 1950s, Wheeler had grown increasingly intrigued by the philosophical implications of quantum physics. The most widely accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics was the orthodox interpretation - also called the Copenhagen interpretation. It held that subatomic entities such as electrons have no real existence; they exist in a probabilistic limbo of many possible super imposed states until forced into a single state by the act of observation. The electrons or photons may act like waves or like particles, depending on how they are experimentally observed.

In the 1960s Wheeler helped to popularize the notorius anthropic principle. It held that the universe must be as it is, because, if it were otherwise, we might not be here to observe it.
While exploring links between physics and information theory, Wheeler became convinced of the importance of information after concocting a thought experiment that exposed the strangeness of the quantum world for all to see.

Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment is avariation on the classic (but not classical) two-slit experiment, which demonstrates the schizophrenic nature of quantum phenomena. When electrons are aimed at a barrier containing two slits, the electrons act like waves; they go through both slits at once and form what is called an interference pattern, created by the overlapping of the waves, when they strike a detector on the far side of the barrier. If the physicist closes off one slit at a time, however, the electrons pass through the open slitlike simple particles and the interference pattern disappears. In the delayed-choice experiment, the experimenter decides whether to leave bothslits open or to close one off _after the electrons have already passed through the barrier, with the same results. The electrons seem to know in advance how the physicist will choose to observe them. This experiment was carried out in the early 1990s and confirmed Wheeler's prediction. Wheeler accounted for this conundrum with yet another analogy. He likened the job of a physicist to that of someone playing 20 questions in its surprise version. In this variant of the old game, one person leaves the room while the rest of the group, or so the excluded person thinks, selects some person, place, or thing. The single player then reenters the room and tries to guess what the others have in mind by asking a series of questions that can only be answered yes or no. Unbeknownst to the guesser, the group has decided to play a trick. The first person to be queried will think of an object (only after the questioner asks the question). Each person will do the same, giving a response that is consistent not only with the immediate question but also with all previous questions. "The word wasn't in the room when I came in even though I thought it was," Wheeler explained. In some ways, the electron, before the physicist chooses to observe it, is neither a wave nor a particle. It is in somesense unreal; it exists in an indeterminate limbo. "Not until you start asking a question, do you get something," Wheeler said. "The situation cannot declare itself until you've asked your question. But the asking of one question precludes the asking of another."

Wheeler has condensed these ideas into The it from bit:

Every it, every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself, derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely, even if in some contexts indirectly, from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits."

According to the it from bit, we create not only 'truth', but even reality (the "it") itself, with the questions we ask.

The irony is that Wheeler's own ideas suggest that - along the search for the ultimate theory of phycics - a final theory will always be a mirage. The 'truth' is imagined rather than objectively apprehended. This view comes close to relativism. The world is a figment of the imagination.

Wheeler offers us a paradox: at the heart of everything is a question, not an answer. When we peer down into the deepest recesses of matter or at the farthest edge of the universe, we see, finally, our own puzzled faces looking back at us.

From conversation to conversion

How to get efficiently and effectively from conversation to conversion?

To answer this question, marketeers need answers on many issues including optimizing spending, budgeting, organizing and navigating agencies.

In the meantime, the balance of investment is shifting as companies spend less on media purchases and more on labor-intensive tasks such as managing digital content.

Marketeers share sincere ambivalence about the optimal organizational 'home' for digital activities, but some patterns are emerging that suggest how companies could build their digital capabilities.

Instead of trying to guess the perfect marketing model in a fluid Marketing Eco System, companies need to think about how to maintain maximum flexibility and adapability. A more dynamic approach to strategy - one that emphasizes interative experimentation in order to keep pace with incessant change - improves the 'adaptive advantage'.

Generating sales, while building brands, in an emerging science-ified Marketing Eco System

Below the surface of current events, buried amid the latest headlines and competitive moves, we are beginning to see the outlines of a new business landscape: a Marketing Eco System in which next level data analytics and real-time consumer insight will improve the ROI of building brands, while generating sales.

Performance pressures are mounting. Old ways of doing business are generating diminishing returns. Companies are having harder time making money, their very survival is challenged. We must learn ways not only to do our jobs differently, but also to do them better. That, in part, requires understanding the broader changes to the operating environment. Next level data analytics is needed to be able to 'float' to a Smart & Sustainable Sweet Spot in the fluid Marketing Eco System.

A. Improve efficiency of BRAND BUILDING with BRAIN ANALYTICS - Successful brands will be the ones that understand offline behavior by a multi mode research approach

Consumer behavior and (buying) decisions are poorly predicted by what people say about it in advance. Not because the person is lying, but simply because people are unaware of what they really think of your product or service. For instance: Neurensics - Europe's first neuro-economic research agency concludes by means of fMRI scans that readers process ads in mags much better than viewers do with TV ads. Consumer behavior is 95 percent driven by unconscious motives and preferences. The part of the brain that controls decision-making, doesn't control language. Just using an interview or a survey (verbal measures) is not reliable enough to stay connected with the consumer. There are several methods to stay connected with the consumer. A multi mode research approach, a combination of methods of verbal (interview/survey) and non-verbal measures (eye-tracking/EEG/fMRI/Web-analytics/store level analytics), will provide the deepest insight.

B. Improve efficiency of GENERATING SALES with WEB ANALYTICS - Successful brands will be the ones that understand online behavior

1. To optimize behavioral (re)targeting and improve the personal relevance (timing, location, tone-of-voice, context, content) of, and engagement with, experiences and 'offerings'
2. To improve second screen experience based on realtime sync with first screen

C. Improve the combination of BRAND BUILDING + GENERATING SALES with GAME ANALYTICS - Successful brands will be the ones that understand how to use game dynamics

1. To optimize the reward schedule2. To improve participation and extend transmedia experiences
A (media)brand at the Smartest Sweet Spot generates a continuous pleasing-variety-within-unity-experience, exponentially improving the ROI of successfully building its own & other brands, while effectively generating sales (causing a collapse of the purchase funnel).

David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

(source: Deloitte/Spencer Stuart, Ed Shedd & Grant Duncan, "Why agility must follow austerity in the new digital age", june 2010)

Driving behavior with game dynamics

Ga*mi*fi*ca*tion = integrating game dynamics into a digital platform, service, community, content or campaign, in order to engage individuals while simultaneously driving meaningful value for doing business (read: monetization).

Every individual is hungry for reward, status, achievement, competition and self-expression. Gamification uses proven techniques to satisfy each individual's needs & desires and to engage each individual with personal relevant transmedia experiences (content, communities, brands, services or other valued solutions).

Each individual has fundamental needs & desires: for reward, status, achievement, self-expression, competition, and altruism. These needs & desires are universal (cross generations, demographics, cultures and genders).

Is the transmedia experience you are trying to built doing anything to address these universal needs & desires?

Game designers have known for years how to address these needs & desires. In the table above, green is the sweet spot for a particular mechanics, while blue is other needs that it hits. So LEVELS (f.i. belts in Karate, job titles, levels in a Frequent Flyer program), are primarily about status in a community, but also hit on individual achievement because it feels good to get to the next level, and competition because it feels good to be a higher level than all your friends (source: Bunchball.com).

Successful brands will be the ones that:

1. Curate a context to self organize and learn how to master the reward schedule for driving participation and building continuous transmedia experiences
2. Capture statistics about individual experiences and persist them (competition, comparison, status, achievement).

As the list of cognitive biases shows, mastering the reward schedule isn't easy to learn.

Watch these videos to learn:
1. What is the business value of gamification?
2. How and why motivates gamification user behavior?
3. What are the building blocks of gamification?





The neurotransmitter associated with learning is called dopamine. We are beginning to be able to model mathematically dopamine levels in the brain.

This means that:
A. We can predict learning
B. We can predict enhanced engagement
C. We can identify the windows of time in which the learning is taking place at an enhanced level.

The biggest neurological 'engagement turn-on' for people is other people. It's not money, it's not being given cash, it's doing stuff with our peers, watching us, collaborating with us.

Individual engagement can be transformed to collective engagement, by applying the five psychological and neurological lessons learnt from measuring & observing people that play online games:
1. Allow people to set targets by setting calibrated targets, by using elements of uncertainty, by using these multiple targets, by using a grand, underlying reward and incentive system, by setting people up to collaborate in terms of groups, in terms of streets to collaborate and compete, to use these very sophisticated group and motivational mechanics we see.
2.Offer people the grand continuity of experience and personal investment.
3. Break things down into highly-calibrated small tasks. Use calculated randomness.
4. Reward effort consistently as everything fields together. Rewards could be calibrated precisely. Use the vast expertise of gaming systems.
5. Use the kind of group behaviors that evolve when people are at play together, these really quite unprecedentedly complex cooperative mechanisms.

Conslusion: Media companies that will survive are the ones that create and facilitate arenas for brands to connect with their customers on; companies that curate a context to self-organize and master the reward schedule by using their observations of millions of human hours and plowing that feedback into increasing engagement.

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Future organisations are not about control & compliance, they're about engagement

From 'one off perfect campaigns' to 'good enough, always in beta, partnerships'

5D Conference : New Television Pt 4 - Kevin Slavin from Dave Blass on Vimeo.

The World After Advertising

Advertising is
* making new things familiar and familiar things new
* never about selling alone, it should always begin with connecting brands to audiences


If you talk to people the way advertising talks to people, they would punch you in the face!


Ken Doctor - Transforming the company's DNA



Phillip Riederle - Digital natives



Oliver Schiffers - Multichannel-analyse and digital intelligence



Amir Kassaei - New role models for the future of advertising



Panel - Debate advertising on TV in the future




Panel - Debate roadmap 2015



Uwe Lubberman - Premium cola



A review of 'The World After Advertising'day.

Collaboration is the new competition

Trends & Technologies bleeping on the 2010/2011 radar

Every year CONTAGIOUS shares a review of the trends and technologies that have provided the loudest bleep on their radar.

My thanks to CONTAGIOUS for this yearly present. Get your iPad, click on the slideshare, and enjoy Most Contagious 2010.

More 2011 Trends:
1. Adage: 10 Trends that are shaping global media consumption
2. Marian Salzman: 11 trends for 2011
3. Trendwatching: 11 crucial consumer trends for 2011

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

4. Semantic in 2011
5. Wireless predictions for 2011

An interview is not enough to stay connected with the consumer

Consumer behavior and (buying) decisions are poorly predicted by what people say about it in advance. Not because the person is lying, but simply because people are unaware of what they really think of your product or service.

Consumer behavior is 95 percent driven by unconscious motives and preferences. The part of the brain that controls decision-making, doesn't control language. Just using an interview or a survey (verbal measures) is not reliable enough to stay connected with the consumer.

There are several methods to stay connected with the consumer. A multi mode research approach, a combination of methods of verbal (interview/survey) and non-verbal measures (eye-tracking/EEG/fMRI/Google-analytics/store level analytics), will provide the deepest insight.

Apple's mobility solution

Last year, when I visited TEDxAmsterdam 2010, Alef Arendsen's TEDtalk triggered me to reflect on the mission statement of Apple. Alef Arendsen is co-founder of The New Motion, which offers mobility solutions powered by renewable energy.

How far will Apple stretch its mission statement? Will Apple launch a disruptive, 'think different' mobility concept; beautifully designed, simple to use, cool, fun, fast and powered by renewable energy?

Apple's mission statement:
Apple is committed to protecting the environment, health and safety of our employees, customers and the global communities where we operate. We recognise that by integrating sound environmental, health and safety management practices into all aspects of our business, we can offer technologically innovative products and services while conserving and enhancing resources for future generations. Apple strives for continuous improvement in our environmental, health and safety management systems and in the environmental quality of our products, processes and services.

Here's how Apple actually communicates:
"Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great products and services."

Will Apple challenge the status quo in mobility concepts? When?
Food for thought.

2019: A Future Imagined from Flat-12 on Vimeo.

Competing on brain-, game-, Google-, and checkout-analytics

Data are becoming the new raw material of business: an economic input almost on par with capital and labour. Today's low cost sensors - capturing 24/7 what millions of people have done - are generating a lot of data. The ability to master the 'big data' is crucial to become tomorrow's marketleader

How to translate the 'big data' into actionable insights? By dynamic visualization of the 'big data'. Hans Rosling has taken it to the next level....again.



The market leading media companies of tomorrow will be the ones that find innovative ways to harness their vast amounts of 'big data' to gain competitive advantages.

By mastering the exponential growth of 'big data', companies can improve:
1. The efficiency of their marketing dollars
2. The personal relevance of their 'offerings'
3. The level of engagement of people with their 'offerings'