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The best science books of the year. 

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Are you an ice cube? Or a hurricane?

I'm tired of reading blogs by social media experts arguing about which set of metrics digital marketers should or should not focus on. So here's an antidote to all that. It starts, as is the fashion, with an anecdote. I use social media a lot. I think about it a lot. But I can count the number of times I've bought something as a direct and isolated result of something I've seen on social media on one hand. One finger in fact. It was a rather awesome mug featuring the slogan 'I fucking love meetings'. Couldn't resist. By contrast, I cannot count the number of times social media has influenced me. The number is too large to count. It's now such a part of my life that pretty much every decision I make will have been influenced, a little or a little lot, by social media. The influence is so widespread, so deep and so pervasive. Whether it's something I've seen or read, or whether it's something a friend has seen and recommended to me, it is everywhere. Everything. Now, more about ice cubes and hurricanes. A few days ago, in a wonderful Reith Lecture on BBC Radio 4, the doctor, thinker and writer Atul Gawande used a lovely metaphor. He compared human beings to ice cubes. Simple, predictable, easy to understand. In many ways, he explained, human beings ARE like ice cubes. Put them in a fire and they will melt. Psychologically, it's exactly the kind of simplicity Pavlov sought to capture by ringing a bell at a dog. But, at the same time, human beings are also like hurricanes. Systems of such mind-bending complexity that we cannot - with all the computational power and experience on earth - really understand them. And we are nothing if not products of our complexity. Everything we see, hear or feel - in fact everything we have EVER seen, heard or felt - influences what we do. So how does this relate to social media marketing metrics? As an industry, digital marketing - social media marketing in particular - is grasping for a silver bullet to justify all our effort and investment. First the fashion was to preach the virtue of engagement. Then the fashion was to focus on ROI. Now we've built complex attribution all models to trace person X's journey from content to purchase. But even our most complex models and metrics barely scratch the surface. At best they give a hint at how we're influenced in reality. Time after time, they seek to reduce us from hurricanes to ice cubes. From people to Pavlov's dogs. Instead of arguing about which set of over simplistic metrics are least bad, we should accept the limitations of our ability to measure and quantify the complexity of the human condition. That doesn't mean ignoring data, it means accepting ALL data, but being honest about that data's limitations. For digital marketers, engagement metrics are clearly not the be all and end all. It's easy to generate engagement that has no impact on business goals. But at the same time, clickthroughs, conversion rate and other 'harder' metrics are just as limited. They fail to capture the incredible value content can generate in terms of brand perception, advocacy, word of mouth recommendation. Just think about it like a real person. You see a Facebook post. Or a tweet. Or an Instagram pic. It influences you. In a big way or a small way, it influences you. Maybe without you even knowing it. It could make you click through and buy a 'I fucking love meetings' mug. It could plant a tiny seed of brand consideration. It could be the final straw that means you never use that brand. It could trigger a memory of a cool press ad you saw two weeks ago which finally makes you walk into a physical shop. It could be the trigger for a conversation with a work colleague which intrigues her enough to go Google that brand or ask other friends what they think about it. We are hurricanes, not ice cubes. And if butterfly's wings can start a hurricane, awesome content can do incredible things for brands in so many different ways. Trying to reduce that incredible complexity to a simple set of crude metrics is just dumb.

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Amazing

A new selection of satirical illustrations by John Holcroft, who takes a critical look but full of humor about our society and its excesses. John Holcroft is a British illustrator based in Sheffield, whose unique style illustrations are published in many newspapers and magazines, such as The Guardian and The Economist.

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Yes yes yes

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1. French Frynamite: it’s just a lil’ french fry but it has a fuse on the end. Do not eat! It is a bomb but it looks like a french fry. Good for fast food espionage.

2. Pancake Landmine: Ok so it’s just like a regular landmine but it looks like a pancake so some dummy would be like “oh hurr hurr...

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The shocking sameness of the new

An old episode of thedigitalhuman just triggered a thought. Lots has been written about the democratising effect of the web - with its incredible ability to put power and control in the hands of ordinary people. We've watched glued to Twitter as the web facilitates protest, campaigning and even revolution. It's given ordinary people the ability to affect change and influence everywhere it's allowed to exist. But as the Internet spawns its first bona fide celebrities - the inarguably powerful YouTube creators now breaking through into mainstream consciousness - it just struck me just how similar these people are to the celebs of old. By and large these are exactly the same people who've found themselves propelled to fame in traditional media - white, young, pretty, thin, affluent, safe, well-spoken, inoffensive. And available for hire to the highest bidder. Where is the Bill Hicks of the YouTube generation? Where's the Chris Rock? Where's the young, intelligent, angry Asian kid from Bradford? For a medium that's supposed to democratise and put more power in the hands of more people, right now it's doing a great job of putting more power in the hands of essentially the same bunch of people. Maybe it's really a question of the people holding the purse strings pumping money into what they know. Maybe we're all a bit scared of what the web could really be.

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Stick this on your wall

Lynda Barry's inspired and assuring field guide to mastering the creative process

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Yesssss… Jedi Knight!

Star Wars Occupation Flow Chart

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wellappointeddesk:

What kind of pencil are you?

(via sheedo)

So good

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Make time

I’m busy. Everyone’s busy. But that’s no excuse. Don’t forget to:

Make time to explore

Make time to really think

Make time to talk

Make time to play and laugh

Make tea for people

Nail those bad boys and you can’t go far wrong.

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xx on We Heart It.

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Looking at this I can hear the bike tyres on that tarmac #cycling

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Truth

"Education begins at the home. You can’t blame the school for not putting into your child what you don’t put into him." - Geoffrey Holder. The legendary dancer Carmen de Lavallade shared this beautiful photo on her Facebook page of her husband, the legendary dancer, actor, painter and director Geoffrey Holder with their son, Leo. While I understand that Mr. Holder is retired, Ms. Carmen de Lavallade is still performing masterfully today! Her latest show, “As I Remember It” will have its world premiere at Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts in June 2014 and will tour nationally through 2015. You can visit her website for more information. http://www.carmendelavallade.com/current/ 

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Creative Dissidents Commemorate 25th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and many — including one of China’s most famous dissidents, the artist Ai Weiwei — are commemorating the occasion with personal protests.

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This Lamp Uses Physics To Perfectly Reproduce The Sky’s Beautiful, Evolving Colors

Japanese designer Yoshiki Matsuyama is fascinated by science—particularly the biological and physical explanations for the shapes, colors, and textures of nature. So when he entered a recent design challenge on the theme of curiosity, he decided to create a product that answers a classic question: Why is the sky blue?

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Love is all you need

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Susan Sontag on beauty vs. interestingness – fantastic read