keep it human

Another mind workout from Clay Shirky, this time a riff on why imperfection invites participation; and why the belief in marketing circles that we only have one shot to capture attention induces a reliance on very expensive photo shoots on Corfu. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Corfu, per se.)

Some of the choicer quotes as they relate to the marketing corpus:

Brands don’t interact. Brands are inert. People interact.

Over and over again what we see in interactive environments: if something looks too good, people won’t touch it.

The messiness, the openness, these kinds of human characteristics tell people it’s ok to interact.

Errata
1. More Shirky on the blogs of Messrs. Blizzard and Kanai.
2. This video originally sourced at Influx Insights.
3. Since you asked, the summer was aces. My blog holiday was mostly spent on a whirlwind tour of Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Managr.