The Thing is: Connecting
That's what Talking Too Many is about
This is Talking Too Many, a newsletter about Brands as Ecosystems - and so much more.
Serendipitous Numbers, Ponies and Piketty
I wonder whether I should have titled this newsletter Talking in the XXI Century. This would have been an interesting, if humble, nod to Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the XXI Century, and I would have made sure to stress how positively I valued the rise of talking capital among the multitude against the unacceptable erosion of economic capital that the many have had to endure in too many countries over the past forty years. The thing is I have a serendipitous relationship going on with numbers, and XXIc would have fit in nicely there. Take 148 for instance, that’s the nicknumber under which you’ll find me on different social networks or websites. Why 148? It so happens that one of my daughters used to ride horses and, with very poor horsemanship but a willingness to learn the ropes on foot, and a great level of dedication to my self-appointed role as a squire to pony riders, I got to spend a lot of time gauging the animals, learning that the 148 centimeters height mark at the bottom of the neck separated horse from pony. But this is only something I discovered after I had already chosen 148 as a nicknumber. Another version has to do with my name, Anthony David Hamelle, ADH, or the first, the fourth and the eighth letter in the alphabet, 148. Not being well acquainted nor much interested in numerology this is something I realized long after I had begun using 148.
A Dose of Social Sciences
Then why? Why did I choose this particular nicknumber? It has to do with my interest for a field that is populated with opinion research, information, media and communication, political and social sciences, branding and advertising, social media and networks, digital technologies, uses and experiences. At the center of that field, at its very origin even, lies a small group of humans where information flows fast, where word of mouth is trusted, where a close knit community flocks together to survive and to strive. That small group of humans is on average made of 148 individuals, the optimal number of individuals with respect to the level of coöperation inside the group, the maximum number of efficient social interactions our prefrontal cortex can handle, the number named after the British linguist and anthropologist who, after having archaeologically studied ancient villages, observed groups of gorillas and chimpanzees, arrived at that conclusion: Robin Dunbar. In a brand new world where we can be followed by thousands, where billions of pieces of content are created and shared everyday, where influence has become brazenly monetized, I like to remind everyone that much of our world is not new, that the old never ceases to dive into the new, that the measure of everything is to be found on a human scale. 148 is an ancient reality already, and the epitome of what challenges information and communication in the public sphere: the end of the monopoly of XX century communication gatekeepers, the resurgence of the social factor, the emergence of multitudes with the ability to voice their own opinions, to challenge sources of authority relentlessly, to tell their own stories.
All That, Brand Strategy, and More
I suppose I should bombard you with numbers, or data as we fancy calling them. How many hours of videos are uploaded and watched every second. How many bytes of NFTs are shared on exchanges every month. How many people spend how many hours on how many platforms every day. Maybe I should, but truth be told I find that data is too often used to obfuscate, to spare one from critical thinking, to keep us from seeing the big picture. Do you still need to be convinced that the word has gone social? Do you still doubt that people have anything worth saying that has not been said better before by pundits or media monopolists? If you do then no, no data will convince you otherwise, and you can skip this book altogether. But if you don’t doubt the world we live in, if you are looking to understand more of it, then no number is needed, and all I have to do is to offer you pause, perspective and an original outlook.
Talking Too Many is an attempt at encapsulating what keeps flowing, at framing what keeps changing, at making sense of chatter and noise, at valuing the mundane, at connecting digital dots with culture and social sciences, for beneath our screens and feeds lie age-old realities, foundational tenets, and tectonic groundswells. This is a newsletter, written and designed from a singular perspective, that of a lawyer turned storyteller, that of a teacher who spends most of his time being an advertiser, that of a curious mind that likes to learn and share bits of knowledge. This is a newsletter, a series of artefacts in a changing world, a set of thoughts and meanings that shall not obsolesce when the next fad comes and goes, some lessons that will still be worth learning when the digital platform of the day dithers and dies. This is a newsletter, not a tutorial to tell a beautiful story in three easy steps, not a practical guide to create a successful advertising campaign in five minutes, not a handbook to hack the features of an algorithm and become rich so that you may tell the world about it. This is a newsletter that tries to capture many things you already know, to assemble different things that many know more about than I do, but things that few have assembled in a way that should provide a solid frame of reference for anyone whose passion or job it is to talk at, to, or better yet, with, others. This is a newsletter, demanding time and attention, leaving you to ponder over the ideas it contains, offering a subjective, humble, yet articulated and opinionated understanding of what talking too many is and how to navigate this new public space, and how to think of brand strategy therein.