Karan Chadda

Global marketing, analytics and digital leader

Karan Chadda

Schemes and syllables

As the summer draws to a close, it feels like a good time to take stock of where we are with Poetry by Numbers.

A lot has been achieved. Working with economists, pollsters, programmers and tech founders, our poets have created art. More than that, we’ve created art that has a purpose and enthused our audience.

People have sent me emails saying they’ve used some of our turns of phrase in their presentations and meetings. We’ve created images with words that are now being used outside of high-minded art. That’s a real sign of success.

One of the best parts of running this project is how quickly poets have engaged with it. We’ve had submissions sent in independently, completely unsolicited but very gratefully received. We’ve not published every poem we’ve received but have tried in every instance to provide constructive feedback.

We couldn’t have got this far without the backing of our growing list of contributing poets. I believe poets have embraced the project because data analysis is, at its heart, a search for patterns. Poetry, at its technical core, embraces patterns too.

Whether it’s the rhyming schemes so prevalent in Western poetry or the tight meter structure of ghazals from the Middle East and Indian Sub-Continent, patterns of rhythm and rhyme are found in different cultures of poetry. The language of numbers is present too, referenced in terms including the classic couplets, quatrains and octaves. There’s probably a blogpost to be written on this topic. Keep your eyes peeled for it.

Anyway, we’ve been scheming all summer to make sure we have a stand out autumn. We’ll be publishing more poems, including some created through conversations with data specialists. We’ll also be spreading the word at events and by producing videos of performance poetry. The first event outing for the project will be at The Tech Off on 30 September. I’ll be pitching the value of bringing poetry to data against competing creative technology ideas. Come along and support us, sign up here.

If you’d like to get involved with Poetry by Numbers, either by helping us scheme or by contributing syllables, then please get in touch.

Knowing and understanding

I’ve been reading Dave Trott’s blog for years. He has a great turn of phrase and he makes his point very clear. He also has a habit of making the same point more than once. So while you read his blog, he’s hammering home the same point he’s made a few times before. Different stories every time, but the same point. It’s a nice way to do things. Sharing stories but repeating the point, making sure the message registers.

Dave’s current theme is about ‘simple human truths’. He’s used stories about Bernbach and John Webster to make his point. And it’s a good point. And it got me thinking about the difference between knowing and understanding, which in turn led me to recollect a story James Harding once told at an event about Ned Kennan.

Ned Kennan was a market researcher back in the 1960s. He was working for Listerine. Their market research data told them a lot about their customers: how wealthy they were; when they were most likely to use mouthwash; and so on. The data meant they knew a lot about their customers. Armed with that data, Listerine’s top management were seeking to grow sales by 2-3%.

Kennan boldly suggested that he could grow sales by 25%. He’d run some focus groups and he’d figured out that people who used Listerine followed the rules. They read instructions and they followed them. So if you were supposed to use a capful of mouthwash, they’d use a capful. If you made the cap 25% larger, then you’d sell 25% more mouthwash. Kennan understood his customers.

That’s the difference between understanding and knowing.

A second list of thoughts that struck me in India

Another trip to India. Many more thousands of kilometers covered. I’ve been jotting down thoughts as I’ve gone along. As before, some are mere whimsy, others are deeper

Nature abhors a vacuum
There needn’t be a vacuum for nature to overrun something
There needn’t be a vacuum for nature to overcome someone
Humans decimate nature on a whim
A stranger giving self-serving advice can be right
Unsought advice can be valuable
Motives cloak value
Price is a poor substitute for value
A memory rekindled is a memory in HD
If you must haggle, win
Inhibition is a barrier to friendship
Enthusiasm can be scary
Confidence is bred by perception
Context is king
There is no good kind of myopia
Culture is rich where civilisations meet
Religion is a poor vessel for culture
Food is culture
Food is history
Flavour is money
Complexity and subtlety are not mutually exclusive
Economic progress has four wheels
Too many wheels halt progress
Slow walking cities drive fast
A Delhi minute is shorter than a New York one
Responsibility forges strength
Responsibility is personal growth
Earn your thrills
Luxury comes at a price; it’s usually in the laundry bill

Set up Twitter cards now. Right now.

The latest Twitter mobile app update makes Twitter cards implementation more important than ever

The best tweets create activity. Whether that comes in the form of a retweet, a favourite, a reply or a click. The best way to do this is to tweet things that people find interesting in some way.

Once you’ve got something interesting to tweet, other factors come into play. When should you tweet it? Should you mention someone in the tweet? Should you include a link or a photo? The answers to some of these questions are subjective, but when it comes to a link and an image or a video, if you have them, the answer is, unequivocally, yes.

The data is out there for making that statement with such conviction.Twitter’s own analysis shows that, at the individual tweet level, links, images and videos make a material difference to engagement. Twitter’s latest mobile app update will make the increased engagement greater still.

Twitter cards

Twitter cards are a way of embedding rich media into tweets. If you tweet a link to a website that has cards set up, your tweet will appear in people’s feeds with things like page headlines, excerpts and images. At a more advanced level, cards can have calls to action, buttons to download apps or play media.

Twitter card

The newest version of Twitter’s mobile app uses new styling for Twitter cards, providing greater screen real estate for links from sites that have set up cards integration. The difference between links from sites without cards integration and those with is now incredibly stark on the mobile app.

Website administrators should take note of these changes. Every link shared on Twitter from a site that has not integrated cards is underperforming unless the people tweeting take the time to upload images themselves. We should be making it easy for people to share our content effectively; it’s good for content publishers and it’s good for tweeters.

Mobile first

Twitter cards are important across all devices because they offer a richer experience. On mobile, cards now make a massive difference to how your content appears in feeds.

We’re constantly being told about the shift to mobile, however, Twitter isn’t shifting to mobile, it is mobile. In the UK, 80% of users access Twitter using their mobile. This only emphasises the importance of cards integration. If you don’t do it your content will underperform on Twitter. You’re undermining your content and those sharing it.

Set up Twitter cards now. Right now.