David Amerland Quotes

Search is the means through which we navigate the Web. If your business is not visible in search it is difficult for it to be found by your customers. Search, above all else, is marketing, and it is undergoing a massive change.

When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of your engagement in the social media environment what counts are: Comments and Sentiment.

The web and its technologies are digital representations of everything we did before in a more private, bigger, faster and more empowering format than ever before.

Reality is not a thought experiment.

without the mind the body is not capable of delivering anything beyond an average performance.

We trust strangers not because they are always trustworthy but because we want to believe in a world where they are.

We cannot learn something new and stick to it without a modular approach to application, positive reinforcement and a real change of environment.

Everything you see in the world around you is content of some kind. The clothes you wear, the songs you sing, the ads you watch, the food you buy, the tunes you hum and the memes you share. Everything is a signal that sends a message.

Ever since I was a child I have been a strong believer in the principle that to under-stand how anything works you need to take it apart and look at it in detail. This principle that worked with toys also works pretty well with search.

Trust cannot, in the real world, be just a matter of personal choice.

Writing is a highly encoded form of communication that takes place from one mind to another.

Asymmetrical relationships never work.

Social media is the empowerment of the individual at the expense of the system.

A business needs a character and an identity, just like a person and just like a person it needs to have a Voice.

Before you can act you must choose. Before you can choose you must know. Before you can know you must feel. And before you can feel you must be trained.

The connectivity of the cloud and the prevalence of tablets and smartphones have eroded the traditional online/offline divide. Within a short time we will most probably stop thinking of it as 'online.' We will simply be connected, all the time, everywhere, and the online world will be notable only by its absence when that connection breaks.

In truth search can no more be considered independent of the Web than the Web can work without search. This symbiotic relationship brings forth all sorts of issues because it becomes part of a traditional push and pull where the Web, represented by those who actively work in it, wants to push all the wrong things, while search wants to pull in everything.

Everything that happens now in the online world is part of a conversation.

Everyone is driven by the need to fill their life with meaning. Sometimes this need is articulated clearly and then a purpose emerges and that leads to a sense of direction and a sense of mission. Most times it is not. So the void is filled with action. People have kids, gets mortgages, raise families, pay bills, go to work each day without asking why and then, some day, they die. Some times all this is enough. Many times it's not. Action fills the void nicely. Makes each day feel tiring. But without a sense of purpose. Without a sense of vision, it leads to a pattern of behavior that doesn't lead anywhere. Most times we die before we realize this of course.

The moment you establish a line of communication between two points, you subtly change both. That is also true for the way the brain is affected by the mind.

In many ways semantic search takes us back to the golden days of the Web when in terms of working online anything was possible as long as you had passion, belief in yourself, and energy to work at it.

Real search is about providing valuable information when it's really needed to those who are actually looking for it.

Despite the fact that logic tells us that we should not trust anyone, in any situation where the unknown variables are too many or the risks too high, we nevertheless go ahead and take what can only be called a leap of faith.

It is not wrong to think that the traditional buying of a product has been replaced with an unwritten contract of shared values between a business and its customers.

Familiarity with the brand requires some experience of it (via advertising, word of mouth, internet publicity), Confidence comes with the perception of competence in the brand itself (which is why new brands really need to work hard for people to experience them first) and Trustworthiness refers to the sense of whether the brand is going to live up to its promise of reliability for the price paid.

Trust is an ethereal quality. Like oxygen or light we notice it only by its absence.

To win at semantic search you need more people than are on your payroll.

Social media is not rocket science. This, however, does not make it easy either.

When it comes to identity we are all constructs. Who we think we are is the result of our upbringing, memories, skill set, knowledge, experiences and personal belief system. Of all the onion layers that make us who we are, our belief system is what powers our core. It's what creates the essence of a human being and makes it possible for each of us to exceed our limits, confound expectations and do the impossible.

Hope is something that is built from small parts. Perceived actions. Observed effects. Imperfect understanding. Uncertain knowledge. Acknowledged fears. The things each of us projects and says and does in the physical world. Hope then is made up of tiny bits and pieces of us. All of us, together.

Mindless action without a real understanding of the ramifications is only likely to result in serious miscalculations or a colossal waste of time. Avoid both by using your judgment, filtered through both knowledge and experience. Use common sense and logic as a counterbalance to emotion.

The content you create and then share is part of your digital identity. It helps those who consume it to understand who you are, why you do the things you do and what values you stand for. As a result content is the primary means through which you establish your online identity, create your reputation and generate the all essential sense of trust without which nothing else can take place.

Trust is what monetizes the attention economy.

Marketing effectively, in a semantic web, revolves around those three 'little' requirements: Trust, Authority, Reputation.

Our insecurities drive us. Our fears control us. We try to hide the first and deny the second and it is exhausting us.

A pair of eyes attached to a human brain can quickly make sense of the content presented on a web page and decide whether it has the answer it's looking for or not in ways that a computer can't. Until now.

Leaders lead by example. No leader asks more than he is prepared to give himself.

An entity, whether a person or a thing, requires the independent collection of facts about them and a cross-referencing of these facts through their digital footprint.

Hate and resentment are learned behaviors whose origin is traced to an evolved mental state that's driving us to achieve some sort of goal. Ultimately they are about seeking a particular outcome. Here's the thing: so is love and forgiveness.

At its most basic level semantic search applies meaning to the connections between the different data nodes of the Web in ways that allow a clearer understanding of them than we have ever had to date.

The greatest challenge on the Web in the twenty-first century is to connect with your target audience in a way that enriches both them and you.

The brain works in a holistic, cooperative way that makes our basest desire or most abject fear as expressive of who we are as abstract thinking of the highest order. That means that we are all equal part snakes, monkeys, and spacemen.

To succeed in the digital realm, technology has to provide a strong disruptive element right from the start. If things cannot be done differently , a transition to digital is not going to be compelling enough for a wide enough adoption to create sustainability.

When you work on a book and you have planned everything out and you are putting flesh to an idea and a surmise that before was mainly bones something funny happens. Your brain goes into an altered state where the words you write are not quite the words you want but rather the words dictated by the task at hand.