Clay Shirky @ LSE

Clay Shirky at the LSE London
Originally uploaded by cubicgarden

Last night I went to see a presentation by Clay Shirky, the author of "Here Comes Everybody". Interesting stuff, but not as illuminating as I'd hoped.

He summarised his book as "Group action just got easier". (A similar statement is oft quoted on Gaping Void).


Here's a couple of thoughts that I noted from the talk:

1. Groups unite against an external threat

2. Successful groups act as platforms not as organisations

3. Groups no longer need a formal body to organise on their behalf - the workers could unite to disobey the union.

4. When your fans break your business model, you know you're in trouble (relating to fans posting content from newspapers).

5. Companies can no longer expect to break news on a busy news day to hide bad stories. Someone that cares will find it, republish it etc. etc.

6. A big question is one of legitimacy. This is linked to the fundamental flaws of democracy.

7. This is all about new tools being made available. It's not a change in human nature, it's a change in access and the ability to connect. The Invisible College in the 17th Century was a group of scientists sharing ideas for the greater good - group collaboration is not new behaviour.


One point that Clay made during the presentation was the speed with which events are now made public over the internet, exemplified by the Sechuan earthquake. Here's a few links to Clay's LSE talk being replayed on the internet, including a blog post from the chair of the evening, Charlie Beckett.

You can download audio from the presentation here.

Update: an official podcast of the event is here.

Update: Image credit to cubicgarden. Weirdly, the text placed in the post by Flickr crediting cubicgarden appears in draft format, but not when publised. Apologies cubicgarden for you not being credited initially.

Obama Mania Hits Eltham Library

Not even the children's section of Eltham library is safe from Obamania.

And with possibly the worst ever typography on the inspiring quote at the bottom.

adiZone: Marketing by Being Useful

Well done Adidas and whoever else has been responsible for the adiZones built in parks in some of the less well-off parts of London. From a tiny bit of Googling it looks like an initiative with London 2012 to create a meaningful legacy from the Olympics. I spotted this one near where I live in Charlton Park.


It's a place for young people to let off a bit of steam - robust outdoor gym equipment, a "street" style basketball court and a climbing wall.

Tremendous initiative adding value to the local communities. A genuinely useful addition. The only grumble I've got is that the launch wasn't that well promoted, so I missed seeing the All Blacks!

Mourning Morph

Isn't this just the saddest thing?


Thank you b3ta for this Tony Hart memorial.

Futurology: Richard Watson at the RSA

Check out the video here.

"When you think about the future, most people think in terms of new things that are going to be invented. Well, yes that's part of it, but it's equally about the things that are old and familiar that are going to vanish".

Lots of juicy thought-provoking stuff.

Still Not Getting It Automotive Style

After the much derided decision to turn up to Washington in private jets, it seems our American car industry friends still haven't got it. World Car Fans reports that Chrysler have used some of their money to fund an ad campaign to say thank you. Doh! Stop wasting money, even to say Thank You.

Proposition for Troubled Times

Hot on the heels of Flybe's "redundancy cancellation insurance" emails (see Herd for details), comes this from Hyundai - a no strings attached deal to hand back your car if you are made redundant.


Hat tip to World Car Fans.

Still Not Getting It

Warner is threatening YouTube again. Take down those videos of Warner artists or we'll get you! Yawn yawn yawn.

The below image is a screen grab of the wonderfully interesting Digital Bites (found via TIGS).

The quote, from a BBC interview with Chad Hurley (one of YouTube's founders) is:

"The people that they are trying to go after are their biggest fans".

Precisely.

Star Wars here we come!

"Airborne laser lets rip on first target" - here from New Scientist. Cool and scary at the same time.

Save Cranberry

Lovely Christmas campaign from CMW.

Save Cranberry the turkey from being cooked here, or don't.

Bonus link: my recent CMW blog post on Obama.

Innocent Newsletter (no planning cliches, I promise)

Think what you like about Innocent, but without question they get the need for being interesting. I subscribe to their newletter, not to learn about their new smoothies or latest kerazzeee marketing ideas, but for the links at the bottom.

Every week you get 5 or 6 links to weird and wonderful things on the internet. Here's this week's "And finally..."

And finally...

Squid with elbows.

Huge hula hoop.

Veg art.

Leaf mimic.

Whack-a-mouse

Whether to own-up or not?

A year and a half a ago, the wife and I purchased a Quinny Buzz for our first born. We were very happy with it and recommended it to a couple of friends who bought it too.

Now that our little one is a bit bigger and winter is drawing in - we noticed that the straps were getting very tight, without any visible means of lengthening them. A quick Google search found this link, and several others with the same story. There was a production error on the 2007 models meaning the straps were too short. Dorel, the UK importers of Quinny, were matter of fact when I called them and they've ordered some new parts for me. No trouble at all. (Call 01842 763 281 in the UK).

Now Dorel / Quinny must have sat around a table and decided what to do when they realised this problem. And in my opinion, they've picked less than wisely. Their options were:
1. Keep as quiet as possible, hope no-one notices and sort out those that do efficiently. (Which is what they've done)
2. Shout loudly that they've made a mistake and get all the products sorted.

Option 1 minimises the shock. The shock that sending out all those extra parts means to profit and resource. But it also alienates your tribe (visit Seth's blog for more on tribes). For those that find out, they tell the same friends as before and so the parts are still required, but you've lost some love and trust. Others will suffer in silence, ultimately not using their pushchair anymore and certainly not recommending it to friends.

Option 2 keeps your tribe of recommenders, keeps everyone happy, keeps the Buzz visible in all the smart London parks, keeps your business going in the future.

It seems to me that Quinny / Dorel forgot the Cluetrain. Forgot that their customers move a lot faster than they do, forgot that they can talk to each other (a lot).

Sun Headlines - A New Blog

Sun headlines capture the mood and consciousness of the nation. So I've started a new blog to showcase them. I'll be posting the headline of the day as well as some of the classics.

Here's the link to the blog.

New Faith In Humanity

I simply love it when the public is a bit naughty. It restores my belief in humanity - that people out there are fun loving and generally social rather than knife-wielding loonies.

Rick-rolling the MTV awards is a perfect example.

Similar to the "Jedi" as a religion meme in the British Census a few years back.

Keep on misbehaving people!

Just Testing...

...the Lifecast iPhone app.

Posted with LifeCast

Visualising Freetext Data

Faced with a mighty amount of freetext research data, I naturally wanted a short cut to understand what was there and then an interesting way of presenting it.

Then I remembered tag clouds - look down the right hand side of this blog for an example from Zoom Clouds. But my data was in Excel, not on a blog or website.

A spot of Googling and a dear colleague found Tag Crowd that makes a nice cloud from any data.

Here's a result from the question "What is the worst thing about France?"
It would have been a bit better if I'd filtered the results a little - you can do this easily in the Tag Crowd interface.

Happy Planner.

iPhone, iCal, Microsoft Outlook and the Sync Conundrum

A little bit different from my normal posts, but I've found a fix that's worth sharing.

So using iphone for multiple calendars...

[Note added later: the most effective method for this is to use MobileMe, but I'm way to cheap to pay for that. So using iphone for multiple calendars for free...]

I have a PC with the usual Microsoft stuff at work. And a Mac with iCal at home. Switching on the calendar element of the Microsoft Exchange stops exchange of data with ical and removes the iCal data. So how do I get both my calendars on my iphone?

This isn't perfect but it seems to work (NB I've not done steps 2 or 3 yet, that's a task for tonight!). The trick is to use an internet based calendar. I've gone for Google Calendar, but I've heard you can do similar things in Plaxo.

Step 1: Sync your Outlook with Google Calendar.
Nice easy instructions here.

Step 2: Take the feed from this Google Calendar and subscribe using iCal.
Instructions here. As noted above, I've not tried this yet, so fingers crossed for this (& particularly step 3!)

Step 3: Sync your iphone with your mac as normal
Fingers firmly crossed.

Not perfect especially as the Google Calendar to iCal sync is unilateral. But a good start nonetheless.

[Note added later: this all works just fine. Just a pity that iCal doesn't sync back to Google Calendar. You can buy this if you want to solve that problem]

Community and Antisocial Behaviour

The video in my previous post has got me thinking a bit on how the changing nature of community could be impacting on (antisocial) behaviour.

So here's another unsubstantiated hypothesis.

Community used to be defined by geography and the people contained within your personal catchment area. Now it's about who you're connected to via whatever means you have available. Geography is irrelevant.

As you're getting your sense of community and belonging from elsewhere, perhaps you care a bit less about your physical location and its populace. Because you're uber-connected to people and ideals that resonate strongly, you don't need the people and places whose only relevance to you is physical proximity.

Link this to a lack of emotional intelligence or mind-blindness, and you can explain quite a bit of what appears to be antisocial behaviour.

Anthropology of You Tube

Find an hour and watch this.



From the guy who bought you this piece of wonderfulness.

Sprint Cuts - save valuable time!

Check out these handy time-saving tips

(OK, so it's part of an ad campaign, but it's still funny).

Mind-Blindness & The Yoof of Today

Another week, another teenager murdered in London.

Fingers are being pointed in all sorts of directions - the parents and their lack of involvement, the government and their too soft policies, teachers and their inability to control, violent video games, poor behaviour of the football-playing role models. The list of suspects is very long indeed. And the solution is, no doubt, not as linear as people would hope - with the cause most-likely being the summation of genes, events, locations and relationships that forms the context in which these teenagers are learning their world view.

There seems to be plenty of solution-hunting going on without true appreciation of what the problem is. Yes, teenagers killing each other is the obvious problem, but we need to get to the root of why this is occuring rather than trying to solve things which ain't necessarily broke. I won't labour the obvious analogy with much marketing / advertising.

The seemingly psychotic behaviour, with the perpetrators apparently lacking any care or insight into the victim's suffering reminded me of a theory of autism, mind-blindness. Initially described by Simon Baron-Cohen, mind-blindness is where a person has an inability to develop an awareness of what is in the mind of another human. (I suspect there is a link to the more well-known Emotional Intelligence which describes the ability to understand emotions of the self and others).

Perhaps the problem is that these teenagers simply can't comprehend other people's feelings. Perhaps they don't have their own feelings to project onto others, therefore lacking the ability to empathise.

Just a thought.

The Revenge of the Interrupted

Spotted whilst out and about in Crouch End over the weekend. Worth remembering when you next use the word "consumer" to describe sentient human beings.

The obscured word is "saving". Oh I get it. Show a picture of a happy retirement and that will make people think about saving now! What piffle.

Snakes on a building

Environmental Sense In The Media

An Article written by Lionel Shriver (the author of "We Need To Talk About Kevin") in The Telegraph that has a bit of a pop at the mindless world-view the majority of our race has succumbed to.

"Greenies continually badger us with their lofty edict that we must care for "the planet". But "the planet" is happy as Larry at any temperature; we're the ones who can only abide within a narrow band. "The planet" will adapt to and recover from whatever we do. If we foul the air and water we need to survive, the last laugh is on us. Green policies are all about self-interest - albeit enlightened self-interest. "The planet" doesn't need us; we need it. The improbable aspect of the programme's premise is that our species clears off overnight."

Polite notices

Polite notice
Originally uploaded by Mark Charter

Truly polite notices don't need to tell you that they're polite. It's the old adage about telling jokes not shouting about how funny you are. Also reminiscent of Dickett's finger.

Creme Egg Gooeyness

The season finale from Creme Egg. Brilliant!

Science & Policy

On a similar track to my recent rants about thinking non-linearly about environmental issues, here's an article from New Scientist. The following excerpt highlights some of the key issues:

"I was struck by the fact that we were doing a lot of research into the environmental effects of GM crops after policy makers had made their decisions – it was just the wrong way around," Sutherland told New Scientist. He notes that the future supply of biofuel is already becoming a political issue because a thorough environmental assessment has yet to be carried out.

The European Union has been criticised for backing biofuels too hastily, by scientists who argue they raise food prices and threaten food security.

Offshore wind and wave power might be a solution to the growing energy crisis, but Sutherland and colleagues warn that it could also affect marine ecosystems.

And they call for research into the potential environmental impact of releasing manmade viruses. In Australia, researchers have developed a novel way of controlling the invasive red fox – a virus that infects and sterilises it – although it has not been released into the wild population.

"What happens if the virus spreads outside its target range?" asks Sutherland. "Could it sterilise other foxes? Could the virus combine with another and infect different species?"

Vampire Babies

Spotted in a Tokyo toy store...

Linearity & The Environment

A few weeks ago I posted about the dangers of linear thinking on caring for the environment.

I found this article today on World Car Fans. It claims that Science Magazine has reported about the bigger picture impact of using Ethanol as an alternative fuel source. The problem lies not with the fuel per se, but rather with the production process. (I've not been able to find the original report as yet).

I'm with Seth Godin - there's no such thing as side-effects. Just effects that you don't want in addition to the ones you do.

Does "A problem shared..." Scale?

If "A problem shared is a problem halved" scales, then my cold is going to be much better in the morning, having spent 12 hours on a 747.

Things That Bug Me #1

Dithering. In all contexts.

People wearing back-packs on crowded trains.

Women walking along like giant Ws with enormous bags in the crook of each arm.

People thrusting free newspapers in my face.


(I've got a feeling that this will be a frequent strand of posting.)

The Finished Article

Cool!

Work In Progress Art

To return the arty present that I gave for her birthday, my wife commissioned her up-and-coming artist cousin, Charlotte Jackson for my Christmas present. This is the work in progress photo that Charlotte emailed through. Looking forward to the finished article!

Mattel, You Are Being Stupid.

Mattel is grumbling that the Scrabulous application on Facebook infringes its copyright on the game Scrabble. It probably does.

However, Scrabulous has meant that thousands more people are playing the game across the globe than would be otherwise.

Why doesn't Mattel sponsor the site? Make Scrabulous legit? Wow, they could even find a new way of making money from their board game. I'm assuming that board games are not exactly all the rage these days, so a new revenue stream would be good, surely? Mattel could even put a link on the page for Scrabulous users to buy a copy of the board game direct.

Why don't they make some of their other board games available on Facebook?

Mattel's luddite, "this is how we've always made money so it's how we'll always make money", "let's not change the game", "let's not react to new opportunities", thinking makes me mad!

We Don't Need To Save The Planet

We don't need to save the planet. It will be around a lot longer than humans.

We don't need to save life on the planet. Life finds a way.

We don't even need to save human beings (in the short term). We're bound to be able to survive somehow. Dinosaurs are still about, albeit as dinosaurs 2.0.

When people say "save our planet", do they really mean "save my current lifestyle"?

On the Linearity of Carbon Footprints

I don't care about my carbon footprint. I care about my footprint.

Current thinking (and associated media frenzy) is too linear. Nature is a system. Changing one part of the system impacts all of it. Nature has frequently demonstrated its ability to counterbalance events - the basic predator / prey dynamic for example.

Human attempts at controlling nature are riddled with disasters that resulted from linear thinking. Releasing myxamitosis in 1950s Australia is just one fine example. Killed off the bunnies admittedly. But also endangered the predators that eat the bunnies. How on earth could someone think that introducing an incurable virus into an ecosystem is a good idea?

If we are to stay living our current little existence, we need to think more generally about our impact on the ecosystem. Yes, please reduce your CO2 output. But that's only part of it. In a few years time we'll no doubt learn how some of our CO2 reducing tactics have damaged the ecosystem in another, equally disasterous, way.

And please go and speak to a geologist to get a proper perspective on climate change through the ages.

Rackspace's Service Mentality

I came across Rackspace from a Seth Godin blog post about attitudes to customer service. So you visit Rackspace and the first thing you see is a live chat box "Welcome to Rackspace. I'm a live Sales Assistant. How may I help you today?". Whether you use the service or not, you certainly know (assume?) that you're going to be treated damn well by this company.

(p.s. I only got the pop-up window on my first visit to the site).

Uconic Plug

John Woollaston, an ex-colleague of mine, has set up Uconic. He receives photographs from customers and turns them into unique pieces of art. The photo you can see above is the painting I bought for my wife's birthday (here's the original photo). We're lovin' it. Good luck, John.

Where Next For Car Advertisers?

It seems the advertising industry is up in arms about proposals to mandate the inclusion of 20% of an ad's space to messages about CO2.

Two comments from me...
1. Get over it adland. Find ways to advertise without buying adverts. I'd be surprised if the evil European Parliament can find ways to enforce the proposals on "word of mouth".

2. Help to change the debate away from purely being about a CO2 story. The myopic current worldview focussing purely on CO2 emissions needs to end. Instead, whole life impact needs to be considered (from extracting the raw materials to recycling). When studied through this lens, cars such as the oh-so-green Toyota Prius are not as shiny as you may have thought - although naturally there's counter arguments to this (news report looking at both sides, view of the Pacific Institute think-tank).

High Time They Had A Website

Rob Mosley & Robbie Greatrex are young creative types who ditched their burgeoning careers at Proximity London to start up on their own. One of their latest projects is to come up with a website for their fledgling agency, Nonsense.

Rather than argue for months about the rights and wrongs, dithering and withering in the process, they've come up with a multi-media campaign (personal invites, facebook event, blog post etc.) to let the public decide. Check out the options & cast your vote at www.hightimewehadawebsite.com

Animoto - DIY Mood / Brand Videos

I found Animoto this morning (via TIGS). It is perfect for the likes of me who have no video software talent whatsoever to make emotive content - spot on for brand presentations etc. Simply uploads some pics. Upload or choose some music. And hey presto.


Made this cutesy video of my little boy in no time at all.

Bubble 2.0

Here's a completely unsubstantiated thought that I'd love some opinion on. Perhaps even a little evidence here and there may help!

As far as I can tell, a major cause of the first dotcom crash was limited access to affordable, high-speed internet connection. There were lots of good ideas, but they couldn't scale because hardly anyone could experience them.

Research group of one here! I remember being all excited about new websites cropping up but soon settling to a repertoire of favourites. Websites kept turning up, but they didn't offer anything new or interesting - that leap of innovation, or rather the mass acceptance of that innovation, was seemingly impossible without corresponding availability of high speed internet connection (imagine the success of You Tube with a dial-up modem?).

Broadband (etc.) enabled bandwidth hungry applications to thrive - not only to exist but also to spread and grow. The ideas that existed pre-crash could now work. This brought us "web 2.0". Multi-media experiences and connectivity that we (at least most of us) couldn't have imagined with a dial-up modem.

But are we now experiencing a second glass-ceiling - where the ideas are starting to be better than the delivery to the (mass) end-user again? Most of the new websites I've seen recently seem to be (more-or-less) copycats with frills on - they are operating within the same framework as the existing sites, limited by the same end-user parameters.

I'm sure some VC is funding a new video sharing website , a new social networking site. But why? People have settled into their favourites - Google, Facebook, YouTube etc. and it will take a massive leap in functionality to get them to change. And I doubt that this leap is possible without a significant increase in readily available connection speed.

So potentially we're heading for another crash, or at least a levelling of innovation and investment. Any views?

Geology, My Mum & Web 2.0

My Mum has had a lifelong passion for rocks. She was one of those teachers who got infectiously over-excited about her subject. And with a little help from yours truly she's now doing great things with blogs & wikis!

One of the most exciting things she's doing is Earth Learning Idea. 2008 is The International Year of Planet Earth. And for this, she and some colleagues are producing simple geology-related activities with the intent of helping teachers to teach about the Earth.

The activities will be stored at the Earth Learning Idea wiki that she's created. There's an example activity posted here. The blog is being used to help spread the idea, announce publication of the activities and generally to tell people what's going on.

Earth Learning Idea has gone multi-national and intercontinental already. Selling to Google is the next milestone, well, sort of.

If you know anyone who would be interested in this, please forward the link on.

PS3 Elegy

A disappointed gamer bemoans the quality of the PS3.

Plannerly Strolling

I saw an advert for the Green Chain on the train last night. I was amused to note that it is one of London's hyperbolically titled "strategic walking routes". How does one walk strategically? Perhaps they are routes reserved for planners to conjour magic about brands and customers.

Is Snoring Boring?

Does anyone know about variation in cultural attitudes to snoring?

In the UK there's nothing taboo about it and taking the proverbial out of snorers is fair game. I've not been able to track down any info about whether this varies by culture. Is snoring taboo in Japan? Is it a matter of great hilarity in Brazil? No idea.

Suggestions please!

How Would You Sell A Company?

Would you send an email to previous customers? Please see the email below that I just received - I bought one of these widgets roughly 3 years ago for about £5. Nice widget it is too.


Dear Sir/ Madam,

As a previous customer of smartwrap.co.uk, I thought you might be interested to know that the business is currently up for sale.

Since I have been in ownership of smartwrap.co.uk (April 2005), the business has seen impressive growth in both the retail and wholesale (bulk buy) sectors – the latter of which was entirely unexplored by the previous owner. I believe that there is a great deal of potential for further growth in both sides of the business, particularly the wholesale side. Importantly both the Smartwap and Syncwrap can be branded with an individual’s or company’s logo, name or website.

I believe that smartwrap.co.uk is a highly esteemed website with a very prolific domain name and strong reputation for customer service - as testified by our repeat customers.

I am aware of a few opportunities that have unfortunately not been taken advantage of due to time constraints and other responsibilities since I acquired the business. I am of the opinion that this makes it a very attractive opportunity for any individual or company willing to take a fresh view of the business and act on it.

There is a small portfolio of information about smartwrap.co.uk available to all those who express an interest. If you would like a copy, please send an email to the address given below and I will be more than happy to send you the details.

Best regards,

Faris Hamadeh
Proprietor, smartwrap.co.uk

enquiries@smartwrap.co.uk


Weird. However, I did like my smartwrap, so I think I'll request the details. Watch this space.

Battle at Kruger

Finally something's prompted me to post! Herd behaviour at its finest...

Transparency Tyranny

This latest briefing from Trendwatching is arguably the most important trend of 2007. Please read it! As usual it's packed with good ideas and examples.

Google Your Way From New York To London

Here's some fine directions to get you from NY to London. Check out instruction 24.

Feedblitz

I've just added Feedblitz email subscription to the blog. Just checking I've got my settings right!

The Conundrum of Exclusivity

In the spirit of reviewing the content of one's moleskine, I found this quote from the gruesome "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk (he of Fight Club). This is from the chapter "Slumming, a story by Lady Baglady". The theme of this mini-story is how a group of ultra-rich try to find new kicks by becoming homeless for the night in order to lose their identity & the social trappings of their lifestyle.

"Mrs. Keyes's best friend, Elizabeth Ethbridge Fulton Whelps, "Inky", used to say there's only one "best" of anything. One night, Inky said, "when everyone can afford the best, the truth is, it does look a little - common."

How true. Burberry etc.

Information Revolution or Cynical Manipulation?

I recently spotted some ads on the tube for Information Revolution. The headline of the ad was something along the lines of "70% of internet traffic goes via one company" and then a simple url as mechanism to get involved (complete with authentic ".org" domain). Intrigued, I visited the site. After a little while it dawned on me that this is nothing to do with information protection, per se, but is a thinly disguised campaign by the search engine Ask Jeeves.

It's easy to see how Ask Jeeves arrived here. In the absence of (I assume) a solid reason to claim that they are different or better than Google, Ask Jeeves needed to find a new angle. There are many people concerned, if not deeply paranoid, about information protection and rightly so. However, the sinister behemoth being indicted here is Google, themselves usually associated with being a champion of free-thought, primarily by seriously challenging Microsoft. And that's where it falls flat for me. I guess it will make a few people think about the Google monopoly. But change an indoctrinated nation's search habit? Not convinced.

I'm not completely decided here - this campaign treads a fine line between being a genuine champion of the people and a cynical ploy to get attention by a desperate business. I'm erring towards the latter. Any views? Please vote!

Feeling flat?

Another thought-provoking post from Indexed.

Remember the possibilities. Remember when it was new. Remember when you cared.

Perceptual Power

My final year at University was spent studying Experimental Psychology. As part of this I studied how the eye & brain turns light rays into vision. It's pretty obvious when you think about it, but this quote from a lecturer made me sit back and think about just how cool the brain is.

"the light rays aren't coloured".

In other words, nothing in the world exists as we perceive it. Colour only exists in our head. The same applies to the other senses...there is no smell, just chemicals in the air, sounds are just bits of rhythmically moving air.

All marketing happens in that brain too - impacting on a complex associative network of memory and the cognitive processing of information.

Worth remembering when someone next uses the word "consumer" and talks about "doing marketing to someone".

Free Cash from Mortgage Rip-offs

As announced here in The Times, British banks have been over-charging customers who have remortgaged over the last few years. I just called up Halifax and will be receiving a cheque for £40. Better than nothing.

If you've remortgaged make sure you get your money back - it's just a simple phone call away. If you prefer to write, you can download template letters from moneysavingexpert.com

Spread the word!

Images for Presentations

The Generator Blog features loads of fantastic tools for making interesting presentation visuals.

Thanks to the Plannersphere wiki for the link

Squidoo - Marketing Inspiration

I've been updating my Marketing Inspiration Squidoo Lens over the last few days. It's still a bit limited, but hopefully improved. Comments & suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Will it Blend?

Brilliant.

I particularly like from the homepage:

"What kind of blenders are these?! The Total Blender that is used in the “Will it Blend” video series is the entry level blender for the Blendtec home product line. (You ought to see what Blendtec 20 amp commercial models will do…..)"

Tyranny of Recommendation

This Nemi cartoon was published in Metro on 19th February 2007. It highlights the power of recommendation, as used to good effect by the likes of Amazon. It's worth noting that the customer is not ecstatic in the final frame.

When Mass Media Buying Goes Wrong

Spotted this ad for spread betting on the way home from seeing my chum Mississippi MacDonald playing a set over at the Electroacoustic Club at The Slaughtered Lamb. Long copy ads at cross-track locations usually work well - people have time to read and generally do if they are interested. Farringdon is a good location for city types into this kind of thing. It's just a shame that this particular media location was across 2 tracks and the ad was in a minuscule font size.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

This is an intriguingly produced video about the evolution of the internet into the gloriously collaborative network that it is today. Some poignant comments towards the end about how the internet is changing the way we interact with the world - and how we need to rethink copyright, ethics, relationships etc.

Trendwatching - Trysumers

Because you'll all have signed up to the Trendwatching newsletter, you obviously won't need this link to the latest briefing. If you do, shame on you!

Nothing Quite Like A Good Typo!

A banner ad for Alliance & Leicester proudly displayed at The Times website today.

How can anyone possibly miss that typo! Maybe one of those crafty compeittors (sic) meddled with the ad.

Insightful Heptagons

This is one of the most insightful things I've seen in ages. A really simple construct to show the effects of combining deadly sins in pairs. My favourite is Gluttony + Pride = fat men in speedos!

Reminds me a bit of the Nike "brief-o-matic" that you can find within this blog post from Pink Air.

Simple ways to get to interesting ideas must be the way forward!

TFL & Good Service

Whilst I'm on the subject of TFL there's been something bugging me for ages. When you arrive at a London Underground station, you'll see a sign that looks something like this:

(Thanks to "Envoy" for the picture that I found here on Flickr.)

What gets my goat is that it's written entirely from TFL's perspective and has nothing whatsoever to do with the customer's experience. Quite often when I get on the train to experience my Good Service I see something like this...

(thanks to "Synthclarion" for the picture that I found here of Flickr.)

Now, in my opinion, that is not a good service. Just because the train is running on time and there aren't any signal failures for a change...

What Works Best. - Communications or Department Names?

Whilst out buying a sandwich today, I spied a group of yellow-bibbed Transport For London (TFL) workers and police taking people's details and fines for not paying fares on the bus. This was quite a commotion, presumably intended to be a show of strength that "we'll catch you if you're bad".

On the back of the TFL yellow-bibs were the words "Revenue Protection" which no doubt is the name of the department the employees were from. However, in the light of recent massive transport price increases I think this wording conveys a poor impression of TFL. It doesn't say "we need your fares to reinvest in the system so your journey gets better" it says "we must make profit". I'm sure this is a cue for many people to avoid paying fares (obviously not me as I am such an honest citizen).

How different it would be if the bibs instead displayed a message intended to impact customer behaviour or attitude. Even a less obviously profit oriented department name such as "Fare Dodge Squad" would be an improvement. Fare dodging is naughtiness to be reprimanded, whereas taking money from a corporate hell-bent on making profit at all costs is surely an objective that would encourage many.

Either way, I doubt this activity will change fare-dodgers' behaviour. They're fare dodgers after all and the thrill of getting away with it, as opposed to simply trying to avoid payment, seems to me to be half the point.

Wii Create

Sorry for the pun, I couldn't help myself.

The Wii is a global success, despite its curious name. Nintendo realised that they couldn't and shouldn't try to take Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3 on head to head. Instead they have come up with a new way to interact with games - appealing to a softer breed of gamers. The success is commented on by Seth Godin here.

It's also a fine example of a product that has inspired users to create their own content. Not just the usual YouTube videos (this from Three Minds shows Wii being used in a cinema), but also Flickr groups, the really quite odd wiikitty website and the highly entertaining sites which show damage caused by wii-abuse - wiihaveaproblem and wiidamage (plus here's a T-shirt on a similar subject!).

An effect that I think will have come as a bit of a surprise is the beneficial effect on health. Several colleagues came back to work after Christmas complaining of stiff muscles from Wii gaming. This page describes how a guy monitored his loss of weight and body fat entirely due to Wii-ing. (Thanks to Three Minds for the link).

Create a remarkable product...

A Presentation Lesson

True to form, Steve Jobs delivers the iPhone (the bottom QuickTime link focusses on the launch) to the public in an examplary way. Whether or not you give a proverbial about the technology, watch this from a presentation style point of view. His visuals always support what he says, never the other way round. He constantly repeats and summarises so the key information comes across clearly. He's well rehearsed. He uses humour appropriately.

If you like this, get to Presentation Zen sharpish.

Latest Trendwatching

Here's the monthly briefing from Trendwatching.

Rendezvous Mash-up

I was chatting with a colleague earlier today about "Mapvertising" (see here for Universal McCann's paper). We got talking about the various mash-ups which incorporate map information with other data such as pictures from Flickr. I got searching...

"Rendezvous" is the legendary film of a Ferrari driving through Paris at stupid speeds early one morning in the 70s. You can see it at Google Video and You Tube. Well worth a look.

Some kind person has taken the time to map the journey the car takes using Google Maps. You can see it here. Take the time to read the instructions in the top left or you could be in for a confusing ride! This is what the internet is made for!

Lose "Consumer" From Your Language

This is an earnest plea to everyone who works in marketing to carefully consider their words. It’s a riff I picked up from the musings of Seth Godin, Doc “Cluetrain” Searls et al that I don’t think has received sufficient credence. Times have changed yet we are still using the marketing language of yesterday. The main culprit is that most turgidly robust of words, “consumer”. It’s refusing to die, but it should. It is entirely inappropriate in today’s marketing context.

Back in the early days of advertising, media choice was limited. The people of Britain had only one channel with adverts to sit in front of, blankly absorbing messages. And we lapped it up – we trusted ads and companies back then. They wouldn’t lie to us. So perhaps we deserved the term “consumer”. We were docile and passive. Like cattle chewing the cud of commercials. And “the consumer” is apparently still alive and well today.

A Consumer

Much is talked about media fragmentation, web 2.0 and generally an increasingly complex environment for marketing. In this new context, people do not buy in the way they used to. Cheap & fast internet access has set information free. People are becoming comfortable with, and highly adept at, identifying their ideal purchase for themselves. They research, they compare, they carefully select. If they like your product and brand enough they’ll even create their own ads and PR.

Does this sound like a passive, docile creature – a consumer? I suggest not. To me it is a far more predatory behaviour, far more sentient. People are actively hunting out the opinions of other like-minded souls and trusting this view more than the corporate message. We need to stop talking about “consumers”. The term is generic, mass-market and it does nothing to describe the purchaser of today, who is now an active participant in the media world.

But what is the alternative? Some people want to cling to “consumer” from what amounts to a brutal lack of imagination: “But what will we call people who are not customers?” The imagination-lacker has unwittingly answered the question adequately themselves – “people”. Or, if you must use jargon, then how about “prospects”, “suspects”, “potential customers”? My preference is for anything that reminds us that we are not marketing to a demographic or a database segment – we are always talking to human beings with brains just like ours.

I recently attended the IAB’s “Engage for Autos” conference. And very good it was too. The presentations were all delivered by web-savvy, smart people who know about media-fragmentation and how empowered the customer is and the necessity to engage individuals. And yet they all talked about the mass, generic “consumer”! It felt so wrong.

So please stop using the term “consumer”, unless of course you’re making a parody of what marketing used to be like in the bad old days.

Latest From Trendwatching - Transumers

Always a good read...

http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/transumers.htm

Debut Single from Grand Rose Band

Check out these rockers from my home town of Bath

New Phrase Required

I've been working on a new business pitch recently to extend our remit on an existing Client. We can obviously offer our Clients economies of scale from a financial point of view. But we can also offer the equivalent from a thinking point of view - the Client doesn't have to pay twice for the same thinking applied to different channels of customer communications. I'd like a good phrase to describe this. "Thought Consolidation" is my best so far. Any ideas?

Generation @

I was recently asked to write a "thought piece" for mobile phones and the youth market. I used this "Youth of Today" document from ChangeThis and a Business Week article "The MySpace Generation" as part of my inspiration.

The next generation does not see a difference between on and offline. For them digital technology is not a channel, but an intrinsic part of life. It’s how they organise themselves, interact with friends and express themselves. However it still remains a tool – it is a means to an end.

The universal driver is to feel belonging, to be able to identify with a scene, an attitude or group. The children of “Generation @” are Skaters, Riders, Townies, Technos, Goths and Geeks. Finding a sense of identity is paramount. And technology is the key to finding it. Marketers speak to the youth audience as a homogenous mass, yet they see themselves in clearly segmented groups that have strict attitudinal and behavioural demarcations.

Their attention is divided and reactive to the myriad incoming communications they receive via their handsets and computers, so they’re hyper-distractible. As a result they’ve become a generation highly adept at dodging messages, not listening long enough to hear and also filtering out what’s not important to what they’re doing. They’ve evolved a 6th sense for spotting fakes – obvious ploys to infiltrate their world for commercial purposes rarely work (Google will need to handle YouTube very delicately if it wishes to continue to see exponential growth).

The next stage of connection for this youth audience is predictable – as accessing the internet and digital content via mobile handsets becomes a more and more plausible option, “Generation @” will be conducting the vast majority of their inter-human connections via their handset. This will correspond to a significant revenue opportunity for whomever is providing the handsets & network services.

Retail trends away from ‘price’ to ‘authenticity’ are highly relevant to this audience – they want to buy into a genuine story, something they can identify with and believe in. When they shop they’re seeking an experience. They want to be able to try products, get some proper advice and be treated with respect – witness the success of Nike Town and the ever-burgeoning Apple Store retail experience.

In summary, there is huge potential with “Generation @” to be the provider of choice for the identity-giving technology they crave. Delivering an authentic experience is the key to this, playing on their terms – creating a virtual store in Second Life will get a conversation started with the right audience, but if it is not delivering something exceptional, then the conversation won’t go quite as you planned.

Redundant Copy Feedback

I recently saw a comment that some copy should be written to "make it sound like it was written by a copywriter". I assume that this meant that it should be written well - I can't imagine anyone wanting their copy written badly!

On deeper consideration, this comment is so utterly redundant. A copywriter, by definition, does not write like a copywriter. Their job is to write in the style of the brand they are representing. The writer themselves may well have their own style of writing that it quite different from the work they produce for their Clients.

Second Life Summary

Here's a few links that serve as a summary of Second Life, the digital world with seemingly endless possibilities.

An author replicates book for launch...link

US presidential candidate makes a speech...link

Replicating the Burning Man festival...link

U2 allegedly play a gig (there's dispute it was really them!)...link

And finally - BBH launches in second life!...link

Family Planning Advice

Godin on Cheaper

Seth Godin observes that taking the "cheap" route is the soft option - link. It's also very hard to stop doing "cheap" once you've started down that path.

Sliding to Death

Found this picture over at Presentation Zen. This exemplifies so many things about poor presentations. Check out that visual aid - text too small for the audience to read and way too complicated (the audience will be struggling to read rather than listening to the speaker). Check out the presenter on the right - text book crime of reading from the slide, alienating the audience. I can guarantee that this was one hell of a dull presentation.

Throttle - what a wonderful word!

Throttle. Marvellous. It sounds & feels satisfying to say. It conjoures up images of Spitfires and the early days of aviation for me. You know that someone knows about engines when they refer to a throttle rather than an accelerator or some other comparatively banal terminology - perhaps a racing driver, but definitely a Spitfire pilot and certainly my Dad. I also like the fact that more throttle means less restriction on the fuel supply, so technically less throttling being done! Presumably the issue the throttle was created for was to limit the speed of an engine rather than increase it. Here's a Wikipedia description for those wanting some technical detail.

Reverse Graffiti

This is hilarious - a chap creates graffiti by cleaning urban surfaces. The authorities are in a right mess! - link (from Boing Boing)

Simply Moronic No.2

It only gets worse with the linked banner at the oddschecker.com website. Words fail me. What happened to creating a debate in the customers' head? What happened to intrigue, to telling the joke, not shouting "I'm funny"? What happened to crediting your customers with a modicum of intelligence. I want to cry. "You're stupid if you don't check your bets with us." Oh really? Now kindly f*** off.

Simply Moronic

I spotted this on the London Underground. Please can someone tell me why this isn't the most moronic ad I've seen in a long time. What sort of unintelligent life-form produced this and thought it was good?

Latest Trendwatching - Status Skills

Here's the latest from Trendwatching.

Embryonic Chugging Initiative

Chugging. Charity Mugging. Face to face donor recruitment. Whatever you want to call it, I hate it. It's Urban Spam. However I realise that this is an entirely personal and subjective view. So I intend to develop a more objective viewpoint. I've created a blog to chart my progress at ihatechugging.blogspot.com. And also a Squidoo lens to act as a repository for chugging information at www.squidoo.com/chugging.

Simulation & Advertising

A thought provoking piece about how providing "simulations" can be a more powerful way to demonstrate your brand than any ad - link

This quote used in the post sums up why - “You can’t influence people. You can only put people in a position to influence themselves”. Simulations as described are much better at doing the latter - "People trust their senses. They don’t trust ads."

In many ways this harks back to an Jeremy Bulmore adage that I found (via the Staufenberger Repository) in this 1970s document - a comedian doesn't convince an audience of his comedic value by telling them that he's funny, he does it by telling a joke.

Brand Aura

On a recent holiday I went to visit the Bayeaux tapestry. The medieval relic that depicts William the Conqueror's accession to the English throne (William the Bastard before he won the battle!). It is the sort of thing that every English person know's about - it's practically imprinted into our genetic code, certainly a fundamental to junior history lessons. Simply seeing it is magic - there it is, right in front of you, the actual thing, nearly 1000 years old!

However, to someone who didn't know the history, it could be incredibly dull. It is after all a tapestry. The story that goes with it makes the difference, giving it that aura of fascination. It is a fundamental part of the story of England - William I is the first King you learn about - it's the beginning of the history of England.

There's also an issue of relevant here. The tapestry is relevant to me as I am English and have a vague interest in history. Someone not English given the same story and shown the cloth is unlikely to have the same reaction.

The parallels with brands do not need pointing out.

There's a related blog post here from Pink Air.

How To Be Unpopular With Airlines

A wry observation about reactions to the recent terror alerts in the UK - link

Zoomr Photo Journey

Zoomr (a photo site like Flickr) has added some functionality enabling links within pictures. Staufenberger has had a go - link (click on the photo in the blog post to link to Zoomr)

Save the 76-ball

(Via Boing Boing) Here's a customer driven campaign to save a piece of brand iconography - the "ball on a pole" outside 76 fuel forecourts. It seems like the brand masters want to make it a more bland and standard pillar. Makes you wonder why the people at 76 are bothering - removing a bit of a brand experience that people care about - link.

Spell With Zombies

This is pretty cool. That is, if you like spelling words with zombies it's cool. Link

Bad Powerpoint Can Kill

From Presentation Zen - an over reliance on poor slides contributed to some poor military plans - link

Making Art Accessible

I found out about this Tate London project via Three Minds. It's a way of making the art at the Tate more relevant to the viewer by allowing them to create their own galleries - link

2.0 Trends

Observations from the ever interesting Russell Davies on some of the main trends in the marketing world relating to webby stuff - link

The Marvels of Nature

The natural world never ceases to amaze me. This article talks about how parasites can change their host's behaviour to improve the parasites chances of replication. The implication is that human behaviour could be altered by some of these wee beasties without us knowing anything is wrong. This has relevance to viral ideas and "Ooze" (Objects of Sociability) - the ideas most likely to spread are the ones that change the beliefs / behaviour of the carrier to that they are more likely to spread.

Trendwatching Latest

Latest from Trend Watching on "Innovation Overload" - link