Normal 0 While the recession keeping a fierce grip on the nation, and with many people feeling fearful, or unable, to spend money on High Street goods this holiday season, this economic situation could bring opportunity to transform how we think about our role as consumers, and see some of us turn into creators.
Remember the punk rock DIY culture that emerged out of the 80s recession? Many people looked toward that time of economic hardship, as also being a time of great art with the likes of Vivienne Westwood showing how good fashion design could come from surprising places. What if people struggling in these economic hard times could harness that punk rock type of creative spirit and make something from what they have already, in the form of skills, clothes, film, books, music or just in day-to-day business life? This recession-led holiday season may be about the deconstruction of old consumer ways and the rebirth of a new creator class.
Coming up 28 November is an opportunity to find out how to tap into the power of creativity, and apply it to the consumer world, the workplace and life. The Live to Create workshops, a series of one-day sessions to help people unleash creativity, are hosted by Lucy Wills, who wears many professional hats as a successful vintage jewellery designer, performer, creativity consultant, teacher and climate activist. She’s teamed up with Erica Grigg, of Carbon Outreach, to teach others how to apply creativity, and help people flip from being consumers to creators.
Both women are fellows of the RSA and have hosted workshops at business conferences in the UK and USA. Both are also active in the climate change movement, with Wills performing as a mermaid at many rallies, and being a visual symbol of the activist events. The Live to Create workshops are geared toward professionals in all areas of business, who are seeking new approaches to applying creativity in the workplace and in personal life.
“We have to each become our own brand champions, and to decide for ourselves what we really need. Our current culture encourages us to define ourselves through what we eat, wear, watch and read. Even those in the creative industries suffer, fearful to step outside their areas of expertise or create for themselves as well as for their paying clients,” said Wills, who has worked in corporate environments as well as being a creative entrepreneur. “There are so many barriers in the way - both practical and social, however through our combined experiences and those from whom we have learnt we believe we have a process that enables you to break through - in just one day.”
Professionals who find themselves in a pressure-filled work environment will be given tools in these workshops to help them apply more creativity and problem solving to everyday issues. Exploring how to launch creative projects, without making the mistake of over-spending on budget, will also be addressed.
“We believe that creativity is the key to unlocking a truer sense of self and to bring deeper meaning and richness into all aspects of our lives,” said Wills.
Live to Create is a series of seven sessions, being held now, and into 2010, and has room for 14 participants. Book your space here.
My consultancy Hai Media Group is supporting the Live to Create workshop series, because we feel passionately that people need help to thrive creatively in the business world and in their personal lives.
Creating more, consuming less,
-Lisa
*Photo of Lucy Wills by photographer Retts Wood.
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This year’s She Says Golden Stiletto Awards (the second year for the awards honouring women in digital advertising) brought together top talent in London's digital advertising industry to celebrate female achievements in creativity, and showed that there is growing appeal for the organization, and its mission to showcase female talent in the digital sector.
She Says Golden Stiletto Awards is the only award ceremony of its kind that is for women, and judged by women working in the advertising industry, with judges for this year’s nearly 30 entries including:
Johannah Bailey, Programme Director Global Communications - Unilever
Liz Sivell, Creative Director at R/GA
Ida GronBlom, Senior Creative - Wieden + Kennedy
Toni Smith, Managing Director – The Viral Factory
Elspeth Lynn, Executive Creative Director – Profero
Charlotte Mcelany, Senior Writer – Creative Review
At the awards ceremony, held October 29 at the Getty Gallery who are sponsors of the awards, finalists showed a selection of digital advertising projects that demonstrated how the online medium can offer multiple layers of engagement for all types of demographic audiences. Women-led digital projects included an augmented reality campaign for BMW, an online/offline campaign that got 100 participants dancing for 24 hours in a “music phone dance-off” to promote the Samsung Beat DJ music phone, and a charity campaign for British Red Cross to change your online status, that had zero budget and seven days to plan.
The awards event itself attracted women from all aspects of the digital industry, including animator Sarra Hornby who spends hours working with paper and cotton thread to create animated shorts for commercial use. Although her work was not in the finals, she said that the She Says gathering offered her a powerful networking community to increase her professional career.
It seems cities beyond London are hungry for the same level of woman-to-woman professional interaction, as branches of She Says are now springing up in New York, San Francisco, LA, Vienna Paris, Sydney and Brighton, and more than 1,500 women are members. SheSays was launched in March 2007 by two female Creative Directors (Laura Jordan Bambach from Glue and Alessandra Lariu from Agency Republic at the time) who noticed that there weren't many women in top positions in digital agencies. She Says offers women in the creative and digital industries free networking and mentoring opportunities at monthly events held across the world with the aim getting more women into the industry and to the top of it.
This year’s Golden Stiletto Award winners include:
First place: Modern Foreign Languages
Second place: BMW Z4 airbrush
Third place: The Last Call
Commended: Look beyond the label
See photos from the award ceremony here.
Glad to see women winning,
We all know that the day-in day-out work-a-day world of being in a creative agency is not always filled with euphoric moments of creative epiphany, and that's why nights and weekends should be for seeking out inspiration, sometimes in the form of wild, decadent good old-fashioned 90s-style night clubbing.
If you are pressured to consistently develop creative campaigns, be it digital or traditional, in advertising, marketing, public relations or social media, it is the world around you that is going to give you that jolt of insight for a client. For this I prescribe clubbing. Iggy Pop's song Nightclubbing should be ringing in your head now. Can you hear his lyrics about exploring urban delights until the wee morning hours?
However, your inspiration may come not from dull mega West End night spots, but from the pits of seedy grime in far flung postal codes. I'm thinking about this now, because I went out over the weekend for Halloween, but was a little surprised at the lack of outrageous costumes I found across London, clearly the clubbing generation has changed a lot from my 90s heydays. In fact, most people didn't bother to dress up at all.
I'm told that is because Halloween isn't really big in the UK, and that part (I'm a New Yorker living in London) is one of my cultural learnings here. So, being one of a handful of people who dressed to the nines for Halloween, and felt like more of a spectacle than I expected, I'm encouraging all the young creative people I know at agencies this week to go out clubbing, 90s-style and bring back some inspiration that might apply to a client campaign.
I'm showing my age, as I remember going out clubbing and finding the legendary "club kids" showing off like peacocks like Richie Rich, RuPaul and Amanda Lepore (who some of my friends affectionately nicknamed "Amanda Le Whore".) Back in the 90s club scene, nearly everyone would be out showcasing creativity with outfits, dancing and sometimes outrageous antics. My day job at the time was with a big agency, and unfortunately, a lot of the executives made fun of me for clubbing, as I'd get outted because it was awfully hard to get all the glitter off by Monday morning. Yet, many of those same executives dragged me into numerous brainstorming sessions, when they wanted some creative insight.
Now, mentoring junior creatives, I'm encouraging them to seek out the most creative night club scene they can find and come come back and report in Monday AM meetings. How can you be creative if you aren't living creatively?
Still creativly clubbing now and then,
*Photo of Richie Rich courtesy of Newyorksocialdiary.com
Sing along with Iggy Pop:
Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We're what's happening Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We're an ice machine We see people brand new people They're something to see When we're nightclubbing Bright-white clubbing Oh isn't it wild? Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We're walking through town Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We walk like a ghost We learn dances brand new dances Like the nuclear bomb When we're nightclubbing Bright white clubbing Oh isn't it wild...
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Today 8,000+ bloggers from 144 countries, reaching 11 million viewers, are joining together to chime in with posts about one single important global issue of climate change. Did you post yet? Visit the Blog Action Day website to find out more about this event.
I take climate change personally.
I live here on earth, along with you and millions of others, and the damage our planet is facing because of manmade, careless actions infuriates me and makes me sad. Nature has given me some of the most memorable moments in my life. Today in London we have a beautiful day and I am enjoying seeing the sunlight light up the green leaves on the plants I have on my balcony. I'm enjoying looking at the green trees I can see scattered across parks in my neighborhood, and I'm looking forward to pulling away from the computer soon and going outside to enjoy this day before it slips away.
Will these simple pleasures I have from nature be no more in the face of climate change?
What personal moments spent with nature will only be left to memory, if every one of us does not do something right now to prevent climate change from happening?
Will the world leaders gathering at Copenhagen in December for the United Nations Climate Change Conference think enough about their own special personal memories of enjoying the natural environment, to make a true difference in how we tackle climate change issues?
Climate change is personal for me, and for you.
I've shared three very personal memories about experiences I've had in the natural environment on my blog for Blog Action Day 2009 and hope to read other blogs that tell stories about why they care about climate change.
Please post on your blog about your thoughts about climate change, and let's see if collective blogging can make a difference on this issue.
Taking climate change personally,
Coming soon from Free Scott, the new entertainment venture of Ridley Scott and his brother Tony, is a trippy new sci-fi entertainment project called Purefold that plans to let brand’s sponsor the content, and let the audience drive the plot line using social networking platforms.
Produced by Ag8, the concept will see participating brands “…take an alternative route to brand integration than traditional product placement and embrace invention within a narrative framework.” The project explores transmedia entertainment and will launch off of cross-platform channels. What? Purefold just might represent pure gold for brands looking to reach audiences in an extremely interactive format, but as of now, it has a lot of people baffled as to how it will work, what it will be, and if branded content is a good idea or not.
Discussions about Purefold on Friend Feed, the main resource planned to “harvest” story ideas, are already brewing about the question of what it means to be human, the driving theme behind the story that will be loosely based on Blade Runner. Ag8 is getting people to explore the idea of what “transhumanism” is in the Purefold discussion group on Friend Feed, but the project is often met with confusion, with participants trying to understand what is happening, and what role they will play. For insight as to what people think of Purefold, I’ve been asking around.
A few entertainment insiders were willing to go on the record to share what they think of the project and here is what they had to say: Jenifer Hanen, a blogger from Los Angeles, was wary of the idea of brand’s sponsoring content based on projects she has seen fail, but likes the DIY media side of the project and the idea to have the plot line driven by the audience. Listen to a conversation I had with Jen about Purefold here.
Film Production Designer Tema L. Staig, who is based in Los Angeles, first reacted to the idea of Purefold saying “The project sounds almost like virtual mad libs for content and advertising.” She also had this to say: "Universally, people have always needed to create visual and/or verbal stories and have a cathartic experience through those stories, either through the telling or the viewing. This is what makes us human. This is what connects us across the globe. Historically, unrelated cultures share similar myths and stories, suggesting that we all have a desire to explain the natural, unnatural, and supernatural. It’s our most primal of needs.
It will be interesting to see how Ag8 takes story telling to humanity’s next level. The idea of us, the greater audience being involved directly in the story is compelling in that it creates (in theory) even more empathy for the characters – those characters are a part of us. It’s our baby, even if just a little bit. How will it effect society? Will it bring us together around a global campfire? What new brainstorms might it spark? The possibilities are endless."
Here in London, I asked Mervyn Lyn, who is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for Sony Music and often gets involved with branded content for the entertainment company, what he thinks of Purefold. At first reaction, he said it reminds him of MTV’s Dubplate Drama that turned to the audience to drive the story line, a show he enjoyed because it made the viewers feel part of the show. As for letting brand’s sponsor the content, he was cautionary about the idea because so often people are suspicious when a company attempts to sell them something through a new medium. “It depends how it is done and if it is trying to lean on branded content then they will have to strike a balance between the brand and the content so that each side doesn’t feel they are losing out,” he said.
They need to be very careful in making it driven by advertising because people see this as being railroaded and people will be cynically asking ‘what are they trying to sell me?’” The approach Purefold is using will be ground breaking in entertainment, according to producers, and it will be distributed according to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license, giving both audiences, brands and platforms equal use rights through their participation.
According to Ag8’s Tom Himpe, Purefold will be broadcast across a variety of media platforms and spread virally across the Internet. “Most brands are aware of the fact that social media has changed the dynamics of the conversation, and they can't just spell out their message in the same way as with one-way advertising methods,” he said. “We are giving brands the opportunity to create stories over an extended period of time, in collaboration with their audiences and relying on top industry talent in both writing and directing. That's quite a unique package, especially in view of the fact that they can use the audiovisual assets freely across all their platforms and channels, from retail to mobile, from cinema to television.”
For now Ag8 is not revealing who the brand sponsors will be, but based on Friend Feed discussions the writers are already compiling what the story line will be, all set in the near future. The question many have is how brands will fit into the discussion, and for that, Himpe had this to say:
“There are two ways in which we are "guiding" the conversation. First of all, the brand is setting up the framework of the conversation, by defining one or multiple brand propositions they want to explore and picking a story line through which they want to explore that proposition. This sets up the framework within which we harvest online conversations.
So we're not just harvesting random conversations across the entire web, we set out specific parameters with the participating brands. Secondly, while we're listening to what the audience wants to see within the episodes, the ultimate creative control still resides with our editorial team and the Free Scott Directors, who are making creative sense of the audience's input. So there is another level of control there. However, it's very important for brands to understand that Purefold is about creating top quality entertainment, and not about extended the length of their tv commercials.
There's a different balance here, and sure, that's something they might have to get used to.”
Still confused, but ready to watch Purefold unfold,
Off the beaten fashion path, between showrooms in central London, and at Somerset House, visitors of London Fashion Week have been getting treated to tea, cakes and intimate peeks at six select new designer's lines, inside the city's oasis that is the boutique hotel 40 Winks.
The showroom hosted by David Carter, an interior designer who opened the 40 Winks hotel earlier this year, earning the description from German Vogue as being "the world's smallest most beautiful hotel" provided the venue as an alternative showroom featuring new designers. On view at 40 Winks, included: Alexandra Kaegler, who mixes unusual materials to craft pieces with dramatic lines. Most impressive was her dress made of laser-cut leather pieces, that had both awe-inspiring wow-factor, because of the garment's construction from hundreds of small cut leather pieces, and a distinct earthy scent.
Lisa Gibson A new graduate, her "Abstract Nature" designs included hand-crafted fabric evoking the romance of roses in pattern and design for her collection.
Elegant gowns from Ruti Danan's line are ready to be worn on the Oscar's red carpet by a lucky starlet. Her ruffled Cami Shawl's turn any outfit in your wardrobe into a luxurious, glamourous experience.
Katherine Wardropper sculpts silk fabric into impressive necklaces, brooches and other accessories. The technique of skillfully rolling fabric and attaching it into a complex design is her own creation and makes for a beautiful and original complement to adorn the body, and invite curious conversation.
Timothy Foxx designer Rosalie Eustace has captured a whimsical spirit of the English countryside by mixing fun prints with traditional cuts of tweed to create short shorts, blazers and skirts. This gives the classic tweed a modern, festival-like feel that Kate Moss would be thrilled to wear at Glastonbury.
Atelier Annick's handbags are inspired by her African ancestry, and one of her very rock 'n roll zebra print and red patent leather bag is already a hit with celebrity X-Factor judge Cheryl Cole, who can be seen carrying the bag. Enjoyed taking a quick peek at the fashionable 40 Winks showroom, -Lisa
Today it is official that blogging empire Shiny Media has closed shop, leaving media lovers sad to see the death of this technology, fashion and lifestyle content network that attracted some of the highest traffic for a UK-centric website of more than three million unique visitors monthly.
News of Shiny Media's demise first broke on The Blog Herald, and more details are found on TechCrunch, about this $4.5 million Brightstation investment gone bust. Not alone in the rise and fall of media brands, Condé Nast's Men.Style.Com has folded stateside today as well.
Some say it is the big bite of recession for these online media outlets, others are pointing toward bad strategy for generating revenue for content. For in-depth insight to why this UK content publishing business model may have gone wrong, read a TechCrunchUK post by one of the Shiny Media's former co-founder's Ashley Norris.
RIP Shiny Media,
This week's NESTA sponsored Reboot Britain conference brought together a mix of government, business, banks, technology, media people from the UK, and visitors from the USA that saw left leaning Labour/Liberal Democrat political views engage and collaborate with conservative Tory representatives. The crowd's reaction saw the many of those who are normally distrustful of government, financial institutions and conservative politics try to mingle more with what they historically view as the "other side" of the spectrum.
Opening remarks from conservative Jeremy Hunt MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, had him lovingly embrace the Internet, new technology and the governments increasing integration of it into public services. He praised the transformative nature of new technology's impact in delivering high quality factual content to the world from ordinary citizens, with Wikipedia, and talked about a new effort to publish and provide archives of government documents online for access to all. Hunt said that politics has been stuck in a rut toward progress, with its stance to first fight online, then ignore it, and only now begin to embrace it. People have flipped politics on its head by rushing online to express views and grassroots organizse around issues in powerful ways that have not beeen witnessed before, making for the emergence of a new movement composed of "collaborative individualism."
"Huge change is possible with the Internet and the Internet also makes possible some very unpleasant things," he said. "The Internet is a powerful way to connect voters and as a politician I have to engage more intelligently with my constituents."
Hunt's speech received mixed reaction and a bix of cheeky tweet banter from a crowd of professionals who live on the bleeding edge of the technological world, think liberally and radically, and often wonder why the conservatives, and the government, with its recent release of the Digital Britain report, have taken so long to embrace new technology that the left and leaders like Al Gore have been pushing the agenda toward for years. Now, it seems, the people have collectively forced politics to adapt or be left behind.
Visiting Reboot Britain was a digital celebrity group of Americans called the Travelling Geeks, who mingled with the guests and presented panel sessions throughout the day, including Craig Newmark, the nerd who many people feel changed the world with Craigslist.org.
"The Internet makes public service people feel they can come out of the darkness, and feel liberated and my hidden agenda is helping people in government affect change, and talk, and accelerate collaboration across the Atlantic," he said. On the good side, most people want to be a positive influence, and on the evil side, noisy, idiotic spammers and trolls with extremist views pollute the channels of communication and need moderation to combat this ugly side.
To combat the ugly side of the Internet, people need a friendly "nudge" to do good, and regulations toward social media use among public service employees needs to be relaxed so that they can feel safe freely expressing views and using the tools to improve things, citing the example of Newmark's favourite project FixMyStreet.
I caught up with Newmark after his talk, and you can listen to his commentary here on this Audioboo.
Pock marking the day was an insulting and demeaning panel presentation asking "Is the Web Female?" that attracted a majority of female attendants, only to sucker-punch them with horrible commentary from two of the American panelists who behaved like the scary, exclusionary popular girls in a Beverly Hills 90210 high school class. While lifestreamer Megan Asha and technology journalist Sarah Lacy may be respected digital influencers in US circles they did themselves, nor the women in the audience, any favours by describing how women behave online as being "catty, gossipy" and wanting to shop a lot. The comments provoked anger among the audience:
"Disappointed is the web female session seemingly stymied by pointless focus on imaginary gender characteristics. A waste." tweeted @josiefraser
"A few minutes of listening to 'is the web female' debate and you lose the will to live." tweeted @hollandshurst.
"Finally giving up on 'Is the Web Female', which is relying on a narrow, depressing & slightly weird definition of "female" tweeted @justinpickard
Panelist Joanne Jacobs balanced out the nasty catty female debate by smashing stereotype demographics and openly confessing that she often gender-switches online to allow herself more freedom with masculine-style expression. MT Rainey brought home the concept that the web is neither male or female but simply a place where humanity gathers.
The day's closing address saw Howard Reingold outline ways to improve digital inclusion with digital literacy, and more activism.
"Boring blogs and Twitter accounts show that participating just isn't good enough, being an active citizen is a start but from passive consumption you have to move toward participation," he said. Reingold called for the end of crap content, miss-information, spam, porn spam and helping more people develop their own "crap detectors."
Master of ceremonies for the day was Policy Unplugged's Steve Moore who remarked at closing that he was thrilled to watch #rebootbritain trending above the dominant topic King of Pop Michael Jackson's death on Twitter.
Feeling gossipy, catty and like shopping so guess I should get online and surf the Web today,
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Boring old telly has been getting a lot more fun lately, if you are using Twitter. The micro-blogging service is increasingly becoming the back channel of broadcast, where people turn to exclaim delight or disgust about what they are watching. Tuned into Channel 4's My Monkey Baby, and wondering what others are thinking about the parade of monkey loving characters? Popping onto Twitter and searching for the programme title reveals a trail of hilarious tweets, and you can add in, that is, if you actually want to confess that you are watching the show.
A television programme can come alive when you chime in with your own views, and see the intelligent, dumb, off-colour or utterly bizarre commentary of others, adding a whole new layer of entertainment experience. In America, broadcasters are fully embracing the interactive power of Twitter, with even local news stations inviting people to tweet in with updates about the weather conditions, or share views on issues. Political elections were the first and most noticeable examples of how the views of many can be shared using Twitter, as seen when Hack The Debate aired on Current TV in the lead up to the presidential elections.
For broadcasters, the service can be an instant way to guage if programming is having any impact on viewers, or, for the more clever, use the service to ignite interaction with audiences. When a show starts "trending" on Twitter, broadcast executives can know they have a hit, as has happened with Eurovision, ITV's Britain's Got Talent and Channel 4's Surgery Live.
Twitter got noisy surrounding Eurovision, as it sparked hundreds of amusing tweets about the song contest, and gave rise to an alternative tweeting voice when journalist Ewan Spence used Twitter to cover the event from the show's frontline in Moscow, sending tweets, blogging and podcasting from the event. Followers of @ewanspence got treated to extra facts, insights and a few trumpeted early previews of what was to come, as entrants paraded on stage in gladiator costumes, thigh high patent leather boots or full green body paint.
"I decided to offer pithy, humourous, pre-emptive insight of what we were all seeing, and joined 1,000 other press people from around Europe to cover Eurovision," he said.
With viewing figures of 10 million in the UK, and 112 million across Europe for Eurovision this year, Spence thought that 2009 would be the year that millions of fans would tweet about the song contest, based on the growing number of entertainment trending topics he noticed, and recognizing that this year Twitter's popularity has expanded, with estimates of 33 million monthly visits. He out-tweeted much of the official BBC correspondents by speed of updates and depth of information, winning rave reviews from followers. Several said they preferred the commentary of the renegade Eurovision tweet host to the banter of Graham Norton's debut year as Eurovision host.
"The public love it, but mainstream coverage does not match up to the public viewpoint so the Internet's communities are augmenting what they see using Twitter," he said. Listen to an Audioboo interview with Ewan Spence here.
Ewan Spence
While Spence may still be a rare visionary in how he used Twitter as a journalist, the big broadcasters are certainly wading into the water with experiments. Channel 4's Surgery Live invited people to send in questions using Twitter, some of which the show's host Krishnan Guru-Murthy then posed to both the doctors, and even the patient, on live television. Following along with the programme's hashtag of #slive, a rather surreal conversation developed with audience members, with one even asking if the patient's brain tumour was edible. Brave, risky, groundbreaking, Channel 4 proved that entertainment can also be educational, and the show did manage to top Twitter's most watched trending topics.
"What this new generation of social media brings is a networked conversation which is global, searchable, tagable and open. In other words, unlike emails, text messages or phones, you can join in a discussion among numerous people from right across the Uk and beyond -- fellow viewers, experts, medical students, enthusiasts, all manner of interested parties -- live and simultaneously," said Adam Gee, Channel 4's Cross-platform Commissioning Editor for Factual.
Channel 4 has just started a new programme incorporating Twitter, beginning to share updates from documentary film maker Ed Wardel, who is putting his wilderness survival skills to test in the Yukon, for the series Alone In The Wild. The programme airs in July, but Wardle has already started tweeting about his experience.
Using Twitter, and other social media websites, to add interactivity to television watching might just be transforming how we interact with the medium, and Twitter's founders are keeping an eye toward possibilities, with news that a Twitter television show may be in works for the future.
"Twitter's open approach might have the power to transform television -- the dominant communications receiver worldwide. We're very excited to see where these experiments take us," posted Twitter founder Biz Stone on his blog.
In the not to distant future, a new transmedia entertainment venture called Purefold from Ag8, a partnership production with Blade Runner director Ridley Scott and Tony Scott's RSA Films, will see an even more multi-layered approach to integrating social media with viewing experience. Purefold will cull storyline ideas from comments people share on Friend Feed, and other social networking websites. The programme is not planned to air on any maninstream channel, as episodes will be spread across the Internet's video sharing platforms, and brands will be invited to collaborate in the content creation to fund the programming.
Confused? You are not alone. Best stay tuned, and have some fun participating in the 2.0 tool of Twitter, and think of it as training, to get ready to adpot for the entertainment world flashing forward to even more futuristic technologies.
Watching television and tweeting at the same time,
With the release of the government's Digital Britain report this week, it comes at a timely juncture in the industry of public relations, where new technology tools are increasingly being used for communications campaigns, far more than in past years. While the main highlights of the report address infrastructure needs, improving digital access for all and controversial funding decisions for media resources such as the BBC and Channel 4, the ensuing discussions of the report have put digital on the intellectual radar for all, including those crafting PR strategy in what is more and more a fractured, niche-driven digital media landscape.
Previously, and still today, traditional PR professionals, and clients, have been reluctant to include digital media in their outreach strategy, among some excuses being:
Now, partly by force as a result of high profile cases such as Amazon experienced with bloggers and Twitter, or Domino's experienced with employees posting inappropriate YouTube videos, partly because of recessionary budget restraints on PR budgets, and partly because it seems that the tipping point of mainstream involvement in social networking has been reached (Oprah Winfrey is on Twitter!), it seems digital has snowballed into a force that must be reckoned with -- like it or not.
The government's Digital Britain report addresses many issues, and its recommendations are controversially being debated among many industries, but one of the key things it does is further force digital into the forefront of public attention and gives it a new level of credibility among businesses who may have previously scoffed at the online world.
For many years now I've been an advocate of using digital media for communications outreach and have advised many clients in how to incorporate new technology tools into campaigns, often being met with a mix of disbelief as to if it would be a worthwhile investment, and general befuddled ness as to what I've been talking about. It seems the whole wide world is now turning new attention to using digital media, and this, I think, is exciting and positive both for people and bussinesses.
While many of us who can be classified as early adopters of the digital age are already well established or have even moved onto the next new thing with tools like Audioboo for the iPhone, FriendFeed, Su.PR and the coming soon Google Wave, we've all got to remember that there are millions of newbies from all walks of business and humanity that are just testing out the tools of the online world, with a bit of intimidation and fear.
It is is up to us, who are deeply online, to welcome, to teach and to help newocmers navigate this territory. It may be your family members, your co-workers or even your boss, who have basic questions, and if the government is going to see any success from its Digital Britain report, it is up to everyone who is already active online to be friendly mentors and teachers in helping the rest of the world catch-up with digital life. Yesterday, after reading over the report, it seemed to be a 200+ page document stating a lot of the obvious. However, these last few weeks, I've got more and more people both professionally and personally asking me questions about the basics of how to use Twitter, how to write a blog, how to manage the weird professional/personal world of Facebook, and what might seem obvious to some, just isn't to most.
Recently I've also joined the ranks of being a trainer with Pinnacle PR, a company providing all levels of communications training. My role is instructing a course in PR 2.0, providing a comprehensive look at the many multimedia digital media tools available online, and giving real-life workshops in how to construct campaigns with the tools. With the release of Digital Britain this week, I'm seeing more of the increasing importance digital is playing for business, and, based on training and conversations with people, understanding more that it is still, in fact "new" media for most people.
If you are in PR, and would like to increase your skills of PR 2.0, or other offerings from Pinnacle PR (including traditional courses of media training, media relations, crisis communications, strategic campaign planning and more) sign up for a course, and get a 10% discount up until the end of July. Pinnacle PR has offices in London, Brussels, Dubai and a newly opened training centre in Bahrain, where experienced instructors both from the media and public relations sectors provide junior up through senior level executive courses and instruction.
Training for the digital future,
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I'm meeting up shortly with Paul Clarke (@paul_clarke) who is ferrying Londoners about the city for free rides on his motorcycle as they try to deal with the RMT union tube strike.
His #tweetbike has been taking requests for riders across the city, as they tweet him requests for rides. Follow along via Twitter to see tube strike updates, by watching the hashtag #tubestike, as this social media experiment unfolds.
I plan to tweet and record an Audioboo interview with Paul Clarke about his experiences.
I'm not sure how I'll get back from today's meeting in East London, but expect an adventure.
I've also blogged here about the strike today.
Good luck wherever you are today in getting there and getting home,
In update to this experience of riding the #tweetbike offered by Paul Clarke during the tube strike, we got the attention of the BBC that day, and for a full report, please see this blog post:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/talking_point/8093595.stm
You can also hear about my experience of riding on the back of the motorcycle across London here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/8094149.stm
This week the mobile browser Skyfire released it's long awaited 1.0 version, for use with smartphones, taking the company out of a hugely successful beta period that has seen 1 million people downoad the free service.
Skyfire is free to download at: www.get.skyfire.com
The service is currently available in the UK, USA and Canada, and runs on Windows Mobile (smartphones and PPC) and Nokia N and E Series (Symbian S60, 3rd Edition) phones. With its release yesterday, thousands of people lit up on fire with excitement for Skyfire and have been reporting their experiences on Twitter, with many tweeting that the service is the iPhone for other handsets. Skyfire is feeding the strong popularity and desire people have to get connected to the internet by their mobile phones, for instant access to social networking sites, viewing videos and reading their RSS feeds, among other features. Skyfire describes its service as bringing the full web experience to handsets, and it is the only mobile browser that supports Flash, Silverlight and Ajax, technologies that normally crash when attempting to access the internet from a handset.
Skyfire's 1.0 release means millions more people will be able to catch up on Facebook, Twitter and watch YouTube, BBC iPlayer from their mobile, and this rich-media content experience bodes well for brands who are increasingly using the mobile internet for advertising and marketing. The excitement for this new milestone in technology captured the attention of mainstream media and bloggers, who have given the service rave reviews. Here's what some have said:
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“You see, Skyfire isn't a 'proper' browser, more of a content viewer, with all the serious processing handled by the company's proxy servers, the pages then being 'rendered' onto your phone. Just like the Opera browser in fact, but with more whistles, bells and streaming video.” – T3’s David Walker
“The release brings with it a host of improvements, such as improved navigation, zooming and interaction and a faster launch, lower power consumption, and new search functionality. Also, while the new version of the browser starts up, you can begin typing URLs or search queries into the box at the top, saving time. The company is operating a closed alpha for the BlackBerry platform, so that'll likely be next for release.” –Pocket-lint.com’s Duncan Geere
“Their browser is fast and responsive, and Skyfire’s goal is to give a faithful representation of web pages that is equivalent to the desktop browsing experience. One important focus for Skyfire is in the area of video rendering… Skyfire’s approach is to introduce their own video-crunching servers between, say, YouTube and your Nokia N95. These servers take full Flash (Flash 10) and then video transcode the signal in real-time, giving a lower frame rate (8 frames per second), and a smaller screen rendering for mobile. The result is that the Skyfire browser can render an original YouTube page or Vimeo page, or even blogs with embedded video, so that you have access to the entire video catalogue, live on line.” –Martyn Davies, The Really Mobile Project
Watch The Phones Show hosted by AllAboutSymbian.com's Steve Litchfield, for an interview with Skyfire’s VP of Business Development Raj Singh, who offers extra insight to the browser’s features and hints of what’s to come.
CNET was among the first outlets to announce the news yesterday, and just prior to Skyfire’s 1.0 launch, The New York Times named the browser as “App of the Week”.
My consultancy the Hai Media Group handled the UK/EU media outreach for Skyfire, teaming up with our fantastic US media partners VSC Consulting to orchestrate this highly successful PR 2.0 outreach programme.
Still finding more and more coverage results for Skyfire,
More and more popular among business gatherings is effort by organizers to create a new approach to the traditional format of bringing an industry together. Instead of trade show display booths filling a venue, and a roster of lectures from industry leaders being the standard highlights, the new business generation is seeking out events that offer more interaction, collaboration and fun.
Last week in London at The Hub in Kings Cross, social entrepreneurs attended Shine 09, billed as an "unconference" that offered up one-to-one mentoring, creative brainstorming, a social collaboration game, and a party where the British Urban Collective performed. Over the unconference's two day run, participants joined in on workshops that aimed to cultivate new ideas, and help steer these concepts to execution. *Note, definitely better to refer to everyone as a participant than just a passive attendant, as everyone got invovled!
“The difference here is that last year’s event was a very urban-guerrilla, anarchist feel to it and this year it is business, with a focused switch from pre- to post- recession and a real display of determination of people who want to make real world change happen,” said Cliff Prior, Chief Executive of UnLtd.
Shine joins a number of creative conferences coming up, both in the UK and USA, that are styled after predecessor's BarCamp , Foo Camp, and SXSW, all which take inspiration from the unconference concept. While there is still a market for, and a majority expectation, for the traditional business conference, which is a billion-pound industry, new thinkers are mixing things up and attracting a diverse combination of brand-name sponsors, high-profile participants, and entrepreneurial micro-businesses that seem to all benefit from exchanging energy and ideas with each other. “Our aim with Shine is to never have talented people sit in a room and just clap, we need to give interaction, space and structure to fill out the event with ideas and see inspiration turn to perspiration,” Prior said.
Upcoming untraditional conferences include: bTWEEN (11-12 June 2009, Liverpool), an interactive digital media forum. 2gether09, a London summer conference run in festival style, that aims to explore and celebrate how technology can be used to promote social progress. Over The Air, a September London mobile development gathering spaced over two days of fun, learning, hacking and socializing with participants camping over night.
Fees for the events are affordable and range from £30-£100, often free for students.
I've also written about Shine09 on DigitalJournal.com, please see my post here.
Shine on,
PS: Have you attended a non-traditional conference recently, what did you think? Are you going to a creative conference? Which one? Comments about creative conferencing welcome.
The deadline is fast approaching for UK mobile developers to get in entries for the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition that will see a talented idea get €150,000 to produce a new mobile site or service.
This is the first time the compeition has run for the UK, and developers have until Thursday, 14th May 2009 FRIDAY, 22 MAY 2009.
It is an opportunity to show the mobile technology industry that Britain's got mobile developer talent, and for last year's winners, it was a financial and professional success.
"As a judge for this year's Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition, I'm very excited at the prospect of seeing what Britain's talented mobile internet developers have to offer," said Helen Keegan, a specialist in mobile marketing, advertising and media, who heads Beep Marketing and pens the blog Technokitten. "It's a great opportunity for developers and folks with good ideas for mobile internet applications to win the cash to deliver and develop those ideas further. The entry criteria are straightforward and as long as you're over 18, resident in the UK or Netherlands and are in a start-up or are planning to form a start-up with your idea then you pretty much qualify to enter."
Winners last year included:
-Nulaz, a location-based social networking service that let's people see where their friends are, share locations and view local information.
-Tipspot an events guide
-Map the Gap, an idea-sharing application for mobile phones.
More information in the press release here.
Mobile industry bloggers are getting the word out about the competition, visit:
AllAboutSymbian.com
AlexKinch.com
MobileMarketingMagazine.co.uk
Vodafone Mobile Clicks is a close cooperation between Mobile Monday Amsterdam, Mobile Monday London, Vodafone NL, Vodafone UK, PICNIC and Trend8.
Glad to see some funding going toward mobile innovation,
Nevermind the depressive recession, and more news that friends and families are losing jobs and homes, there is still affordable fun out there, especially in the city of London this weekend, as joy comes to a boat on the Thames River for the debut of *****Tropical City***** this Saturday evening.
Bright neon lights, a festive crowd adorned in day-glo colours that are sure to flip your switch from winter-blues blah to spring and summer super happy. The musical line-up will inspire the most devoted wallflower to venture out on the dancefloor and get down. There will even be a Krumping dance crew, Funk Physics, popping battles, and teaching a few tricks. This party is a celebration of a mix and mash of urban cultures from warm and cold climates. It is hip-hop and reggae meet electro, for what looks like Miami Vice, and the original UK combination of it all is going to see this boat quaking and shaking into the wee morning hours.
Organized by Fake Ornate, the producers of other creative London parties The Nativity Hoedown, The Human Zoo and Cosmic Disco, this new creation is a kick-off for the group's summer festival tour season. Next stop, Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party and Bloom.
"Tropical City is a ghetto-fabulous themed party, run by Fake Ornate who are inspired by the underground scene, and comitted to bringing the world cutting edge entertainment," said Kate Risker, aka the fabulous Miss Risk. "Think Santogold to grime to Krump battles. Let's get tropical!"
Headlining the evening, and the group that inspired the tropical theme is De Tropix who will get the boat swaying with electro reggae step sounds and deep bass beats that will quiver up and down your spine. Also featuring:
Supreme grime from Conrad The Scoundral,
A.J. Holmes the king of the electric high-life, The Heatwave - skankin dancehall and tropical tunage from DJ Gabriel Heatwave,
and sweet female vocals from MC Cherry B.
Want to come to the Tropical City?
RSVP through the Tropical City Facebook Group Saturday, May 9, 2009, 8pm-1.30am, £7. Dress Code: Ghetto Fabulous/Tropical/neon. Location: Tamesis Dock (on the Thames) SE1 7TP. Street: Albert Embankment, London, United Kingdom.
More information here.
I'll be on the boat,
Lisa Devaney
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Member since: 14 Jun 2008
Last login: 16 Nov 2009
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