Live moves pretty fast

Life is for sharing...

2009-10-01T21:51:00Z

T-Mobiles new advertising asks 'ordinary youngsters' what they’d do with ‘Unlimited Free Texts” for the rest of their lives, under the inspirational theme of ‘life is for sharing’.

The ‘real life’ not-that-glossy’ look, those ‘everyday young people’ and the crop that only just captures the camera lense and boom mic proves that, hey man, it’s just happening out there, like, totally, on the streets.

I’d like to thank T-Mobile for treating us like intelligent human beings with this honest approach, this genuine opportunity for young people to express themselves and recognise one of the UK’s most significant mobile operators for lending themselves to communicating young peoples dreams, ambitions and aspirations so vividly through the benevolence of their own multi million pound ad spend.

Sadly, for me, I have only seen the outdoor and print executions of this ‘creative’, but I’ll begin with my favourite one”

“I’d text all the musicians I know and we’d start a superband"

Would you now?

Gosh, really, is that what you’d do? Is that really all that’s been stopping you realise your lifelong dreams. Wow, you’ve had Lady Ga Ga, Damon Albarn and Kanye West’s number in your phone all this time, waiting for you to send them a smiley face and a Looooooooll!!!!

Then there is the timeless:

“I’d text everyone I know and have a party”

I might cry. It’s OK, don’t worry, you don’t have to wait for ‘Unlimited Free Texts” (terms and conditions apply) you can do that anyway. I mean, how many friends have you got in that phone of yours, unless it’s the little black doomsday book, why don’t you just text them anyway? Music, atmosphere, friends, some refreshments and a little personality is all you need? Perhaps T-Mobile will give you a free lifetimes supply of charisma, depth or likeability instead… depending which tariff you’re on.

And who could overlook the laydeez favourite;

“I’d text everyone I know to get them to come to my DJ night”

Because that’s what’s stopping them from coming to hear you play MGMT Electro Fidget Remixes on your iphone ! They might have deleted the email, politely pressed ‘maybe’ on the facebook invite, ignored their Myspace account for the last 8 months… But this text, this time, this SMS is the one. It’s going to send them over the edge and have them kneeling at your decks.

Thank you T-Mobile, thank you for the unlimited credit, for our intelligence.

As we stand on the precipice of digital technology osmosing completely into the fabric of our society, from a political level, a communications level, a societal level and even on a biological level…

As we take a deep breath whilst digital revolution becomes evolution…

At a point where tiny robots could be released into our bloodstream to release insulin when our body requires it, effectively rendering Diabetes A, a previously incurable disease, harmless… I salute your use of digital technology.

As we refer to our own children as “digital natives”, and accept the need throughout the globe to educate, empower and equalify access for young people around the world to digital communications with initiatives like the One Laptop Per Child project changing lives and the future of millions of youngsters… I bow to your use of communications technology to improve the planet for the next generation and aplaude your efforts to give young people a voice.

Life (really) is for sharing.

Is the very best suggestion that we can come up with, when presented with the opportunity for infinite immediate connectivity with our social and professional networks to inspire a generation to come to our ‘DJ night’.

Is this the best our best copy writers and creatives can muster, these three scenarios, do our children look up to these three characters, these pillars of opportunity, these thought leaders of information sharing and digital inclusion and think “one day… with these free texts I intend to ask questions, seek information, create ideas, share thoughts and provide solutions…” ?

Is there a ‘planner’ out there who thought, “With this million pound budget and network of millions of teenagers I shall encourage them to behave like witless nonces, shallowly pursuing social acceptance and unachievable materialistic ambition at the greatest time of shift our race has ever known”

I’d like to recognise O2, Marks and Spencer, Ctrl.Alt.Shift. Benetton, SonyMusic, Penguin, Adidas, Red Bull, PlayStation, Nike, Orange and a multitude of other brands, agencies and forward thinking intelligent media and marketing professionals for using their money, power and influence over young audiences to inspire, educate and empower their audiences.

I’d like to challenge T-Mobile, we know you’ve done some truly great ads (which only make these ones more… questionable?) and suggest your power, position and influence, as a leader in digital communications not only could, but should be used more creatively and constructively.

In the words of another brand with a massive and loyal teenage following, it was Spiderman who said “With great power, comes great responsibility”.

image taken from www.gapingvoidgallery.com/

--
Sam Conniff

UK Social Enterprise Ambassador
Livity / LIVE / Dubplate Drama / The Livity Trust / Music4Good

Morgan Stanley letter head with your fish and chips?

2009-08-12T10:50:00Z

I know most of what’s written is destined to become fish and chip wrapper (unless you write a blog that no-one reads) but before he’s gone forever I’d like to reflect upon the wholly remarkable story of Mathew What's-His-Chops.

A bright young work experience kid at facelessaccountants.com doomed as a filing drone, is suddenly asked to write about ‘digital media consumption behaviour’ amongst his “M8s”.

One bespectacled blink later, Matthew Whatever-His-Name-Was is illuminating the ill-informed, dropping bombs of incendiary understandings such as; “Boys watch more television when football is on”

(POW!!!)

Like insight napalm, white hot flashes tore through the head quarters of the automatons; “Teenagers listen to a lot of music”

(BAM!!!!)

And in the wake of this new magic they held aloft the boy and published these words; “Teenagers go to the cinema quite often”

(If there was a ‘smiley face’ equivalent for ‘stick your tongue in your bottom lip and go 'uuurrrrrrrmmmmmm’ I would now employ it)

: )))) ?

If you want, you can read the full report that “Shook the City” here… but don’t hold yer breath.

I mean no offence to Matthew, who seems a level headed young man, and wish him every success.

The sad revelation is not the proud flag-waving of finally (mis)understanding teenagers, but how rare it is to listen to them.

A positive outcome however, was a major news story where the teenager in question hadn’t been accused of anything or the victim of anything.

Social media provides limitless opportunity to listen to teenagers, yet Matthew Jibber-Jabber underlines we couldn’t be more out of touch with them.

So did we learn anything, in the weeks since Matthew-a-geddon?

Last week a judge banned teenagers from a violent Manchester gang from posting ‘group poses’ on facebook for threatening to shoot police.
(Job done m’lud, that’ll learn ‘em!)

Two weeks ago a 15-year-old was cleared of rape against an 11 year old, after his defence produced her social network profiles as evidence. The headlines implied Social Networking played a role.

(The children involved actually met in a youth club)

We’re stumbling clumsily along trying to understand and control how teenagers use social media and digital technology as if we own it.

Without grasping the fact that this generation grew up with digital technology in their DNA.

2009 research (that involved more than a boy and his M8s) recorded nearly 100% of coverage presents teenagers negatively focused on crime, drugs and gangs.

In reality 5% of teenagers are responsible for all teenage crime (according to 2008 research, not conducted via text message).

If we only talk about the minority, that forms how we view the majority.

Talking about young people, but rarely listening to them, is becoming an increasingly dangerous paradox.

Of course there are some who are ahead of the curve, using modern tools to listen to young people effectively.

Childline recently ran the Spit It Out campaign (on MySpace, as part of their Dubplate Drama sponsorship) appealing to young people’s talent and ambitions, challenging them to create lyrics about issues that matter to them, achieving impressive results, high levels of participation and genuinely empowering youth voices on serious matters.

Penguin with Spinebreakers, BBC3 with LIVE Insight, Christian Aid with Ctrl.Alt.Shift, Channel 4 with Battlefront, The Cabinet Office and No 10 with Bebo's Big Think, Diesel with U:Radio and the Red Bull Music Academy are also pushing boundaries, using the tools at our disposal to engage young people.

So we’re not talking about any Matthew Robson business: these are leading brands and organisations in youth engagement, co-creating solutions that use social media and digital platforms to listen to a large group of young people over a sustained period of time.

(And no they're not all Livity campaigns.. Mostly)

Digital technology and social media are not mysteries we need young Mr. Robson to explain. They represent the greatest chance we have to engage with, listen to, and make a difference for millions of young people who are using them, as part of their lives, not just as part of a PR report or a marketing campaign.

If listening to one boy taught us anything, I hope we learned it was not enough.

This Digital Expert is an (Oxy)Moron!

2009-07-18T16:14:00Z

“The Internet? Bollocks! That’ll never take off!” to paraphrase Rupert Murdoch, in one of the least accurate predictions (and possibly quotations) ever made.

It is, however, my chance to align myself with one of the most successful global communications moguls of all time, in this, my opening post for Revolution, with an insight into my own incredible technological prediction...

Renouncing email!

Back in 2000, we decided, a return to hand written letters was going to be the way forward.

It would have been clear to anyone paying attention to me at the time (exactly no-one) that I was unlikely to ever be called a ‘digital communications expert’ and even less likely to be asked to write a blog as one, and certainly never to be mentioned in the same sentence as Rupert Murdoch.

That was, until now. (Even if was me who wrote the sentence doing the mentioning)

At the time, we thought it would help our new agency, Livity, to stand out from the increasing mass of email, rescue us from unconsidered responses, miss out on misconstrued messages and reconnect with real people… to buck the trend and move back to hand written letters.

I know, I know. (It still makes me cringe).

But we were young, and quite excitable.

To incorporate this as part of the strategy for a newly launched pioneering social enterprise and responsible youth marketing agency with an already hard-to-understand-on-the-phone name, might not be what you’d expert from a ‘digital communications expert’ who’s been asked to write for such a bible of technology based wisdom as this.

The response was unsurprising, “Yeah if you could get back to me in three days when the post arrives that would be great… and in the meantime I’ll email Exposure!?”

Luckily, continuing to emulate Mr Murdoch, we quickly changed our tune and started acting like email was actually our idea.

And for the months that followed, “isn’t the internet amazing” would often punctuate hours of research and document writing in the quiet atmosphere of that early two person office, as we began to embrace the web as users, not as assumed experts trying to second guess what would come next.

In 2009, whilst we’re still not sure about the term ‘digital experts’, we are proud to be behind several genuinely groundbreaking and effective examples of technology enabled communications.

From producing the ‘worlds first’ interactive multi platform series Dubplate Drama for the NSPCC, to creating Spinebreakers, a social network for book loving teenagers for Penguin and Rhyme4Respect the multiple award winning sexual health campaign and online lyric writing competition for DCSF, and many, many more..

We’ve come a long way from the early days when Michelle Clothier, Kate Brundle, Gavin Weale and I sat (amongst a lot of envelopes) discussing concepts of community and co creation.

We are now a team of thirty savvy marketers and youth engagement specialists, proudly delivering technology driven, socially led and youth created communications, campaigns and communities for clients that range from PlayStation, Teenage Cancer Trust, BBC3, Nike, NHS, Home Office and Diesel.

We’ve grown up, from misunderstanding, to real understanding, to making a real difference, in the real world. Not just using a medium (or renouncing it) for the mediums sake.

As I type this with my right hand, my left hand is moderating comments in a ground breaking project we’re working on for Bebo, enabling many thousands of young people to pose their real hopes, fears and questions directly to the Prime Minster, that will result in teenagers taking on Gordon Brown face to face in the cabinet rooms, in consultation that feeds into real policy making as part of Bebo’s Big Think. Using the power of Social Media to give young people a real chance to make a genuine difference.

Over the years, since thinking we might ‘reinvent letter writing’, (it still makes me wince) we’ve been paying more attention and trying to take part as users, and not just marketers.

Since the days of Friendster and Face-Pix, I’ve joined more social networks than I’ve had hot (Tesco’s Finest) dinners, have become hardwired to a blackberry, found podcasts of me on other people’s ipods, get to give my opinion on everything from Digital Britain to the future of Channel 4 and have been invited all over the world to talk about Livity’s projects and their role in determining future technology and media trends.

And since making the worst judgement call in the history of communications, I’ve since resisted the urge to make pronouncements and predictions, and come to the conclusion that Life Moves Pretty Fast, and if you accept that you don’t know, how much you don’t know, then we can only keep on learning.

If we don’t stop and look around once in a while, we might just miss the point.

On which basis, I’ve agreed to write this blog, for a publication I genuinely respect, I will do my best to keep it regular, honest and informative… (and never again this long) Just don’t expect me to get it right, or to take the credit when I get it wrong.. In my opinion a digital expert is probably an (oxy)moron.

Sam Conniff
Co Founder of Livity, LIVE Magazine, Music4Good and Don’t Panic.
Executive Producer Dubplate Drama
UK Social Enterprise Ambassador