Industry blogging (Op-ed blogging) is definitely on its last legs. I think there are now three routes that I can see people taking if they still want to be having a voice in the industry.
Content Syndicators (Brainpicker, Digital Buzz Blog) this is a hard role as you have to be trawling a lot of content and on top of everything, the only big example in Australia that I have seen for this is Digital Buzz Blog.
Content Creators - Creating small projects that will get you attention. Usually these take a long time to create. Re: Digital Creatives doing Awesome Things
Become a News Source (Mumbrella, Campaign Brief) breaking news stories about the industry.
What other routes can people take?
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Reviewing the success of the Occupy Wall St Communication Strategy
It is amazing to reflect on how much the Occupy Wall St movement has achieved in just 2 months. You would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't heard of the OWS movement. I think there is a number of interesting communication tactics that they have employed which have helped them gain a lot of coverage. Here are some of the stand outs to me.
Tactics
Occupying physical space - Occupying actual parks has given people a place to congregate and learn more about the movement, it has also helped to give a visual representation of how many people there are.
Occupy replication - The easy format for replication of taking over a public space was easy to mimic across the world. Hence it helped to spread the idea globally through local activations.
99% - The '99%' as an overall idea is perfect, it is an easy to understand concept which in nature is inclusive. It has been propelled through the tumblr of the same name.
Veterans on the front line - They have strategically put Veterans on the front line, this has made for amazing imagery as they are the first ones that the police confront.
They have also become some of the most vocal voices in this fight
Splintering the message - Similar to any campaign you need to give people new ways to talk about the message beyond the police brutality. This shows that they may be able to keep creating new ways to keep the message top of mind coming into the election year.
Capturing everything - For the last 2 months, one of the astounding things is that amount of documentation of the event. The media has really helped propel this and make it a priority for politicians.
I am looking to write a follow up piece to this, on the problems the OWS movement currently faces and how I see them moving forward.
Tactics
Occupying physical space - Occupying actual parks has given people a place to congregate and learn more about the movement, it has also helped to give a visual representation of how many people there are.
Occupy replication - The easy format for replication of taking over a public space was easy to mimic across the world. Hence it helped to spread the idea globally through local activations.
99% - The '99%' as an overall idea is perfect, it is an easy to understand concept which in nature is inclusive. It has been propelled through the tumblr of the same name.
Veterans on the front line - They have strategically put Veterans on the front line, this has made for amazing imagery as they are the first ones that the police confront.
They have also become some of the most vocal voices in this fight
Splintering the message - Similar to any campaign you need to give people new ways to talk about the message beyond the police brutality. This shows that they may be able to keep creating new ways to keep the message top of mind coming into the election year.
Capturing everything - For the last 2 months, one of the astounding things is that amount of documentation of the event. The media has really helped propel this and make it a priority for politicians.
I am looking to write a follow up piece to this, on the problems the OWS movement currently faces and how I see them moving forward.
Sunday, 25 September 2011
4 Digital Creatives doing awesome things
For most Advertising Creatives creativity does not stop at 5:30PM Friday, most have some kind of creative outlet outside of work whether that be writing children's books, tshirt lines or even setting up charities.
Digitally a growing trend that I am starting to see is Digital Creatives using the internet as their canvas. The type of art that I am most interested in is when Creatives are creating cultural statements through their pieces and capturing the attention of the masses. Here are some of my favourite;
1. Jeff Greenspan (Creative Director at BBDO)
Urban Traps (Hipster Traps)
The Most Exclusive Website (Mike Lacher and Chris Baker)
LetterBombing (Chris Baker)
2. Mike Lacher - Creative Technical Manager - Google Creative Labs
Mikala Bierma Youtube Channel
Waiting for Bieber
Shady URL
Geocities-izer
3. Ji Li (Creative Director at Facebook)
The Bubble Project
Goolery
Dummer
4. Chris Baker (Writer at Google Creative Labs)
The Likeable Constitution (Jeff Greenspan)
The Call to Action Generator
As I start to learn Photoshop and Coding I am hoping to start making some of my ideas come to life. Watch this space!
Digitally a growing trend that I am starting to see is Digital Creatives using the internet as their canvas. The type of art that I am most interested in is when Creatives are creating cultural statements through their pieces and capturing the attention of the masses. Here are some of my favourite;
1. Jeff Greenspan (Creative Director at BBDO)
Urban Traps (Hipster Traps)
The Most Exclusive Website (Mike Lacher and Chris Baker)
LetterBombing (Chris Baker)
2. Mike Lacher - Creative Technical Manager - Google Creative Labs
Mikala Bierma Youtube Channel
Waiting for Bieber
Shady URL
Geocities-izer
3. Ji Li (Creative Director at Facebook)
The Bubble Project Goolery
Dummer
4. Chris Baker (Writer at Google Creative Labs)
The Likeable Constitution (Jeff Greenspan)
The Call to Action Generator
As I start to learn Photoshop and Coding I am hoping to start making some of my ideas come to life. Watch this space!
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Digital Strategists learn Photoshop in 8 hours
I am really trying to grow the creative side of my brain at the moment. As I discussed in my previous post on Strategy bullets, I have really been limiting the creative side for the last few years. One of the other main barriers to me being creative was I didn't have the skills to be able to execute an idea (e.g couldn't mock it up in Photoshop, couldn't code up the idea).
I was inspired by Pon Kattera, to change this the other day. He recently taught himself Photoshop via online tutorials on lynda.com. With his glowing endorsement I signed up.
I took the Photoshop CS5 Essential Training course and have taught myself the basics to Photoshop and completed my first mock ups for work on Friday. I was surprised with how good it actually was! It is cheap at a flat rate of $25 a month for all the courses you want. You have to give it a good 8 hours and it usually helps if you have someone with you who knows the basics of Photoshop.
On a side note if you haven't watched 'You suck at Photoshop' tutorials before you need to watch them!
I was inspired by Pon Kattera, to change this the other day. He recently taught himself Photoshop via online tutorials on lynda.com. With his glowing endorsement I signed up.
I took the Photoshop CS5 Essential Training course and have taught myself the basics to Photoshop and completed my first mock ups for work on Friday. I was surprised with how good it actually was! It is cheap at a flat rate of $25 a month for all the courses you want. You have to give it a good 8 hours and it usually helps if you have someone with you who knows the basics of Photoshop.
On a side note if you haven't watched 'You suck at Photoshop' tutorials before you need to watch them!
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
The new data capture - Emotional DNA Data
Collecting and creating meaningful conclusions from personal data seems to be all the rage at the moment. One area that seems to have been overlooked but of interest is emotional data capturing. Emotional DNA is left on everything photos, places, people, foods. All these can elicit powerful emotions from people.
My work colleague Kendra Salvatore came up with an interesting concept of emotional geographic mapping. Basically what if we were able to visualise the emotions we tie to different places.
One of the exercises that she does is to manually map emotions from different places. I have had a stab at it for Melbourne and Sydney which was a pretty interesting task. However I think this would not need to be a manual thing, you could hook it up to Foursquare or Facebook Places and give a little emoti on what you are feeling at the time (think Nike Plus).
'Going to your happy place' could now become prompted by technology, with a mechanic that understood what places are that happy place. Fornino's and their White Truffle Oil Pizza
My work colleague Kendra Salvatore came up with an interesting concept of emotional geographic mapping. Basically what if we were able to visualise the emotions we tie to different places.
One of the exercises that she does is to manually map emotions from different places. I have had a stab at it for Melbourne and Sydney which was a pretty interesting task. However I think this would not need to be a manual thing, you could hook it up to Foursquare or Facebook Places and give a little emoti on what you are feeling at the time (think Nike Plus).
'Going to your happy place' could now become prompted by technology, with a mechanic that understood what places are that happy place. Fornino's and their White Truffle Oil Pizza
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Putting down the Strategy Bullets
'Strategy bullets are the fastest way to kill an idea.' That guy, 2011
One of the biggest brain shifts I have had moving to BBH, is changing from a strategy mainframe to a creative led position. Strategy is a very left brain activity, coming up with creative problems is definitely a right brain activity.
A lot of Strategy revolves around looking for patterns and the inferring meanings from these patterns, whereas creative requires you to look forward and look for new patterns. This creates a lot of tension when the two parties meet.
I noticed in creative concept meetings, I was able to kill a number of thought starters and ideas as I was looking for all the holes of where it wasn't technically possible or the lack of insight of the idea.
After being made aware of this I have really started to train myself to try and find the good in an idea, virtually ever idea has at least a kernel of goodness that you can bounce off. This has also made me be more proactive in thinking about digital ideas outside of work too, so hopefully like Zac Martin I can start moving fast and breaking things.
One of the biggest brain shifts I have had moving to BBH, is changing from a strategy mainframe to a creative led position. Strategy is a very left brain activity, coming up with creative problems is definitely a right brain activity.
A lot of Strategy revolves around looking for patterns and the inferring meanings from these patterns, whereas creative requires you to look forward and look for new patterns. This creates a lot of tension when the two parties meet.
I noticed in creative concept meetings, I was able to kill a number of thought starters and ideas as I was looking for all the holes of where it wasn't technically possible or the lack of insight of the idea.
After being made aware of this I have really started to train myself to try and find the good in an idea, virtually ever idea has at least a kernel of goodness that you can bounce off. This has also made me be more proactive in thinking about digital ideas outside of work too, so hopefully like Zac Martin I can start moving fast and breaking things.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Super Hero Clubhouse chat solving a number of fundamental problems to online chat
Super Hero Clubhouse is a new site/thing from the people from Texts From Last Night/Bnter it is a massive step forward in the online communication/relationship space. Anyone who has had to study online communications will most likely be surprised at how many fundamentals online problems they have solved with this product.
Please go have a look around and then come back. Here is the massive problems that I see that they are resolving.
Problem - Lack of conversation starters/passion points
Most online communication are usually formed around a passion point - (Forums - IntheMix - Dance Music, 4Chan - Anime, BigFooty - AFL). With ChatRoulette where they struggled was having a passion point (which wasn't wangs). SHC starts in a role play scenario - you can talk about superheroes but they compliment this with 'Ice Breakers' which are conversation starters which you can drop into the chat.
Problem - Creeper Stalker Pedo Stigma
Online chat has always struggled with the Creeper Stalker Pedo Stigma, SHC starts conversation in a state that is the furtherest place away from creeper single stalker male territory, role playing superheroes. We aren't going to get to A/S/L questions of the bat.
Problem - Sign Up processes suck
Signing up is slick, Facebook Connect - remembers you for the long term. Then finishing the sign up is a bit of a game in creating your own character, which is a nice easy process.
Problem- Actually connecting with people after the experience
You can reveal your mask at the end of it, such a nice simple fit with the whole superhero theme
They have a created a number of nice solutions/mechanics which I will be taking and using in future projects.
Please go have a look around and then come back. Here is the massive problems that I see that they are resolving.
Problem - Lack of conversation starters/passion points
Most online communication are usually formed around a passion point - (Forums - IntheMix - Dance Music, 4Chan - Anime, BigFooty - AFL). With ChatRoulette where they struggled was having a passion point (which wasn't wangs). SHC starts in a role play scenario - you can talk about superheroes but they compliment this with 'Ice Breakers' which are conversation starters which you can drop into the chat.
Problem - Creeper Stalker Pedo Stigma
Online chat has always struggled with the Creeper Stalker Pedo Stigma, SHC starts conversation in a state that is the furtherest place away from creeper single stalker male territory, role playing superheroes. We aren't going to get to A/S/L questions of the bat.
Problem - Sign Up processes suck
Signing up is slick, Facebook Connect - remembers you for the long term. Then finishing the sign up is a bit of a game in creating your own character, which is a nice easy process.
Problem- Actually connecting with people after the experience
You can reveal your mask at the end of it, such a nice simple fit with the whole superhero theme
They have a created a number of nice solutions/mechanics which I will be taking and using in future projects.
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