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Friday’s community day was all geared towards collaboration. What I found fascinating was the "speed dating". Not real dating, mind. The format was the same, but the outcome was to encourage all the different disciplines that make up Conchango to get to know each other better.
So I had 3 minutes apiece to talk to five or six people from the tech team. The most interesting part was the languages we used. I struggled with “.net”, and “jaytwo-ee” (J2EE) and “sequel servers” (I know it’s SQL but everyone says “sequel”) … only this time I got the chance to ask what that really meant. I got to ask what shape these strange words give someone’s working day; what they produce with these acronyms; what they do with “data”.
And whilst I still struggle with “data” as an abstract concept (I always need to turn it in to something tangible in my head – a photo, an account number, a description, a code), someone drew me a useful diagram on the tablecloth to explain how it’s cleaned, transformed and loaded.
Of course, everyone had a different idea of what I do, strange creative-type that I am. So I deal with content – but it’s not about choosing the Content Management System. I’m a copywriter – but no, I don’t deal only in legal matters.
I do deal in communication, language, dialogue. It would be great to build on what happened on Friday and develop better, more accessible ways to talk about the ever-growing array of amazing things we do – creative, business and technical. Fancy a chat?
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Put April 17th in your diaries now folks - there's a happening on our doorstep. From 2pm, five Borough Market pubs will be host to 20 speakers (none yet confirmed) who'll be talking about the future... Seems the esteemed Rory Sutherland was there in 2006 telling it like it is - as per usual.
Social networking in real life: http://www.irisnation.com/undertheinfluence/
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Or should I say "color"? Seems colour war has broken out among the twitterari! Not content with the sky-ish blue default background, there's a rash of poster paint-coloured backgrounds happening all over...
There's an update of the latest winners and losers here: http://corvida.ilumine.net/boredom-strikes-on-twitter-with-color/
Seems the BlueTeam has a lot of followers bus has yet to say very much to convince me to join. The veryGreenTeam and OrangeTeam are pretty lively. I love the spontaneous and utterly random nature of it all. Now which team do I sign up to...?
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After over a decade of dreaming up content and writing for websites, it's incredible that it was only yesterday that a website went live with a 404 page that I'd helped bring to life. Why do so few companies make an effort to help those who get lost on their websites? Or make them feel bad when they do?
In a similar vein, you might also want to check out our privacy policy and legal statement (thanks Mr Rooney). Who decided that these things should be dull or impossiblly opaque?
The site is our very own Conchango.com. Its launch was a proud moment for everyone involved (the whole company, in effect!).
It's an acorn right now. But from small beginnings... It's great to see how much discussion it's generated internally which has made me realise just how involved we all are, how interested and committed we are to our own brand. I like it. More forwards please.
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In all the work I'm doing at the moment, the most important factor is looking at how people behave. The seemingly insignificant things that people (and brands, for that matter) do can give us incredible insights into our audiences or our customers which help us to create more meaningful experiences, whether that's in the physical or the digital world. And I've just come across a TED talk by Paul Bennett, Creative Director at IDEO, which has some lovely examples, where designers literally stepped into the shoes of others to truly understand their challenge. They stripped away their preconceptions and looked at the problem with fresh eyes. Their solutions are so much better for it. So I won't spoil the moment and tell you what they are. They made me smile. Take a look for yourself.
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Moo.com had a bad day recently – and blogged about it. It’s currently showing on their homepage, titled: Blimey. a non-happy day at MOO. The replies are 99% positive and supportive. One says: "Wow, poor Moo guys. Enjoy the pizza, you deserve it. Big or small business, it’s tough keeping the customers happy on the best of days. You have a fun product, and I’ll look forward to the new stickers I ordered today! Wheeeeeee!" It just goes to show how honesty, openness and a great brand can all add up to loyalty and forgiveness. Other brands take note: those who bare their souls and admit to mistakes don't necessarily get shot down in flames...
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Tonight I stood amongst my digital brethren as we all pointed our mobile devices
towards the heavens to capture the fleeting moments as the sky was lit up by rockets and catherine wheels... a slightly surreal experience. You can see them all as they arrive on flickr.
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Richard Wand just sent this lovely site around - Make a Mixa. It's where you can create and buy your very own "1GB Flash USB drive housed inside a cassette tape shell." I love the tagline: "undigital your digital". Our nostalgic, rose-tinted focus has finally fallen on the humble cassette tape - that plastic, rattly, cheap, democratic object imbued with the music of our youth. And now it comes without the reams of fiddly, degradable brown tape, so it's less likely to litter our motorways. I wonder if it still rattles? Kids these days don't know they're born.
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If you're old enough, you may remember Tim Hunkin from The Rudiments of Wisdom cartoons in the Observer. I had the wonderful experience last night of hearing him talk about his work - in particular, the amusement arcade he's installed at Southwold Pier in Suffolk. As soon as I have time, I'm off down there with the kids. There's an expressive photo booth that does things to provoke an expression. There's the Lifelong Learning class where you learn how to cross a busy 4 lane road with a Zimmer frame. You have to pick your age first. 80 (easy), 90 (hard) and 100 (extreme). You get a diploma if you make it across. Hunkin said that "all you need is to occupy enough of the brain" and the whole thing becomes really immersive. People don't need a lot to happen to "believe". Every experience is designed to elicit a smile, a giggle, a belly laugh. Driven by really simple yet "lateral" ideas, the design of each arcade is well and truly focused on the audience's experience. I suspect, Hunkin's driving force is his own experience. The thrill of creation. "Basically I like spending time in my shed making things," he admitted. His passion, humour and creativity shape everyrhing he does. Hunkin reminds me of my dad*. A maker of "handmade" things, inquisitive and with a sense of humour. 
The Mobility Masterclass - you have to attempt to cross a 4 lane road with a zimmer frame. 
First you have to choose your level: 100 is "Extreme" 
If you fail - and get run over - the police arrive. The police and ambulance arrive. Your zimmer gets the white paint treatment. 
The blueprint for the Dog Walker machine.  
The Bathyscape video with illegal immigrants. And the blueprint for the Art Apocalypse *More on that later. My dad has an exhibition at The Independent Photographers Gallery in Battle, East Sussex, starting tomorrow.
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I spent a glorious few hours at Kew Gardens yesterday looking at the Henry Moore sculptures. They can be viewed from a distance, close up, from different angles. They look so at home there. I vow to go back if it snows, if it rains, to see the forms in a different light. Kew has dedicated an online space to the exhibition. You can download podcasts about each sculpture to your ipod before you go. Or if you forget, there's an audio service you can listen to by calling a number from your mobile advertised next to each exhibit. "You can eavesdrop on scientists, art historians and others discussing the artworks and their relationship to their surroundings." The've also set up a flickr group so I can upload all the lovely photos I took. And if I can't get back there when it rains or snows, I can see the pictures of others who could. There are already some lovely images posted there. What a creative bunch we are. 
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... and sounds less like 'blue sky thinking' these days. The Bourne Ultimatum campaign created huge interest in the technology from advertising/marketing folk eager to find new outlets for their creative wares. Last week, NMA carried an interview with new CEO for Otto UK, Mike Hancox (NMA 06.09.07) – he talks a lot about social networking and word of mouth in promoting his brands. Towards the end of the article, he says: “Otto is very developed in East Asia, where mobile is very developed. A year ago I saw the guys from Korea and Japan using photo-recognition to create an order on their phone, sent to the company via MMS. The sooner we bring that over to the UK and use it the better.” “…we’re developing mobile with Oli, such as SMS, catalogue requests and mobile updates on fashion trends, gossip… The Oli customer will be the one who’ll have the best mobile phone.” If you're not sure what a QR code is, there's an interesting article in The Guardian (Join the dots: camera phones to decode new ad widget) plus the obligatory Wikipedia entry.
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Having recently worked at a Big Ad Agency, I recognised more than a few truths in Bruce Nussbaum's article: 'Are Big Ad Agencies So Clueless That Corporations Should Avoid Them?', in Business Week magazine last week. He says: "Mainstream ad agencies have one refrain--one message to their corporate clients--do social networking, do social networking, do social networking." Ad agencies, he argues, are so keen to be seen as digital experts, that they simply put technology first, rather than thinking of good (digital and non-digital) ways to connect brands with consumers in meaningful ways. Social psychologists and anthropologists, he argues, are far better placed to help uncover and understand users' un-met needs. If we just look to focus groups and "marketing research", we risk simply confirming what we already think we know about the consumer. For a great example of uncovering un-met needs, take a look at Jane Fulton Suri's 'Thoughtless Acts'. (She works with IDEO, the design company that brought us the Palm Pilot and the flip-top toothpaste lid.) 'Thoughtless Acts' is a series of photographs and commentary showing how people react to a world that's not always quite up to scratch when it comes to meeting their needs. To remedy this problem, IDEO don't ask consumers what they do or what they want; they go out among them and watch their behaviour. It's an interesting proposition that hopefully challenges us to think in a much more rounded way about consumers.
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Not sure I entirely agree with Kathryn Hughes' hotly debated article in The Guardian this week: Shopping is the spirit of the silk route, not the online rut. It cites some strangely elusive research that Americans are falling out of love with online shopping. Take your rose tinted glasses off and look at the plethora of real-world stores that don’t offer great customer service. The sullen, skinny Saturday girl you wouldn’t want to ask “does my bum look big in this?” or the spotty 16 year old in PC world who hasn’t a clue if the printer you want is compatible with a Mac. It’s about brand experiences – online or off. There’s no reason you couldn’t create an ambience online that would fit with the lofty ambitions of Mary ‘Queen of Shops’. Net-a-Porter delivers its goods the same day wrapped in lovely tissue paper – it’s like getting a present. Who says that’s not retail therapy?
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The BBC reports on new phenomenon. It seems that ghost bloggers are being employed to keep up with all the social networking we need to do these days. For a fee, I can now hire someone to manage my Facebook, LinkedIn, work and personal blog profiles. They'll also answer all the messages I get from friends and colleagues on them. I wonder if people are starting to worry that if they don't have an up-to-the-minute presence in all these places, they'll cease to exist in the physical world? I certainly know people who spend an inordinate amount of time blogging and keeping tabs on the bloggersphere. Will it spawn a whole new raft of corporate anxieties? I predict that Social Networking Disorder (SND) will soon be upon us.
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bringsome.com is a lovely idea. It challenges the traditional retail model - and fits perfectly into the YouTube/facebook/flickr concept, bringing people together for free with the hope of rich rewards for their founders later. It belongs firmly in the realm of what Andy Hobsbawm has called "the geography of passion".
The site hopes to create a loose-knit social network of people who are willing (for a small commission or just for the hope of a grateful thank you) to "bring some" over for others. So if you live in Outer Mongolia and have a penchant for Marmite or Earl Grey tea bags, this may be just the site for you. The focus on niche goods that are only available locally is a refreshing break from the homogeneity of Big Global Brands. There's also a lovely sense of romance - tales of far flung places; the journey your coveted pot of Marmite made across the globe. The site raises a few interesting questions, not least the thought of Customs and Excise wanting their pound of flesh if it grows big enough. Like the rights issues that have given the music station Pandora such a headache in recent weeks. Some Second Lifers have made a career of trading in the online virtual world. Those legal eagles will have to keep up! bringsome.com is all provided for free (they ask gently for a donation and include a smattering of unobtrusive ads). Presumably they'll look to go the way of YouTube if it takes off - selling it and its inhabitants on for a cool million or two. Watch this space.
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