actions speak louder than words

I have always strived to live by this adage. Its one thing to say something and its quite another thing to live your life by it. I could tell you what I’m good at but if nothing in my life demonstrates it – I’d be tripping on empty words. And so philosophically speaking, while we’re ever keen (especially it seems in the world of advertising) to blow our trumpets and shout the loudest, know that people will expect the same promises reflected in your behaviour.

 

via Edward Boches Presentation on Making Digital Work

I read an article recently which asked the question of whether the way we tackle a brand’s position should evolve in the same way that the landscape has. Taking in to account the notion of the purchase funnel turning upside down, with loyal customers being more important than prospects and the affects of social media where a brand talking about itself won’t be able to have a credible engagement with a community because essentially its consumers who own the media.

via Edward Boches Presentation on Making Digital Work

What does this mean for positioning? David A. Aaker defines Positioning as “…part of the brand identity and value proposition that is to be actively communicated to the target audience and that demonstrates an advantage over competing brands.”

Building strong brands is hard these days; price competition (directly affecting the motivation to build brands), proliferation of competitors reducing specifically the positioning options available, media fragmentation plus internal pressures such as organisational bias against innovation and pressures to invest elsewhere mean that there are growing challenges in ensuring your brand is preferred.

Well with new, vigorous competition coming from various sources and even those entering different categories through brand extension strategies (such as Weight Watchers food or Dove Shampoo), new product development (think Coke providing alternatives to carbonated drinks such as bottled water and juice) and innovation, there are fewer holes in the market to exploit. These competitors not only contribute to price pressures and brand complexity, but also make it harder for brands to hold their position.

Some interesting points are made about the idea of key benefit “As products become less distinctive, benefits are more likely to reside in the brand experience than in product performance or image characteristics. Differentiation now is as likely to lie in ‘our customer service rocks’, ‘we have great apps’ or ‘we support the same causes you do’ as in better, faster or cheaper.” While I doubt product differentiation is going to lose importance and by virtue of Moore’s Law statistically impossible as we continue to innovate and I like to think, co-create culture (doesn’t that sound wanky?!) – the brand needs to behave in a way that articulates what it stands for. As Carol argues; "new strategic tools are needed to helping a brand understand how to connect with customers at an individual, human level."

To me this is the brands vision/ambition, the brands “why” we connect with our customers, its noble purpose. Behaviourally this goes beyond a one-way message, it is the expectation that brands ‘walk the talk' and position themsleves in a place that connects with the customers not just by what they say, but also what they do.

via Edward Boches Presentation on Making Digital Work

One of the first vital lessons I learned in advertising is that everything communicates and as we all know, what we say is only 10% of what we communicate. Hence, actions do speak louder than words.

a photographer's life

I spent an hour or so wondering around an exhibition at the MCA Sydney the other day. While I'm a fan of photography, I must admit I was pretty surprised by how moving Annie Leibovitz's work is.

Annie doesn't make a distinction between her work and her life. Her photography is her life and while she's created many a famous creations featuring famous celebrities on front pages (such as Demi Moore on Vanity Fair), politicians and royalty; she also captured some of the most celebrated and devastating moments in life; life and death.

Famously on December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, promising him he would make the cover. After she had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, which is what Rolling Stone wanted, Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz re-created something like the kissing scene from the Double Fantasy album cover, a picture that she loved. John removed his clothes and curled up next to Yoko.

Leibovitz recalls, "What is interesting is she said she'd take her top off and I said, 'Leave everything on' — not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, 'You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it'll be on the cover.' I looked him in the eye and we shook on it."

Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon - he was shot and killed five hours later.

This exhibition really takes you on the fabulous photographic journey that Annie has had - which knows no barriers - naked so to speak. You meet her professional work, her family and her best friend 'companion' Susan Suntag (below) and learn that her work means much more than what meets the eye.

'twiggy' - when dreams & art combine.

Some things and people blow my mind in this world and I feel blessed to have the pleasure in meeting them, their work and inspiration. Whether they create, write, talk or think - I have such admiration for those who can articulate an idea and see it through to fruition no matter how bold or controversial with the adage 'If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it' (Einstein).

Meghan Byrne, known as Twiggy is one of those people. She's a Sydney based artist who creates a breadth of wonderful dreamlike images, using old traditional oil/acrylic painting techniques to create interesting colourful canvases. She doesn't conform and yet has such attention to detail and quality (I know for a fact that she makes her own canvases and sources the best and most premium quality oil paints for example) that shows how much respect she has for art and her work. The effect is one that reminds you to dream. To question. To open up somehow.

So I invested in a piece I couldn't resist.

Here are some other beauties.

bloom's taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy is a classification of learning objectives within education. The theory is based on the following "levels". Its an interesting concept if you consider how you may wish to communicate something based on what the expectation of response is.

Remember - Recalling the information

Understand - Explain the ideas and/or concepts

Apply - Using the newly acquired knowledge in another familiar situation

Analyse - Comparing and differentiating between constituent parts.

Evaluate - Justifying a decision or course of action

Create - Generating new new ways of creating products, ideas or ways of viewing things

Or better yet, here it is according to Pirates of the Caribbean:

being a princess

"Such a princess" - a term we throw around in admiration and abhorrence - but what does it actually mean?

Well, I thought I'd take the liberty to define, in my mind, what equates to "princess-ness". A concept sometimes easily misconstrued to having associations with regal and blue blood qualities. I can understand the confusion and hence, why I've broken the term "Such a princess" in to 3 distinct pillars.

1. Spoiled & over indulged.

I'm talking ponies, cake, fairies, shopping chauffeurs and champaign. This goes well beyond wanting nice things. This is expecting that if I don't get a Tiffany bracelet/Gucci dress/a puppy for my birthday - I will not forgive you. Ever. Basically the provision of excessive material gifts.

Some great examples (thanks to tips from fellow co-workers): Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Mariah Carey.

2. Self-righteous indignation.

Essentially being filled with or showing conviction of being morally superior, or more righteous than others, smugly virtuous. "Everyone listen to me" syndrome.

Perhaps in line with: Bono, Naomi Campbell or Madonna (for the record I have nothing against these talented celebrities, except perhaps that they're talented).

3. Over obsession with beauty & general vanity.

This is where it goes as far as plastic surgery. Or bags of make up, nail varnish, pamper kits. Mirrors everywhere even transported with you in your designer handbag. Fake tan. Air brushed photographs. Looking exceptional - all of the time. Imagine going for runs with make up on.

Of all the elements that create your princess, this is the hardest to maintain, I mean who can look really, really, really good looking all of the time?! Not to mention expense. Its not cheap to look so hot... without aging, putting on weight, bags under the eyes, frizzy hair... etc. Phew!

And so here you have the facets to your oh so typical modern day princess. If you meet someone, who ticks all the boxes, call them "such a princess" before giving them a great big hug.

That concludes my very intellectually stimulating cultural assessment. With that I will leave you with my favourite epitome of your perfect princess.

Next up: being a hipster.

IKEA's charming cook book

Very cool idea. Owning the media that demonstrates the message. In a very stunning act of brand communication Swedish furniture giant created a very slick cook book called 'Hembakat Ar Bast' - translating to 'Homemade is Best'.

A gorgeous collaboration which has taken a step away from the heavily styled food shots (you know the one's that your food never ends up looking like) to a design approach, featuring stunning, minimalistic photography where the ingredients and finished products become art pieces themselves. It gives you an appreciation of process. Here are the pieces, bring them together, there is the remarkable result. Much like building a chest of drawers.

Pretty original. Making me hungry.

Mandelmusslor (almond shells) - Ingredients

Mandelmusslor (almond shells)

Fina Kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) - ingredients

Fina Kanelbullar (cinnamon buns)

Schwarzaldtarta (black forest cake) - ingredients

Schwarzaldtarta (black forest cake)

being a misfit

I have just finished reading a great book called "Thinque Funky" by a funkadelic Swede named Anders Sorman-Nilsson, a futurist, a trend spotter and inspiring speaker. His book asks us to look and prepare for the future, with an understanding of what is needed to progress to the next chapter. The world of web 3.0, digilogue technology, androgynous culture and creative commons.

At the TEDx talk on Friday, Anders presented his perspective on the minds we need to evangelise this movement; the misfits. The misfits who are willing to push new thinking, who drive positive change, forward-looking innovation, and solve problems creatively, and that without them your organisation really cannot compete.

Obviously as a misfit myself, I am 100% on board, but despite my bias I welcome you to take a look for yourself at his blog and appreciate the below ;)

brand insights: just an idea

What happens when you overlay SWOT analysis with an insights chart (for want of a better name)? Something I was doodling at the cafe as I tucked in to my brunch on a lazy Sunday morning. Probably not what you should be considering over a sunny weekend, but I felt the theory warranted articulation and sharing.

Insights are obviously beyond facts or info, they are the "Sparks in the dark", "Eureka's" or "Flashes of genius" and the beauty is that when applied correctly, creating alliances across Company, Consumer, Culture and Category, you get a big fat bottom line to thank you for it.

One of the things I like about this approach is the opportunity to treat your company and your consumers as an Internal influence. Increasingly we are appreciating that consumers are your brand stakeholders as essentially a brand exists in the mind of its audience - a brand is the views, attitudes and opinions that individuals have about a company or product - so it important to recognise how a company and its customers converge. Never before has the relationship between customers and brands been so tangible.

Culture gives way for so many fabulous opportunities. We live in such a fragmented time amongst niche micro cultures, fads, fascinations, multi-cultures, technologies, movements in all directions. There's ample opportunity to pinpoint inspiring and emerging expressions and values that could be leveraged far enough to redefine a brands category (great example is the recent Tontine pillows campaign)

Lastly but not least there's Category. Perhaps wrongly or rightly associated with "Threats". You could argue that Category segmentation provides more positive opportunity but I quite like looking out for "threats". It find the opposites. And while we can better understand the 'why' behind a divers set of brands/products existing in a category, looking out for "threats" broadens the scope beyond what's on your doorstep to what may be round the corner on the other street. Its a great way of looking out for substitutes and gaps in the market while ever aware of the competition to work on ensuring your market difference and advantage.

Oh dear, I feel like a royal nerd. I should probably get out more... while I work on that, I hope the above was useful ;)

why we choose?

Dan Ariely the author of Predictably Irrational uses interesting optical illusions to demonstrate our thought process (and decision making). Our intuition fools us in to thinking things in a certain way. Like an optical illusion even when we know what the right answer is we still don’t see it.

Which is longer?
(They're both the same)

The idea of illusions is that our senses feed us information however it is not a true reflection of reality. Information is provided to us courtesy of our brain, which has a set of rules for dealing with situations so that what we see is actually very different from reality in specific, repeatable, predictable ways.

The same thing applies to consumer behavior. For example, when something costs more and people expect it to be better, they actually end up seeing and experiencing it as being better. One of my favourite (and equally frustrating) product examples of this is Tiffany. Oh the weakness. But why? Well a brand is considered premium when we believe it is worth the price. And to feel that good with a shining Tiffany bracelet on is oh so worth it. Remember 'perceived quality' is one of the key brand associations that has proven to drive financial performance.

It’s like an illusion, the way that we process the information is not a function of what is out there, it’s a function of what is happening in our brain. Most of our understanding of the world comes from our brain not from our senses. We think we see with our eyes but much of what we see is happening within our brain even the way we feel about it.

Ariely uses a great example; when you lie on your back and look at the sky, you believe you’re seeing blue however the reality is that only a small part of your eye can detect that colour. If you extend your arm out in front of your face and hold your hand in a fist, that’s the only portion of your eye that can detect blue. The rest of your eye isn’t supposed to see blue. We don’t see blue because of our eyes, we see it in spite of our eyes. It’s our brain that is doing all the work to help us detect blue. The same thing happens when we process other information: Price, quality, etc. In all those cases, it is our brain that drives our expectations and determines much of our final experience.

Ariely believe that we have two types of rules for our behavior. One type concerns market norms which involve how much you pay for things, how much people charge you and so on (a banking rate for example). The other type is social exchanges that have to do with fairness and warm fuzzy feelings (the 'why', the connectiveness we feel, the empowerment etc). Both of these relationships are perfectly reasonable and have advantages and disadvantages. Marketers need to understand the particular advantages and disadvantages that come with both of these relationships and perhaps more importantly the failure that can occur when the relationship is in the middle and not compelling enough in either direction.

happiness shouldn't cost the earth

I really like this TED talk.

There are many methods that exist today whereby we rely on the old systems which served a great purpose back in the day, but transposed in to the world we live in right now, may not be the most efficient way about it.

Nic Marks asks us to question a country's measure of success, the definition we rely on is a financial one, the GDP. But production doesn't relate to happiness and that is what really matters to people, in fact, as Simon Kuznets said in the 1930's "a nations welfare can scarcely be inferred from their national income" and so based on the scarced resource, the planet, what system is an effective one for measuring people's well-being whilst also considering that production isn't necessarily sustainable?

He believes the Happiness Index.

Asked in order of preference what was most important to a survey of people (importance ratings worldwide):

1. Happiness
2. Love
3. Health
4. Wealth
   

As you can see the first three are very close to one another, wealth on the other hand important, but not ranking so highly. So why is it we hear daily media updates on the stock exchange, the exchange rates, the performance of gold and yet we don't learn of a country's energy use? How close we are to achieving our carbon emission targets? As Marks puts it - our "collective goals"?

Marks also eludes to some truths in terms of what does make people happy:

• Connections - social relationships are the most important cornerstones of your life. Connectivity will also allow us to work together to achieve something good and if something does go wrong (peak oil for example), its these communities that will really make a difference to how we adjust and survive it.
• Be active - do things, go outside, listen to music. Being stagnant doesn't make us happy.
  
• Take notice - mindfulness is very strong for our well-being, cognitive therapy talks to how being in the moment and aware of your surroundings will help you feel good.
  
• Keep learning - being ever curious, always learning throughout your lifetime will keep you happier longer.
  
• Give - altruism and compassion are all hardwired to the reward mechanism in our brains, this something I am very much interested in (Changing the perceptions of giving)
  

And so bringing this to a grassroots level, whilst here we can question a country's measurement of its success (set in a time when production was paramount to the country's development), I feel there is another big question to ask - what is the correct measurement of the success of ourselves?

What does The Wire have in common with advertising?

I was watching The Wire (Season 3) last night when an interesting point was flagged. Season 3 is all about change, it deals with how the drug game has to evolve as distribution channels ("The Projects") are demolished, the importance of product and efficient policing to keep to a commitment on crime numbers. Its all very political and man do I love it.

The brutality at Police Headquarters continues as Rawls and Commissioner Burrell terrorise Department Commanders over their failure to reign in the city's crime stats. In one scene in particular, one of the Baltimore's Police Sergeants gets verbally torn apart by Major Rawls after allowing his department to treat a number of thefts in a small locale with separate teams, shifting responsibility by fragmented cases, because apparently some thefts were corporate premises rather than retail outlets and individual homes albeit all on the same street resulting in poor efficiency and one really narked Commissioner.

I thought this a great metaphor for how advertising is often treated. A lot of agencies will separate by media such as TV, OOH/Print and Digital etc. which makes a lot of sense from a media booking standpoint but the irony being that at least from a strategic messaging standpoint, they all play a role in interweaving the overall campaign objective i.e. we're all working the same street.

Now I’m no expert in this, but a part of me feels that given the proliferation of media which moves away from static to interactive, we should all understand how each channel can be optimised and manage it collectively rather than in silo sharing learnings along the way. That means everything, from media, creative and production etc. or risk getting our asses whipped by the likes of Major Rawls in the not so distant future.

digital: collective surplus for good?

Having a conversation with an old colleague of mine Zoe Scaman about the idea of digital changing our cognitive process (for the worst) she introduced me to a recent article where suggested that "the case that technology increases our intelligence is at least as plausible as the gloomy idea that it is changing our brains for the worse, there are real downsides to the instant availability of torrents of information. The danger comes not from the information itself, or from how it could rewire our brains, but from the way we think about our own knowledge and abilities".

Social Media Theorist, Clay Shirky interestingly points out that new technologies enable a loose ­collaboration which takes advantage of “spare” brainpower enabled by the internet, which can change the way society works. In fact he believes for every way the Internet gives us to waste time, there is a way to increase the scope and diversity of our knowledge and to work collectively on problems not just on your doorstep or in your country but across the world - he uses the Ushahidi information collecting open source platform as an example of this.

And so why would someone want to share their surplus brain power? What are our intrinsic motivations? Clay explains that social constraints can create a culture that is more generous than a contractual one. Economic motivations may not align with our intrinsic motivations. The internet gives us the freedom to experiment which means the freedom to experiment with anything. It enables us to continue to consume, because that's what humans like doing and have been doing for a while but what it also allows us to do is create and share - two intrinsic motivations that are now not only enabled, but also, empowered in terms of breadth, scope and arguably time. So perhaps the interwebs are not bad after all.

philosophical about the interwebs

I realised today that I have been blogging in some shape or form for 12 years now (obviously not always under jectaspecta) and whilst time has passed me by, dial up has evolved to broadband, delayed to instant and private to public - I have grown up, to some extent and now in retrospect query my relationship with what has almost converged to become my virtual butler.

Nicholas Carr is a writer who commentates on how Information Technology is integrated in to our lives as a standardised practice. More recently he has been examining the cognitive and cultural consequences the internet has been having on our minds.

"I'm not thinking the way I used to think," Carr tells us. "I feel it most strongly when I'm reading." He relates how he gets fidgety with a long text. Like others, he suspects that the Internet has destroyed his ability to read deeply. "My brain," he writes, "wasn't just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it."

The history of reading is an interesting one. Words were once written without spaces and punctuation, they required a lot of attention to understand. Books were read aloud and shared with those who could not read (to their amazement). Readers slowly evolved to become accustomed to ignoring the sounds around them (going against our nature of alertness) and thus the deep thinker was born with cognitive ability to concentrate on the written word. Following the advent of the printing press, in a virtuous feedback loop, the public became more literate as more books circulated. How our minds adapt. Note: I bet you won't read all of this.

Carr believes that encouraged by the frenetic, fragmented, hyperlinked web, our skills in deep thought are now diminishing. We are becoming easily distracted, pay less attention to books or articles for sustained length and our minds have become data processing machines.

Carr's assertions have increasingly become a fact of accepted knowledge: that our addiction to the web and computers is affecting the way we think. That is, our capability for "deep thinking", is limited without the time to process information and draw our own conclusions.

Scarily, this concept has been shown to have significant foundations amongst academic performance in schools, studies reveal that home computers have "modest but statistically significant negative impacts" on academic performance as measured by math and reading test scores. In addition: "The introduction of high-speed internet service is similarly associated with significantly lower math and reading test scores in the middle grades." Worse yet, "the introduction of broadband internet is associated with widening racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps." Attempts to close the "digital divide" by, for example, subsidizing PC purchases may actually end up widening the divide between rich and poor in academic performance. And we thought computers promoted development.

Few concepts have spread as rapidly as the ‘digital divide’ and with it, the hope of using modern IT to promote development. Groups from the United Nations to local governments, and private companies have seized upon the hope that the use of IT could enable even the poorest of developing nations to “leapfrog” their problems of development such as poverty, illiteracy, disease, unemployment, hunger, corruption, and social inequalities so as to move rapidly into the modern Information Age.

We know little about the factors that make for effectiveness or ineffectiveness of grassroots IT projects in developing nations. Thus, critics can point out that the cost of creating a working Internet connection in a developing nation is the same as that of providing immunization against six fatal childhood diseases to thousands of children. Others have argued that the introduction of ICT’s into communities otherwise unchanged will merely heighten existing inequalities. Do we really know?

Is knowledge and wisdom based on things like reason, experience, perception? Or is it now a commodity, or data, that can be applied for a given situation. Has it become devoid of humanity? Of deeper processing? Have we become lazy because there is a machine that can offer an answer quicker than we can ask it? Does that knowledge become less significant because of its accessibility and transparency?

Not only is it just the way that we garner information that has changed but also what we do with it. Increasingly we syndicate this data via social networks: "web-driven speaking tools that reduce our own communication to data piles, stacked with quick, surface-level proclamations".

And while we may be sociable online, the social aspect of those networks is only distinguishable by the ability to connect people to one another in the strictest internet sense - not physically scarcely audibly, but almost in abstract. In the end, as we place our focus in to the screen, we are facing only what we've directed these machines to do - that is, so to speak, we are facing ourselves.

Forgive what may come across as a geek staring at the stars but it is, essentially, the virtual manifestation of our intentions. Its a perpetual narcissistic feedback loop of enclosed interactivity. Its the social network of our online persona, controlled by our offline selves communicated via a small piece of equipment shining a rectangle of ironic interaction. Confused? I think I am too. This requires deep thought.

Simply, we are drawn to an interface by its proximity and emptiness that it begs us to fill. Its the blank canvas that allows for an aggregation of content which gives us a unique opportunity to make it our own, our individualistic way. Our fingers encounter something tactile (sometimes greasy) but in reality the image is always light years away at a unique distance that can only be described as unbridgeable by the body.

What we are communicating is a mirror of ourselves in a highly pix-elated form, existing only as far away as the fingertip to keypad and yet equally, not anywhere at all.

Perhaps we are in danger of becoming simply the same surface-level information that we have become slowly programmed to gather.

Has IT made us smarter and less wiser? Should we change the way we gather information or the way we communicate it?

Is it time to get an iPad?

australian digital landscape

Recently on my visit to meet the remainder of my team in San Fransisco, I presented an update on the digital landscape in Australia. It was a brilliant exercise and a great opportunity for everyone to share their thoughts, qualms and questions on the subject.

I've boiled it down a little for the purposes of my blog.

Australian Digital Landscape

View more presentations from Jessica Brookes.

You have a voice here - feel free to use it. Even if you just want to tell me it sucks and digital smells.

Exit Through the Gift Shop & Mr Brainwash (MBW)

I love the MBW concept which Banksy brings to life in his documentary "Exit Through The Gift Shop". A movie about street art... or is it? This movie makes you think a lot and without giving too much away (go watch it). We see a character, Mr. Brainwash, whose real name is Thierry Guetta, an eccentric French-born ex-pat living in L.A. become a famous artist over night.

Guetta had been attempting to make a documentary about street art when he met Banksy. The outrageous plot of the film is that Banksy was so horrified by Guetta's potential movie - there's even an over-edited, shamelessly shocking "first cut" of the movie shown - and so fascinated with Guetta, that he turned the cameras on him, only to be completely blindsided when Guetta rips off his style launching a huge exhibition in L.A via a factory style, churn and burn rips offs none of which is are created by himself. That's what the movie says anyway.

But what really happened when Banksy encountered the filmmaker? Did he convince Guetta to pose as a budding graffiti artist wannabe so he and Fairey (Obey) could "direct" him in real life - manufacturing a brand new persona that both celebrates and criticizes the over-commercialisation of street art (and gives them a persona to sell their own art under in the process?)



The movie brings to life all the flaws in modern society beyond what's articulated on a canvas through the intangible demonstration.

Branding can influence what we think and also what we believe is the experience. We know that people are so influenced by hype that they'll believe food tastes better, cigarettes smoke better and art IS better (worth hundreds and thousands in fact).

So are we merely sheep? Who's the biggest joke here? Is it art? Is it society? Is it Banksy/Obey? Is it MBW? If art is a visual representation of where we are today - what does this say about the world we live in? I think Mr. Brainwash nails it sadly... and I hope Banksy and Fairey do something damn good with the money.

Poor rich people

This is a "communications idea" that came about recently which I felt compelled to research a little further.

I look to address the different perceptions and behaviour associated with giving and spending. It interests me because both consequentially have a similar emotional response and yet are communicated and perceived so differently.

I think its important to exercise a fresh perspective, to have a lateral approach and so whilst a part of me thinks this may just be one of those exercises to help me hone this - quite selfishly - it'd be great if it could spark some inspiration elsewhere.

I’m hoping an awesome agency/charity will be interested in bringing it to life, but I could be dreaming. I would obviously be happy for someone to take it and make it their own so long as it were true to the objective (actually, I'd be incredibly flattered!)

I'm not precious about it whatsoever; so please look for holes in it and bring it to my attention - its all part of the process.

I recommend looking at it big screen.

Poor Rich People - Changing the perceptions of giving

View more presentations from jectaspecta.

Augmented Flashmob in Amsterdam

Amsterdam residents got together at Dam Square yesterday for the first ever augmented reality flashmob. Darth Vader, The Beatles, Superman and various other awesome characters were in attendance.

Love the concept but its just so bizarre to see it in practice. There's no real interaction between the attendees as they're all engrossed with the interfaces of their mobiles.

This dude summed it up nicely ;)

How to start a movement

Here are some learnings from Derek Silvers TED Talk:

• A leader needs the guts to stand out and be ridiculed
• If you’re the lone nut who starts a movement, who goes out there alone, nurture your first few followers as equals – its about the movement not about you
• The first follower is an underestimated form of leadership in itself - he shows the others how to follow
• A movement must be public, new followers emulate the followers not the leader
• Leadership is over glorified; the first follower transforms the lone nut in to a leader (if we’re all trying to be leaders it’d be ineffective)
• As more people join in, its less risky, so those who were spectators now have no reason not to get involved - they won't stand out, they won't be ridiculed, they may be part of the in crowd if they hurry (Tipping point)

So, find your followers, embrace them as equals and have the courage to follow and show others. how to follow

The Future of Publishing

A very clever way to demonstrate the change publishing is undergoing at the moment. It says embrace your customer as partners in the process, let them inspire creative ideas to guide and validate the content you produce, regardless of the packaging.

And seriously, lets all get over Gaga.

The Internet of Things

"The Internet of Things" talks to how the internet has become a nervous system to our planet which can transform data and glean wisdom to create efficiencies in our every day lives.

I wonder what this means? Will humankind become lazy? Will this give us an opportunity to focus on different things such as innovation and creation?

(Thanks Conrad)

Demented Augmented

"The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

A film produced for my final year Masters in Architecture, part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality."

- Keiichi Matsuda

IBM Colour Sensitive Interactive Billboard

Color Sensitive Interactive Billboard from milton cj on Vimeo.
Interesting use of digital signage. One might even call it 'smart'...

(via Fubiz)

Look at the monkey

This student film I stumbled upon on YouTube quite simply makes me happy. Cool track, funky animations and strangely addictive!

Props to:
Animation - Thomas Hicks
Music - Aaron Lampert

Wireless communications

Its insane how rapid mobile is evolving. Mobile phones have fast become a phenomenon. They're no longer a medium for making voice calls but a platform to communicate in a ubiquitous world.

They're a tool that keeps you constantly in the present. They wake you up in the morning, facilitate gaming, stream movies, music, connect you to your proverbial social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. Furthermore, mobile commerce is evolving from early innovation to mainstream adoption.

Current mobile trends:

- Mobile will soon be able to stream movie content (via iPhone)

- iPhone and Android are becoming a platform of choice for developers

- iPad follows closely behind (iPad is mostly attractive to iPhone users)

- 73% of Android users are guys

- 78% of iPod touch users are younger than 25

- iPod touch users love apps and download an average of 12 a month, spending 100 minutes a day using them (37% more apps than iPhone and Android users)

- When it comes to solely paid apps, iPhone users lead the pack (half of them buy at least one app a month)

MOCOM2020 is an open think tank about mobile media worldwide. Their goal is "to develop a visualized vision of the future of mobile media in the year 2020". They also track the latest buzz on mobile communications.

AdMob serve ads for more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications around the world (and stores and analyses the data from every ad request, impression, and click) and offer a snapshot of its data to provide insight into trends in the mobile ecosystem.

Recently they ran a survey to AdMob publishers to understand how they are thinking about cross-platform development. The key takeaway from the survey is that 47% of publishers said they plan on developing on more than one platform in the next 6 months. Among those who plan on developing for another platform, Android was the top choice (caveat Blackberry is not included in the survey).

'In the same vein' they published results of a survey from Appcelerator which measured mobile developer interest on different platforms and found a similar strong interest in Android:

I predict in terms of the breadth of offering and functionality, mobile phone users are going to see their pocket device become increasingly dynamic and depended on in the years to come.

The challenge for brands is how they will facilitate this, using relevant content to work within a world where the primacy of once-virtual communication is transforming as, increasingly, the virtual and the real combine.

What Is Missing? By Silvie Bolcher

Sylvie Blocher is a famous French video artist. I went to her exhibition today at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art and I was totally blown away by the stunning visuals, insights and stories she presented. Her work What Is Missing? features people from Penrith unveiling their unspoken needs, hopes, dreams and desires, and was created while Sylvie Blocher was in residence in Penrith as part of the C3West Project. It talks to identity, culture, meaning in life and what people feel is missing in Australia.

Is the digital revolution sustainable?

“There are potentially large and early gains from better utilization of known technologies, goods and services…” Ross Garnaut, The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Final Report.


So in my previous post, I made some predictions about the media landscape of the future, of how the convergence between the 'traditional' and the 'new' will progress through the proliferation of media (from an advertisers perspective).

As someone who cares about the environment, its important to realise what this 'digital revolution' will translate to if information and communication technology (ICT) doesn't evolve quick enough and companies continue to have an incumbent approach to sustainability. Hence this post, from a Greenie's perspective.

There's no denying that digital presents great opportunity to limit footprint but its important to remember that whilst there's an element of intangibility, digital data needs to be stored somewhere in the real world (aka 'Cloud').

Presuming the over reliance on non-renewable energy continues, what will be the impact within ICT?

Well at present only 25% of the world is connected to the internet. This is due to change, Africa is one of the latest continents to become 'connected' and adoption is going to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.

There are more than one billion PCs and laptops currently in use, and that number is expected to grow to four billion by 2020 - that's an increase of 400% in ten years. A lot of people perceive the internet as a given or a right, but we must remind ourselves in the Western world- we still represent a minority.

ICT emissions are the same as the Aviation industry and yet for some reason ICT is largely ignored in the debate on emissions (even though its predicted to increase to 6% by 2020 - equal to the output of the Steal Industry). Is it because we can't see it? We certainly think about it when printing on paper or catching a plane. In one year it is estimated that an average server produces as much CO2 emissions as a family car... To put this in to perspective; Google is said to have somewhere between 700,000 to 1 million servers.

Lets look at 'emerging media' Google Search in more detail...

“The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.”

What does that mean in terms of emissions? Well according to Google, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. In 2009 there were 2.9 million searches conducted per minute by internet users over 15 according to commScore (an annual growth of over 40%) and Google accounted for 66.8% of these. Using my incredible mental arithmetic here: that's 1,937,200 Google searches per minute which according to them; equates to nearly three weeks worth of the average US households electricity consumption. That - all in one minute!

Source: Google blog

Within the advertising industry we've seen more content rich websites, 3D gaming, the advent of augmented realities and witnessed the progression of the ubur connected individual through social networks. This (much to my excitement) a demonstration of the breadth and evolution of digital communication and yet, often overlooked, consequently puts greater demands on data storage and energy use.

“Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” says Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power and lots of it! This is obviously not limited to search but across the internet infrastructure, its massive, behemoth and growing really really really fast.

Needless to say digital technologies do much to also limit carbon output, digital content and tools enable us to do many things quicker, with better quality, using fewer resources. But we must also consider the increase in e-waste and electricity consumption created as a consequence to the digital revolution. The challenge is to improve the environmental sustainability of the digital technologies we use and to use technology effectively to reduce resource consumption at the same time.

I’ve sent the future and its… Digital?

Increasingly we’re seeing communication channels expand and evolve in to more dynamic, interactive spaces. There’s been a gradual convergence between tradition and new media.

There are two fundamental changes I see:

1. People are increasingly less responsive to traditional broadcast advertising
2. Communication technology is developing at a very very fast rate

1. If an ad falls in the forest and no one notices, there is no ad.

In a traditional sense, you can define advertising as the science of creating and placing media that interrupts the consumer and prompts an action. Once upon a time this model was incredibly affective, ‘consumers’ had more time, less choice and so whoever shouted the loudest would win the argument. Not so anymore. Now we have less time and more choice, everyone is shouting at us at the top of their lungs why they’re the best and quite frankly it’s exasperating. I’m confused. I’m over-communicated. I’m cynical and having been exposed to traditional advertising all my life, I'm pretty savvy at avoiding it.

Seth agrees; "The interruption model is extremely effective when there's not an overflow of interruptions," Godin says. "But there's too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore."

That’s not to say that a new, innovative and incredible advert won’t grab attention but I think the challenge we have today is knowing how to shine amongst the clutter and appreciating that interruption is less exciting than interaction.

Its not a case of video killed the radio star; I don’t think it’s a matter of new media vs traditional media – it’s an evolution of our approach, the channels we use and an appreciation that the proliferation of media has changed the way in which people engage with content (remember that now consumer media consumption across channels leads to virtual days exceeding 24 hours)!

I’ve worked in agencies where this shift is emphasised to clients and yet in many cases, traditional media forms such as television remain the biggest investment, even if it’s not the best choice. One obstacle is lack of understanding of new media, followed by company inertia, another big obstacle is finding reliable metric models of these new tools and how a lot of marketers are still trying to retrofit those applied to traditional media.

Of course, the fact that people are less responsive to being shouted at also provides a great argument for a popular space at the moment, social media, where brands and people can have a dialogue. Personally whilst I think social media is a fantastic opportunity for marketers, brands and consumers alike, I also believe the facets of this space are really the beginning of things to come.

Our challenge as marketers is to find what might surprise, cut through, engage, entertain, add value and start conversations whilst using the right media to facilitate it in an increasingly fragmented landscape where ultimately the consumer's in control.

2. Communication technology is developing at a very very fast rate

If we look over the last century and examine the rate of technological growth its incredible to review the rate at which it has developed. We can fly, travel underwater, go to space, access the world wide web, we can see and talk to people on the other side of the world instantaneously, share still images by the click of a button, we can even carry our wallet, bank account, a GPS map, social network, search facility, computer game and telephone in our back pocket. Change will never be this slow again.

What I find very exciting is how traditional communication platforms are also progressing and moving in to the digital realm through these advances in technology and the internet. Some examples below:

TV channels are streaming catch-up TV online, TV channels are launching solely online, they’re integrating with social media (great post on this here), TV has got smarter, more relevant and started to allow for interaction at the push of a button. This I see only progressing.

Print: Newspapers and Magazines have been quite challenged lately and whilst there is seemingly a decline in the medium, the product remains strong. It is the means through which stories are distributed that are undergoing a rapid development. We’re already seeing print complemented with online articles/blogs/Twitter accounts. But this is just a glimpse of what we have to come, see the e-paper business and the likes of Amazon Kindles and Apple’s iPad to get an idea of what we might be reading stories from in the future.

And of course, not to mention, Outdoor Display which now commonly features interactive digital billboards, QR codes (personally not as exciting, but clever nonetheless), can create augmented realities, interactive window displays and not to mention feature hologram technology.

So to conclude, new technology allows for a much needed change of approach and engagement between brands and people. There’s more breadth, room for innovation and opportunities to do something amazing and interactive with people rather than just broadcasting a one-way message.

Forrester unsurprisingly has predicted a growth in interactive advertising and among the interactive channels, Forrester sees social media and mobile marketing spending expanding significantly between 2009 and 2014, with social media jumping by 34% on a compounded annual basis and mobile marketing increasing by 27%.

But these are young channels, at least as compared with relatively mature interactive mediums such as e-mail, display advertising and search which are also seeing a change.

I think it naïve to presume that interactive advertising solely rests within what some perceive as “Online / Digital”, we need to remember that traditional channels are becoming increasingly digitalised, technology is changing and whilst interaction is important and digital may facilitate it - you still need to be a brand that people want to interact with.

the silent retreatment

Image courtesy of Vermont Ferret

Recently I decided it was time to invest in a form of mediation known as Vipassana (which is essentially a 10 day silent retreat). I have dabbled in meditation before and found it to be a great form of relaxation, however, sticking to it given the life I lead has been a challenge. There's no denying that I broach the subject reluctantly with people as frankly it doesn't necessarily align with social norms of Western society, people give you that look which says "You're... interesting..."

I suppose if I am honest this was a curious enterprise for me, I've never remained quiet for such a long period of time, am married to my iPhone, wifi flows through my body everyday and I have succumbed to a restless addiction to coffee - so a prolonged abstinence was an unnerving endurance test.

And so, how was it? What happened?

The meditation retreat was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I wanted to leave a lot. I was somewhat misled by the term "retreat" given that the whole process was personally nothing but. I craved meat. I found myself singing Cher and I got angry at people leaving doors open.

However. Even though I can say it was difficult, in the same breath, I will also admit it was quite possibly one of the best things I have done in my life. And get this: Being silent for 10 days solid was the easy part (albeit impractical).

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation, the technique is a very practical one progressively taught day by day and what I found essentially interesting was the psychological implications of the practice. Contrary to meditative tradition, I have sought to intellectualise it.

Neuroscientists have found that meditators shift brain activity to different areas of the cortex - brain waves in the stress-prone right frontal cortex move to the calmer left frontal cortex. This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety. There is also less activity in the amygdala, where the brain processes fear and so it was no surprised that I consequently felt pretty relaxed following 10 days of intense meditation (timetable), no surprise at all.

What was amazing was the cognitive impact during the practice which went beyond alleviating stress. Apparently the brain is organised into a hierarchy of specialised modules, at the top of which are three mega modules which represent information according to their specialism. Roughly they relate to:

• Knowledge/Thoughts
  
• Emotion
  
• Action
  

During the laborious meditation stints, after dragging my sorry self from bed to meditation hall before the sun had risen and my eyes had blinked out the blindness, I would actively train myself to view objectively (Knowledge) the physical sensations (Action) and my feelings (Emotion) for aprox 12 hours a day. No easy feat believe me. What happened? Well, I became hyper-sensitive in these three areas (but please note - this is very subjective).

Knowledge/Thoughts
I didn't get smarter, but I got wiser. Something that resonated was the idea that "Wisdom is knowledge transformed" and that's how it felt. What was also incredible was my memory recall. I remembered moments of my past, people, incidents, details that I hadn't even thought about since they occurred. One in particular which had me giggling relentlessly.

Emotion
Emotionally I became incredibly aware of my response mechanism, the tangibility of emotions and the choice one has to react to an emotion or not.

Action
And finally, whilst clearly my action was limited to a bare minimum, physically during practice, I had some very surreal "sensations" apparently akin to the effects of horse tranquilizer (according to someone I spoke to afterward who had a similar experience) and by being impartial to these totally bizarre sensations experienced the innate link between behaviour, thoughts and emotion by observing them.

So, in conclusion, for fear of sounding like a crazy new age hippie who may have had John Lennon on repeat in her mind, got far too excited about porridge and had mild obsessive compulsive tendencies around light switches and herbal tea, the Vipassana had a tremendously good impact on me. I was sharper, confident, creative and according to my bf, one very cool cucumber as a consequence. I fully recommend it.