This is probably the best slideshare presentation I've read for a long time. It was composed by Helge Tennø, Strategic Director and Digital Planner at digital agency Screenplay in Oslo, Norway.
Smart thinking documented by brilliant quotes from successful leaders, marketers, strategists, CEO's or so called visionaries. What I find interesting in this long -yet completely fascinating- presentation is the overhaul perspective it unveils to our eyes, from the obvious EVOLUTION of consumer behavior, through the new definition of "digital marketing", way to the ultimate long term battle of the brands related to (shared) VALUE.
He introduces 3 ideas representing THE NEW CURRENCY :
VALUE : transports much better compared to "attention" - creating value in the context surrounding the product is positively transforming consumer experience. + DIRECT RELATIONSHIP : "Visualizing the decline of the destination web and the rise of the social media web"... New opportunity : Brands to create direct relationship with consumers. - TIME -the unstoppable force- (love this!) : He quotes: "Time does not exist!". On some media, content disappears. On other platforms it grows, connects and augments.
A rich journey naturally guiding you across notions like the fabulous TRANSMEDIA (Faris Yakob), importance of context and convergence, ARENAS, collaborative creativity, utility, search vs SHARE, idea exchange, etc.
Insightful, to the point, clear, mind challenging, absolute must read if you're related in any way to marketing, communication, advertising or have an open curious mind looking for some clues about the future of the relationship between consumers and "their" brands.
In one of his last posts, Drew McLellan pointed to our attention Liz Strauss' initiative to feature on her Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers)blog an open list of interesting blogs to discover. Here is where her idea comes from :
At Open Comment Night last night,
we talked about Creative Networking. Lots of great ideas were gathered,
and that conversation got me thinking about more of them. Two years
ago, we had a weekend showcase for blogs. I thought it might be fun to
try it again.
So this weekend is a Successful-Blog Blog-to Show. It’s a Virtual
Auto Show for Blogs. Detail your blog. Polish the trim and come show it
off. We’ll line them up, look them over, and get to know each other and
our blogs just that much better."
So, for those of you looking for inspiration or to find new blogs, I recommend to check the list Liz is SHARING with us. It is linking to very nice content AND very nice bloggers, 260 actually! Why should you check them out? Well, they all have one thing in common... they were LISTENING and heard Liz's call. Two interesting gem keywords when it comes to blogging. And if you are one member of the list and came here to visit this blog... welcome to mindblob! Please feel free to leave a little message. A very nice way to both honor Liz's idea and create new connections. : )
- Karl Long as being filmed by CM's web cam... hi Karl ! -
Imagine you were a fish on misson, in a bowl right at Forrester Consumer Forum 2007. Imagine you could see and hear people there and -wow!- send them text messages to a screen and get instant "live" feedback. What would you actually see? What would you say? Well, the first thing you'd witness is Critical Mass fantastic, audaciously open, conversation experiment : ALWAYS IN BETA.
David Armano and the super team at Critical Mass Chicago are indeed giving us an insightful view on the Forrester Consumer Forum. Letting anyone on the net log onto their open "Always in Beta" site. I encourage you to check it out as this is only a 2 days event (11th and 12th October). CM's blog is here.
As being one of the fishes around the Internet bowl yesterday, I must confess I really enjoyed the experience. First of all the technical aspect, innovative Internet tools (free and available to all of us, provided by UStream). So, no complicated IT server and gear with wires and geeks figuring out the optimal bandwidth in a hidden NASA-control-room-like place. Computer + web cam + Internet connection = that's about it. Well, of course there were some gaps in the video from time to time and the available computer mic was a bit overwhelmed by his assignment (unidirectional might help for next broadcast). But that's not so important, this is Beta, right.
The most important thing is the EXPERIENCE offered there. It opens lots of doors and ideas on how the future of live coverages of events could be. Imagine a phone with super-speed Internet access and a camera and you could broadcast "live" on the Internet from any hotspot. David gave us -fishes- an adrenaline peak when he went "WIFI-LIVE". Walking with his laptop and web cam in the hallways of the Forum felt like being on Neil Armstrong shoulder on July 20, 1969. Wow! David's wifi-walk made me think about this :
"It's one small step for man...
one giant leap for Conversation"
Congrats guys ! ! ! What an experience! We, fishes, loved it! Thank you for taking us on Enterprise -Critical Mass- spaceship... for a walk & talk on planet Forrester. Last but not least CM bought 300 Age of Conversation hardcover books and offered them to the visitors of the forum. Now wait a minute... maybe "Beta", means "Conversation"... That's it!
The "Age of Conversation" the collaborative project of 100 authors, is now available on Lulu.com (ebook, paper and hardback). As a reminder, the editors of this project are Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton. Note that all proceeds will be donated toVariety, the Children's Charity, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of children around the world.
If you have the patience to wait a little bit while watching a politician speak french for a while, I encourage you to check this site. No focus on content here, although the promises made by this guy who introduces a new political party are quite funny, like extremely low tax rates, free buses and cabs, free gasoline for all... The name of the fake party itself is a "cliché" since “MDR” is the french equivalent of “LOL”.
Check the way the web designers treated the integration between text and video. At the end as there is no possible interaction... (besides one link to the party communicating this), this micro site worksjust like an ad. Quite interesting, isn't it?
Hey, I saw this little groovy dude weeks ago and even if he has no face, he made me smile. Very well designed character, isn't it? So here it is : "Cool! I’ve been nominated for Blogger's Choice Awards!"Thanks to “Iamsemjaza” who seems to have kindly nominated quite a few blogs.The results will be announced on November 10th, 2007 at PostieCon in Orlando, Florida.
Mindblob is nominated for 3 categories on Blogger's Choice Awards :
In other words, if you are bored clicking without excitment, if you have alienfriends willing to click but who just can’t or if you feel like testing your new mouse,... please go ahead and practice on this spot and maybe, eventually... change that "zero" over there. ; )
You can now be a part of "the story", a narrative illustrated fresco, incorporating pictures submitted by the readers. Okay, I must admit the plot and scenery are quite surreal, but still... it is fascinating to view characters based on real people. Plus the idea is worth consideration as it could lead our minds to imagine other concepts based on the same principle.
Building a story, music, painting, object, item... piece by piece, with submitted elements. Definitely lots of things still to be done that way.
Back to the end of December, Russell Davies the UK based super-planner we’ve all read and heard about, had a post on trends for 2007.
Russell and his associates of the OIA (Open Intelligence Agency) were asked by Piers (Psfk.com - ideas, trends and inspiration) to tell them their trend predictions for 2007. Members of the OIA (Emily Reed from Sidney, Jeffre Jackson from Amsterdam, David Nottoli from New York and Russel himself) made a small video to share with us their vision. Basically, they say video on the internet is going to spread and be used on a wider scale (inc. video conferencing, video tutorials, product demos, etc.). Check it out on the video here under.
Viewing this lead me to 2 different thoughts. My first reaction was to secretly think : “Yes... it’s about time!”. I’ve always been thinking that video was going to be a big hit on the net as soon as technology and bandwidth would allow it. As you may know, for the last 7 years I’ve been running the TV production department of an international advertising agency. When many of my fellow TV producers were worried about the decrease of local productions and at the same time reduction of the average budget to shoot a commercial, I always thought internet would bring new production challenges and demands.
There is a key to be considered by producers, though. We’re not talking about the same kind of productions. When for an advertising film, we refer to shooting in 35mm or 16mm with complete film crew (technically comparable to a cinema shoot), the new film demand is going to be a lot lighter in terms of production: light crew, video, HDV, etc. Making quality films for the internet (...and I’m not talking about the YouTube “Hey dudes, my camcorder and I rule!” kind of films – which can be quite funny, BTW) is as important as investing time and money in the design of the sites. I think there is room there for film producers and professionals. Now, for filmmakers, trading a 35mm film camera for an HD video cam is a bit like what photographers had to consider when going digital. There is a respectable emotional issue underneath, but well... new creative tools and ideas to explore at the same time, not to mention a new market to develop.
(35mm film roll - originally uploaded on Flickr
by _Silverstar_)
Then my second thought went to the OIA itself. I’ve been reading many posts and comments lately on what bloggers could define as :
“The perception that the way we work and communicate is going to change, because of the new opportunities linked to the evolution of the internet”.
Or in other words (in a very business oriented thought): Internet leads to a new communication era where companies will have to consider the consumers differently and offer them more than up front (push) communication and after sales (block) helpdesk (hey masiguy, I'm with you on this one!). Companies will have to open the tank and let their previously called “target” reach them with feedback (pull) and “insights” on their existing and future products. Creating Passionate Users recently published an interesting post entitled “Reverse-engineering user reviews”, which describes how to read and analyze user reviews and consider them from a psycho-social and marketing point of view - (part of the visual hereunder comes from Creating Passionate Users).
If TIME magazine and their controversial front page: “Time's Person of the year: YOU” was subject to many criticism, at least it did attract attention of the sceptical masses on the new role of consumers. That’s now a fact. Rapid access to information, community building, freedom of speech (ok, ok, we’re on our way!) lead to an EVOLUTION of HUMAN behavior. At the same time, I think that business wise this is (or at least will be) a REVOLUTION within the companies, because they will have to review their structures and modus operandi taking into account the new dialogue engaged with their customers. (I link back to David Armano’s description of the “Flat vs. Round worlds” as I think it helps visualize sharing ideas from the 2 different perspectives – so extremely brilliant DA!).
If I’m sure many of us (YOU, right here, right now!) have a clear perception of this phenomenon, change is, nevertheless, going to take (some) time. Time to spread the Round World, time to touch a majority vs (still) a minority, time before reaching CEOs and leaders of the big corporations, and... last but not least, time before they actually take adequate action to “adapt” and eventually restructure their big monster companies. In the meantime, communication professionals whether marketers, advertisers, web designers, have (some) time to prepare and shape their surfboard for the next wave.
The OIA is a proposition : light, flexible, international, multi-cultural professionals ready to take action anytime.
I think there is more to do out of this example. There is a time for thinking, and a time for action. In moments of changes, it is good to pause and look around (many of us know it... LewisGreen, Roger von Oech, David Armano). Because it is difficult (say impossible) to run in a direction, if you know this direction is just not the right one. Take time, focus, gain conviction, then go back to... action.
Hint hint hint ! Food for thoughts, guys! How do you consider the way you work today?
Talking about trends is definitely the trend of the first month of the year. Trends are like rumors, they’re everywhere. Still some attract attention more than others, reason why I’d like to share these links with you… about trends for 2007 - (thanks to Viaspire for spotting them).
First is the “Radar for 2007” top 5 trends from trendwatching.com, an independent and opinionated consumer trends firm, relying on a global network of 8,000 spotters around 120 countries worldwide. They have a more detailed report, but the complete file is, of course, for sale. Now the 5 trends on focus :
1. Status lifestyles 2. Transparency tyranny 3. Web N+1 4. Trysumers 5. Global Brain
I invite you to check the detail of these 5 bullet points as I believe they are worth the read. Nevertheless, I can’t resist to pick number 5 and relay its content here. Although this one might seem evident to most of you, the idea that talents and thinkers are getting connected and that there is something big underneath this idea, is tickling me from the beginning of this blogging experience.
"...We’ve spoken about THE GLOBAL BRAIN before: all of the world’s intelligence and experience, fully networked, incorporating not only the usual suspects like gurus, professors and scientists, but the experiences and skills of hundreds of millions of smart consumers as well. With the 'shortage of talent' that every brand on every continent seems to fear in 2007, tapping into THE GLOBAL BRAIN seems a, well, no-brainer. This year, expect many corporations, small and big, to aggressively court the 1% of most creative and experienced individuals roaming the globe."
We’ve probably heard, read and written too much about the Z-List already. Nevertheless, I found a few mutations of the list that lead me to this post. The interesting thing to discover is that they all seem to have one common point : the original and positive spirit is still spreading. Way to go Z-W-B-D-Lists! Hey... wait a minute, this looks like a Z-List of the Z-Lists. ; )
Note also that after last week announcement, Seth Godin’s Squidoo list has gone through some sort of mutation. Ray Edwards (Copywriter and Marketing Consultant) has taken over Seth's lens and has now the role of moderator. - To be continued...
UPDATE :
Sandra Renshaw from Purple Wren (now know for her beautiful Z-List collage) tracked a mobile and interactive mutation on Wiffiti. Original idea comes from Jaynie.K at Beyond Madison Avenue. So, check it out if you are located in the US, this thing is pretty cool. Doesn't work from abroad... unless you find someone to send your message from the sates, right! ; )
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