A brilliant documentary on "How Trends and Creativity Become Contagious". Although the video is embedded here above, I strongly recommend you to view it on the dedicated website. It's a simple, smart, relevant & absolutely stunning modern documentary experience too.
How do you consider video quality and graphic interfaces in your online viewing experiences?
"INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.
The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.
Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today's pop culture.
"Influencers" belongs to the new generation of short films, webdocs, which combine the documentary style and the online experience."
Sharing with you here the keynote presentation I gave on May 6th to the students of the Masters class "Issues in Marketing Communication", at the IHECS (Haute Ecole Galilée). A bit more about the story: I had the honor to be contacted by Jean Pierre Ranschaert, teacher "Chef de Travaux" at the IHECS and blogger at LIVErtising], for this special assignment, last course before the end of the year evaluations.
How is Social Media connected to reality? Is it all about technology, digital and web? What's that big thing about the web? Is it just a must do trend? Are brands listening? Do they simply... care? Should they, really?
Are brands (who don't) the new Social Punks?
The idea was to bring a general overview and a few simple cases to point out a series of important elements in social media dynamics. At the end of the day, technology, digital and web are "just" tools that facilitate the transport of information or bring extra UTILITY to the CONTEXT people live in. The social media side of the digital evolution (simply said "connected humans"), is probably one of the most important factor to always keep in mind. It is all about sociology, psychology, one-to-one (direct) relations, group behavior. It all happens around or through the places where conversations pop, stay, and spread (or die). But it also, ultimately, relies on the places where great and new EXPERIENCE is lived and shared (yesss, life rocks, remember?). And last but not least... it is all about relevant, expandable, positive, shared VALUE, created within the CONTEXT.
On the day of the live presentation, I must say I was very happy to have such
response and feedback. Surprised (in a very positive
way) by the direction of some questions coming from the students...
- "When I hear about social media, it seems we always have to be connected... Why should we spend our lives in front of computers or mobiles?"
- "When you share something on Twitter, like a picture, a link or a quote... does it make you feel better or greater?"
As communication experts or just active participant how would you answer these questions?- And of course, please don't hesitate to shoot comments on the presentation. It is and will remain open to change & updates.
PS : Wanted to thank Jean Pierre Ranschaert for the invite and honor, Helge Tennø for his encouragements and feedback and Gavin Heaton for his always FAB presence (not only online, but LIVE on Skype during the keynote this time...) and for the extra precious and deeply appreciated VALUE he brought while being the noble Servant of my Blob-bla-bla Chaos. ; )
PPS :And since it is mentioned as a case example in the presentation, but I didn't point it there, The Age of Conversation book also have 2 next editions published after the first one. The brand new, AOC 3 is available for purchase right now. All benefits going to a children's charity nominated by the 171 authors. - Check it out and go for it!
SIDE NOTE : I just found an interesting
guest
post of Marta
Majewska on Chris Hall's brilliant Cowbell blog. Marta's question is : "Would you be my...
brand?". She refers to brands listening (or not) and the special type
of relationships they may or ma not have with their consumers. Is it or
should it be like in a
love/friendship story? Check it out.
It's been a while... I never stopped blogging for so long. There are times when your mind is looking for something... else or different. Times when thinking is not enough anymore. You see, observe, listen to the world around you and wish to take part, contribute in a different and more accurate way. As described by Jonah Lehrer in his post on meta thinking, found on Seed Magazine:
"Good judgmentis more than amatter of “gut feeling” — it’s thewillingness to reflect on the decision-making processitself".
Excellent article about metacognition, that I invite you to read. Hopefully, most of us know that it's the journey that counts, above the
destination. Being human also means keeping faith in what we believe in, up to the limits of our minds and bodies. Explore, be curious, innovate, fly. - [see above "G." stunning human film directed by J. Xavier Velasco touched me with both its form and metaphoric content]
Now, back to the Belgian actuality: Seth Godin's presence at Flanders DC on the so tweeted about "Ahead of Marketing" speech, paraphrased : "Creativity, innovation and how to market those well". I regrouped a few words of wisdom of the respected Marketing God, found on Twitter via the #godinfdc tag. Let's call them the most tweeted :
- "Be personal. Be relevant.
Be specific."
- "The old way: average
stuff for average people"
- "Scarcity of choice is
over! Be remarkable!"
- "The old marketing =
interrupt your way to success"
- "The new marketing = Ideas
that spread, win"
- "The market for something
to believe in is infinite."
- "Albert Einstein ruined the word genius"
- "Being a genius = solving a
problem like no one else has ever before"
- "Interchangeable parts
lead to interchangeable people"
- "Want to be indispensable ?
Make a difference!"
- "The reason they want you
to fit in is that once you do, they can ignore you"
- "Public school trained us
to shut up & stand still"
- "You can't blame the
system anymore. You are responsible"
- "A lizard brain is all about fear. 'Oh my God, I'm going to die' "
- "CREATE YOUR RULES!"
- "Are you afraid or are you
curious, the choice is up to you"
- "Leaders only have one
thing in common: they're leaders"
- "Teach kids two things: to
solve interesting problems and to lead"
Now, my question to you is: how would you describe these quotes? Are they new, unique ideas about the marketing of tomorrow, creativity or innovation? Things you have never heard before? (OK, besides Einstein's big genius bang and the freakin' lizards metaphors maybe) ; )
Maybe Godin created his own rules and applied what he teaches like no one else has ever done before and so, he restored the word genius from Albert Einstein to manage his meta-way through "being Seth Godin" as a diabolic -yet very admirable- money making machine (???) And in this regard, it's a fact, yes: the market seems to be infinite for someone people believe in.
I leave it up to your own judgment, really. What do you think about it? Or should I say "how" are you thinking about it? I was not there but in a way, to be honest with you, I don't have many regrets. Bird's eye view brought it's load of insights and guess what, I'll be thankful to Seth for activating this thinking. Hopefully some smart non-lizard
brains already pinned a few things out of the speech. In a way I felt a lot more connected to these Alien thoughts than to the words of wisdom themselves. Also really appreciated the brilliant angle taken by Clo Willaerts in her post on the event. It made me think about a quote I read on the Hopenhaegen site: "WHEN PEOPLE LEAD, LEADERS FOLLOW". Yep, I believe a lot more in the inspired, consciously shared, trusted, engaged, collaborative lead than in the individual performances or "power / force lead".
And if you don't mind -pardon me the expression- I can't resist sharing with you a few key paragraphs from Jonah Lehrer's article. I think they aretouching the
"HOW to fly":
"The larger point, of course, is that humans aren’t rational calculators. According to Kahneman and Tversky, when people are confronted with an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information, or compute the Bayesian probabilities, or do much thinking at all. Instead, their decisions depend upon a short list of emotions, instincts, and mental shortcuts. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. So far, so bleak: The human mind is an imperfect computer, stuffed full of programming bugs. But some researchers now believe that there may be a way of avoiding such innate psychological mistakes. When we flex our metacognitive muscles and think about how we are thinking, we are able to notice when we’re thinking poorly. The end result is that we avoid those avoidable mental blunders. ... Given the distinct talents of our various cognitive styles, a willingness to think about our own thought processes and to adjust our mode of decision making to the task at hand could transform the way we use the mind. Before we do anything else, we should go meta."
I came across this inspiring presentation today. Don't ask me why, it made a LOT of sense to me. The kind of thoughts that would push you into thinking that the limit between today and tomorrow might just be your will to make it happen.
Is this (still) a futuristic vision of what tomorrow "could be"? Or is it now more likely a very appealing insight of what today already "is" for those who decided to jump and go for it? In other words, would we want tomorrow to be like yesterday when we were thinking about today? Huh... I need to think about it, really! What's your view on this?
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.
Here is a touching talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of "Eat, Pray, Love") on the creative genius and the importance of its perception. Should we see a person as "being" the rare genius or as "having" a genius moment? Well, the answer of this question -if there is one- is worth spending 19 minutes listening to Elisabeth's out-of-the-ordinary story.
So many things take all their meaning from the way we decide to see them. Always great to allow a little short-circuit within our brain synapses every once in a while, and then eventually... re-think the obvious. Or maybe the other way around: the obvious is maybe closer and simpler to understand when "listening to our heart", than it might seem to be when trying to "see it through our brains".
I liked the idea of running fast... in order to catch the genius. Makes me think about Forrest Gump, running faster and smashing the obvious to our eyes: - "I may not be a smart man... but I know what love is".
I remember getting caught by a silly quote while watching what one might see as a silly film as well : "Golden Eye". OK, as a James Bond fan, I don't care about the silliness of the film but rather see it as a fairly good piece of entertainment. This said... in the film there is a sequence where 007 (Pierce Brosnan) is having an argument with Defense Minister Dimitri Mishkin (Tchéky Karyo) while Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) is quietly watching them. Suddenly, she interrupts the 2 men and says :
"Stop it! You act like... boys with toys!"
Well, believe me or not, this unexpected allegory made me laugh and these words stayed in my mind ever since. So, simply, true. Sometimes men supposed to be, act, behave as adults show themselves off, like (big) little kids. Their toys? Well, could be anything, from dart guns to real guns, the sky being the limit (Mmmm... can't think of any limit, actually!).
The video illustrated above is a good example of "fun adult play". Naturally, and again, we could be wondering if this is a real story... and if they really did it. Usually, I like things to be quite clear, but this film was surprisingly not pulling the trigger for me. Why? Because it is entertaining, fun to watch and creatively insightful. So whatever, I like it as it is. Even if some questions remain... like who's behind? Vodafone? Blackberry? And of course... the now super great classic: "So what? ...and then what's next?". This last question being exactly where the focus should be in order to make it really "different" or impactful.
What's the point about writing a blog, reading others, commenting, contributing to social networking? Is there a link between blogging and reality? Or is it just like blowing in the wind of virtual authority, ephemeral popularity? If some of you still have these questions in a corner of their minds, here is a wonder-full (yes, full of wonders!) angle to look at it.
Yesterday, David Armano published a very touching post. He was sharing with the community that he was in contact with a family obviously going through very difficult times. Daniela (pictured above with her family - Brandon, age 6, Daniela, age 9 and little Evelyn age 4) is divorcing her spouse after years of abuse. In recent years her mortgage went unpaid and she's lost her house. As of this moment, Daniela's family is staying at David & his wife Belinda's house and they are
trying to help her find a one bedroom apartment for her family to live
in (read more about the story here).
So, for the very first time since he began blogging David raised a call for help to the community, starting from his readers to... whoever the message can be carried to. I can't help remembering one (now) famous graphic David posted back in 2006, trying to illustrate how valuable content can travel and be carried through the Influence Ripples of social networking. The ripples are indeed there through, within and sometimes way beyond the internet. Some blogger getting more influence every day, some loosing influence... some simply not caring about influence, but still "being there".
Well here is a fact : David, with his simple, genuine, authentic call dropped a tiny little stone in his blog pond. The ripples started to move, but this time something different happened. A wave jumped out of the waters and spread the social networking ocean with a self propelled very positive energy. That energy is the one making things jump from the virtual (ideas) world into reality. And in less time than it takes to realize what's happening, David raised above 10.000 USD for Daniela's family!
Well, what I'm writing here is indeed very personal... but when I see David's thank you video, it touches me. I mean, it really touches me. I think there is something greater in this film than a blogger saying "Hey guys, thanks!". The compression codec of this video is filled with sincere emotions. The common wave length is wrapped around the POSITIVE VALUES embedded into the little stone he dropped on L&E.
Thumbs up David! Thank you for the inspiration you brought to Daniela's family and to us at all at the same time. This gem is what makes me believe that there is a human treasure hidden behind this age of conversation. I trust people will get it... it's probably just a matter of time.
PS : And of course... it's not too late to participate! Just do it! : )
A few months ago, I ran across my RSS reader and POW! Right Between the Eyes... got hit by a post of my friend Andy Nulman. Andy said (again!) :
"Consistency isn't everything it is cracked up to be" - Then, naturally I can hear your immediate question why? Andy brings his own answer to this : "In business, a reputation of being reliable and true-to-your-word is
both admirable and desirable, but there's something to be said about
the currency of Surprise being part of your corporate DNA."
He then points to the way Andy Berndt of Google described working with Obscura Digital in Fast Company (see other article on digital projections here) :
"The thing about working with these guys is that you never know quite how a project's going to come out... you just know they have great taste and are going to wow everybody"
That is definitely a very nice way to be described by a client. So this lead me to investigate a little about Obscura Digital. Who are these guys and what are they doing. Well, glad I did... look what I found in a very interesting CNET News articleby Kara Tsuboi - (video credits CNET) :
CEO Patrick Connolly describes his company as "... a marketing company revolutionizing the advertising world with its interactive and immersive technology." Obscura Digital is based in San Francisco USA (soon new offices to come) and their work has found clients all over the world.
As you might know by now, documenting "new & innovative live experiences" is one of my favorite topics. This, because I believe that unique experiences will always strongly insight conversation. I just love the "I wish I could have been there... I wish I could have seen this" effect. But when you make the experience INTERACTIVE + IMMERSIVE + CAPTIVATING you get really powerful human emotions drivers... and so, powerful communication tools when mastered with the appropriate expertise, of course. Well, I wish I could meet these guys and visit the testing labs of Obscura Digital! ; )
When was the last time you were impressed by a "unique" live experience? What made that live experience memorable?
Most people agree that curiosity may be interesting, depending on the circumstances, naturally. It leads you to discovering new things, it feeds creativity and it's a gate to innovation. From a personal perspective I think it works a little bit like a radar... in stand-by mode and starting to beep when you sense "something different", new or interesting.
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