I wrote 50,000 words of a novel this month during NaNoWriMo nd I am exhausted. It may be rubbish but I did it and sometimes that’s all that counts.
30
Nov
09
I did it!
I like Pat Kane’s thinkings. Here are some he has recently presented at the digital labor conference in NY.
His position is that we underestimate the power of play to shape the way that the internet is developing. And there is also some interesting thought on socio-biological theories of play and how they relate to our relationship with the net.
Better to get it from the horse’s mouth.
04
Nov
09
links for 2009-11-04
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Currently doing a little campaign in Germany all based around this.
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Do you care? Maybe not but this is how I spent my Saturday night and it was excellent!
27
Oct
09
NaNoWriMo 2009
I might be an idiot – you can be the judge – on second thoughts don’t bother – but I am going to attempt NaNoWriMo for the 3rd time in my life.
NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, where 1000s of people commit to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days during November.
My first attempt in 2007 failed after about 6000 words. My second, last year, resulted in a 51,627 word children’s book which I am half way through editing. This year, who knows whether I will succeed or not, particularly as I have recently had an impingement in my right shoulder that makes typing etc slightly painful…
But I am not daunted! I can honestly say that finishing my novel last year was one of the most pleasurable and challenging things I have ever done. It felt like a real achievement and the whole process gave me a great deal of enjoyment.
It does become slightly obsessive, and you feel a little bereft at the end, but for anyone who has thought they could write a novel and lies surrounded by the carcasses of novels started and never finished I would recommend NaNoWriMo as the most likely way you are going to get it done.
If you feel like supporting/bullying/checking in on my progress during the month you would be more than welcome, as one of the drivers to complete is the pressure of knowing you have declared yourself to the world and will fail publically. Shame is a powerful force my friends.
The madness starts this Sunday.
I recently did a presentation at ad:tech on the work we have done for oneworld (ongoing) to engage business travellers through mobile content.
It’s been a fun project to work on and had great uptake but I think it also demonstrates the importance of getting the insight right. Here’s the presentation.
16
Oct
09
links for 2009-10-16
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Interesting. Forward thinking. As Michael Grade points out, potentially problematic for UK investment and media industry as a whole. But great for advertisers who will have more access to market via this channel.
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They didn't do brilliantly with Joost, but the team that set up Skype are now backing a contender to Spotify. Sounds interesting, watch this space.
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NIce breakdown of the First Direct interactive site inviting comments from customers – however bad or good – from ifonlyblog. As Richard points out, brave tactics that can reap dividends in claiming a territory of genuinely open conversation within banking.
14
Oct
09
Get your rouge out
Rouge magazine logo
P&G continue their long tradition of creating content that speaks to their consumersand it’s great to see. Content has always been a key element in their communications from product placement in As the World Turns to their new venture in China. And now they have launched some openly owned content online for women in America and Canada. It’s not massively deep but of course there are great contests and prizes to be won. The main drive is possibly to the print magazine that you can subscribe to…
In addition they seem to have ignored the social media opportunities for this magazine – there is no way to post this to any network on the pages and doesn’t appear to be anything on any other network.
Primarily it’s the principle I like – they appreciate that the channels are there for the taking, that their opportunity consists in delivering an experience of a high quality that is really wanted/desired as opposed to a message that can be screened out. In times of recession low cost – high quality experiences are always going to win out as people seek to entertainment to take themselves away from the low feeling “out there.” (That’s why games and cinema traditionally do well in times like these.)
If 80% of your custom comes from 20% of your customers then they only need to engage some of the people some of the time for this approach to bring dividends.
10
Oct
09
links for 2009-10-10
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Check out The Experience for some proper ARG type activity around this film. I love it when marketing gets creative.
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Is this a surprise. No. Is it interesting? Yes. Video is coming of age. I love the smell of convergence in the morning.
Continuing my reviews or recommendations of non-planning books for planners I lay before you the latest one I have just finished for your consideration The Time Paradox. It’s a great popular pyschology book about the way that different people experience or relate to time in different wys, how that influences their behaviours and ultimately impacts on their lives.
When we develop ideas around a core proposition we consider many avenues – how the product is made, heritage, price etc. Of course we look at user characteristics too, but never explicitly at how their relationship to time influences their actions. And yet, we each of us view time through about 6 sets of very particular glasses – present hedonistic, future pessimistic, future optimistic, transcendent. All of these will influence our purchasing behaviour and our relationship to a brand.
So for examples, brands like WKD appeal strongly to the present hedonistic in all of us. Whereas brands like Burberry appeal to an intriguing mix of past positive, present positive and future optimistic. If you know you are targeting a group with a strongly past pessimistic focus how does that change your communications? How does it make your audience view your communications?
This book gives no answers to any of that, it simply explains the different perspectives. The paradox? We all experience time at the same rate but view it completely differently. There’s also a great explanation of why intelligent and souful young men become suicide bombers that you shouldn’t miss.
If you are looking for a new perspective this book will give it to you in spades.
24
Sep
09
How was it for you?
Well London Digital Week is drawing towards its fabulous close. I think it’s been a great week with lots of variety and a really great initiative for bringing agencies together and getting discussion about digital issues into new spaces.
I must say we were very disappointed about the cancellation of the Interagency Table Tennis Table Tournament. We had 2 crack teams ready to go! But such is life – maybe next year.
We were very happy with our event How Was It For You? There was a good debate and the speakers were really articulate.
In digital we are constantly being held to the measurement of television – and failing. BARB measures in the millions, extrapolated from 1000s. Digital technologies, because they can be more precise, and hence more accurate, often stand up poorly in comparison, offering only the 100s to 1000s. And hence disappointing the marketing execs who need to justify their spend to their finance divisions. It’s understandable that they are frustrated, their models are all wrong.
But so are ours. It’s time to stop moaning about the measurement situation and find a solution that will just work for now. And that has enough flexibility in it to ebb and flow with our changing environment. The best proposed during the talk was a flexible one. Start with hard measures – page impressions, visits, time spent, number of sign ups. But encourage your clients to leave room for softer, more difficult or unexpected measures during the development of the project that can bring more value eg brand estimation.
And it’s also time to stand up collectively to our clients and tell them why the measures employed to assess success of television, print and linear advertising just don’t work for the digital environments. If we try to shoehorn ourselves into their needs we will end up achieving neither a sucess for them nor for us.
The best quote of the night though was this. “Sometimes it just feels right” and that’s how you define it before you start and that’s the basis on which a project proceed – adn surely this has birthed some of hte most innovative and interesting projects produced in digital spaces in the last 15 years?
