Month: February 2010

Likeminds 2010 – The Event

The Likeminds conference is quite unlike any other conference I’ve ever been to before.

Informal, respectful, conversational, relaxed, open, chilled and intimate are all words that I heard other people use to describe the event throughout the day. Organised and setup by the combined genius of Drew Ellis and Scott Gould, Likeminds 2010 is held in the south west of Britain in a city known as Exeter. To call this conference ‘unique’ wouldn’t really do it justice.

Note: Exeter. Not London. We’re not just talking the next village outside of the the city, I mean really, really far away.

Likeminds get plus points for this. Big time.

Why is this a good thing?

Well, there are a few reasons; first and foremost – as much as I love love love London – sometimes (and just sometimes) there is a tendency to be a leeeetle bit cynical. Maybe a touch pretentious?

Can I say that? I think I can. I just did. So sue me…

Throw in a smattering of ‘oh, it’s just the same faces talking abut the same things’ and you have a recipe for familiarity breeding contempt (only in minority, admittedly – but it still happens). However, while there were some faces that I recognised at the Exeter Conference Centre this past Friday, the majority of attendees were brand new. In fact, of the names and faces that I did recognise, I’d never actually heard them speak before or seen them on the conference scene a long while.

Secondly – and this is something that we could all remember from time to time – there are other people that live and breathe outside of London! Would you believe it? I know. Amazing. The amount of locals – aka ‘Exonians’ – who I spoke to before, during and after the event who said to me ‘If this event was in London, I doubt I would’ve gone, but it’s on my doorstep – so there’s no excuse…’ really brought it home to me how important the conference was to the local business community. From representatives from Devon County Council to local entrepreneurs who have started making the first forays into twitter; this conference mattered.

Like Minds Part I

Photo credit: Benjamin Ellis

The speakers were superb, not just in the quality of their presentations, but also in the delivery of their ideas and thoughts. Like I said on the day, even if you took nothing away content wise, at least we all experienced a master class on how to present to, and engage with, a capacity audience. I’m going to come back to this in more depth another time, but it has to be said they really were all fantastic. Moving on, another thing stuck out for me (in a good way) was the format. Each section ran as follows

  • Keynote
  • Panel
  • Endeavour

The first two parts of this trio are not a new format, in fact they’re relatively par for the course; the keynote speaks on his/her chosen area and the panel then discuss and take questions on the themes raised by that talk. The Endeavours however are a completely new idea that I’ve not seen before. To quote Scott Gould, Likeminds co-founder:

“The original idea was to showcase and support like-minded endeavours that were doing good in and around the Exeter area. This itself came around they came around because (after looking at the schedule) I realised how hypocritical it was to have no actual action out of what we were talking about. It started when Twestival approached us asking if they could have a five minute slot to talk about their endeavours and then it rolled from there. Including Hospice Care, Leap Anywhere and HeartFM.”

A great addition to the format and one that I hope to see Likeminds repeat in the future.

There’s more to come on this subject soon (covering both the speakers and the key takeaways), but for now I just want to say an extra special thank you once again to Drew Ellis and Scott Gould for a fantastic event. You guys should be proud.

Well done.

1000heads: WOM @ Mobile World Congress

Last week, over in Barcelona, 1000heads had a number of representatives flying the flag for both friends and clients.

Fira de Barcelona

What you see there is there the Fira in Barcelona where the congress takes place each year. Yes, the weather was that miserable.

What you don’t see however is the beautiful airport that all of us visitors to Spain’s fair city have to pass through.

Terminal 1 - Barcelona Airport

A stunning airport, with a brand new terminal that opened just last year; it has a breathtaking design, look and feel but, being an airport, it also has all the features of your standard airport. Such as baggage pickup, passport control and of course – an arrivals lounge.

Opera is Waiting for Steve Jobs

This fantastic piece of WOM from Opera Mini was used to illustrate to all and sundry that in fact *they* have the biggest mobile browser in the world. A smart move some might say, ‘PR stunt’ others have remarked…

Actually, this is a fantastic piece of WOM.

Every single Tech/Mobile Press/Blogger worth his/her salt was coming through Barcelona International last week and they definitely saw this (especially judging by some of the press they had).

It was the talk of the event on the show floor and at the after show parties. Opera, did well.

Steve Jobs, for those that live under a rock, works for Apple. Apple make the iPhone. Apple and the iPhone NEVER SHOW UP AT MWC. Ever.

This is fun, it’s different… aaaand it’s disruptive. Good work Opera.

We like.

Photo credits SomeWhatFrank, f0ff0 and omerka – creative commons, win.

London Tech Summit 2010

Last week, after the madness that was Mobile World Congress, I slipped back into the country over night so I could dash off Friday morning to moderate a panel at the London Tech Summit hosted by the London Business School Technology Club.

The session, entitled: New models for Social Networking: Can Advertising Support Growth? kicked off in earnest around 11:30 with representatives from Goojet, Do The Green Thing, Advent Partners and Google all taking part.

Image via @brendanquinn

That’s me over there on the far right. This panel session, the first of the day, was briefed as follows:

What does it mean to engage an audience? How do you use social networking sites to advertise your business? The advent of social media has dramatically altered how people interact with each other. We will explore what this means to traditional business models, and how companies have responded to these developments to reach new audiences.

And so on.. The theme itself wasn’t a new to me having recently presented on the subject (or something similar) at New Media Age but then again, what I had to say wasn’t to be the focus.

The session was about the panellists:

Having never moderated a panel before it was quite exciting to be taking charge of such an esteemed bunch of industry leaders. I had definitely seen a fair few sessions like this in my time – so I knew exactly what not to do. Believe it or not, it really is a fair old challenge; trying to balance not talking too much yourself with not letting the panellists get too wrapped in in their own respective agendas… as well as trying to keep the audience as engaged as possible. It can get tricky.

However, to all intents and purposes it seems I didn’t do a bad job, but – as I said before – this is about the panellists.

When asked if social networking could indeed support growth in the advertising sector, the panel were unanimous in their disagreement:

“Not in the current model…” said Paul, “..advertisers need to change tact..” agreed Andy “New businesses are out doing it for themselves…” finished Guillaume, who also went onto explain that the model of advertising in France is so utterly painful when it came to anything TV based – “Months of planning for a slot that you might not even want in three months time!”

Here are some more key quotes –

“Purposeful communities will be where the money can be found” – “Remember, volume doesn’t change the human experience”

“Who wants to pay for content today?”

“Interactions speak louder than words”

“an pages (a la Facebook) is more like relationship marketing than traditional campaign based advertising”

“If you can’t interrupt people anymore, then you will have to rely on the quality of your content to get attention”

“The internet isn’t a network of computers – it’s a network of people who happen to use computers”

Pleasingly, the overall theme of the 30mins we had taking questions was that brands and advertisers need to be MORE HUMAN in their approach to engaging with EVER SMARTER consumers who won’t just lap up the first thing that’s put in front of them.

Whether you’re a new mobile startup like Goojet or one of the largest corporations in the world, like Google it would seem contextual and conversational engagements are at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Hat tip to the smart guys and girls at the LBS Tech Club for organising. You can read all of the output from the day over on the LBS live tweet page.

In the meantime – how are you being human in the way you engage?
You know consumers are getting smarter, right?

😉

 

Entering Zimbabwe

Road to Zimbabwe

Moleskine entry: August 7th, 2009

We’re headed there now.

The name itself resonates in a certain way.
Say it, out loud…  Now.

Zimbabwe.

What does it do to you?

I’m ashamed to say it but at the time of writing, the very word strikes fear into my heart. The recent history of the country has been tumultuous at best and at worst, close to civil war.

“That’ll never happen.” says Ralph, owner and chief guide of Ichingo lodge, our place of rest the night before. “The Zimbabwe people are peaceful and intelligent. That’s one of the reasons this whole thing has happened; they’ve been taken for fools and their reluctance for confrontation has meant this [situation] can carry on.

If you would have told me ten years ago that this was going to happen, I would not have believed you. Mugabe is smart. He’s a cunning politician-cum-dictator who has played the system and now isn’t going anywhere…”

Having just turned 86, one has to think that Mugabe’s reign can’t go on much longer.

“The trouble is… the smart ones. They leave, they don’t want to be here. The money they send back is the only thing that’s keeping the country going right now. But with no smart ones, there’s no real chance of opposition.

The only good thing is, Mugabe has no pretender; no protégé to carry on when he’s gone. I think it’ll be interesting to see what happens when he goes.”

Ralph explains that the average time in power for Africa is something like 18yrs; “When they get there, they stay there” he says.

As we head into Zimbabwe the following morning for four nights at Victoria Falls, staying anywhere is the last thing on our minds.

Google Buzz: where’s the love?

Last night, as I was leaving the office to go play football, word was spilling out onto the interwebs about a brand new Google service.

“Social features!” some said, “Keep your friends updated”, whispered others but, it was only when I saw the sad, inevitable combination of words that make up the phrase “Twitter Killer” did I finally switch my Mac off and head on out. Buffoons.

90mins later, post footy, I left the pitch and decided to upgrade my Google Maps and – to my surprise – buzz was there, but at the same time – not there.

Continue reading “Google Buzz: where’s the love?”

Facing fears

I used to hate PowerPoint.

Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it, HATE IT.

For years, I refused to take part. If I had to give a talk or a presentation of any kind, I used my words and speaking abilities only.

“I don’t need slides” I used to say…
(whilst slightly looking down upon everyone else that did)

That was until my employer asked me to travel to Germany to speak at the annual Voicedays event in Wiesbaden. A presentation was required and well, I didn’t have one.

Procrastinate, I did much.

That was up until my then boss casually mentioned in passing that the only reason I hadn’t started my deck yet was because I was afraid of it.

“You’re afraid of PowerPoint.”

“Am not.”

“Then do it then.”

“But…”

“If you’re not afraid of it, do it.”

He was right. I was. My fear? Where to start? What if I get it wrong?
I didn’t know what to do.

“Tell a story.” he said, “You like post-its, start with your key points on some post-its. See where it takes you.”

I grabbed some nearby post-its, a black marker and – a few mins later – I came up with this…

Genius? No.
The rantings of a serial killer? Maybe.
Cracking my fear of PowerPoint? Definitely.

I’d found my story, the notes were to be my kickers and this below, was the presentation I eventually gave to a room full of delegates at Voicedays ’08:

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=voicedays08-1224085723596646-9&stripped_title=voicedays-08-presentation

.

That’s how I cracked my fear of PowerPoint; by telling a story using post-its. They became my kickers. I knew what story I wanted to tell and, by using the stickers as great big reminders/cheat sheets, I ensured I didn’t lose my way.

If you’re struggling with a deck yourself, get offline and start playing with paper & pens and just see where it takes you. You never know, you might start here and end up here.

Good hunting.

Africa: 789

Moleskine entry: August 7th, 2009

Thank the lord for the wonder that is the iTrip. The journey from Botswana to Zimbabwe just got a million times better thanks to the addition of some Kings of Leon.

Stan, our driver, is cool.

My passport is filling up, the amount of times we’ve crossed the border it just crazy.

SA, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia (strangely quite comforting to be back there), and back to Botswana again.

Now we’re en route to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

Bring. It. On.


1000heads: Disrupting the norm

There’s an ongoing debate here at 1000heads HQ at the moment about how we can continually ‘disrupt the norm’ in fun and interesting ways for the benefits of our clients.

This article ‘Why effective word of mouth disrupts schemas‘ is to blame. For the sake of brevity I’m only going to pull one quote from the piece (which really is worth a click and read by the way), as follows:

“Word-of-mouth on brands uses these same cognitive principles. Consumers talk about brands when we disrupt a schema. They talk when we give them a piece of surprise that does not fit inside their mental model.”

I spotted a good visual example of this over the weekend with the latest television advert from DIY specialists, Homebase.

Annoyingly, the only place you can view it online won’t let me actually embed the video – sigh – however from the image below you can get the idea.

Everyday essentials at low prices

The premise is simple, while decorating what looks like a London Underground escalator tunnel, the posters and tools used are priced and demo’d. The end result can be seen with the closing shot; a fantastically decorated public space, that not only looks amazing but also – if you saw it in real life – would certainly get you talking…

But that’s where we think that the whole Homebase campaign could do with some WOM. The London Underground effort isn’t the only space that they’ve disrupted, the other ads include decorating outdoor ads as well as public swimming pools.

Sticking to our We Want Work With principles, if we were working with Homebase then we’d have to push for making some of these above the line ideas and making them real.

Seeing your local underground station kitted out like this certainly doesn’t fit in with ‘the norm’ and – a few logistic issues aside – would certainly get people talking

Do something different.
Disrupt the norm.

Empty Underground

I love London.
More than that, I love London’s Underground.

This ancient subterranean transport system has been a part of my psyche from the first time my Mum brought me up to the big smoke to see the pigeons of Trafalgar Square – remember them?
Since then the colourful, maze-like map and simple iconography have been a clear and constant theme throughout my life.

Recently, after moving to London, travelling on the Tube (as it is more commonly known), has become a daily routine. Having spent a good couple of years working out of town, it really is good to be back.

Back on the underground.

Another pleasant by-product of enjoying my favourite form of public transport is the fantastic photography of it all.

Over the course of last year I caught myself snapping here and there more often than not, when there is an absence of occupance. This in turn led to the creation of a Flickr group -  Empty Underground.

A collection of photos taken of London’s underground rail system all in that rarest of moments; emptiness.

There’s a whole bunch of amazing images from many different photographers. If you have some time, go check it out – and if you have any of your own, why not add them to the group?

See you around… on the empty underground.