The English definition of ‘currency’ (outside of its obvious monetary connotations) is ‘The fact or quality of being generally accepted or in use‘. Keeping this in mind (and given the universal habit tagging of all things technologically vital and important), laptop stickers could therefore be construed as a currency of the blogging community

If that’s so, then why not make some of those? Good ones mind. Not just your logo on a white background.

Something interesting.
Something better.
Something that will spark a conversation.

A social object, if you will.

This thought process is not new, we used to talk about this kind of community currency back in my SpinVox days: what was it about a certain place or a group of people that would always get them talking and, better yet, what wouldn’t.

A recent video from Heineken was what got me thinking about this again (and what prompted the tweet above, too). Have a look, we’ll regroup on the other side -

Right. Let’s deconstruct this for a second. First off, as I asked the team at 1000heads last week; is this cool?

The general consensus was no, it isn’t. It’s a good video, yes. But using technology for technology’s sake is never a sound strategy for success and alas, that’s exactly what’s going on here.

“Why is this Heineken? Where is their connection?” were other recurring questions. You could argue that the new brand message of ‘open your world’ underpins this whole activity somehow, but you have to look quite hard to see it. And anyway, that much at least is besides the point.

Could this have been done better by taking a closer look at the reality of a festival currency?

Festival currency: what it isn’t

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Before we get into what and what does not work around QR codes, let’s first establish that I genuinely do buy the idea that they act as a conversation starter. That’s great in fact. Any excuse to start talking to a new person at large social events is welcome. Well done.

However, as anyone who’s ever been to a festival will tell you, the genuine currency of the modern day festival-goer is communication. To stay in touch, you need that most precious of camping-based premiums: mobile phone battery life.

There is a whole other blog post to come about how the success of the next generation mobile hardware manufacturer depends on this particular aspect of their devices (and breathe), but that’s not for today. Today is about realising that festival-goers aren’t going to spend precious battery life on QR code snapping, especially when it’s the only thing keeping them connected.

Heineken could learn from Orange here.

Back to those QR codes, hands up who’s got a phone that can scan a QR code out of the box? OK, next question: hands up who’s got a phone that can scan a QR code out of the box that you know about? See what I mean. Shocking.

QR codes are great, but there’s still such a large education piece to be done before anything like this creates any real traction [note: the video proudly points out that 5000 'U-Codes' were printed, not how many were actually scanned].

Taking all of the above into account, it’s clear that the modern day festival goer needs to remain connected, visible and contactable.

Festival currency: what it could be

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Flags. This isn’t my idea, first off. Scroggles planted this particular seed when we were working with MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation a few years back. At a festival, if the currency isn’t anything mobile-related (or at least, related to draining mobile power) what else is there?

FLAGS.

Think about it.

Print your own message on a [Heineken-branded] flag and suddenly you have something that you can wave to find your friends, stand near or under as a meeting point and ultimately, personalise as much as you like within your own artistic boundaries.

No messing about with esoteric QR codes, no imposing your brand onto that super-valuable phone battery; just simple, visible and useful branding.

Flags, as currency for festival goers.
Laptop stickers, as currency for bloggers.

There’s more here. I’m sure of it.

What’s your engagement currency?

[Big thanks to both James Mayes and Gia Cavalli in the construction of this post]

Yesterday was a fairly busy day, if you’re a tech-head like me at least; Google+ rolled out their brand pages, the Nokia N9 started updating to the much-heralded mega-fix firmware and, for those that needed it, Spotify dropped onto the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Google+ I’ve covered already (no really, what is it for?), the N9 update I am yet to apply and as for Spotify? Well, what can I say?

Choosing Windows Phone as the last, great, mobile operating system to support, Spotify prepped itself for the promised masses yesterday afternoon (after a preview some six months ago) and boy, is it a beautiful app to use.

First, some caveats:

• Spotify mobile is only available to premium subscribers
• Premium is £9.99 a month. A small price to pay to NEVER PAY FOR ANY MUSIC EVER AGAIN.
• I’ve tried Zune* and, until Spotify dropped, that was fine (if a little alien).

So, to the app itself.

The good stuff:

• WP7 app design: oh my God this app is gorgeous.
• Scrolling, sharing, syncing: all of it rocks my face off.
• It’s Spotify, on my mobile.

The stuff needed in the next update:

• Background colour options
  Windows Phone offers either ‘dark’ or ‘light’, white on black or black on white respectively. Spotify should either match its app’s skin accordingly or at least offer it up as an in-app option. Strangely, while the app offers the light variation, the desktop client offers dark.
• Last.fm integration please
  Syncing tracks listened to in online mode and remembering then uploading my tracks listened to in offline mode.
• Offline playlist filters
  Yeah, love that but, any chance that you filter the playlists by DOWNLOADED FIRST? Having to scroll through all of them in order is a pain.
• Album art on lockscreen
  I mentioned I was on Zune before, one thing that the WP music player does nicely is show album covers on the lock screen while playing music. It’s a nice touch and adds to the overall experience. Spotify should do this too. See below.

 Florence playing through Zune

 Florence playing through Spotify

Overall, great work guys, it’s an awesome service and I’m a big fan. Having it running on my Lumia makes me a very happy bunny indeed. Good job.

Please, continue to iterate, improve and impress.

Danke,
James.

*I signed up for a Zune Pass about a day after first getting my Windows Phone. I like that it covers my Xbox too, but I already have Last.fm there. So it was only really the mobile music angle I needed to cover. Now Spotify is here, I just don’t need it.

A few months ago, I shared a research panel alongside one Marek Pawlowski. Marek runs the MEX (Mobile User Experience) conference and is a keen mobile futurist.

He and I had met before but it’s always good to refresh connections and, a month or so later, he asked if I could take part in a new MEX pathway entitled ‘Inspiring new forms of creative expression through mobile devices’.

“Sounds great Marek, but I’m off to Siberia next month and well, I won’t really be around to contribute properly.”

“That’s fine.” he said  “Just present at the event when you’re back in May.”

So I did.

And in fact, I probably gave a better presentation because of it: chilled out (after a whole month away from the internet), wearing a t-shirt and – probably for the first time ever – presenting in trainers.

Getting back to the event, the questions Marek posed as part of the pathway were as follows:

1. How does ubiquitous access to new sensors such as touchscreens, gestural input and location tracking change the expression of human creativity?
2. What does artistic experimentation at the boundaries of digital technology teach us about mainstream user experience requirements of the future?
3. How does mass person-to-person communications facilitate new creative experiences through co-operative working?
4. Will person-to-person communications enriched with new channels, such as haptics, emerge as a new form of artistic expression in itself?
5. Are the text-based ‘Status Updates’ espoused by Facebook and Twitter the zenith of emotional expression or can human moods be better expressed?

My presentation (and the ideas around the answers I gave) can be seen in full below but, I implore you, click through to the actual Slideshare page so you can read the corresponding speaker notes. It doesn’t really make sense without them…

#MEX11: Inspiring new forms of creative expression through mobile devices

One thing I do want to focus on, however, is slide 17, MEX Pathway point number three [quick click through]:

How does mass person-to-person communications facilitate new creative experiences through co-operative working?

The answer I gave in my talk (or at least the one word that came to mind when I the question was posed), was ‘Meme‘. The two slides that followed explored the idea of the web-based meme going mobile. To quote:

“What about memes on mobile? I snap this, send it you, you change it, send it back.. An instant meme app? Yes please. Where do I sign?”

That, was May 2011. Two months later, in July, I spot this video from Google, courtesy of The Next Web -

Alright, so perhaps it isn’t exactly the meme-based application that I was hoping for and/or predicting, but it’s pretty darn close. Theme-based sharing even. And, if you recall what the original pathway set out to cover – Inspiring new forms of creative expression through mobile devices – this app nails it.

Bizarrely, for an app developed by Google, it’s only available on iPhone right now, but I’m sure this will change over time. And when it does, I’ll be ready and waiting – because having my friends help drive my mobile creativity is something I’m really actually quite looking forward to.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Notes
Like I said, go and read that Slideshare deck properly – with the speaker notes.
And when you’re done there, go and read this article on Mobile Industry Review that references some of the above findings. 

Here’s a question: what do you think of Zune?

I’m going to make a few assumptions (and do please, correct me if I’m wrong); if you’re a Zune user – aka ‘a Zuner’ – you’re probably American and you may’ve even bought, and perhaps even still use, the original Zune machine handheld thing that was never launched over here in the UK.

However, you may also be a Windows Phone (WP) user and/or an Xbox owner. All of these things I expect to influence your response to this following, secondary question:

Is it actually any good?

Now please. Before you move forward with your answer (either in the comments field below or in fact perhaps, with your own blogged repost) please take into account that your opinion may bias towards the positive as you’ve made such a chunky investment (especially you original Zune hardware owners). So please, give full and valid responses – warts an’ all, if you will.

Why am I asking this question? Well, I am an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, soon-to-be Windows-Phoner and avid Spotify fan. The latter of the three costs £9.99pcm and allows me all sorts of awesome music-based fantasticness. Treats such as:

• Access to an almost infinite amount of music
• Downloadable content that I can play offline, both on my desktop and on my mobile
• Sharable cross-platform playlists of awesomeness (that can be locked down or collaborative)
• Thanks to the marvelous integration on both Spotify and Xbox Live, I can stream my most listened to tracks through my Xbox using the Last.fm application available through Live Gold
• Bonus feature, said music can be controlled BY VOICE thanks to my Kinect

Understand that your answers will help inform my decision on whether or not to drop Spotify for Zune (when WP finally launches on Nokia’s devices). As it stands, I’m reliably informed that Spotify is coming to WP with the next software update (aka ‘Mango), but because I like things to just work – I’m tempted to move for the full Zune offering.

Friends, Zuners, fellow tech-heads and audiophiles – it’s over to you.

There are times in my life when I love my job, there are times in my life when I hate my job, there are times in my life when my job opens my eyes to something so freakingly awesome but no matter what happens, I can never tell anyone.

Friends ask me often if I enjoy what I do, whether I’ve seen anything cool lately and/or if I can tell them of anything I’ve seen – “Y’know, blogger to blogger?”

More often than not, I respond with the following – “It’s like the old joke…”

A preacher who liked to play golf every Wednesday at a modest public golf course was standing on the elevated tee at the sixth hole of that course...

He took a few practice swings, and looked across the river to the immaculate private country club nearby.

“Just once I’d like to play at that gorgeous course,” the preacher said to his foursome.

Another player spoke up:

“My company has a reserved tee time at that club for us every Sunday morning, and it’s all paid for, too. But all of a sudden yesterday the boss says we have to travel out of town for a week. It’s a shame to let that tee time go to waste. I could give you a guest pass and you could have it all to yourself. Would do you say?”

Of course this was a dream come true for the preacher, but it put him in a terrible predicament. If he accepted the gift, he would have to miss Sunday worship. He thought to himself,

“I haven’t missed a Sunday service in 17 years of preaching. A sin to be sure, but I am after all just a man trying to do my best like all the rest.”

He succumbed to temptation and accepted the invitation.

On Sunday, the preacher awoke, called his deacon, and said, “I’m terribly sick today, and will not be able to offer service.”

“Well, we surely hope you are feeling better soon,” said the deacon. “What matters most it that your health is blessed, and we shall all pray for you today.”

This made the preacher feel a little guilty, but it was a beautiful clear cool morning, and promised to be a beautiful day. He opened a box from under the bed that had a new folded golf shirt, his cleaned and polished golf shoes, and he put them on instead of his usual clothes.

Later, on the beautiful practice green, the preacher fit right in but couldn’t help feeling conspicuous. At that exact moment up in Heaven, Saint Peter was looking down. He said to God,

“Do you see what is happening down there? I’m very disappointed in this preacher. Surely you are going to do something?”

God replied, “Don’t worry Pete, I’ve got it all figured out.”

St. Pete knew it was best not to question any further, but to just wait patiently and watch for it all to play out. He watched the preacher walk confidently to the first tee, a short par-4. The preacher teed it up, and hit a pretty fair drive, low and straight.

But just then, God waived his hand and created the perfect little wind. The wind carried the ball as if in the hand of God and lifted it down the fairway. The ball took once bounce and landed on the green, kept rolling, swung to the right, barely crept up to the hole, and fell in. It was beautiful.

Up in heaven, St. Pete was very upset.

“An albatross! Are you kidding me? Here is one of our own preachers committing this sin, on a Sunday no less. Just when I’m certain that you are going to offer up the perfect punishment to befit the sin, you instead go and reward him with a once-in-a-lifetime shot?”

God says, “Yes, but calm down Pete. Who is he going to tell?”

I love my job.
I get to see the coolest things in the world before anyone ever will.
My eternal curse is that 99.99 times out of 100?
I’m never going to be able to tell anyone.
Damn.

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.

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Images via Paul Clarke

It’s quite a fun feature that’s been present in leading Nokia handsets for several years. Alas, it is lacking in the N8.

However, to my rescue, here comes super-talented coder, Iain Wallace. Shortly after I tweeted about the disappearance of one of my favourite modes of Nokias gone by, Iain reached out and asked if I’d be a tester for an app that would do just that. I said yes (obviously) and have been messing around with ‘Lapsed’ for most of the afternoon.

This is my first take, it’s not brilliant but, expect more in the future…

The app itself isn’t open for public beta (yet) and isn’t available to download (yet). Iain’s still very much in alpha creation mode (many new dev libraries required etc) BUT, eventually, we might see something like this on the Ovi Store… Maybe.

But I guess you kind of saw that coming.

I work for 1000heads, who in turn work for Nokia, the question is obviously primed: am I being paid to say this? No. Certainly not. The recently announced messaging devices for instance, although they’ve arrived at an astonishing price point.. tey certainly didn’t float my boat terms of specs, looks or features. The N8 however does.. and I’l tell you why.

Whenever I get asked “What phone should I get?” my response – believe it or not – does not start with “Oh, the Nokia…” Instead my reply is usually something like “It depends”.  Then I ask questions.

More often than not based around content creation vs consumption, plus some device history and of course the necessary operator-based queries and, I would like to think, of those that have taken my advice in the past, a fair few have ended up happy with their final choice.

If the roles were reversed and I found myself answering my own questions, there is no doubt that I would recommend the N8.

Why? Let’s see.

___________________

“Question 1: What do you have right now?”

Right now James, I switch between the N900 + the Nexus One.

“Question 2: What do you use your phone for?”

Everything!

“Ahem, can you define ‘everything’?”

OK. Photos, videos, emails, web browsing, calendar, address book… Basically, if the feature exists on the handset, I use it. If it doesn’t exist, I download an app that does. But yes, I guess I said photos and videos first as I do indeed love creating.

“Question 3: What did you use to have? I mean, what is your handset history?”

Before the N900? The N86.

“How was that?”

Well, non-touchscreen, amazing camera, genuinely the last great phone of its kind.

“Question 4: iPhone?”

Never.

“Question 5: Android?”

Great for consumption. Great as a Twitter device, email etc.. Single sign on makes it a breeze to use but, the camera functionality lets it down MASSIVELY.

___________________

So far, so not very surprising. Turns out I want the Nokia N8 for a whole bunch of reasons – so why is it really?

Because I love creating content on my phone. Why my phone in particular? I don’t know. It could be the wealth of meta data available, it could be the sense of geeky wonder I get whenever I upload anything in its final form… sometimes it’s just the damn good quality of the thing.

The N8 is new, shiny and – barring some shoddy, ne’er do well, prototype-based scrutiny a few weeks back – is actually quite exciting. The output from the handset is nothing short of outstanding and, having dragged my N86 around the world with me last year, upgrading to the next model is the next logical step.

I’ve not had any actual hands on time with it yet. So all of this might change. There’s one thing that simply cannot argue; Nokia make some great imaging devices.

The N8, by the looks of things, will be their next, great imaging device. So I’m getting one.

Are you?

This has hit me twice on Google Reader this morning, shared from two different people quoting two different sources, both of which refer to the same video that’s embedded below.

Basically, on the extras disc on Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 film ‘The Circus‘, there’s some footage from the premiere which clearly* shows a person of some description yabbering away on their mobile phone.

Yes, that’s right, their mobile phone…. in 1928!

George Clarke, the chap who discovered this finding, is desperately searching for some kind of explanation because, at the moment, all he can surmise is that this woman** is a massive Chaplin fan from the future who fancied spending her holidays in 1928.

I’m certain there’s a reasonable explanation for this, besides the fact that you would hope that by the time time travel is possible, we’d have advanced mobile technology so far that holding it up to our ears would be a thing of the past?! No?

Take a look for yourself, the final bit where she turns at glances up while still talking is the thing that got me.

*about as clear as anything can be in old non-HD black & white
**is it a woman? George raises the issue of her apparent manliness and her overly large feet – perhaps in the future we’ll all be dressed in drag?

What do you think?!

We are watching more TV than at any time in the last five years.
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That statistic is usually followed by ‘despite the rise of the Internet’. We’re in the opposite camp. We believe TV viewing is increasing because of the Internet. The social web turns TV into an event, a shared experience.
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And as the social web becomes increasingly central to our lives, these events become more and more important. It becomes the nationwide, and sometimes worldwide water-cooler.
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Where’s it all going? And what’s the next cool thing going to be?
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Join us 14 October 2010 evening at Conway Hall.

So I did.

Before we start, this post might look quite long but it’s not. Not really anyway, there’s just a lot of pictures…
Let’s crack on.

Up first, Matt Locke, Head of Cross Platform for Channel 4. For this session I thought I’d crack open my Moleskine and give ‘mind-mapping’ a go. Something I’d seen Charlie Osmond do at SXSWi earlier this year, I’d been meaning to try it out for a while, so…

Start at ‘Television: Traditional’ in the middle of the left page and follow the arrows from there (click the image for larger size):

As per the right hand page, at 19:35 and 19:40 there were two slides which I loved (and subsequently uploaded). First, the web hits received by Channel 4 when their 2screen show ‘Seven Days‘ went live -

Err… WOW. No wonder the site went down on day one.

Second, the Google searches for ’1066 Channel 4′ which was an online game that Ch4 ran during the showing of their 1066 drama broadcast in the summer earlier this year.

The TX date is the peak at the top. The slide that I didn’t manage to grab was the one after, which showed how their online game carried on this peak long after the TX date. A great learning.

Matt spoke of attention shapes coming in different forms. Priyanka has a great write-up of these and I’d recommend taking a look at her words. The key takeaway for me was that, back in the day, our attention (as consumers) was organised by content creators -

‘It’s our TV show, we’ll broadcast it 7am. You need to be there to see it.’

Today, that is no longer the case and broadcasters are not only having to adjust their models accordingly, but also get over their fear of this changing consumption model.

Presentation two was from Margaret Roberstson, Director of Development at Hide & Seek. Just a couple of quotes from this one (which hopefully speak for themselves);

The irony of ‘focus’ resulting in two choice tweets is not lost on me.

Next up, my good friend Utku Can and his mate Tim Morgan. The former representing LivePitch, one of my favourite iPad apps to date and the latter, talking about Picklive; a way to bet on short amounts of football.

The mindmap for that session is below, start on the bottom page in the middle just above ‘RTRTG’ where it says ‘Picklive + LivePitch’ -

This one was a touch more difficult as there were two speakers, taking it turns to talk about two different products but around one theme (which changed every few minutes). Like before, at 20:15, there was a slide that I really liked and, as such, subsequently uploaded. Take a look -

I love this slide.

As mentioned, Utku is a friend of mine and often we talk about distraction vs attention and when he pulled up this slide, suddenly it all clicked.

The point of this slide is demonstrate that television is constantly demanding attention – whether you’re looking at it or not, the iPad on the other hand (with its built-in accelerometer) knows when it’s not being looked at so shouldn’t shout at you when it’s flat down and not moving for example. However when it is picked up or being moved/looked at, it should know that too and then start responding accordingly.

Utku later commented -

One other thing I had mentioned was we don’t necessarily need the devices to have accelerometers. A cruder way of achieving this would be ‘time since last interaction’: if you haven’t tapped or clicked anything in a while, we can scale back how much attention the second screen is demanding.

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For the lack of a better phrase, I’m calling it ‘reactive interfaces’.

Nice.

Finally, Kevin Slavin spoke at length, about crowds creating magic and how that drives us online ‘to 2screen’ with the larger community. Cinema viewings vs TV viewings, concerts vs radio… it adds up.

It’s an odd sense of wonder, being aware that there are thousands, nay millions, of others sharing your experiences.

Limbic resonance, who knew?

At the end of it all, 2screen turned out to be one of my favourite events of recent years and – if you’re interested in the future of television, broadcast or consumer entertainment behaviour then I would definitely suggest reading up on 2screening right now; it’s already happening.

Be a part of it.

Here we are nearly a full week on from all the fun of the fair that was Nokia World 2010 and there is still so much kicking around in my head.

Many internet peeps have already written up their thoughts so far (some were there, some weren’t), all giving their opinions on what was and was not a success for the Finnish giants this time ’round. On top of this, a couple of them have even called me out asking for what I thought about this year’s Nokia World. Well, I’ll tell you…

Before I go on, this post is here – on my personal blog – for a reason. The following thoughts and opinions are my own and do not reflect those of my employer, clients or blogging pals – past, present or future.

First and foremost I think the event as a whole was broadly positive and I’ll get to the main thinking behind this shortly but first, some background.

Believe it or not, this was in fact my first Nokia World and I really, thoroughly enjoyed it. On the first day I sat through the first set of keynotes and was thoroughly impressed by both Niklas Savander AND the departing Anssi Vanjoki. The former proving to be both witty and charming while the latter gave a barnstorming presentation worthy of any outgoing EVP.

After that, I was working.

My agency, 1000heads, runs Nokia’s global community programme WOMWorld/Nokia and as such (amongst other things at least) facilitates a large part of Nokia’s blogger engagements all around the world. The WW/N team were on the ground making sure our guys were happy while I kept an eye on the overall feeling within (and without) the group. All in all, the outlook was positive.

Later on in the day, when Nokia decided to give away nearly 1000 brand new Nokia N8s to the assembled developer community, all of us shared an equal level of surprise but also happiness. Of course we were gutted we didn’t ALL get one (not all of us made the first developer keynote where the gifting took place), but knowing that the ones that did get given away went to developers? None of us complained.

“Nokia did a Google – at last” they said. They were right too.

But 1000 free phones does not a successful conference make. Onwards then, to the true source of my positivity -

The following day, when I sat down to record some thoughts with Dan McGrath from Nokia Conversations, I was honest – “Let’s face it,” I said “it could’ve been a LOT worse.” and I meant it. The CEO gone, the EVP of Mobile Solutions on his way out, no MeeGo announcements… Nokia World really could have been a mess.

But it wasn’t.

Being there, on the floor, meeting the workforce, feeling the vibe in the air… There were no crappy devices announced, no shoddy services, no great white hopes… They didn’t deliver their [insert name of device and add the word ‘killer’ to the end] sure, but they never said they would. What they did was make a very clear and very firm step forward. It may’ve been a small (near-baby) step forward, but nevertheless, a step in the RIGHT direction.

I didn’t see Stephen Elop make his special guest star appearance at the end of day two nor did I see any of the hoo-hah about the whole HTC v Nokia debacle. Nokia held an all agency briefing day on the afternoon of day two which I left feeling not only super fired up about the future of my favourite Finnish phone manufacturer but also just so INSPIRED. OPK and Anssi V aren’t the only changes Nokia have made internally, there’s been a lot of restructuring below too and amongst the newcomers there is a real sense of change AND – more importantly – determination.

I have a different view to most, this I know. I have the privilege of working close with those that matter and also get to see that little bit further down the road (albeit under strict NDA – so don’t even think about asking), so trust me when I say; there really are great things ahead.

James Whatley – Sept 20th, 2010

Appendix -

1. Twitter won’t hold them for long but, while you have the chance, go read Jonathan MacDonald’s tweets from September 15th. He gave a fantastic talk at one point during day two’s all agency session and managed to live-tweet the rest of the day’s presentations.
2. This is the podcast I gave with the Nokia Conversations guys. It’s only seven minutes long and well worth a listen for Rafe Blandford’s and Matt Miller’s contributions alone.

Finally, if you’ve made it this far, please do leave a comment. Even if to say hi.
It’s not often I unload like this and any and all thoughts are appreciated.

Cheers.
…