whatleydude

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.

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.

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:

.

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.

Moleskine entry: August 5th, 2009

Today’s date is August 5th but I need to go back a bit and write up some things that have happened since July 24th. Friday July 24th to be precise. I woke up at the Upper Hideout, some 8500ft up in the Big Horn Mountains in Shell, Wyoming. I’d been without internet and mobile signal for the best part of four days and I was very much looking forward to getting back to civilisation.

I love my girlfriend very much and, aside from Sam making sure that she was cc’d into an email that he’d radio’d back to base, she hadn’t heard from me and of course, as anyone might be, I thought there might be a certain amount of worry. I had work to do; photos to upload, videos to edit, posts to submit but the emphasis, the excitement was all about speaking to my love.

So, at 10am that morning we saddled up for the last time and headed down the mountain. Taking in valleys, hills, canyons and viewpoints like such we had yet to see.

But the ride down is not why we’re here. It was the arrival back down below that is of interest. I dropped my steed at the barn and raced back to my room to jump online and get to work. I’m not entirely sure what order things happened but, upon opening my MacBook it became very clear that something had definitely happened.

But my plane is coming into land, damn. I’ll have to return to this another time.
Short entry I know, but I need to get a move on.

Moleskine entry: August 5th, 2009

Lucozade Energy Challenge number three begins. It’s about 9pm at the time of writing, the plane is taxiing to the runway and we’re very nearly on our way.

The task this time round is white water rafting on the Zambezi river. First stop: Cape Town, South Africa. From there, onwards to Livingstone, in Zambia. After that? God knows.

Wherever we end up, I can not wait.

The challenge is different in oh so may ways from those that have gone before. First of all, this is the first challenge that we’ve had any official Lucozade presence with us. Sam and I both report into our respective agencies who, in turn, report into Lucozade/GSK. Their main contact there? A guy named Nick.

I first met Nick during the final stage of my interview process for the gig that I’m writing to you from now. An Aussie and all round nice chap, he’s a welcome addition to the team.

Speaking of ‘the team’ I’ve already mentioned Sam and I are back on the case, this time however we’ve been joined by four freshl graduates from Scotland. Kenny, James, Wullie and Stuart. All good lads and all, it would seem, on the trip of a lifetime. Our first video is already in the can and I think after a small amount of coaxing, they’ll be talking and playing up to the camera in no time at all. After all, the more personality and energy these guys have, the easier my job gets.

We’re flying over Brighton now, crossing the English Channel. At last my mind has found peace. I mentioned that this trip was different; we’ve had a longer gap between this and the the last. Ten days in fact.

Quite possibly the longest ten days of my professional life.

Jeebus.

Moleskine entry: July 27th, 2009

262 new emails in my personal inbox.
178 in my work inbox.

Something has happened. A look, a search and lo, some rather vexed ex-employees have attempted to ‘blow the lid’ off the operations at SVHQ.

On retrospect, I’ll maybe look back and wonder why the company’s founder and masthead kept quiet throughout. For one normally so passionate, up front and inspirational – all was quiet.

Rather naively it would seem, I took it upon myself to get the fire out, fast.

A post about Google Wave.

Back at the turn of the year, Peter Kim launched his ‘social media predictions for 2009‘. The paper, downloadable in PDF format, featured forward thinking insights from such social web luminaries as Jason Falls, Charlene Li and one of my favourite players in this space, Chris Brogan.

The predictions themselves make for interesting reading and I would (even now), recommend going back and taking a look if you have the opportunity. To cut to the chase though, it was the thoughts from Mr Brogan that stood out the most for me, mainly around his notion of the ‘velvet-rope social network’.

“I believe we’ll have more focused velvet-rope social networks in 2009 where the tools and the goals match verticals instead of the general commons of Facebook.”

Nicely put. At the time I remember agreeing with the idea, but I wasn’t entirely sure about the execution. Chris himself has returned to the subject a number of times on his own blog (often with examples). However, the reason this particular thought came back to me recently was in large part, thanks to Google Wave.

Google Wave is currently in private beta and the invites only started pouring out into the web just under a fortnight ago. With them came the promise of a new dawn in co-working, a new way of true collaboration on a global scale…  A brand new vision of the future.

Except that so far, based on at least 99% of my own experiences at least, no one has found any real use for it.

Well that is until I realised exactly what it is.

Ready?

Google Wave is, to my mind at least, one of Brogan’s new velvet roped social networks.

You open your Wave (this is your network) and invite in whoever you like to join you (as long as they are on Wave). This is, of course absolutely by invitation only. One inside you can chat, share and exchange.. basically do anything you would do normally just within the comfort of the Wave.

As Brogan said: “…the tools and the goals match verticals…”

But there’s more.

The answer? They’re both velvet-rope social networks. Why? Allow me to explain.

Not soon after I started thinking about Google Wave, I realised that another service from the big G shares the same commonalities as the velvet-rope social network: Google Reader.

Google Reader is not too dissimilar. The sharing functionality ‘baked in’ to the UI of the RSS service allows me to one-click push the stories that I’m reading out to my buddies on Google Talk (Google’s Instant Messenger service, aka ‘GTalk’). These stories then appear in my contact’s own Greader – sometimes with an added note from me – and that, is my choice.

I like sharing. I also like, occasionally picking and choosing with whom I share.

Is this the way forward?

Maybe. The point is, Google Reader is cool. I like it. I like sharing stories with my friends and I like them sharing with me. It’s closed (to a point) and I know who I’m sharing with.

Google Wave, while being no replacement for email or IM, is actually really quite useful for actually doing some work. Of the 36 ‘waves’ I have going on at the moment; one is for a specific project, a handful of massive group chats – the IM equivalent of an MMORPG (eesh), – and the rest are along the lines of ‘Is this thing on?’, ‘testing’ and my own favourite, ‘is this actually the future?’

It’s closed, for now. If you have an invite, find the people you want to work with and start a new collaborative project.

Treat it right, and you’ll yield results.
Don’t, and you’ll never see the benefit.

Thanks for stopping by.
-

Additional reading: “What problems does Google Wave solve?” (via Renate Nyborg)

The summer is over and – at long last – so are my travels. My work with Lucozade is at an end and this time last week, I finished up my stint with Oxfam as well.

As the title suggests, it is indeed, time for a new adventure.

Today I’m doing just that by joining 1000heads as Director of Engagement Strategy.

I’ve been aware of and worked alongside many different people from 1000heads (aka ‘the word of mouth people’) over the past four years, and they’ve always impressed me with their ideas, professionalism and more than anything else, their ethics. We’ve often shared stories about our respective projects & conversation ideals and very recently I had the opportunity to talk to them much more openly about my long term plans and ambitions.

It was the synergy that came from these meetings that made me realise that working with 1000heads was clearly the next logical step in my career. When it transpired that they felt the same way, everything just fell into place…

Even if you don’t know of 1000heads, you might not be surprised to hear that they are word of mouth (WOM) specialists. The company works with a range of clients from various industries to understand and engage with their consumers, from Nokia and 3Mobile to Canon, STA Travel, Sky and the BBC.

I am absolutely over the moon about joining the ‘heads and can’t wait to sink my teeth into the work ahead. I’ve already been into the office to meet some of the team and I’m going to spend this coming week getting up to speed with the accounts, campaigns and overall strategies I’ll be working on in the coming months.

After an eventful summer (where I really feel like I’ve been getting my hands dirty again), this move makes complete sense to me and well, I look forward to telling you all about the new adventures, as they happen.

Said in the only way I know how:

Bring it on.

Cross-posted with my new Posterous website, set up purely for #ClimateVoice.
Normal service will return shortly.

(I have many more Moleskine travels to write up and, fingers crossed, I’ll have some other things to talk about by the time I get back too)

In the meantime, here is the first post from said Posterous.

Please remember: I’m not deserting My Happy Place, I just felt that for this one week-long gig, I should take my work elsewhere. I guess when you read some of the things we’re getting up to here, you’ll see.

See you when I get back.

James.

PS. A few commenters have remarked upon the irony of yours truly helping out with the #ClimateVoice project, given the amount of traveling that I’ve done this Summer and my continued response to them has been: I was asked to help and, after my Summer of travelling, I felt it was the least I could do.

_______________________________________________________________

So, the Lucozade Challenges are at an end and I find myself not at home, in London…

But here, in New York.

Why?

Well, for a number of reasons. Some time ago now a certain Miss Vikki Chowney told me that she’d be travelling to New York for a week in September to continue her ongoing work as an ambassador for Oxfam. As part of the original G20 Voice team who attended the London G20 summit back in February of this year, Vikki’s work and subsequent commitment to the cause made her first in line when Oxfam came to selecting the team for the next project: ClimateVoice

My personal connections to the G20Voice project aside, back in February I was part of the team that helped the G20Voice blog get up and running through my work with SpinVox; working with Alfie Dennen of Moblog we were able to set up phone lines all over the world that allowed anyone, anywhere to call up and put their question to the G20.

When Oxfam heard I had some free time at the end of the Lucozade project, they asked if I’d like to tag along and assist with their livestreaming of the event; interviewing attendees and bloggers and generally doing what I do, but for them.

So a trip to NY, working with a charity I love and spending time with my other half who I’ve missed all Summer?
Oh go on then..

So for the week that I’m here, I’ll be blogging at this new posterous blog, just for this one project, as a container for all my Oxfam/G20/ClimateVoice content.

Let’s see how it works out.

Thanks for reading,

J.