Five things on Friday #41

Things of note for the week ending October 12th, 2012

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1. Awesome birdhouses
From the stylish to the down right scary, these incredible birdhouses have been made specifically to raise money for charity (which is doubly awesome). The whole set is quite fantastic and the one I’ve used above does nothing to illustrate how artistic the creators get…  it just really makes me laugh.

via

2. Blogger Engagement
A good piece of blogger engagement goes a long way. This is not news admittedly and there’s probably enough in this to warrant another blog post for another day (note to self: start this draft). But for now, let’s talk about some great pieces that have happened lately.

First, from the lovely chaps looking after social media for Tsingtao Beer. I’m not a huge Tsingtao drinker but, after some great banter with the aforementioned digital team – I know I’m going to order it next time I’m out for Chinese, certainly. I’m also going to vote* in the Tsingtao Beer ‘Legacy of Taste‘ competition, which is the search to find Britain’s favourite Chinese restaurant. You should vote too.

Second, Motorola announced their brand new Motorola RAZR i the other week and, in all fairness, I rarely take notice of anything Motorola do as I’ve never used any of their devices and it’s not a brand that’s ever interested me. However, after a delightful email from their representatives here in Europe, not only have I LIKED THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE but I’ve also mentioned the phone a couple of times on the podcast AND I’m also looking forward to actually getting my hands on one and having a play.

That’s all down to decent blogger engagement.

Look, I know this all sounds incredibly pompous but I collect blogger engagement. When I was engagement director at the ‘heads I made it my job to constantly review with the way we engaged with different communities; I have given entire presentations (internally, of course) based around bad engagement copy. It’s a habit I’ve kept since leaving and well, blogger engagement done well should be applauded more often.

So, Christine at Edelman and Tom/Robbie at McCann, if you’re reading this – good work.

3. BMX Boy
This is four year old Malcolm, out BMX-ing/Mountain-biking with his dad. It’s nine minutes of smiling from ear to ear.

My dad and I used to go scrambling around tracks like that. I miss it.

4. The Mayor of Mars
The Mars Curiosity Rover is using Foursquare to track its progress across that reddest of planets and, just last week, it became the Mayor of the Gale Crater.

I love love love the way that the team at NASA are using social media tor drive interest around this most awesome of human exploratory missions. And big up to the Foursquare team who are helping them do just that. Well done.

5. Stupid stuff
My girlfriend sent me this during the week and for some reason it makes me crack up just looking at it/him –

I’m laughing right now. Hahahaha… the artist behind this masterpiece is one Natalie Dee.

Go seek her out.

Bonuses this week: a 15min speech from the Australian Prime Minister labelling the leader of the opposition a hyprocritcal misogynist is absolutely fantastic (seriously, watch it); a blog post entitled ‘the most interesting underpants in London‘ really does live up to its name; and finally, this is probably the best volcano video you’ve ever seen – hit HD, make it full screen and ENJOY.

 

*If you’re interested, Royal China got my vote.Â