It was a gift from those lovely folk @ Mint Digital (more than likely, orchestrated by my dear friend Utku), to mark the start of 2011*
Thanks Utterz. I like it.
So. Plans for the year then? I have two. Travel and dance. Doing more of both. The former I’m working on, the latter also.
I guess if I’m completely honest with myself, one underlying goal for the year ahead would be not to share as much. For the last two years (more so than before at least) I’ve lived my life openly, on the internet – and decorated it accordingly. In the same way that one would in his own house, I shared my happiness, my joy and my deepest loves on the walls around me.
If it made me smile, or if I thought it would do the same for someone, else then I shared it. But now…?
Now the largest piece of that puzzle has disappeared and, whenever I visit this place I once called home, it is not long before I wander into a memory of times gone past. It’s not like I can even show people around; an image here, a link there, an oblique reference off to the right – it happens.
This year, whatever comes my way, I’ll be keeping a fair amount of it back (more than I did before at least anyway).
If you’ve been traversing the interwebs in the same manner as I have these past few months then you may remember these smart little ads from Google, informing us that ad space will work harder.
They’re not wrong. It is.
A few weeks ago I had to travel up to Grantham to speak to one of our clients, MARS, about how to build social into one of their newest (and most exciting) ventures. To get there, it’s a short tube ride from our global headquarters in Piccadilly, up to Kings Cross, from there a train ride to Grantham, whereupon a 30min cab ride awaits to cart you to the the MARS PetCare HQ in Waltham.
Obviously, when making any public transport-based travel plans, militant scheduling is required. TheTrainline.com is useful in this instance as it covers every overground train schedule in the country. Note; all I did was check the times of the trains. My browser knows this, Google knows this and so therefore, the ad that Channel 4’s adspace chooses to serve me when I want to read about the British Comedy Awards knows also.
Contextual web-based advertising. It’s a wonderful thing. The mind races through a thousand thought processes;
Wow, that’s awesome. I should screengrab that for the blog. Contextual advertising, nice. Wait a minute, are they allowed to do that? Hmm, maybe I said they could do that when I ticked some random box.. maybe, just through visiting their site, I’ve already agreed to let them follow me around the web.. is this cookie based? It must be.. What other data am I pushing out daily?
What other data am I pushing out daily?
What other data am I pushing out daily?
And how can it be used?
This last thought in particular is one we’re going to be coming back to over the next few months here at 1000heads. Over the past year or so we’ve been doing a lot of work on conversation metrics, purchase journey mapping and ultimately, the real value that word of mouth can bring to any business, globally.
Combined, these three content streams can provide some very real data about how consumers like you and I go about our daily decision making processes; in the first instance it really is quite scary… but in the second, once all the data is locked down and independently verified – for brands at least – it can be very, very useful indeed.
As Google might say – ‘WATCH THIS SPACE’ for more on this… in the meantime, tickets to Grantham are only £9.
Recently, I decided to treat myself to the technological wonder that is the Xbox Kinect. But, before we crack on, let me make one thing absolutely clear –
The Xbox Kinect is, without doubt, the most exciting piece of technology I have ever brought into my house (by a clear country mile) and, quite possibly, the most amazing thing I have ever bought. Ever. Full stop.
It really is that good.
What’s worrying, however, is that for a short while I didn’t even realise it.
Returning from my parents this past Christmas (I believe it was Dec 27th), I stopped off in town to pick up the Johnny-5 head-shaped bad boy and left him by the TV for a couple of days, before breaking it open just before New Year and cracking on.
“This’ll be fun” I thought “I’ll give it a whirl”
See, as you may know, I am a gaming geek (some would argue more so than a mobile geek), and so getting my hands on the latest awesome periphery for my current console of choice was fairly high up on my list of priorities.
“Gaming is going be awesome with this…”
Honestly? It’s been over a month now and I’ve hardly played the games at all. Don’t get me wrong, Kinect Adventures IS fun and I’m informed that the yet-to-be-opened Dance Central is pretty damn good also. However, the Kinect has changed something so significant, so utterly mind-blowing that most of the time, I switch it on just so I can play with IT.
Why?
It’s all about the interface. Things that live on my Xbox (aside from the games) include (but are not exclusive to) Last.fm, Sky TV, Twitter, Facebook and – thanks to a handy piece of software called Connect360 (no relation) – my entire music, photo and video collection that resides on my Mac.
[Nearly] everything is available to Kinect with… and it rocks.
Introducing such a fundamental step-change into the way I interact with my main media channel has, perhaps unsurprisingly to some, drastically shifted my usage patterns along with it. Last.fm, formally an Xbox Gold ‘nice to have’ extra that I only used on occasion is now the main reason for switching the Xbox on in the morning/afternoon/evening…
Forget the wavey-roundy, gesture sensitive motion capture stuff (although that’s quite cool also) the Kinect, for me at least, is all about the voice activation.
Let me show you: .
I can be in the shower in the next room and be yelling out my instructions AND IT STILL HEARS ME! Music, is everything…
In the same way that nobody knew they needed an iPad (and yet now suddenly they now wonder how they ever did without them), the Xbox Kinect slips into your day to day life like the smoothest of gloves onto a well-worn hand. Within a couple of days you catch yourself wondering why on Earth everything in your household doesn’t run in the same way.
“Kettle? Boil.” or “Shower? On.” and of course, “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.“ are suddenly so desperately close to hand but also, in the same breath, achingly far away. The Xbox Kinect really is the technology of the future boys and girls and believe it when I tell you; we’ve not even scratched the surface.
Maybe it’s the hours upon hours that we spent back in my SpinVox days talking about the future of speech technologies that has got me so excited about all this, maybe it’s because at heart, I’m a massive Star Trek fan and being able to talk to my computer is a pipe dream I’ve lusted after ever since I first saw Jean-Luc do the exact same thing all those years ago… or maybe, just maybe it’s just because that deep down, I am a geek – through and through – and I just love new technology.
We’re about one week away from the final closing date and the standard of entries we’ve had in is absolutely astonishing. Covering off extreme sports, special effects and just plain awesome story telling (sometimes a combination of all three) we can quite honestly say that there cannot be a more fantastic collection of campaign-based user generated content anywhere else in the world.
Here are some hard numbers (as of ten days ago)
9million opportunities to view content
10,000likes & comments in social
250,000 views across both YouTube and Vimeo
(withoutany bought media support)
3,700 episodes of conversation
With one awesome entry even being shown on ESPN!
(average audience of 275,000)
Every single entry is brilliant in its own way but, to whet your appetite, here’s a selection of what we’ve had in so far… and remember: each and every producer shot their film with their very own Nokia N8.
2011 is going to be a big year for 1000heads; we’re formally opening several offices across the globe (many of which are already hiring, by the way) and the entire team seems to have come back from the Christmas break with a renewed sense of ambition and direction. It’s electric.
For myself, having spent 2010 defining (and refining) the engagement strategy for the company both internally and externally, it’s time to move onto pastures new*.
When I hit my year anniversary back in October, a conversation began about where we (1000heads and I) could go next. What did we decide? Well…
I’m about three weeks into my new role** and, as the challenges ahead grow ever larger and more exciting, I’m this close to being in the perfect position to knock every single one of them out of the park.
Bring. It. On.
.
James Whatley Marketing Director
1000heads
*staying on at the same farm, obviously
**leaked in the press at the weekend
My little brother has been in town all week and last night, finally, we managed to make some time to sit down and chat rubbish for a few minutes.
The camera gives up right at the end (my fault for not deleting all my #vlomo content off the memory from last year), but I think it ends everything with quite a nice little cliffhanger that perhaps we can pick up on next time…
If you’ve not heard about it yet, it’s pretty big (with events being held all over the world) and it’sonly going toget bigger.
Globally, we’re going to be keeping ourselves busy supporting different activities on behalf of the headline sponsor (who also happens to be one of our clients) while locally, here in London, we’ll be doing our bit in the office with our very own:
“What the hell is that then?” – I hear you cry…
Allow me to explain:
To kick Social Media Week off with a bang, we’ve decided to setup the official#smwlondon / 1000heads Social Media Surgery.
With resident ‘Doctors’ Molly Flatt (WOM Evangelist), James Whatley (Marketing Director) and Tim Denyer (Group Development Director) each giving up their day to help all and sundry with their social media ailments, why not make an appointment now?
Tim’s your man if you want to talk integration, performance and measurement
Molls specialises in ethics, training and social business
And James (that’s me) will bring you the low-down on engagement, tools and presences
One-on-one private sessions are available (as are larger group sessions for up to eight people) throughout the day, and coffee and biscuits (quite nice ones) will be provided. While we can’t guarantee all problems will be solved immediately, we can promise to bring a little TLC to those in need.
Every Friday here at 1000heads HQ, we host an internal event called ‘3 Cool Things’. At around 5pm ish a certain ‘head gathers up the rest the hard-working bunch and gathers them all into the breakout area to share the three coolest things they’ve seen that week.
Take this example for instance (demonstrating some of the 3D awesomeness we worked on late last year)
It’s a veritable goldmine of content/fun/awesome shenanigans. Some bits are bloggable, some definitely aren’t. This past Friday one particular ‘head presented this video, from The Sartorialist, entitled ‘A Visual Life’.
Coming in at seven minutes long, it’s no short snappy piece for the attention-deficit generation. However, it is quite an interesting look at one of the world’s most well-respected fashion bloggers, providing both an insight into what it is that inspires him and also how he goes about looking for that inspiration.
It really is a great short film (and well worth a watch).
But what I found most thought-provoking overall was that the whole presentation as it were, was brought to you/us by Intel. ‘Visibly Smart’ their product line says, and ‘Sponsors of Tomorrow’.
Why Intel? Why The Sartorialist? Like I said, I love the video, I just don’t quite get the connection…
“1000heads is an imaginative collection of illustrations in which the human head experiments the strangest transformations, actions and variations.
Let this video guide you in this imaginative, fascinating and mesmerizing trip through the world of symbols, associations and memories.”
No no, we’ve not decided to change our business model (word of mouth is still our favourite thing) but rather an interesting find when our Google Alerts went off this morning.
It’s all about the jazz…
While this book of madness is three and a bit minutes of your life you’ll never get back, it has got us thinking; if 1000heads did have their own book, what would it consist of?
Case studies?
Advice?
Photos of our pets?
Perhaps the medium of print is too old and staid and we should instead get our very own iPad publication…
This was recorded around the same time that the film came out (I’m unsure why I’ve only just found it mind but), if it’s of interest, here’s my original review from around the same time.
whatleydude.com 
