^Turn it up to 720p
For some reason the N8 stopped recording at Lexington and didn’t pick up the awesome chat about pie mash for lunch from the rather awesome Mother Mash as well as some great insights into the new Alan Partridge stuff. We had a great sign off prepared too. Grr.
Damn touchscreens.
This past week saw the Exeter-based gathering that is known as the LikeMinds 2010 Autumn Conference.
Photo via the lovely Benjamin Ellis
If you’re a regular reader here at 1000heads you’ll know that LikeMinds has become one of our favourite things ever since our first attendance back in February of this year. I’m pleased to say that last week’s event – based around the themes of ‘Creativity + Curation’ – was no disappointment.
Unlike February’s event, where the one key takeaway (for me at least) was the audience-wide understanding of the importance of listening, this time around the lessons were much more broad; touching upon various different subjects, specialisms and industries including; Music, Film, Publishing (traditional and new) as well as other, more thought-provoking pieces along the lines of the impact of social technologies and the much-discussed ‘Big Society‘.
For me personally, the highlights came in varying forms. First, the opening Publishing ‘immersive’ session hosted by Andrew Davies of Idio was rammed to the rafters as everyone came together to discuss the impact of the social web upon the traditional publishing industry. For such a packed event, Andrew facilitated well as the rest of the group swiftly leapt from one area to another covering off not only the real value of brand/consumer relationships (throwing in some real world examples to boot) but also whether or not true curation is just filtering other people’s content.
LikeMinds resident live-blogger, Adam Tinworth, happened to be in the room also and his blow-by-blow recap is definitely worth a look.
Second, Chris Carey from the PRS, yes really – the PRS. Chris is an in-house economist for the music industry and he used the patterns that he is paid to spot day-in and day-out, to illustrate the pitfalls in any market of relying on what you think you know. His example of NBC’s mistake of turning off the Gossip Girl stream on their website was a lesson to us all.
And the third and final one (again, that spoke to me personally) was that of Benjamin Ellis. Who, with one phrase, captured the whole audience:
“A fish would be last to discover water”
— and to give that context, I’d spend some time looking over his rather awesome presentation –
Moleskine entry: April 1st, 2010
There’s a bunny in bag and he’s made of chocolate.
I’ve been to Switzerland today well, at the time of writing I’m technically still in Zurich; sat in the plane, awaiting departure. We’ll be on our way back to London shortly. It’s been a long day.
Why Zurich? Work, surprise surprise. But still LOTS of fun nonetheless. If I can talk about them by the time I write this up then you’ll know that it was… SKINS
If all you can see is an image of my moleskine, then sorry – can’t talk about it just yet. But if it’s not, then you can tell that the meeting was successful. Win.
It’s Easter this weekend (hence the bunny) and I’m looking forward to some proper R’n’R.
Chill Winston.
That is if this flight ever gets a move on. I was up at 5am this morning to be at London City Airport for 7am, leaving at 8.
It has been a long day (and it’s nowhere near over yet).
We were originally scheduled to land at 1945, that’s now looking like 2115. Damn. Quick drink with the office lot then off to meet the girlfriend who’s out somewhere near Westminster…
The date at the top of this page is April 1st. Fools’ day. I didn’t play any tricks (although I heard about some crackers). My mum and I used to try and get each other every year. She emailed me today and said it was a quiet one.
I miss my mum. She kind of rocks.
X
Moleskine entry: March 30th, 2010
Two stops from home.
Six months in. Am I allowed to click again? I don’t know. I think I have though – clicked, that is.
A combination of a rather intimate chat with my peers and maybe also a mixture of the achievements of late. A PR Week nod and my recent Marketing Academy nomination… It kind of makes you think.
Reassures maybe?
I think so.
Step up James. Step up.
Moleskine entry: Dec 15th, 2009
What day is it today? 15th? I think so. That’s right, ten days ’til Christmas, I remember.
It’s been a fair while since I emptied my thoughts into this moleskine of mine, but excuses I have none. Instead I have nearly three months of hard work to look back on. 1000heads is treating me well, very well.
It’s hard work, challenging even, but in the best of ways.
I can’t talk about any of of the stuff I’ve working on, obviously. However, let’s just say I am in exactly the right place at the exactly the right time; I’ve seen the future, and it’s very bright indeed.
It strikes me that it might be some months until this entry makes it out onto my blog. So apologies in advance if this seems out of time at all.
I wonder if, in time, I will be able to talk about what I’ve actually worked on, i.e.: projects of the past. I’m finally getting to grips with how fast this place moves; last Wednesday I helped out with creating an invitation for the Ovi Daily App Awards. Between us we nailed the copy, design, look and feel and just for good measure, a comedy QR code to boot.
They were signed off, printed and sent out within 24hrs and, by Friday, blog posts were already springing up. Amazing.
I understand that this might just be par for the course for some of you but, coming from a veritable behemoth of an organisation, this is not how it’s done ‘client side’.
I’m yawning as I write, I must be boring myself.
Writing from a plane (again), we’re headed for Helsinki. There’s a man two seats away who spoke at OpenLabs. Remember that?
Seems like such a long time ago now…
Moleskine Entry: Oct 22nd, 2009
Three weeks I’ve been doing this job and I think I might have worked out what I’m doing here. There’s obviously work to be done and I’m getting stuck in, however I still feel like an outsider.
New to the pack, some of the larger animals don’t know how to take me. Yet others are still trying to be open. We’re getting there. Slowly. At least I’m getting there.
The hardest part to deal with is the clients, I guess. They don’t trust me and, while my name maybe associated with The Really Mobile Project, I don’t think they ever will. It’s gutting because I’m not just some blogger off the street; I’ve spent the last 5yrs carving out a career as an expert in my field. Call it comms, word of mouth, community, dare I say it ‘Social Media’ and, in all honesty, I’m not an idiot (no laughing at the back please). I’m really not. I’ve never broken an NDA and I’ve always conducted myself in a professional manner. Yes, there is some bleeding across the lines with the new role, but really?
“We’re not going to show him anything he might blog.” — Really? Give me a break.
24hrs later – Validation. Defence. A small amount of insight and trust – as tenuous as it is – is restored. Although I fear this won’t be the last time it happens.
Perhaps it’s time to say goodbye to Really Mobile?
[Private post – made public on Dec 23rd, 2011]
Moleskine entry: October 19th, 2009 (maybe)
You have a lot of work to do.
Not least the epic workload of the pages that have gone before. A job, not small, but not important either – at least, it would seem right now.
I want to be able to do my job my NEW job to the best of my ability but currently, I don’t feel I can. There is… the learning process. The transaction process that which, over time, defines how your tenure will be judged… information… there is much. Relationship building, plenty.
You have a lot of work to do.
Moleskine entry: October 6th 2009
Only just mind.
Unfortunately, in my infinite wisdom I managed to hit the ‘off’ button on my alarm this morning. OFF instead of SNOOZE. The latter would’ve made sure I was up before 7am. The former ensured that I found myself stirring a little after 9am. Bugger.
Up, like a shot. It’s 9:11. Shower. Teeth. Shave. It’s 9:20. Pack. Spray. Earphones. Leave the house, it’s 9:25. Walking, fast, I trip and stumble. My ankle cries out and I follow suit. Limping, I make it to the station. It’s 9:35. Coffee, rain and the 9:41 arrives on time.
Today is my first day at 1000heads and so far it’s going swimmingly!
That’s what the super-smart bods over at New Media Age have said we are anyway –
Each year, NMA release their ‘Top 100 Interactive Agencies’ league table and, although we’re not in the overall rankings, we have been given the rather prestigious nod in the ‘Ones to Watch’ section.
As they say themselves –
“‘This section in the guide lists agencies the publication believes has done some exciting work over the past 12 months and has really tried to be innovative in their approach to digital.”
Thank you very much New Media Age, we’re honoured to be included.
🙂
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 –
http://podcastmachine.com/swf/player.swf
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.
…
whatleydude.com 