That Whatley chap, he gets around a bit…

…YEAH he does

– Beautiful, Huh? –

Although I’m not about to start setting a precedent for talking about myself in the third person…
The man they call Whatley, he say No.
Heh.

Anywhoo!

It’s been a while hasn’t it?! One week and one month to be precise.
Cor! I have been slacking!

To be honest, ‘slacking’ isn’t really a fair description. I have been just a leeetle bit busy, y’know?
You’ll see…

Got a helluva lot to catch up with and well, this post here – this one – the one you’re reading right now, is more of an introduction. A Prologue if you will…
Last night, not long after I got in from Frankfurt, I started compiling all of the media (photos, videos etc) that I’ve taken over the past month or so and have actually, finally begun to make sense of it all… it’s nearly ready for sharing! Excited? Much?! 😉

However, as you can no doubt imagine, there is a LOT to get through –

First there’s the conferences: Nokia’s Openlab in Finland, Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, ad:tech London, Future of Web Apps London aaaaaaaaaaand most recently – Voicedays in Wiesbaden!

And even though I’ve already put up some of the above over on the SpinVox Blog, Big Talk – namely part of the The US Tour and My Voicedays Presentation – I still have plenty to say on each, so don’t think you’re getting short shrift.. 😉

Crazy Crazy Crazy…

THEN of course, there’s the ma-hoosive list of really cool stuff that I’ve been playing with lately – from Alfie’s uber-cool ‘Find Me‘ project (best. thing. ever.), to messing about with ‘Hotel Visualisers’ (no really – they’re actually quite cool), from enormous Bean Bags (like – HUGE), to some brand spanking new phones (super swish), and back once again to some cool BBC-based activities (which I really can’t talk about right now – but I will). Tops.

So.. The Plan:

The mission from here on in – for now at least, (until I clear my back load), is to try and blog once a day. I need to get this thing moving and the more time that passes the more information I have stored up that I simply have to share…

(plus there’s the small matter of my head *actually* exploding if I don’t get it all out soon)

And that is my promise to you dear and loyal readers.
Watch this space.
One post a day.

Starting.

Now.

P.S. For those of you that don’t know – aside from my day job at SpinVox, I’m also part of the team behind the Mobile Industry Review.. and each week we produce a 30min show about, you guessed it, the mobile industry…  You can catch the show, every Monday over on the TV pages of the website.

I normally keep that stuff separate but this week’s show really is our best one yet –
So, here it is, reprodcuced for your viewing pleasure…
I hope you like it:

See you tomorrow!

🙂

MIR: BBC iPlayer on the N95

Howdy folks, Whatley here,

Haven’t written anything for a while, but this is something I just had to share.

I just got back from filming the latest edition of the Mobile Industry Review Show (live from the T-Mobile event) and I was about to go to bed when I found this video in my Google Reader from one James Burland, he of (the quite frankly awesome) Nokia Creative fame.

The man has got the iPlayer up and running on his N95!

Awesome!
So I did a little digging and then I found this piece over on Symbian-Freak about how to install etc and, as well as finding the actual file there, I also found out a few other facts.

  1. If your Nseries has Web Runtime (WRT) enabled, you can haz iPlayer.
  2. N95ers out there – hit *#0000# – if your firmware is v21 or above, you have WRT enabled.
  3. N95, N96 and N85 all confirmed as compatible
  4. Current installation only works over a wifi connection

I’ve poked a few friends of mine at the Beeb to see if we can talk to some of the techies there, fingers crossed we’ll be able to bring you a follow up piece over the next few days outlining some of the finer details.

So what are you waiting for? Download it now and let us know what you think!

:)

Whatley out.

What a Beautiful Day

September 10th, 2008.
08:24

One year, to the day that I started my employment with a little company called SpinVox and… Wow, what a journey it has been so far…

The view you see before you is the view that I have right now, as I type this post from the departure lounge of Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 1, (looks familiar huh?). As you know some time ago I got ‘the call‘ and lo and thusly I am on my way to Finland.

But we’ll come back to that…

What I want to talk about, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, is the amazing journey that I’ve been over the past year. Personally, professionally and of course geographically.

Working backwards, I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been so well travelled, (although quite how you can be less travelled I don’t know – heh), with my work so far taking me to such places Barcelona (beautiful) San Francisco – twice (one of my favourite places in the world and a potential base for me the future for certain), Las Vegas (ugh)… and, as we speak, Helsinki.

There of course being no rest for the wicked, straight after this trip I’m headed out to New York then onto Las Vegas once again and by the looks of things Frankfurt too before the year is out.

I used to mock my friends when they used to get the work trips abroad, accusing them of ‘going on a jolly’ and basically being a bunch of work-shy sun-seekers. But guys, if you’re reading this, I take it back. I now know… It’s relentless! Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love it – wouldn’t change it for the world in fact. But jeeez… talk about taking it out of you! This time round I’ve prepared. Both physically and mentally.

Bring. It. On. 🙂

Which dovetails nicely back into the professional part of my journey. So, as I said, one year ago I joined SpinVox. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready for whatever they had to throw at me.
Having initially secured the interview after being told by a recruitment agent that I was ‘definitely a SpinVox person’ I was taken onboard to apply some ‘Digital Native’ thinking, if you will, to an already rock solid proposition…

Six weeks later I was on a flight to San Francisco after launching Social Networks through SpinVox.

Awesome.

I’ll never forget rocking up to my first CTIA in torn jeans, flip flops and my now trademark MASSIVE white sunglasses adorned across my brow and being told almost immediately:

“Oh, you’re ‘The Web Guy’. You’ve got the look for sure.”

HA!

You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve since smartened up my act somewhat (although the Sunny Gs remain) and I’m now ‘The Social Media Guy’.
Which kind of, in a sense, further demonstrates the journey: Starting with Social Networks through SpinVox, then getting Big Talk (the SpinVox Blog) off the ground, working on and around the digital propositions…
All of which meant that in February of this year I was part of the team that flew out to Barcelona to represent the big SV at Mobile World Congress (MWC – previously known as 3GSM).

This is when my entire world changed.

Suddenly, almost overnight, there was this paradigm shift in how I saw the industry around me… and it was changing. Mobile is my first love and always will be, but in Barcelona the power of Social Media and what it actually means really hit home.

Walking the floor at MWC, finally meeting some of the big names in blogging face to face… Shall I list them?

…

…

Nah. If you’re reading this and I shook your hand in Barcelona, then I’m talking about You 🙂

I was saying; Meeting you guys and gals face to face made me understand the enormous sense of community that lives and breathes in this new world of ours… and the enormity doesn’t just stop there either, it also applies to the immense importance that we place on this community as well.

We, you, me, them, us… We are right here, right now. Carving out and pioneering a new digital age for our children to grow up into. What you think and say about this whole space will define how the rest of the world interacts with their digital media for the next 10-20yrs, if not more.

Social Media ‘happened’ (for me at least) this year; I’m going to be able to look back and say ‘Yep, I was there’ …well, you were there too. It’s happening Right Now.

And listen, without getting ranty, understand this – what I said up there – is paramount to any and every business today. It really is.

Arriving back from Spain after the conference finished, with the support of my boss, I got to work on a Social Media Strategy doc that, with the help from the team, would define how SV as a business and as a brand would operate in this space… and so far, it’s playing out nicely.

So yeah, we’ll see on that one shall we? 🙂

Building that thing up and playing it out through the year as we have has been an awesome experience. Learnings on the way of course – some things took a while, some things took off straight away and some things you just can’t predict..

Hence the journey I guess. But I tell you one thing, in this job I don’t think I have ever been happier.

And in fear of being a complete link-monkey, ‘not ever being happier’ leads me quite perfectly into the “Personally” part of this little trilogy.

A few of you reading this may follow me on Twitter or even chat to me on Jaiku, in which case you know that most of the time I am of quite a cheery disposition and I take pride in the fact that I truly enjoy life to the fullest. Now I’m not big on sharing personal stuff online.
Not at all.

Gotta keep something back, y’know?

But anyway – the fact of the matter is, right now, for the first time in a long time I am happy.
Truly and utterly.

And I love it.

Thanks to you guys, for all of your kind words, support and just general awesomeness over the past year.
I’m looking forward to the next one with immense relish and I’m rubbing my hands with glee…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Bring. It. On.

😀

Thanks for reading…

Oh yeah – and there was that small matter of being in Finland.
Guess it’ll have to wait until my next post, (tomorrow – promise).

😉

P.S. It’s taken me all day to get this post up, I’m now in Helsinki and a very happy Whatley indeed.

September 10th, 2008.
20:49

The Science of Sleep

This post is inspired by conversations that end with Zzzs…

A long time ago, I used to suffer from really, really bad insomnia.
Really bad.

Night after night I would lay awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sandman to take me and yet night after night I’d be lucky if I scraped two maybe three hours at best.
Not good.

A few days of this is enough to drive anyone crazy, but this went on for months.

‘Jack‘ nailed it best when he said:

With insomnia, nothing’s real.
Everything is far away.
Everything is a copy, of a copy, of a copy.

My then partner, who no doubt was being kept awake by my incessant restlessness herself, was fantastically supportive and eventually, when it finally started to have a knock-on effect on my working life, she insisted that we sorted this out as – if my work was going wrong, then the next thing after that would no doubt be our relationship…

So.

First thing first – We took the TV out of the bedroom.

I know this seems like a no-brainer, but at that time I didn’t even think about it. I could quite happily sit on the bed, watching TV, (back in the days when I actually watched TV anyway), for ages… It had a built-in video player so on the nights when the insomnia was really bad I’d just stick some Blackadder on or something. Yeah, ‘cos that helped.

After that – Lavender

Lavender spray on my pillows. Lavender bubble bath before bedtime…
Just lots and lots of lavender.

Next – Kalms… or more specifically, Valerian

We found the latter while doing research into natural treatments for sleep troubles etc… I steadfastly refuse to take any form of sleeping tablets and herbal remedies are about as far as I’ll go. The only thing that we could find in the UK that had Valerian in it were these tablets called Kalms. Two of those before bed every night to ‘relieve worry, irritability and stress’ and you’re sorted. Well I say ‘sorted’, I’m not entirely sure if they helped that much, but everything was so gradual.

Finally, and this is one of the biggest things for me by far – Associations.

So what does that mean?

Well, I’ve already mentioned that I took the TV out of the bedroom to aid in my search for slumber. That helped a lot. Not only with not keeping me awake via mere distraction but what it also did was stop me from just sitting on the bed… i.e.: Sitting and not SLEEPING.

Let me explain, y’see – when you allow this to happen, your brain kinda gets used to your bed being just another chair, or a rather in this instance; a big flat sofa, (one for sitting on, not for sleeping).

Once I’d realised this I point-blankly refused to go to bed unless I was so so so so so so SO tired I was falling asleep on my feet. That way, by eliminating all other activities bar sleeping, (TV, Reading, Nintendo etc.), from the bed I managed to train myself associate that physical environment and situation with sleep. Brilliant.

Looking back, this was probably the best thing that I did to get over my insomnia. Obviously the other ideas and actions were also contributing factors… But really, learning to move my work and play away from my place of rest was without doubt the best thing I could’ve done.

You might’ve noticed that the name of this blog is ‘this is my happy place’…
That stems from a number of reasons – all of which resonate quite nicely with the kind of guy that I try to be – but one of those reasons actually relates quite nicely to the accompanying picture…

I like sleeping.

Having had it gone from my life for such a long time I now have the utmost respect for sleep as an activity… and dedicate proper time to it as often as needed.

This isn’t to say that I am lazy, not by any stretch. I just know when I need to rest.

Tying off with associations is a good way to bring this back to my inspiration for this post. I have this habit, when talking on the phone late at night, of falling to sleep mid-conversation.

I kid you not.

I must’ve lost count the amount of times I’ve woken up to find a phone in my hand wondering what the hell was going on. It makes me laugh every time it happens but the caller on the other end tends to get quite miffed. Heh.

Word to the wise – if we’re speaking late at night and I say:

‘Ok, cool. Just headed to bed, will call you back shortly…’

Just. Say. No.

The chances are I will fall asleep…

😀

Night night.

So I got the call…


…I’m off to Helsinki to talk Social at Nokia with some of the best in the business.
If you’re one of the lucky few who are going, I guess I’ll see you there.

If not, watch this space – no doubt I’ll write some of it up 🙂

More to follow…

Social Tool, Tool!

Photobucket

There I was, on the train, on the way into work this morning and I’m listening to a couple of chaps in the next seat talk about plans for a new online marketing strategy…

Yes. That’s right. ON A TRAIN.

So before we even GET to the whole ‘Social’ thing that I’m about to rant about, let’s just take a moment to appreciate the stupidity… or maybe even the complete lack of joined-up thinking that goes hand-in-hand with talking about this kind of stuff on PUBLIC transport…

Photobucket

Done that? Goooooooood.
Idiots.

Anyway – so here they were, these two suits fellas, talking about ‘Social Networking’ and how they ‘really need to get involved’ to make this campaign really work.
Well I say ‘they’ it was more like just the older bloke telling the younger bloke, what he needed to get their new campaign off the ground…
The older chap opens:

“Look, I need you to tell me about what you can do with YouTube?”

“I can upload videos…”

“Yes. I’ve seen that. But what can we do with YouTube?”

“Aside from upload the videos, well…er…”

“WE NEED YOUTUBE!”

“We have…er…”

“Listen, we’ve got to hit millions of people! Millions. We won’t do it without YouTube.”

And so the conversation carried on, covering such things like MySpace, Facebook and even Flickr but all the while keeping the same familiar pattern, (I’m actually quite surprised I didn’t hear the classic phrase ‘Right, we need a viral’… I may’ve said something at that point)

Anyway, this whole thing got me thinking. I wrote a post about Mobile Advertising for Mobile Industry Review, (then SMS Text News), a few months back outlining the need for complete alignment when dipping your toe into the mobile ad space.
This one was easy, at least this time round they had some kind of idea as to what they were doing…
These two guys on the 9:53 out of Paddington however? Not a hope.

YouTube, to use the example given, is not something you ‘do’, it’s something you use, (like a tool, see).

The best way for me to illustrate this is with cups.

Photobucket

If your boss turns to you one day and says “I want to do something with YouTube”, what do you say back?

Well look, you’re clearly happy to put anything into the cup as it were; be it lemonade, orange juice, blackcurrant or whatever – But your boss, or whoever’s running the marketing team needs to tell you what that is. The cup is another way of presenting your content. It will speak to different people in different ways. I would not use a cup for anything other than what it is good for… and that is drinking, nay – consuming!

On top of that you also need to ensure that the same blackcurrant you’re using in your cups is being used in the other dispensers that you have at your disposal. I mean, you have other cups right? Right?!
Yeah you do… The banner ads, the traditional print, the skyscrapers, the tv/radio spots etc…
Them. Yeah. They’re cups too.

So when asked, “…like flickr, like YouTube”…etc, they’re just a variation on the cup.

You can help them hold it, you can help others drink from it but what you can’t do is fill it.
Give people some cool stuff inside the cup, don’t just give them the cup.
On it’s own, the cup is nothing.

With planning, time and effort from all parties – the cup can become an integral part of a much larger picnic.

Social Cups, Hugh would be proud.

Mobile Geeks of London IV

It’s fast approaching…

– IT’S TONIGHT DAMMIT-

…and can you believe there is currently, at the time of writing, 119 people down as confirmed as coming?!
(don’t even ask me about the ‘maybes’)

Amazing.
Really.
I am completely and utterly overwhelmed.

Who’d have thought it huh?

It’s been just over a year since our very first meet-up way back when, upstairs in the Bricklayers Arms…

– Dodgy Lookin’ Bunch –

20 of us or so, all gathered round a table, drinking beer and coo-ing over the first generation iPhone.
What a sight we must have been.

From there Mobile Geeks of London, (or ‘MGoL‘ as it has become to be known) has gone from strength to strength. The MGoL facebook group is now 354 members strong and, as you can see – as time has gone on there has been a really lovely increase in the turnout for each event –

17 <>  61 <> 73 <>119

Just – awesome – really, really awesome 🙂

This year of course, also marked the first time we took MGoL: On Tour.

Starting (and ending – hehe) in Las Vegas and timed to coincide with the start of the CTIA Wireless Conference – MGoL, along with some help from the team at Brilliant Expos, set a new precendent in the history of the Mobile Geeks and laid down the template for any future events that take place under the ‘On Tour‘ banner. Of which, I can guarantee, there will be more coming soon… Watch this space.

So.. Here we are… Let’s do it shall we? 🙂

Ladies & Gentlemen… Presenting:

Mobile Geeks of London IV

The Time: 6:45pm – 11:30pm
The Date: July 31st – Today!
The Place: All Bar One, New Oxford Street
Nearest Tube – Tottenham Court Road
Google Map: If You Must

“I don’t wanna buy it, I don’t wanna sell it; I just wanna play with it and use it…”

See you there folks!

🙂

This blog has moved…

…well – it's moving!

Moving
Moving

I've finally got off my backside and sorted out a new home for my blog.

Go right ahead and click through to

My Happy Place

The RSS feed has changed, so you'll have to re-subscribe am afraid…
But yeah –

Hope you like it – and well – thanks for your readership to date!

Love ya,

J.

PS – I'm still in the process of moving things over – only about 8 or so more posts to go – I've just been uber busy – but as a reward – you should find some shiny new things over there to look at while you wait 🙂

PPS – All feedback welcome! There, not here. Obviously.

X

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So… This Fancy Dress Picnic

About a year or so ago now, I was stuck in traffic on a bus going past Clapham Common, when I saw these three creatures walking across in the distance…

The first one, in at the front – was this guy dressed up as a green sea monster – a bit like a loch ness monster crossed with a dragon of some kind. Well, he had this outfit on and he couldn’t *really* see where he was going, so he kept going off course and wandering around all over the place.

The guy at the end was dressed as a hammerhead shark, with these two hand-painted boxes stuck to the side of his head. He looked awesome – all dressed in grey – it was clear what animal he was supposed to be. Anyway – he had this really long tail that restricted his walking somewhat… making him really slow.

In the middle – keeping order in all this chaos – was this small girl, in a big pink dress, holding a pink umbrella with tassles hanging off the sides… she was a jellyfish see. And back and forth she ran; at the front stopping the Dragon and pointing him in the right direction and then quickly back to the Shark again to pull/push him forward.

( they may’ve looked a bit like this )

For 20mins I watched this spectacle unfold in front of me, the whole time wearing a great big grin on this face of mine…

“Wonderful…” I thought “…Fancy Dress during the day, people don’t do that enough.”

Which is when I had the idea for The Fancy Dress Picnic – 🙂

The idea stayed in my head for a week or so before disappearing into the far reaching caverns of my brain… until it was discovered again.
This time prompted by watching the quite frankly awesome NZ film, Eagle vs Shark* – on a flight over to the US.

*if you haven’t seen it – this screen kinda gives you an idea why I might’ve been reminded of the picnic – our protaganists meet (properly) at a ‘come as your favourite animal’ party…

So yeah – thusly the idea arrived back in my head again – and this time I kept hold of it; kicking it around through Spring and eventually raising it again in a pub in Chiswick with some friends who all decided that it was a fantastic idea for a party and that we should organise it immediately to coincide with our friend Clare’s birthday at the end of July… (or as close to as we could get) …and so!

The Fancy Dress Picnic!

Date: Saturday August 2nd 2008
Place: Clapham Common
Time: 1pm ’til late (Roger’s working on getting some bar space for later, later
The Theme: Come as your favourite animal

You MUST MUST MUST RSVP with the name of your animal that you intend to come as.

The reason for this is to prevent embarrassing moments for all and sundry – I mean – you’ve worn the same dress as someone else before right?

Well.. can you imagine all of us turning up as cats?
That’d be rubbish.

You name it, you claim it.

Me? I’m going as a Hammerhead Blue Shark

I’ve setup a facebook event, Roger’s blogged about it and together we have been working *really hard* to get this crazy day off the ground…
At the time of writing we have 30(ish) confirmed guests – ALL coming as different animals!

And YOU are welcome to come and join us 🙂

If you ‘dont do’ facebook then simply leave a comment on this here blog:

The animals that have been taken read like this:

  • Shark (blue shark now – can’t find a hammerhead costume)
  • Lemur (ring-tailed)
  • Turtle (Ninja)
  • Tiger (unspecified as to Bengal or Siberian)
  • Fawn (Roe, presumably)
  • Lion (-O?)
  • Macaroni Penguin (they don’t dance)
  • Bears, brown (family thereof – this is allowed under the new rule which I have just made up. But ONLY for real families. Birth and/or marriage certificates may be asked for)
  • Ladybird (spotted)
  • Squirrel (evil grey or timid red? Who knows..)
  • Kangaroo
  • Donkey (a seaside one from Brighton!)
  • Evil Herbivore (giraffe)
  • Meerkat
  • Bear (Polar)
  • Bee (bumble)
  • Chicken
  • Spider (house)
  • Dragonfly
  • Butterfly
  • Panda (giant?)
  • Rabbit (bunny)
  • King Penguin (must be distinct from the Macaroni Penguin or will be disqualified)
  • Flamingo (pink)
  • Cat (domestic)
  • Alpaca
  • Sloth Bear
  • Bat
  • Peacock
  • Peahen

The rest of the animal kingdom is there for you to choose from.

Much love and maybe I’ll see you on Saturday 🙂

EDIT – – – –

Thanks to my awesome Mobilistic Skillz –
We now have all of the directions to the venue available on your Mobile!

All you gotta do is open your phone’s internet browser and type http://mippin.com/fancy

Directions are all right there – Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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