Art Car Boot Sale - All The Fun Of The Fair

Last week-end saw the Vauxhall Art Car Boot Sale - basically an event where members of the public get to buy works of art at bargain prices direct from the artists. For example a Peter Blake print bought for £35 is now selling on ebay for over £200 less than a week later.

The event has had lots of coverage online such as this Guardian piece. Our favourite thing to emerge though has to be this dance off between the Pearly Queen of (the East London area of) Tower Hamlets and an artist known as Pure Evil...

Pearly Queen Pure Evil Dance Off from Cowshed on Vimeo.

Sphere: Related Content

Managers more likely to engage in 'cyber-slacking'

Want to find the "cyber slacker" in your organisation? Don't point your finger at the bored receptionist, secretary or call centre operator.

The chances are that the people looking at Facebook, scanning through sports sites and doing a bit of online shopping are the ones at the top, and not the bottom, of the company tree. In other words, the very people who are paid to take on more responsibility, are expected to set an example for everyone else, and very often set the rules for personal web surfing at work.

Two Ohio State University academics, R Kelly Garnett and James Danziger, published a study in the latest issue of the Journal of Cyber Psychology and Behavior. Based on a survey with 1000+ adults across the US, they wanted to test the hypothesis that: "Higher workplace status is associated with significant incentives and greater opportunities for personal Internet use."

In other words, are bosses more likely to engage in a spot of cyber slacking thanks to a combination of less supervision and greater privacy in their day to day jobs?

The research was conducted among adults who worked at least 30 hours a week, with an average computer use of 23.3 hours. A large majority (82%) of respondents admitted to using the Internet for personal use at least once a day.

However, in terms of how likely employees are to 'cyber-slack', the key factors are job classification (management, financial, professional roles), job autonomy and household income. Men were more likely to spend time surfing for 'personal leisure', while men and women are equally likely to spend time on 'personal communications', which includes instant messaging and emails.

According to the researchers, "Cyberslacking is clearly a pejorative, if playful, concept, and it seems obvious that very few employers would encourage unrestrained personal uses of ICTs during work. Yet it also seems that this behavior is most prevalent among employees who are particularly valuable to the organization."

A possible solution? In the same way that a short nap apparently enhances productivity, allow for official Internet breaks:

"Managers and organizational policymakers might conclude that a wise course is to find ways to use the flexibility afforded by Internet-connected computers to help employees enhance their performance.

"For example, if parents are able to quickly and easily check on their kids or to manage a household need efficiently from their workplace computer, they might be less distracted and require less time away from work tasks.

"And just as very short naps have been demonstrated to revive mental activity, perhaps short virtual breaks for a quick hand of solitaire, a note to a friend, an exploration of the online deal of the day, or a check on a sports score might refresh and invigorate many individuals’ work and productivity."

Photo - A campaign by Irish company Eircom, encouraging home broadband use so you don't "get busted at work." Photo by Voss under a creative commons license.

Sphere: Related Content

What's this social media all about?

A question I'm often asked by clients and colleagues, and the challenge is coming up with an explanation that steers clear of tech talk.

Common Craft has developed an excellent video using the analogy of ice cream and the residents of "Scoopville." Also worth watching, Common Craft's guide to Twitter in plain English.

Tip - Social Hallucinations.

Sphere: Related Content

"No newspapers will be delivered in paper form"

From today's Washington Post. In an interview, Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer says:

"In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down -- my opinion.

"Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.

10 years? (Washington Post question)

"Yeah. If it's 14 or if it's 8, it's immaterial to my fundamental point. . . . If we want TV to be more interactive, you'll deliver it over an IP network. I mean, it's sort of funny today.

"My son will stay up all night basically playing Xbox Live with friends that are in various parts of the world, and yet I can't sit there in front of the TV and have the same kind of a social interaction around my favorite basketball game or golf match. It's just because one of these things is delivered over an IP network and the other is not. . . ."

Sphere: Related Content

Blog break

Am away until 12 June, so posts from me will be far and few between until then! Emma and Russell may fill the gap in the meantime, but back next week.

Sphere: Related Content

Google owns the biggest TV station on the planet

From the forthcoming edition of Forbes:

"The three-year-old YouTube site probably crossed a billion views per day worldwide a few months ago, exceeding even the lofty expectations by Google when it made the acquisition. (YouTube will only confirm it does hundreds of millions of views per day.)

"Thirty-eight percent of the video streamed on the Web now comes from YouTube, according to ComScore. No other player has more than 4%. Google owns the biggest television station on the planet. It will upload 600 years' worth of video this year.

""A studio declining to do business with YouTube would be like a cereal maker not dealing with Wal-Mart," says Bobby Tulsiani, a JupiterResearch analyst."

Photo -Brian Eno, The Future of Television (1991). From Watz under a creative commons license.

Sphere: Related Content

The decapitator

Someone who plys his trade very close to our office, his Flickr photo set pretty much says it all. A word of warning to advertisers in the London E1 and EC2 areas though!

Sphere: Related Content

One word blogging

I must admit, though I signed up for an account, I never really got into Twitter (micro-posts of 140 characters). The handful of people who, to my astonishment, have chosen to 'follow' my Twitter posts, probably won't be seeing very much from me in the short-term.

However, if brevity is the way forward then why don't we just cut the cr*p right down to a single word? Which is the idea behind Adocu. Tell the world what you are doing, but keep it to one word....though it has to be said that the definition of a "word" is a series of letters, with no limit as to how many there can be, so long as there are no spaces.

From Social Hallucinations.

Sphere: Related Content

Selfish web users and brand websites

Online guru Dr. Jakob Nielsen, once described as the 'smartest person on the web', has released a study showing that we are becoming more 'selfish' online. Rather than wasting time dawdling on a website, we get what we want and then quickly leave.

With 75% of people now finding what they set out to look for online (compared to 60% in 1999), we're better at using search engines. We're also more resistant to all the bells and whistles that companies build on their sites enticing us to stay.

"Web users have always been ruthless and now are even more so," said Dr Nielsen, quoted on BBC News Online.

"People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience. I do not think sites appreciate that yet."

According to Dr Nielsen, Web users are also getting very frustrated with all the extras, such as widgets and applications, being added to sites.

"They (web site owners) still feel that their site is interesting and special and people will be happy about what they are throwing at them."

For a brand that calls into question what your website should actually be for. Dr Nielsen's research suggests that it should be all about letting consumers access the information that they need in as painless and in as user-friendly manner as possible. And that any 'frills' need to be really compelling to hit home, otherwise it's just online junk.

And as we've posted before here and here, if you are developing a marketing campaign, you should consider building presence on social networks where younger web users in particular spend their free time, as opposed to building an all singing / all dancing micro-site.

Photo - from Essjay in NZ under a Creative Commons License.

Sphere: Related Content

Three years on - social media will change your business

Business Week's cover story (spotted via Swiss Miss) comes back to a seminal article it published way back in 2005. The piece, all about how blogging will change your business, was written at a time when 'twitter' was still something to do with birds.

Though times have moved on, the piece continues to be near the top of the tree when it comes to the most read pieces in the Business Week archive. It's a first port of call for people doing research on the subject. As a result, the authors have taken another look at the phenomenon three years later.

In hindsight, say the authors:

"We wrote a big story, but missed a much bigger one."

While 'only' a quarter of the US population reads a blog (the emphasis is mine as this still translates into tens of millions of people), blogs are just one of the many 'do it yourself' tools out there on the Internet, which pundits collectively, and maybe somewhat inelegantly, call 'web 2.0.'

"While only a small slice of the population wants to blog, a far larger swath of humanity is eager to make friends and contacts, to exchange pictures and music, to share activities and ideas.

"These social connectors are changing the dynamics of companies around the world. Millions of us are now hanging out on the Internet with customers, befriending rivals, clicking through pictures of our boss at a barbecue, or seeing what she read at the beach.

"It's as if the walls around our companies are vanishing and old org charts are lying on their sides."

As a result, say the authors, the first thing they have decided to do is to lose the word 'blogs' from their headline. The revised 2008 title? "Social Media will change your business."

In terms of how that is happening, the article uses a few examples:

'The new resume (CV) is 140 characters.' Micro-blogging platform Twitter has netted a lot of attention over the past few months. Post short blog type messages of 140 characters via your mobile phone (or a PC), which people elect to 'follow'. The authors give an example of a PR executive who found a job by posting her CV on Twitter.

Corporate players have suddenly become much more accessible. These days if you are trying to reach someone within a business, especially in either technology or entertainment, you can often by-pass their press office and go direct to their blog or social network profile. The authors did exactly that with (telecom giant) BT's head of technology, J.P. Rangaswami.

Online collaboration tools shrink geographical barriers. We've posted before about how virtual offices are being built in the likes of Second Life, and a lot of companies like BT are starting to use 'Wikis.'

Most people have heard of the community encyclopedia Wikipedia, and 'Wikis' are web pages where anyone in a group can modify and add content - in effective real time, online, project plans.

And with all the talk about falling (print) newspaper circulations what about the media? Back in 2005, the authors thought that blogging would make traditional media obsolete. The reality is a little different.

Instead, says Arianna Huffington, one of America's most followed bloggers (and the Queen of the US / left blogosphere):

"The growth of New Media journalism will be a hybrid combining the best aspects of traditional print newspapers with the best of what the Web brings to the table. We're getting a glimpse into this with the many changes afoot at Old Media places like the The New York Times, and from New Media players like, well, like the Huffington Post.

"The shifting dynamic between the forces of print and online reminds me of Sarah Connor and the T-101 in The Terminator. At first, the visitor from the future (digital) seemed intent on killing Sarah (print).

"But as the relationship progressed, the Terminator became Sarah and her son's one hope for salvation. Today, you can almost hear digital media (which for some reason has a thick Austrian accent) saying to print: "Come with me if you want to live!"

The full article is available here.

Photo - Social media starfish, from Dbarefoot under a creative commons license.

Sphere: Related Content

Media fragmentation and marketing convergence

One of the things you notice when you work in a communications agency is how media fragmentation is increasingly leading to what you might call marketing convergence.

In other words, consumers are broadening out from traditional media. And advertising in the way it used to be understood 30 years ago is having less effect. The result is that marketing agencies from different disciplines are having to rethink a remit that used to be fairly clear cut and are increasingly fighting over the same turf.

Where that's especially the case is in social media and direct to consumer marketing (on street, virals, social networks, guerrilla activity etc).

Go to quite a few inter-agency meetings and you'll find that the digital / web agency, the PR agency, the sales promotion agency and the ad agency all have ideas that overlap. Quite simply noone wants to be left out.

The industry that we originally came from, public relations, is squeezed from two sides. Ad agencies are not only developing the ads, they are often amplifying them, and media planners very often will come up with creative ideas.

And then there's a host of specialist supplier agencies who do everything from develop on street activity to organise broadcast days. Companies who we've collectively farmed so much out to over the years, that they now crop up at industry awards fronting campaigns in their own right, and have turned from suppliers to competitors.

But what does this bun fight mean for brands?

A few brand managers still stick rigidly with the formula of 'you guys write the press releases', 'you guys do an ad', 'you guys design me a website' etc.

But as American planner Paul Isakson points out in his latest post, this muddying of the waters could be a huge opportunity. You have more minds thinking about the brief as a whole rather than their specific discipline.

Referring to a presentation that P&G's chief design executive Claudia Kotcha (who actually trained as an accountant) gave at the Institute of Design Strategy conference, Paul Isakson says:

"Don't go to your agencies and ask them to create an _______ (ad, web site, etc.). Bring them the problem you're trying to solve.

That's because:

"The behavior of agencies is often driven by the way their clients engage them. If you're a client-side marketer and you want to infuse more innovation into your marketing plans, or even into your products, listen to the essence of what Claudia Kotchka is saying."

Which is:

"Don't take a designer and tell them to build a bridge. Bring them to the canyon and see what they come up with."

Sphere: Related Content

Human movement in light

Spotted on the ever excellent Yay! Monday! (a weekly collection of websites, designers and photographers) - Human Movement in Light.

It's a video "showing cool ways the body can move" and playing "around with different glow lighting off the blossoms and water."

Human Movement in Light was created by Canadian Jordan Clarke on a Panasonic HVX200 with wide angle lens (no filters or adapters) and edited on Final Cut Pro with Plug-ins - i.e. using kit that's well within reach of a lot of average armchair / desktop film makers.

Though we've included it as an embedded video here, to do it justice go onto Vimeo and play in full screen.

Sphere: Related Content

Informal performances

From trend watchers CScout, 'Informal Performances':

"New forms of entertainment are challenging traditional notions of what being an audience member involves. Static seating, ticketing, start times, staging, linear plots, perfectly rehearsed performances and passive audiences are all concepts that new entertainment companies are breaking down. "

Examples include:

Shine Unconference

This recently took place on London's South Bank, a conference created by its participants who signed up and chose the programme they wanted to see two weeks before it started.

Shunt

A member's bar in London Bridge station. "Every week, a different artist curates Shunt, a bar and performance space under the railway arches at London Bridge. Gigs, dance, performance art and activities such as cupcake decorating sessions can be found as users wander around the space."

Punch Drunk

According to Punch Drunk's website, this theatre company creates an "environment in which the audience are free to choose what they watch and where they go....masked for anonymity, audience members are given the freedom to roam entire buildings, to follow any theme, plot line or performer they choose."

Trend Impact

According to CScout, the implications of this extend far beyond theatre and the arts:

"Audiences are beginning to value substance and engagement over presentation. Gig spaces may soon be expected to have numerous performances and activities happening in the same building at one time, ranging from bands to circus acts to arts and crafts sessions.

"Customers may also expect to get more involved with their experiences: for example, value could be created by inviting restaurant-goers into the kitchen to create their own sauce for their meal. This trend also means that attendance no longer guarantees presence: if something doesn’t interest your audience, they won’t feel compelled to stick around."

Photo - The Shunt Venue

Sphere: Related Content

Logo maths

From Today's Times, logoslogos is by two Argentinian bloggers 'La Luna' and 'Javier'. Maths formulas involving logos and brands:

Sphere: Related Content

Optical illusions

To launch the U900 mobile phone, Samsung put together this two minute film showcasing 10 optical illusions.

It's sparked a discussion over at tech site Engadget about whether there are only eight or nine illusions, which must have been manna from heaven to the Samsung brand team as they watched the hits rise to 300,000+.

Sphere: Related Content

Spot the difference

From Tokyo Times. Japanese 'children's beer' Codomo Light.....and another well known and not disimilar sounding beverage...

Corona photo from nickwheelroz under a creative commons license.

Sphere: Related Content

Brand tagging

A project that's been doing the rounds over the past two weeks is a brand perception experiment launched by marketing and tech writer Noah Brier. Brier compiled online descriptions for a series of brands and now has a database of 750,000 'tags' for several hundred brand names.

The basic idea behind the project is, "that a brand exists entirely in people's heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is. "

As one website commented, "Eye-opening if you're a brand manager - and certainly a damn side more accurate and honest than any over-priced focus-group you can order."

(Pictured - The main brand Tags for 'Barbie')

Sphere: Related Content

Eye Candy With The Cuppa

Cowshed's film of a 'Sexy Baker Boy is now live and proving a hit online for a very unexpected reason... ...the sexy baker boy. He even has his own facebook fan group with blogs commenting on 'the eye candy with the cuppa'. See him in action yourself by watching the film below...

It is part of the online campaign for Kellogg's Nutri-Grain aiming to bring back the office tea trolley. The campaign has a dedicated site that allows visitors to create and sign an office petition, view campaign videos and even win a tea trolley for the office (along with a sexy baker!) and a holiday for their boss.

What are you waiting for - sign up today!

Sphere: Related Content

90's Thunderbird Dancing

With my first posting on the Herd blog I wanted it to be 'videotastic' - what better what to start with this 90's mash up of the Thunderbird 'Drench' water advert which is taking the web by storm...

Sphere: Related Content

The feminising of social media

Recently we posted about research carried out by data management firm Rapleaf. The company trawled through 30 million social network profiles to come up with a major study that showed that women have more friends on social networks than men.

In the current issue of Business Week, Rapleaf's CEO has now penned an article that goes into the study in more detail. The overall conclusion of the piece is that the Internet is going “pink” and that: “If you're going to create the next hot Web 2.0 site and you want it to go viral, you'll target women.”

Key points include:

* Social networks are equally popular among men and women in their 20s. But once you reach the 30+ demographic, less men, married men in particular, join social networks. By comparison the fastest growing group on MySpace is women aged 35-50.

* A lot of men join social networks to meet members of the opposite sex. Once they are married, their membership of these networks tails off sharply as that need is no longer there. The exception is the social network Linked In, which is all about making business connections. Hence the conclusion that for men, social networks are likely to be more transactional in nature. Where for women it’s about making and deepening friendships.

* Married women use social networks to share pictures and treat their network profiles as family home pages to share with friends and relatives. And because they use social networks to be exactly that – social - money spent marketing to acquire a female user goes a lot further than on a male user.

* Two of the fastest growing websites in the UK in 2007 (source – Nielsen Netratings) were RockYou and Slide – essentially slide show applications that you build into your Facebook or Bebo page. The Business Week article comments that both these sites overtly target young women and “barely give men lips service.”

* Rapleaf's CEO writes, “Because social media are so much more "in tune" with women, male audiences will be increasingly seen as less valuable than female ones. We already know that women spend more and make more purchasing decisions than men, and women seem to be more likely to tell their friends about their purchases—so an advertiser will get a double benefit from female consumers.”

The article is a must read for anyone wanting to understand how social media is developing. It's online here.

Photo - Lady Pain, under a creative commons license.

Sphere: Related Content