For the next two days I’ll be opening my brain / heart to the Webstock experience, here in Wellington, NZ.
Usually I tweet the hell out of these things but the idea of filling the tweetmail stream with stuff which might not be relevant to my audience has led me here.
What follows are my observations, quick notes, insights, idea captures etc.—sometimes paraphrased, sometimes not, all caught on the fly (full webstock programme):
There are some gems in the notes above and it’s a motivating read (even if—as with most of his books (which I’ve read)—Godin simply coins a phrase and describes a process which you already understand but might not be doing anything about).
What follows is an idea for a kids puppet show I emailed someone back in July 2006:
A weekly series (episodes only 10minutes long), purely online where kids can also download shows onto their iPods or PSPs or even mobile phones. Because it’s online you can make it interactive in terms of each episode can be commented on (like on a weblog) and the viewers can suggest a forward narrative or plot plus character developments—that would mean every week the creators would be influenced and directed by the viewers comments…
One day to plan, one day to shoot: it goes live every Friday—comments open till the Wednesday morning, development day, Thursday shoot and edit—Friday morning live (whole process starts again)…
Business model: well you could sell advertising but it has to be managed or very very short. The real money would come from selling mobile phone wallpaper, ringtones, merchandise such as tshirts etc—even DVD bundles of all the shows or if Jim Henson were to produce and run with it, use it as a vehicle to promote his other product lines or shows…
Kids television at that time was seeing its funders look elsewhere. The main terrestrial channels were buying in cheaper foreign shows rather than commissioning home grown talent. Coupled with the rise of cable / satellite / internet, the eyeballs were dispersing and audiences were dwindling rapidly.
A 50 year old industry was in decline.
After being invited to speak at the main UK conference on kids television at the time, I sat in most of the sessions confused as to why these amazingly creative people weren’t simply adapting to the new mediums and opportunities it bought. Embracing them as tools to shape new possibilities and audiences.
The above idea was born at that event.
The contact who received the email was one of the co-founders of the amazing Fraggle Rock (amongst other things). The response was more than encouraging and within a couple of months a meeting was set up at BAFTA. There I was surrounded by a creative consortium of kid show producers, voice actors and puppet operators who have worked on most of the kids shows I grew up on (most of which had served their apprenticeship under the great Jim Henson).
All were enthusiastic and wanted to play—the delight of possibility was titillating and it was oh so exciting.
Alas, with no coherent lead and money becoming available, momentum was lost in the following weeks.
Ideas can have all the promise in the world but they need others to thrive. Partnerships to create foundations and leaders to lead. More importantly they need chancers to push at that boundary and explore new paths. To be the first. (Ideas need) pioneers.
Six and a half years later I’m pretty sure if this did happen it would’ve changed the direction in my life…
A little bait to catch a bite… four days later, they bit:
Much in the same vein as SplashMedia (please read the comments), it looks like BlackBox SocialMedia first capture mentions of Twellow, Facebook, Twitter and social media training, then hit these Tweetmailers with an automated reply service directing them to articles on their website (which is basically trying to sell you their services).
It’s easy to understand the above approach as social media presents an enticing opportunity to offer wisdom through targeted communication. And in sharing knowledge the aim is to build a connection (and for these guys, a sale).
There’s another way.
By creating a relationship first, not only do you become aware of the context (which is so important, otherwise, you’ll be responding to questions which haven’t been asked and you’re made to look a little silly—see my tweet and then their response) plus it’s simply more honest.
So what do you think, are BlackBox SocialMedia being savvy or is this lazy marketing? Have you experienced a similar thing on Twitter? Btw BlackBox SocialMedia, feel free to respond in the comments below.
When we were kids we were freethinkers, spontaneous and open; as we grew older and the logical side of our brains kicked into high gear and our non-linear “œcreative” side became less dominant.
Today, through the use of electronics for everything—smart phones and computers in particular—we reinforce the logical side of our thinking and further relegate creativity to the back seat. We need to reconnect with our right brain, stretch our non-linear nodes, nurture them on a daily basis and, as a result, increase our overall satisfaction with life.
Part one of our session will look into our situation, show how we got here and what we can do on a personal level to mix things up. Part two will open up the dialog for how to foster in an era of non-linear thinking at your company or organization and share some effective brainstorming techniques that can be implemented today.
Creatives gain true understanding by “˜doing”™.
I Like I Wonder events are about gaining creative wisdom from visiting international speakers through not just listening but by applying your new found insights in a hands-on workshop which follows. The workshops focus is on creating content, extending thoughts, heightening interactions, disrupting models, challenging paradigms, all within a inventive space and through facilitated conversations.
Numbers are kept small to ensure a quality experience””this is not a money making exercise but a exploration of creativity with exclusive groups of like-minded folks.
So excited to launch this today and looking forward to working with Empathy / Awayday plus all our speakers.
Feel free to spread around the Wellington networks and hope to see you there.
Google is the best ad product in the history of the world because it’s like advertising at a store. Facebook, meanwhile, is like advertising at a party.
BOOM!
The above and other stuff like:
the commercial internet is 20 years old
smartphones overtook PC sales in 2011
new media stock has 3x more value than old media
games played online are up 20x in two years
45billion apps will be downloaded by the end of the year
do you know if @splashmediau is a good place for a newbie to learn how to become a social media manger?
Now I always click into the profiles of those who have taken the time to tweet me (especially if I’m asked to give an opinion on something). I’ve heard of Splash Media in the past and thought Mr Aspen had tracked me down due to my very previous role as a social media manager.
After scrolling through every one of Mr Aspens 1,906 tweets (at the time of writing this afternoon), it became evident though that all he’s doing is asking the same question about social media training and certification programmes.
However, nearly 25% of all tweets (448) references @splashmediau.
Note the timestamps on the right hand side of the tweets below:
Mr Aspen is using Twitter as a micro-advisory or research platform, tweeting on only one topic / question in an attempt to gain insights for what could be a myriad of reasons; or
Mr Aspen is a poor automated attempt by @splashmediau to highlight their services
If it is the former then surely @splashmediau (who would be seeing his tweets they are mentioned in) should be all over Mr Aspen to either demonstrate their services (as he’s an obvious customer) or kindly asking him to refrain from referencing them constantly because he’s certainly not helping their reputation.
If it is the latter… well, you make up your mind. Maybe there’s a third reason. What do you think is happening here my little Magnums?
By the way, Mr Aspen and @splashmediau, the floor is yours, feel free to comment below as well.
The figures speak for themselves and also illustrate how, at least in these events, NZ is gaining parity with the other conferences I’ve been involved with in the UK / North America, in adopting Twitter as a rich back-channel-compliment to the events activities (still a way to go to it being integrated fully which the above will no doubt accelerate).
Wonderful things to note are:
the amount of tweets which now include @ replies or mentions of other folks—a rise in literacy of how to craft a good tweet and the etiquette around referencing people
those tweets which feature hyperlinks—users sharing content or highlighting other relative items of interest on the web, quickly finding what the speaker was talking about (whether it be a new term or a new app), then adding that to the tweet. Delightful.
and what about those impressions…
Fantastic work.
Even though the venue had a few issues with the net connection on the first and second day this big increase in the numbers serves as a reminder how technology is in fact augmenting communication. Making it more immediate. More dynamic. More ‘sticky’.
This is the future of conferences / events: a multi-media-layered approach to the experience. Allowing those to share wider through their networks. Consideration given to content which is findable. Quotable. Emotive. Of value. Actionable. Stuff the conference organisers and delegates can ‘talk’ about before, during and after (not just during AND not just on Twitter (this is a metonym)).
Were you at Ulearn12? Did you tweet? What did you get out of the virtual and real combining? Let rip in the comments below.
Big thanks to Martin for assisting in crunching several spreadsheets together. For anyone using the IFTTT recipe BEWARE, it does not work fast enough to capture all the tweets at something like a conference.
