Honda's 'Live' Advert

From the Jai and Wal blog:

"Yesterday evening at 8.10pm Honda and Channel4 broad casted a live advert. We understand it's not the first live commercial in TV history, but it's bloody great. It fits very well in the rest of the Honda Accord campaign Difficult is Worth Doing. The 'real' advert, also about skydiving formations, will break this Sunday. We're curious what W+K has up their sleeves."

Look out for the camera man's special message:







Update: The Guardian have reported that 168,000 viewers tuned in just to see the Honda live ad:

"Honda's live skydiving advert was watched by an average of 2.2 million viewers on Channel 4 last night, May 29.

The live spelling out of the word Honda by a team of skydivers grew the audience by 8% across the three-minute ad break during Channel 4 show Come Dine With Me.

Honda's £500,000 stunt aired between 8.10pm and 8.13pm, during which time ratings increased from just over 2 million to 2.2 million viewers, according to unofficial overnights."

To me, that seems like an expensive way to boost the rating figures of Come Dine With Me.

Twitter Launches Twitter Status Blog

Sitting on the first page of Twitter this morning was a short message that has (thankfully) replaced the doom and gloom messages about the pagination and IM features being unavailable:

"Check out the Twitter Status blog for ongoing updates about the service."

It's good to see that Twitter is trying to communicate it's problems more. For example, the first post explains that the API request limit has been lowered to 30 requests an hour and that pagination has been partially restored:

Pagination partially restored

Most users will be able to paginate through older updates, but you may run into some situations where the Older links are not available. We’re continuing to work on restoring pagination for everyone.

IM is still offline but we are currently testing some fixes that enable the restoration of that service.

IM and Pagination are disabled, API limited

Due to excessive database load, we have disabled pagination on the web and IM updates. Also, we’ve lowered the API request limit to 30 requests per hour. We are working to restore.

While I'm sure everyone would rather Twitter not have to have a status blog and keep Twitter running 24/7, when it does go down we at least now know the problem.

This is one blog that I hope doesn't update very much as Twitter runs better in the future.

I can do this all day long...

You thought that the Rune Goldberg Creme Egg smashing machine was pretty good? Now watch this.

In this video, the maker has set up various levels on Super Mario World so that various bumpers and objects keep Mario moving, jumping, flying and bouncing over in-game objects at very precise timing, so that each object's bounce-noise forms part of the percussion for a spliced-together medley of chirpy anime soundtracks.

Boing Boing thinks the maker is showing off and saying "I can do this all day long."

Indeed, it is such a long and complicated video that it seems to me that this is all the maker must do all day long:

Twitter Hiring and Firing

Recently, there's been a few hires made over Twitter.

For example, Rainier PR recently hired the services of Matt Watson, and RedMonk offered a position to Tom Raferty - both hires made through Twitter (By the way, congrats to both Matt and Tom, and good luck in your new roles).

It looks like companies using Web 2.0 for their recruitment will be a trend we'll start to see more of, especially with the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn encroaching on recruitment agencies' turf.

But there is a darker side to this that is yet to rear it's ugly head: employees being fired for their activity on Twitter.

There have already been a few cases of employees getting fired over their Facebook activity. For example, Goldman Sachs trader Charlie Barrow became addicted and was fired for spending too much of his time on Facebook (or FaceCrack, as Charlie probably now calls it). He went as far as adding a warning letter from his employer on his profile.

Other examples are Penn State’s Daily Collegian columnist Zach Good, who was fired over comments made regarding a cancer fundraiser, and Canadian grocery chain employees Devon Bourgeois and James Woodwere, who were fired for making wisecracks admitting theft.

While there haven't been any cases of anyone being sacked for their Twitter usage (as far as I know anyway), there have been the signs that it's only a matter of time before someone does.

An aide to John McCain was suspended, not fired, for Twittering a link to a video linking Barack Obama to his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The rule of thumb must be that it is always dangerous ground to be talking about your employer in public. Even before the age of the internet this was true. In fact, it is even more dangerous in today's hyper-visible society, where employers can use Tweetscan or Summize to track what people are saying about them.

At the end of the day, if you are twittering at work, then you aren't working (unless of course that's what you're being paid to do).

Another question that has to be asked is that whenever someone is fired for their social netowrk usage - Facebook, Twitter, blogging or otherwise - was that the real reason they were fired, or was it just an excuse to fire them for some other problem?

Companies and organisations might start to produce rules or guidelines for their employees use of Twitter, along the lines of Facebook usage or blogging. Employees might even consider seperating their Twitter activity into two accounts - one for work and one for personal use.

While this example might be a bit extreme, it surely is a matter of time before companies start to address these issues as Twitter becomes more mainstream.

- Have you heard of any people getting fired because of their Twitter activity?
- Do you or your company have any guidelines when using Twitter at work?
- What guidelines for Twitter usage would you recommend at a place of work?

Update: Edelman are also hiring for their Tech division. Get in touch with @johnnybentwood for more info.

The PR of Office Space (Part 2)

I'm trying keeping my internet usage light this Bank Holiday weekend, but I spotted this little beauty over at Racked LA and thought it complemented my previous post on the PR of office space, so I had to blog it:

"A reader, who works in the Warner Brothers Music building in Burbank, came to work today to find they're working from inside Madonna's sweet spot."

The best bit about the post are the (somewhat crude) comments that readers have left. A selection of the best:

• At least we know it's a large office.
• Too bad the window doesn't open a bit. You could stick your hand out & wave at people
• You could also freak someone out & throw a bucket of water out the window
• I hear it's pretty crowded in that office.
• Throw some babies out of it.
• Nothing like a womb with a view.

Puntastic.

The Social Media Library

Sitting on the corner of my desk is a small (but growing) collection of books on social media and Web 2.0 that I've somewhat affectionately dubbed "The Social Media Library".

The idea is that people can borrow books from the library to get up to speed with what's going on in social media and Web2.0 right now and the theories behind the latest developments. Sure, there's blogs and Twitter to keep track of too, but books are still an important way of exploring current issues. People can then add to the collection if they spot a good read - I've been potentially promised a copy of Chris Anderson's The Long Tail by a colleague already - and share their thoughts with each other on how they can use the ideas described in each book.

Because the collection is quite small at the moment, I should probably call it a "mini-library", but it's getting bigger as I get more books. I also considered calling it "Library 2.0", but the collection is based in the real world, so that idea went out the window.

So far, the books in the library are:

• Small Is The New Big, by Seth Godin (@sethgodin)
• We-Think, by Charles Leadbeater (@wethink)
• Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky (@cshirky), courtesy of Tom Watson (@tom_watson)
  
• Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

I've read "Small Is The New Big" and "Here Comes Everybody" (both highly recommended) and have just started reading Groundswell, which I want to give a little background on as to why I'm looking forward to getting really into it.

Groundswell's bottom line is that Web 2.0 is about LISTENING to PEOPLE, not about the technologies. Loads of varied yet relevant examples are woven throughout the text to illustrate the points, which is great to see how other companies have innovated in this field. The authors also provide numbers that show how an investment in executive blogging and nurturing customers and partners can give back at least 150% if not more - vital for any PRs wanting to demonstrate added value to their clients.

It's also worth sharing an opinion from someone who's actually finished the book, so here's an excerpt from a review by David Berkowitz (www.marketersstudio.com):

"Groundswell is the best book on social media I've ever read, and it may be the best book ever written on the subject. Here's why:

1. It's current. Books on social media by nature almost can't be current. Everything is blogged or twittered one day, forgotten the next. Yet this book has some staying power, and you can give it to your boss or your client feeling reassured that even if they don't get around to reading it for six months, it'll still be valuable when they do.

2. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff write the book like authors, not analysts, even though there's plenty of number-crunching with meaty take-aways. The human stories that illustrate each point provide protagonists you can identify with.

3. If you're new to social media, you'll appreciate a lot of the how-to material. If you're a pro, you'll appreciate how to do it even better and some of the more advanced material in the book.

4. The technographics, discussed frequently on the Groundswell blog and in the analysts' presentations, are useful. I've already used these for planning client campaigns to at least check if I'm on the right track or inspire some new thinking. If you read the book, the technographics tool on the Groundswell site becomes even more intuitive, although the site has enough info to get value out of it. It's amazing how much Forrester's giving away.

5. You get breakdowns of return on investment metrics of an executive's corporate blog, ratings and reviews, and a community support forum, figures which are hard to find elsewhere and can provide good benchmarks for related scenarios you may encounter.

6. The book offers thoughtful answers to some of the more important questions. How can you tell if a new technology has staying power? Why do people participate with social media? How do you energize your customers? When should you use blogs, social networks, and other media technologies?

The one thing the book doesn't do enough of is describe why some campaigns go awry. They mention a Special K community on weight management that had a promising start but soon fizzled. Why?"

Groundswell is shaping up to be a "ripping yarn" and I'll let you know my thoughts on it when I finish. I'm hoping that The Social Media Library will have grown - both in the number of books and readers - by the time I finish it.

What about you? Do you have a social media library? If you set one up, what books would be in there? What books should I add to my library?

Really want one of these for the office

PR Event: Chinwag Live's Micro Media Maze

I piled in late to the Chinwag Live event last night, which took place at The Slug and Lettuce on Wardour Street, Soho. I managed to get a fairly good seat at the back though (complete with clear route to the bar), so got to catch plenty of the action.

The event was billed as follows:

"First the music track was decoupled from the physical product and the "long player" album, then the newspaper article was severed from the website. The same wave rolled over the blog post, the TV show, the photo, the vlog, and now the tweet...

It seems like everything's gone micro. As content is disaggregated into ever smaller pieces and syndicated and widgetised at accelerating speed, how is the media landscape being re-shaped, and who are the winners in this scenario?

Are media owners caught between a rock and a hard place? They've got to get their content out there, but context and branding work differently in the world of mashups and aggregators. In turn, the revenues they make from micro media pale in comparison to their staple money-making ventures (print, CDs, TV, DVD, film).

P2P culture is also firmly embedded, with iTunes and other digital retailers numbers' still dwarfed by ripping and filesharing. Now media giants like Microsoft and the BBC are using P2P technnology, but has their deeper modus operandi shifted? Are they fated to be outpaced and outgunned by innovative companies who play by different rules?

In turn, is the profusion of micro-content a recipe for meltdown, with information overload and competing "me-too" platforms delivering little but dumb aggregation which ultimately becomes a headache?

In this, the sequel to our groundbreaking Media Widgetised / Widget Week event in May 2007, our panel of experts will look at the issues and opportunities surrounding the explosion of micro media for publishers, brands, business, and culture more broadly..."

And the panel of exeprts were:

Umair Haque - Director, Havas Media Lab / Bubblegeneration
Umair heads up the Havas Media Lab, a new kind of strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs, and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management, business models, and strategic innovation. Prior to Havas, Umair founded Bubblegeneration, an agenda-setting advisory boutique that helped shape the strategies of investors, entrepreneurs, and blue chip companies across media and consumer industries. Bubblegeneration’s work has been recognised by publications like Wired, Red Herring, Business 2.0, and BusinessWeek, and in Chris Anderson’s Long Tail, to which Umair was a contributor. He also blogs as a discussion leader at Harvard Business Online.

Gerd Leonhard - Media Futurist, Author, Entrepreneur
The Wall Street Journal calls Gerd one of the leading media futurists in the world. Co-author of the influential book The Future of Music (2005, Berklee Press), Music2.0 (Jan 2008, self-published paywhatyouwant pdf available), and of Open is King (Fall 2008), Gerd's background is in music (he won the Quincy Jones Award in 1986) as well as technology and the internet (former CEO of LicenseMusic Inc; currently CEO of Sonific.com). His work focuses on the convergent sectors of music and content, technology, communications and culture. His clients include SonyBMG, RTL, ITV, BBC, France Telekom, German Telekom, Orange, LebWeb3, Financial Times, TribalDDB, the European Commission, and Nokia-Siemens.

Miles Lewis - SVP, European Advertising Sales, LastFM
Miles launched his career in media at Haymarket publishing in 1988, moving to a consumer magazine role with IPC Media for their Leisure Network. Shifting to Good Housekeeping, a 5 year stint at the National Magazine Company included various roles across Corporate Business Development and finally Director, Advertising Sales at Esquire. Miles then became the UK’s first Head of Agency Sales at AOL (UK) Ltd in 2001. Five years on, Blake Chandlee (now at Facebook UK) brought Miles into Yahoo!’s UK and Ireland operations as Head of Agency Sales. Then CBS’s Last.fm came knocking and now Miles is charged with the strategy, direction and monetisation of Last.fm across Europe, Asia Pacific and Australia.

Mitch McAlister - Product Director (Europe), MySpace
In his current role Mitch defines and lead European product strategy and architecture to address market demands, revenue oppertunities, and user growth, identifying and building relationships with potential technology partners to enhance current product offering. Prior to Myspace, he was Project Lead at Universal Music Enterprises. With over 8 years experience in the internet industry Mitch's focus has been product and marketing, specifically on the social media side of things. He has built eBay stores, runs a weekly podcast, and has been working with MySpace for three years.

Neil McIntosh - Head of Editorial Development, Guardian Unlimited
Neil McIntosh is head of editorial development for Guardian.co.uk, where he has led the launch and development of innovative blog, audio and video services since 2004. He lives in London, supports Swindon Town FC, and blogs about it all at completetosh.com



CHAIR: Steve Bowbrick
Steve is one of Britain's most experienced Internet managers and entrepreneurs. A fifteen year veteran of dot.com boom and bust, of web site design, online marketing, technology strategy, capital raising and people management. Steve advises media owners (Channel 4 and the BBC), startups (Rememble.com) and consumer brands (King of Shaves) about social media and digital strategy.


Here's the skinny on what I managed to jot down whilst balancing a notepad on one knee and a hard-earned pint on the other:

Micro-media and social issues:

• We still see widgets as games, largely due to Facebook
• Last.fm and Myspace revolutionised the music industry, solving a problem along the way
• But there are more serious global problems, such as world poverty, health, education, rising food prices
• We are under an illusion, especially in London, that media is entertainment, but the media also educates and can be used to solve social problems
• Widgest and micro-media can offer a way to help solve these problems
• But you have to create value before you can capitalise on it, you have to have a purpose before you can profit from it
• Umair Haque's challenge for micro-media developers: how do we solve social problems and add value at the same time?

The media's control of micro-media:

• The media is starting to move to a model where they are collaborating with their audience
• The key is where they choose to loose control and where they choose to keep it
• The stakes and the risks are high for media organisations, but if they don't take these risks then it's game over for them
• If these "old dinosaurs" don't change their business moidel to address social problems then they will become extinct

How will revenue be generated?

• Media comapnies control billions of punds of spend
• But this money is being spent on where the audience is migrating to
• They are putting it into TV and search, which works for some companies but will not reach the right audience for most
• Old media won't die, people will just use it in different ways
• People still watch Eastenders, but they'll watch it on BBC's iPlayer rather than on their TV
• People used to pay for music, but now they get it for free by clicking somewhere
• The same has happened for software and phone calls
• No one knows where the next success is, the next "Google", but this is where we should be investing, not in traditional media

Brand Messaging:

• There is an assumption that brands will have to piggy back a message onto their widgets
• The CEO of Kellogs can't go to traditional media and say "Well, we've turned Crunchy Nut Cornflakes into a listening brand - what more do you want?"
• Micro-media is a slower process of engagement with a brand's audience

What does this mean for our culture?

• The BBC can't commission big budget dramas that people like to watch, e.g. 24, The Sopranos
• We must think carefully which content and functionality we push out into micro-media
• The BBC like to think that their content is good enough to push out to YouTube and iTunes, through which they can create a global voice

Last.fm have already created value - what percentage of your reve=nue comes through affiliates, e.g. ticket sales?

• Can't give percentage split of revenue streams
• But Last.fm is the world's largest on-demand jukebox
• The future will be taking data to agencies: how can data on listener's music tastes fit into a brand's efforts?
• For example, if dishwasher powder buyers like Madonna, and the advert plays a Madonna song, at what point does this affect sales?
• Listeners have been giving Last.fm their music tastes, but the challenge for Last.fm was to build a platform to keep this data safe
• But now micro-media will take this data away from the Last.fm site, which raises the problem of data security
  
• Some data is too personal to Last.fm - they are purely a music silo that benefits users when they give more data to the site
  

What financial incentives could there be for users creating content?

• The overhead for running user generated content is tremendous
• Myspace has 100s of people checking photos that are uploaded to the site
• Running this outweighs whatever revenue could be giving to content creators
  

The end of the night was the best bit, with plenty of good chat/banter, ideas developed and new introductions made, all lubricated by a healthy amount of alcomahol.

Among the crowd were Jonathan Hopkins (@jopkins), Claire W (@claire_w), Amanda Rose (@amandita), Dom Whitehurst (@domw), Katy Howell (@katyhowell), Robin Grant (@robingrant), and Will Mcinnes (@willmcinnes) - so a big hello to them!

I'm already looking forward to the next Chinwag Live event, but in the meantime I need to start building that micro-media application for this blog that will solve world hunger...

Update 1: Jemima Kiss blogged the Chinwag event at The Guardian's PDA blog.
Update 2: Jonathan Hopkins also adds some great insight into the event.

An apology...

Dear All,

This afternoon, my Hotmail account was hacked and a spam email was sent out to my entire contact list. Luckily, a few friends let me know straight away, but I was unable to send out an apology email because apparently I'd "sent the maximum amount of emails allowed in a 24 hour period" (obviously due to the spam email being sent out to 200+ people...).

So, until I can send out an apology email tomorrow, this post will have do for now. I've changed my password so hopefully this incident won't repeat itself.

Thanks for your patience and extra special thanks to those cool kids who let me know about my account getting hacked!

Thanks,

Ben

"Aren't blogs just bloggers commenting on each others blogs?"

Whilst at the Shine Unconference last weekend, a few bloggers (and a few non-bloggers) got together to discuss why we blogged (or didn't in the case of some). Dave Dawes of Entreprenurses had his magic podcast recording kit on him and recorded the session.

The result is an impromptu podcast featuring a host of social entrepreneurial bloggers, including:

• Dave Dawes - entreprenurses.blogspot.com
  
• Nic Temple - sse.org.uk/blog
  
• Greg Villalobos - blogcreator.co.uk
  
• Rob Greenland - thesocialbusiness.co.uk
  
• Rachel Slade - unltdworld.com
  
• Darragh Doyle - darraghdoyle.com
  
• Me - puddingrelations.blogspot.com
  
• Maureen Bowes - weinspireothers.com & peopleintelligence.com
  
• Nicola Jones - unltdworld.com

The podcast covered a lot of ground in a relatively short time - these were the issues discussed:

• Meeting and networking with people via their blog
  
• Making time for creating and following blogs
  
• How blogs can raise the profile of your social enterprise
  
• The role of blog comments and blog readership (where the title of this post came from)
  
• Corporate vs personal/informal blogging styles
  
• How to start blogging (Typepad, Wordpress, etc)
  
• The pros and cons of Twitter (the scary world of microblogging)
  
• Is mobile blogging the next evolution?
  
• Finding out that lots more people read your blog than you thought
  
• Dealing with information overload and using blogreaders and RSS feeds
  
• Using blogs to share ideas, develop ideas and create collaborations
  
• How UnLtdworld works
  
• Why some people like blogs, other like podcatss, others like forums, others like twitter - the role of people's personality preference and learning style

The podcast can be downloaded here (35 Mb). The music is "Fire Dance" by djbouly and is brought to you under a creative commons licence.

Many thanks to Dave for producing the podcast for us all to enjoy!

Comments = Cash for Burma

Made a promise to make more comments on other people's blogs?

Always looking for ways to help people in need?

Well now you can kill two birds with one stone.

The Digital Influence Group is donating $10 for every comment made on this post as part of their work on the Burma: It Can’t Wait project.

If you want to find out more about the issue, Guardian journalist Helen Pidd reported from neighbouring Thailand after spending a week in Burma, seeing first-hand the extent of the damage caused by Cyclone Nargis and recording her views in a video that you can view here.

Go comment here and do your good deed for the day.

Chairty Communications 08: PR Week Coverage

One session at the Charity Communications conference that I didn't write about was the keynote speech from Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun. It was controversial to say the least, with several delegates storming out of the room half way through in disgust. As such, I thought it wasn't woorth repeating what he said considering that a lot of what he said didn't appear to carry much worth itself.

The latest issue of PR Week contains a piece on the incident though and covers the story well (even MacKenzie's comments are taken slightly out of context). It makes for interesting reading, but the conference organisers did record the whole speech, so I'll let you know if (when) I get hold of it:

"Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun, has clashed with hundreds of conference delegates after arguing that you could never put a positive spin on a story involving a paedophile.

During his speech at the Charity Communications conference in London, he advised delegates not to judge coverage purely by its content, but by its volume, 'there is no such thing as bad publicity – ask Jeffrey Archer - unless of course you're a paedophile. I think that's probably the area where publicity is not helpful'.

But during the question and answer session a delegate told him that her charity worked with paedophiles. As the charity helped to protect children, was there not any opportunity to garner positive coverage?

'No. Next', he said, adding 'Are you serious? There is a paedophile charity?'

The delegates were visibly infuriated as they tried to explain what the charity actually did, and MacKenzie's response was met by audible shock.

'There may be an argument, but I'm not going to progress it', he said, 'Why don't you try The Independent, there's probably a few [positive stories] in there'. He said he wrote his own 'vile column' in The Sun adding, 'you can be sure the paedophile charity will get a good mention in it next week don't you worry about that'."

You can read the PR Week article here.

The Day There Was No News

This video using the new Flickr video service is doing the rounds at the moment, and it's really rather good.

The comments below the video reveal mixed emotions - relief, sadness, amazement, creepy.

Though as I'm working in PR, I'm sure that we could find a way to hijack it and get our clients some coverage out of it!

Adam Buxton did a similar video about a year ago, proving that no news is actually news:

The unconference that 'Shined' on us all

In case you missed it, the SHINE Unconference took place over the weekend. I blogged it where I could, but just found the sessions to be too engaging to really take the time and write it up in-depth.

Instead, I'll point you towards shine.socialreporter.net where a team of bloggers covered the event properly, a Qik event page with lots of glorious video, and a Flickr set with all its photographic goodness - including this one of me pitching my social enterprise idea to a crowded room:


Meanwhile, over on UnltdWorld - the social network for social entreprenuers - those who attended were asked for feedback on the event:

"What did you think of it? Which sessions did you like? Did the style and format work for you? Did you make any lasting connections?"

Here's my response to the questions:

• Walking round a random corner into a random room and joining a random session, but finding lots of great people doing great things and talking about great ideas
• The wide range of support for those at different stages, whether that was an idea, the beginning stages of setting up, or those further along.
• THE PEOPLE! Met some really inspiring figures and everyone I met was more than willing to help everyone in whatever way they could or point them out to someone who could!
• Made loads of connections and have a whole heap of business cards to get through - will email everyone I said I would soon!

I really did meet lots of inspiring people doing some great projects. I offered communications advice where I could to social entrepreneurs like Maureen (pictured with me below). I also ran a session on how to communicate on a tight budget, which seemed to go well by the smile on people's faces as they left the room.


Loads of other people answered the question on Unltd World. Here is a selection of their responses:

• I love the informality around the sessions. Great participation, networking, the venue. Though would have liked more participation.
• It was fantastic. Great vibe. It was about people, conversations and genuine knowledge sharing. It was about the power of context over formality, and of fun and passion over structure. Brilliant.
• Best things about Shine - the spirit, the people, the collaboration.
  The style and format worked in the spirit of the event. I'd been to Good Deals afew days earlier - a "Conference" that involved pretty much 6 hours of sitting & listening to (great) speakers. Shine is to Conferences what the Fringe is to the Edinburgh Festival.
• I enjoyed a 1:1 session with What if!, I really enjoyed the session I did on Entrepreneurs & Emotional Intelligence because of the participation from a lovely group of interested people.
  
• I loved the synchronicity of the whole event and all that busy blogging, reporting and podcasting. It all felt really alive.
• The visual impression: passing room after room and seeing circles of social entrepreneurs leaning forward in intense discussions.

As you can see, everyone seemed to think the event was a great success. Sure, some things did go wrong and there are plenty of aspects that could be improved, but it was the first time the event took place, so there was always going to be teething problems.

I hope to be there again next year - perhaps the various online content around Shine has inspired you enough that I'll see you there too!

SHINE 2008: Interview with SocialReporter.net

This morning, I was collared by Paul who is blogging about SHINE over at shine.socialreporter.net. Here's what he had to say about our encounter and a video interview he took.

"Social reporting has got off to a great start and I’ve already met Ben Matthews (and his EeePC) who heard about Shine via Twitter (NB professional as always the video only goes to 1minute and then I forgot to switch it off, fortunately I didn’t say anything libellous, but it’s not worth watching after that!)."

SHINE 2008: 10 points for starting a web-based project

This session was hosted by Alberto Nardelli and Nicola Jones of UnLtd. Here are the 10 points and the few key points they asked us to take away from the session:

1. Keep to your purpose - Your work should be coherent with your mission

2. Become successful by helping others be successful

3. Openness – build by sharing

4. Everything you do needs to help create real value

5. Everything you do should matter

Is it really important and essential?

How will it benefit your audience?

Does it impact large parts of your audience?

Is it mission critical?

Bottom Line: Focus, focus, focus

6. Think niche and don't go after entrenched players

What's your market?

The Long Tail and the Fortune 1,000,000

You can do anything, but not everything: do one thing, but do it really well

7. Road maps lead in the wrong direction

They make you think in the past: do the right thing at the right time

You can't build business models in any ivory tower

Innovative business models happen

8. Change the rules of the game – think big and radical

What's the issue?

Why is it broken?

How can you fix it?

Why do you want to fix it? - Purpose!

Web 2.0 is about community, networks and markets

9. Be transparent

Always place your mission and the interests of your audience first

Trust and loyalty are built

No short-term gain can justify breaching this trust

Feedback and conversations are essential: listening is more valuable than talking

10.Monetization opportunities must never destroy value

Key points:

• You only succeed as a business if you keep relevant to your audience

• Steadfastly refuse any opportunity that does not offer value to your audiences

• Your business model and economic drivers need to be deeply embedded in your purpose

SHINE 2008

For the next few days I'll be at SHINE, an 'unconference' that (according to the website) is "dedicated to connecting, informing and inspiring hundreds of Social Entrepreneurs."

"For three days, The Bargehouse at the heart of London’s Southbank will host a mash-up gathering, an ‘Un’Conference that will invigorate your thinking and give you the practical help to advance your business, whatever stage you’re at.

Long presentations, boring speeches and being trapped in closed rooms are out. Peer-to-peer exchanges, info-snacking and flexible sessions are in."

I'll be keeping notes and blogging when I can, but you can follow the event on Twitter through @shine2008 or go to shine.socialreporter.net for more in-depth coverage.

Charity Communications: Brave New World

This session was billed as "An interactive and entertaining session about the opportunities new media offers to charities, for communications and fundraising. A particularly innovative format; inspiring and a little outrageous."

And to be fair, Russell Davies (@russelldavies) - internet marketing guru and columnist at Campaign magazine - lived up to the hype.

Russell started by admitting that he didn't know what charity communications people do and wouldn't pretend to, but he was here to tell us what he tells all the brands he's worked with and hoped we were clever enough to use it in our own way.

The world is getting blurry, e.g. anyone with a camera is considered a journalist. This offers dangers as well as possibilities.

Brands have to get interesting or get useful - preferably both.

For the last 15 years, marketing meant find a message, fine tune that message, then hammer that message home.

Now, marketing has to question how it can get its audience to engage with it. Their messages must have depth, humour, subtlety, irony, anger, romance, excitement, etc, etc...

It's like velcro, which works because it's got loads and loads of hooks. It doesn't matter if they don't all hook, as long as some do.

Russell then showed this Nike advert:



It is effective not because of the message it is delivering, but the way it is communicating. It is bypassing language, as viewers smile an nod along with the music. You can't bash people over the head with your message - your communication needs to be more interesting.

The Run London campaign for Nike was a success because of its usefulness. Feedback suggested that Reebok and Adidas adverts were better, but the Nike campaign helped a lot of people run 10k. This usefulness was more effective in reaching the campaign's target audience.

He then showed us this clip:



There are millions of people out there who are smarter, funnier and better at doing this than you. Organisations need to work in partnership with these people, not ramming the message down their throat.

As an example of this, Russell showed the Nike 'Joga Chain' campaign:



This campaign worked because of the partnership. It wouldn't have worked without the individuals who created the content or without the global reach of the Nike.

Key Lessons:

1. You learn this stuff by doing it, not by viewing it
2. Think quick, small, real
3. You can't control the conversation, but you can build somewhere for the conversation to happen
4. It's not about more powerful machines, it's about more powerful people
   

Charity Communications: I'll Tell You What I Want

The panel of journalists and producers spoke candidly about what kind of stories they’re interested in and revealed exactly what they need for a news or feature story.

On the panel were:

• Andy Smith, editor, BBC Radio 4 You and Yours
• Sara Ward, deputy editor, Take a Break magazine
• Vikki Cook, executive producer, Sky News
• Emma Tucker, editor, Times2

What makes a good pitch?

Andy Smith:

• Don't ring between 12 and 1 when the programme is on air!
• Ensure the pitch has a human interest
• Helps if public policy is involved in some way
• The story must stand up journalistically, e.g. make an interesting news piece
• Know you story - hates it when he asks questions and the PR can't answer them
• Avoid spin, e.g. fake survey
• Phone the appropriate journalist

Sara Ward:

• Look at our magazine and what we write about
• There are no celebrities on the magazine so don't offer us celebrities!
• Call in the afternoon - as a newsroom they're busy in the morning
• Thursday at 3:30pm is the best time to call as they have just put the previous issue to press
• Find out when a publication goes to print and contact them straight after that
• Offer an interesting 'life story' rather than a boring case study

Emma Tucker:

• Doesn't read press releases (!)
• Know the section you're pitching to
• Target the appropriate section editor
• "I've got a great idea for this column on this day"
• Try approaching freelancers, as they will often have a relationship with editors and therefore have more of a way in

Vikki Cook:

• For TV, it is critical that you have good case studies
• Have a great story - if you can't sell it to me then I can't sell it to our viewers
• A good spokesperson must really know their stuff and think of 2/3 key quotes that can be used as soundbites
• Those key quotes will be used across all platforms - Web, TV, Radio, Print
• Ask for the charity's details to be included in the piece - if you don't ask, you don't get!
• But not for radio, as listeners don't have time to write down a website

Charity Communications: Soundbite Session - Kids Company

Camila Batmanghelidjh, Founder and Chief Executive of Kids Company, is an award-winning campaigner who was here to tell us all about how she uses media coverage to lobby government and represent children's issue to an audience who would not otherwise hear about them.

Kids Company has 220 paid workers, 3000 volunteers and around 100 clinical consultants.

It is very important to speak to journalists as kids have no voice to call their service providers to account. But it is important not to have a media agenda focussed on promoting the charity, but rather make all media coverage about the kids the charity is helping.

The Government needed to understand that young people can be reached. Without media coverage, the charity wouldn't have got their Government grant. Not that the Government had ill will, but they didn't think about the issues that the charity was addressing and they needed to think about those issues. The Government changed its financial structure, resulting in 90 charities applying for the new grants, with 5 receiving funding in the end.

The charity finds opportunities to bring the experiences of the kids to the public. They are 'bridging experiences'. The public won't go to a crack den, so the charity has to get the kids to bring a version of a crack den to the public through exhibitions, events, etc.

Their first motto is 'The kids come first'. As such, they won;t put any kids forward to speak to the media as a case study if they are vulnerable.

"Love and respect is a better surveillance camera than a surveillance camera itself."

Why do the media concentrate on Batmanghelidjh rather than the charity?

Firstly, she is fat and colourful (her words!). Secondly, she is prepared to be attached to an sensitive issue and is prepared to stand by what she says.

How do kids find the charity?

97% is through self-referral. These 'menaces to society' are talking to each other about the chairty and helping each other take advantage of the services it offers.

"If you can get the service right, the customer always comes."

Charity Communications: Changing Attitudes

The first session of the day at Charity Communications 08 was called 'Changing Attitudes' and was based around the following questions:

• Can a high profile media campaign change the way we think and live?
• What are the next big issues facing charities?
• From AIDS campaigns of the 1990s to the recent smoking and drink driving campaigns - Is the media the right place to be educating the nation?

The panel consisted of the following:

• Jean Collingwood, chief executive, The Drinkaware Trust
• Kate Stringer, communications officer, Moving People
• Clare Hutchinson, head of planning, WCRS

The session started by showing the British Heart Foundation's 'Pick Up The Beat' advert:

Does this advert work? Who does it work for?

Jean Collingwood spoke about truthaboutbooze.com, which works with other charities who share alcohol related issues. She argued that charities need authentic engagement with their audiences - such as Myspace, Bebo, Facebook, etc - two-way mechanisms that will create a conversation,

What they found from their research was that young people were more savvy about alcohol then they gave them credit for. The messages that charities were giving them were very patronizing.

Having got this information about attitudes, is there a way of changing behaviour?

Kate Stringer spoke about the Moving People campaign, which aimed to reduce negative attitudes towards people with learning disabilities by 5%. The stigma towards mental illness comes from ignorance. People with learning disabilities feel that their illness is the 'last taboo.' The campaign needed to reach 75% of the population to change attitudes and the media was a key to achieving this.

Before the campaign even started, the organisation spent 2 years researching attitudes towards people with learning disabilities. Once the campaign started, the ad campaign was backed up by a local media campaign around the UK.

Claire Hutchinson spoke about the 'Don't Make Children Breathe Your Smoke' campaign:

When smoking was banned from pubs and clubs, its prevalence dropped significantly. But many smokers, particularly from low income families, were unaware of the damage second hand smoke caused to others. After the campaign, there was a shift in people making their homes smoke free.

The campaign was part of a collective effort to help people stop smoking. In 2000, 8% of people said anti-smoking adverts were the trigger to quit smoking. In 2004, this percentage rose to 30%.

This was achieved through the right adverts used in the right ways in the right locations. But it was agreed that it takes a long time to change public attitudes towards a subject. For example, it too 25 years to change attitudes towards drink driving.

But the media is often the first attitude that needs changing as they are key to the public changing their attitudes.

PR is essential to changing attitudes, as its strongest point is its 'realness' - truth penetrates much better through PR than advertising.

PR Event: Charity Communications 08

Today I attended the Charity Communications 08 conference, which took place at Friends House in Euston, London. I was there representing Camp Quality UK, who I am on the board of as Secretary and as a trustee.

The charity has been improving its communications practices in recent months, with a rebranding and social media programme the most notable improvements.

I hoped that the conference would give us plenty of advice and expertise on how our charity can communicate with its stakeholders, the media, and the general public.

I took notes on most of the sessions and will be writing a post on each one, but for the moment the full programme is below:

Changing Attitudes
Can a high profile media campaign change the way we think and live? What are the next big issues facing charities? From AIDS campaigns of the 1990s to the recent smoking and drink driving campaigns. Is the media the right place to be educating the nation?
• Jean Collingwood, chief executive, The Drinkaware Trust
• Kate Stringer, communications officer, Moving People
• Clare Hutchinson, head of planning, WCRS

View the write up to this session here.

The Soundbite Session
Camila Batmanghelidjh, chief executive, Kids Company
The award-winning campaigner and founder of Kids Company tells all about how she uses media coverage to lobby government and represent children's issue to an audience who would not otherwise hear about them.

View the write up to this session here.

I’ll tell you what I want
Our panel of journalists and producers speak candidly about what kind of stories they’re interested in. The panel will reveal exactly what they need for a news or feature story, and delegates will have the opportunity to ‘pitch’ their story.

• Andy Smith, editor, BBC Radio 4 You and Yours
• Sara Ward, deputy editor, Take a Break magazine
• Vikki Cook, executive producer, Sky News
• Emma Tucker, editor, Times2

View the write up to this session here.

Keynote Q&A
• Kelvin MacKenzie, former Sun editor and tabloid expert.

Brave New World
An interactive and entertaining session about the opportunities new media offers to charities, for communications and fundraising. A particularly innovative format; inspiring and a little outrageous.
• Russell Davies, internet marketing guru and columnist, Campaign magazine.

View the write up to this session here.

What’s the worst that could happen?
How to survive a PR disaster or media crisis. Get advice from communications experts who’ve seen it all and from charities who have survived. This session will be packed with info for charities about how to plan for the worst.
• Brendan Paddy, media manager, Age Concern England
• David Cowdrey, head of press and media relations, WWF
• Sue Stapely, crisis communications consultant

The Soundbite Session: Charities Take Control
Charities have voted to hear from the communications campaign they’ve most admired in the last year. The session will be presented by Sarah Fitzgerald, head of communications at Motor Neurone Disease Association, the winning organisation.

The Big Interview
Nick Davies, award winning journalist and author of controversial new book Flat Earth News: Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media, will talk about how charities can find a way through media misrepresentation to get their stories told fairly.
Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and author, will be asking the questions and sharing her own experiences.

Link Love - 4 May 2008

Since I've been in Manchester for the last few days - attending Futuresonic 2008, taking in the sights, and catching up with friends - I haven't had a chance to catch up with the various bits and bobs that have happened on t'internet in the past few days.

I managed to sit myself in front of a computer for an hour or two this morning and get through my RSS feed reader. There's lots of interesting / exciting / important stuff happening right now (even in the space of a few days), so I thought I'd put up all the various things that caught my eye.

Enjoy!

• The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited - Stuntdubl - SEO Consultant

Is it linkbaiting? Or is it just a way of ensuring the content you provide is useful?
(Via Brendan Cooper)

• YouTube - FaceBook In Reality - from www.idiotsofants.com

Fantastic parody of Facebook if it were *real* (you know what I mean…)
(Via Dominic Campbell)

• Everyone needs Twitter! (Well, those that are interested in using it properly)

Applying Twitter to the masses.

• Six Sentences

What can you say in six sentences?
(Via B.L. Ochman)

• Three Ways to Mitigate the Attention Crash, Yet Still Feel Informed

Essential reading for those feeling overwhelmed by information overload.

• Web 2.0 from the communicator's viewpoint

Great, quick introduction or refresher article on Web 1.0/2.0/3.0

• Where we find time.

The internet's replacing TV and things are getting done - hooray!

• BBC Exposes Facebook Flaw

There's a privacy storm brewing on the horizon...

Probably The Best Powerpoint Presentation In The World

This one's doing the rounds at the moment, but I thought it was worth putting up here in case you missed it:

Futuresonic 2008: Aleks Krotoski

Aleks Krotoski (@Aleksk), an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity, is speaking about gaming and play on the internet.

She argues that the Brain Training game was the sole reason for the extraordinary sales of the Nintendo DS, sold on the promise that it will make you smarter ("Reduce your brain age!"). But it is ultimately a selfish game, you play it on your own.

World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies, on the other hand, are communities where collaboration is essential. If you destroy a relationship with another player in the game, you will 'lose' or make the game harder for yourself.

Aleks is now showing us her Facebook wheel, which shows the connections between Aleks and her friends, and Aleks' friends with each other. From this, she is unable to tell the varying levels of relationships with her 'friends'. Only by breaking it down to a person by person level can you truly see the relationship between two 'friends'.

Second Life creates more meaningful relationships. The 3D aspect of the environment enables a more subtle interplay of relationships which is writ large because other users can see this interaction happen in front of them.

What is essential in all of these connected spaces is that how we play in the future will influence how we learn and interact with those around us.

Virtual worlds and social networks are more real in so many ways than sitting on a train with a load of commuters. In these spaces, we have the opportunity to learn, adapt and collaborate - and all of that is through play.