Geek + Heart = Social Innovation Camp

Here's a video from the guys at Social Innovation Camp, which takes a rather special take on what the event is all about is all about.

The video is a great way of illustrating how Social Innovation Camp encourages the use of social technology for social change - just make sure you watch with the sound turned on!

I caught the end of the first event this year and everyone seemed to come out buzzing from the event, especially our friends at Enabled by Design who picked up first prize.

The next Social Innovation Camp takes place on 5th-7th December, with ideas for submission closing on Friday 7th November 2008. So make sure that you find out more and enter your ideas by checking out the entry page here.

Getting Hitched and Getting Ditched in Gaming

I've spotted two little romantic tidbits from the gaming community that go hand in hand to show just how much gaming is becoming a part of our every day lives.

Firstly, this video from Little Big Planet shows how someone created a level in order to propose to his girlfriend. According to Jed05, "My (now) Fiancee was playing the level. She was so shocked she kept playing and knew I was filming. Afterwords we hugged, she cried, and I gave her an engagement ring":

(I like the little gasp of surprise at 0:23)

Secondly, news that a woman has been arrested in Japan after she allegedly killed her virtual husband in a popular video game. The 43-year-old was reportedly "furious at finding herself suddenly divorced in the online game Maplestory."

Here's what the BBC article had to say:

"Police say she illegally accessed log-in details of the man playing her husband, and killed off his character. The woman, a piano teacher, is in jail in Sapporo waiting to learn if she faces charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data. If charged with the offences, and convicted, she faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000."

So one couple getting married and one couple getting 'divorced', all through the power of gaming. After all, as The Magic Numbers said, love is just a game.

How to write a "great blogger pitch"

My colleague Drew Benvie was sent an "interesting" pitch from a PR firm, which you can read about more on his blog here.

The pitch has received a lot of criticism, not from Drew (as he left the post fairly neutral) but from the comments below the post. These include: "it just seems like a load of waffle"; "what strikes me is that there is no sense of personality in the pitch"; "the overuse of the word aggressive is, well, aggressive"; and - my favourite from Luis Levy - "it's almost as if Word wrote that pitch by itself based on crappy Microsoft algorithms."

Perhaps a bit harsh, but these criticisms could have been easily avoided.

One of the things that I have found most appealing about people involved in social media is the ethos of sharing. Sharing is a good thing, especially when trying to pitch a blogger, as there are plenty of examples and tips on how to pitch a blogger. Now, I'm not going to dive into a long, long list of all sorts of tips on how best to pitch to a blogger. Instead, I'm going to show what the PR professional from 5WPR might have done better, even as some first steps.

In the interests of research, I simply googled the term "great blogger pitch" and came up with the following results:

How to Pitch to Bloggers - 21 Tips
www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/30/how-to-pitch-to-bloggers-21-tips/

The Jeff Pulver Blog: PR 203: How to Pitch a Blogger
pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008349.html

Will Video for Food » Best Blogger Pitch Letter Ever
willvideoforfood.com/2008/06/06/best-blogger-pitch-letter-ever/

How to Pitch a Blogger » BloggerDesign.com
www.toprankblog.com/2006/10/blogger-relations-101/

Attention marketers: do you know how to pitch a blogger or podcaster?
www.krishnade.com/blog/2007/how-to-pitch-a-blogger-or-podcaster/

How not to pitch a blogger: Church of the Customer Blog
www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/2007/04/8_bad_pr_pitche.html

Micro Persuasion: How Not to Pitch a Blogger
www.micropersuasion.com/2005/02/how_not_to_pitc.html


I hope I'm not being too unfair here, but surely it wouldn't have been too much effort to find out what other people have said on the subject? After all, every one of the bloggers on this list would have had to have started somewhere. If it took those bloggers a while to get the pitch just right, then they've done the hard work for you by repeating the exercise until they have found a way that gives them a good chance of being well received when/if they pitch to a blogger.

This situation can be repeated over and over - if you're not sure on how to go about something in the social media sphere, google it and there is sure to be a helpful article from Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Seth Godin or other brilliant social media strategists to at least help get you started on whatever you're thinking of doing.

While I don't think that there's such a thing as the perfect blog pitch - after all, I believe that every pitch should be tailored for every situation - if all I have to do to pick those social media guru's brains is to google a certain phrase, then I count myself lucky that they have been willing to share their expertise with the rest of us. When we believe our expertise to be of use to someone else, we should be sharing that knowledge too.

So how do you write a great blogger pitch?

Google it. The answer's out there somewhere.

Three For Three

That Rockstar PR, Jed Hallam, has started his very first meme and such as this online community is all about sharing and collaborating on all sorts of wonderful things on the interwebz, I thought I'd pick up on the meme.

That, and Adam Lewis picked me as one of his three to pass the meme on to...

The title is "three for three" involving websites, cocktails and karaoke songs , and according to Mr Hallam it "must be fun". So here goes...

Top three non-work websites:

1. TED.com - Subtitled as "Ideas Worth Spreading", an hour watching videos on this site isa hundred times more inspirational/educational/fun then time watching any normal TV programme.
2. Drawn.ca - Spend an hour browsing through this Canada-based,  worldwide-appealling, illustration and cartooning blog to get those creative juices flowing
3. Postsecret.com - Updated every Sunday, this site is a gallery of postcard-sized images posted anonymously to unveil a secret. This is shared confessions in art form, and one site that is most revealing about the secret sides of human nature.

Top three Karaoke Songs:

1. Beat It - Michael Jackson - No one can 'beat' the King of Pop, especially at karaoke
2. Baywatch Theme - Best performed in a karaoke bar full of drunk students for the full effect
3. Mr Brightside - The Killers - Just a great, great song that everyone knows the words to

Top three cocktails:

1. Cubra Libre - One of the only good uses for Coca Cola (the other being the exploding mentos experiment) is to mix it with a double of dark rum and a wedge of lime for a smooth cocktail with an edge of vanilla
2. Strawberry Daiquiri - So sweet that you can't taste the alcohol. In fact, you will probably  get more of a buzz from the amount of sugar it contains rather than the alcohol in it
3. Bailey's Coffee - Not strictly a cocktail but more of a nightcap, this is one cup of coffee that is more likely to send you to sleep than keep you up at night

I'm going to pass it this meme-tastic bundle of fun on to:

Dommy W

Big Tim Bond

Miss Melanie Seasons

And in case you dind't know where the photo comes form, it's of The Three Amigos - a classic Steve Martin film.

Fry off to a flying start on Twitter

Mass excitement around the Twittersphere yesterday as national treasure Stephen Fry joined Twitter. Within 2 hours, Stephen had over 2,500 followers - with more being added constantly - in what must have been a record number of followers in such a short space of time.

To see the full scale of commotion, take a look at the Twitter Search on Mr Fry.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of this was the fact that he was following a lot of people back, meaning that there were numerous squeals of delight when people received the "Stephen Fry is now following you on Twitter" email. When I received mine, I did actually let out a girly squeak and have since printed off said email, framed it, and it now hangs over my desk...

The thing that most interested me about Stephen joining Twitter is that he instantly has a mass of people talking to him (or about him) meaning that he won't have time to 'dip his toes in the water' as it were and find his feet with the service. Unless he has help behind the scenes - as some have commented - then he's been thrown in feet first, will be overwhelmed by the noise and may not see the value in Twitter.

In fact, Stephen has already sensed this himself as a few tweets have shown:

Most people I've spoken to on this subject feel that they gain the most out of Twitter when used to follow a select group of contacts and see how their conversations develop - "a manageable group of people to follow" as Kate Bevan put it.

If Stephen doesn't continue using Twitter then it will be a massive shame as we're all no doubt looking forward to such 140 character gems as "Golly, crumbs, heckamighty and all the powerful legal swears and cusses Twitter will allow."

Then again, Stephen has said that he will tweeting his travels around the world, all of which will be on his soon-to-be-overhauled website, www.stephenfry.com. So even if all of his 2,926 followers (at the last count) won't be able to strike up a conversation on Twitter with him, we'll at least have our days brightened by his occassional tweets.

Free Media Relations Campaign Up For Grabs

Shout! Communications, a London-based specialist broadcast PR consultancy, is inviting any registered charities to take part in a competition they are running as part of their pro bono initiative.

In previous years, they have chosen a charity to support put forward by a member of their team. In the past this has included Breast Cancer Campaign, the Victoria Cross and George Cross Associations and Hearing Dogs for the Deaf. This year Shout! have decided to widen the net and are inviting interested charities to take part in a competition.

First prize is a media relations campaign (radio, TV or online) worth up to £2,500. All you have to do is tell Shout!, in 300 words or fewer, why you'd like your nominated charity to win.

A panel of judges, including CIPR President Lis Lewis-Jones and PRCA Director General Francis Ingham, will decide the winner. The judges will base their decision on how good the campaign is, in terms of creativity and originality. They’ll also be looking at how suitable the campaign is for broadcast – that means having engaging and available spokespeople, good case studies where appropriate, possibly a news hook for the story and good picture and sound opportunities.    

All charities that enter will also be eligable for a 25% reduction off Shout!'s rate card for a period of 6 months. The deadline is  eop on Friday 7th November. For more information, take a look at the news section of Shout! Communication's website here.

He's So Hot(wire) Right Now

Just a quick note to welcome our newest recruit to the Hotwire family here at 33 Dallington Street.

Phil Sheard will be joining us from Plusnet where he has been for the past 7 years, more of which you can find out about at his blog here. Lately he's barely been off Twitter , so he's obviously got the hunger for the digital media mastery that we prize over here.

Phil has also assured me that he's been practising his milk warming skills in order to get in my good books straight away, so I'm looking forward to him joining Hotwire later this month!

Pixelated Poo

Tired of losing your blog audience due to toilet breaks?

Well now you can combat that by putting the online toilet on your blog so that your readers never have to be distracted when nature calls!

The advert is for ING, the Dutch financial institution. Given the recent financial turomil, perhaps this is a desperate attempt to stop their company from going "down the toilet"?

I'm not sure if pixelated poos will ever replace real ones, but this is a fun viral advert to play with. You can find out more about the online toilet at the mini site here where there are more goodies to find.

(Tip 'o the hat to Dom for flagging the site to me!)

Coffee Art

Right, I'm definitely going to perfect my coffee art skills so I can draw a picture of a dragon in my latte: