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