Servant of Chaos

Lazy Blogging

This week marks the six month anniversary (is there such a thing?) of the Aussie Bloggers blog and forum (congrats!). In this time, the community has gone from strength to strength -- with over 700 members and a whopping 33,000 posts.

As a special gift to the thriving community, an indispensable blogging tool has been developed to help overcome those blogging-block days -- the Lazy Bloggers Blog Post Generator. Here is a blog post that comes direct from the generator:

OMG! I just remembered I have not updated this since Paris Hilton was in jail... You would not believe my anguish at my misdoings. Jealous much? Don't be, it was very painful..
I am frantic with an awfully big adventure, soaking in the tub, just generally being a Darling to the servants, my day is full to overflowing from when the nightclubs close to I run out of alcohol. I am happy with that. I need some perspective.
I solemnly swear to post at least once a month. Promise! Unless of course the pool with the cocktail bar is heated!

Would You Help a Reporter?

Ross Dawson's Future of Media Summit generated quite a lot of debate on both sides of the Pacific. There was some excellent coverage of the summit from a variety of angles, with Stephen Collins asking What will the future of media look like?, Chris Bishops pondering the business models around monetising future content and Craig Wilson viewing the summit with one eye focused on the Twitter backchannel.

Seth Yates has provided an excellent summary including notes on all the panels which is a great reference point for those who attended, and those who could not. Reading back through these posts it is clear that the debate shifted to a discussion about future roles, not necessarily future industries. Indeed, much of the discussion falling out of the conference has been around citizen journalists vs professional journalists.

Stilgherrian's summit coverage, (and the same post at Crikey with a different commentary/discussion), plus Jonathan Este's response, (which was originally posted on Crikey and reposted on Stilgherrian's blog with comments) turned the heat up on this debate.

Clearly this is an emotion-charged discussion. And while it is a discussion that needs to take place, it strikes me that we are being bogged down in a debate that may be solved by refocusing our cognitive surplus in another direction -- finding an innovative way of delivering value across the chasm between the "traditional" and "social" media groups. In fact, finding a way of bringing journalists and new media practitioners together may be the best way forward.

Last week I saw a link to Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter site. It is a site designed to connect reporters with credible and expert news sources (and yes, that includes bloggers). It is opt-in. It's a site that uses technology to provide value to a community that, in many ways, does not yet exist. It is well facilitated. But I wonder, is this something that would work here in Australia? It certainly could, and should.

But participation costs. It means leaving your shoes at the door. It means rolling up our sleeves and reshaping the media industry from the ground up. It is not the total solution, but it is a first step. What do you think? Would you help a reporter?

Plurking Great

I am always surprised that the makers of Web 2.0 tools don't fully understand the dynamic and challenging nature of the communities who populate, use, build and evangelise their systems. For example, why would a hugely successful Web 2.0 property like Facebook carelessly launch Beacon? Why would Twitter NOT respond more unequivocally to claims of harrassment? Given that the business model around Web 2.0 platforms is about leveraging the mass of aggregated user data to generate insight/targeted advertising etc, how is that these platforms seem unable to gauge the temperament of their communities? Could it be that they are ape-ing big brands and are simply not listening to the abundant digital voices?

Clearly these leading Web 2.0 platforms have built what we could easily consider unassailable user bases. Facebook carries millions of users each day and has the backing of Microsoft. Twitter appears to be hovering around the 2 million user mark and has attracted a great deal of goodwill. However, what happens when shifts occur? What about extended downtime?

Twitter has successfully modified the behaviour of its user base in such a way that we have all come to rely upon it to fulfil a range of communication needs. But ongoing reliability issues has seen a number of defections to other services that have followed quickly on Twitter's heels. One such service is Plurk.

However, when people who are used to using Twitter arrive at the Plurk interface, they encounter problems. They don't get it. They find it confusing and unintuitive, maybe even over-engineered. I also experienced this ... but felt that there was something different about Plurk. And anyway, I realised that I was looking at Plurk through my "Twitter Goggles" -- and I was finding it lacking (as were others). -- but I knew that I needed to allow Plurk the benefit of the doubt.

Over the last couple of months, the Plurk team have been slowly but surely improving their system. New features, improvements and so on have been appearing regularly. And earlier this week we were given a new series of selectable key words. One of my favourites is "wonders" ... I found that I was using it quick consistently to communicate with my small community of followers -- "Servantofchaos wonders what is going on today". "Servantofchaos wonders why he is still up late writing a blog post". It seems that the Plurkers have been  surveying the most popular "freestyle" words and have added them to the drop-down list. Great!

But while I was impressed with the simple addition of the word "wonders", I was a little surprised to see that it was coloured a dull grey. That seemed like an uninformed decision. So I wrote a message wondering why this was the case ... and in the space of a couple of hours, the word "wonders" was transformed into a beautiful, vibrant colour. Were the Plurkers listening? Was it just coincidence? With my Twitter Goggles on, I would claim it was coincidence ... that there was no-one listening. But I have a secret hope ... that they certainly were listening to the conversation, and they went a step beyond and used this intelligence to change (ever so slightly), a system that is going from strength to strength. If they were listening, it's plurking great!

Are You a PowerPoint Goose?

Goose Eye extreme
Originally uploaded by david ian...

There are no shortages of "how to" guides for creating better, more effective presentations. A quick search on Google will yield thousands of results, from books to websites and blogs through to live examples on YouTube.

There are excellent presentation decks that can be used for inspiration on Slideshare, and simply watching one or two presentations on TED talks can drastically improve your in-person style and approach.

But despite all this, poorly structured, visually cramped presentations continue to dominate the business landscape. Presenters themselves continue to recite slide content without weaving a story between the bullet points or slide topic areas. This means that those "participating" in the meeting, turn their attention to also reading the slide content -- focusing not on you, the presenter, but on the words on the screen.

This turns the presenter into a "PowerPoint Goose" -- with no attention from the audience, your "speech" turns into non-representative "honking".

But what can you do if you have only a few minutes before your next presentation? How can you avoid turning into a PowerPoint Goose? Laura Fitton has this great post that steps you through the QUICK things you can do to improve a presentation. She identifies four steps:

1. Review your audience and objective
2. Get Darwinian and only allow the strongest slides to remain
3. Reorder your slides
4. Do a lightning round on your deck, condensing each slide to a single sentence

Even with only a few moments, you can improve your presentation. So before you go into your next meeting, take a quick look at Laura's post and aim for the golden egg.

A Man's Got to Do What a Man's Got to Do

Being a lover of good storytelling I live a life of disappointment between the hours of 8pm to midnight. With a vast array of low-rent, poorly executed television, there is little wonder that I turn my attention to the plethora of quality (and low-rent) content available online. And while I am sometimes appalled by what I see online, I have the control to simply move quickly to something that at least offers the promise of an engaging storyline, believable characters or even a toe-tapping number or two.

And given that Josh Whedon, the master storyteller behind the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly series has just released a new series, there was reason to hope. But where can one find this? I scoured the TV guides only to be beaten into a dull submission by old formats and "celebrity talent". At last I turned to Twitter to find salvation -- and it came to me in the shape of something horrible. Dr Horrible.

That's right. Josh Whedon's newest series is available exclusively online. You can watch it streaming via the innovative Hulu format or download via iTunes. And at 15 minutes an episode, if it doesn't capture your attention, you haven't wasted your valuable time -- quality content is only a click away. Just a shame they didn't add interactive channels to the format.

But, it just makes me wonder about the future of media. And the future of brands. And it seems, the answer is the same. Content. How else do you think you will attract the slim attention of audience 2.0? Time to stop reading and start participating.

Plaid Nation -- Social Media on Tour

Darryl Ohrt's Plaid Nation Tour has just kicked off. Darryl is the author of Brandflakes for Breakfast and is the "Band Manager" of the Plaid team -- one of NYC's smartest boutique agencies -- and each year they take off on a road trip meeting up with the people behind the brands along the way. In their own words:

PlaidNation is a rolling celebration of creativity and a demonstration of social media in action. It's a Plaid van driving through the country meeting creative, marketing, brand and internet workers, and sharing Plaid love. Oh yeah - and every aspect of the tour is broadcasted HERE on plaidnation.com. Like the best reality show, but more.

The Plaid team have three live video streams (the one below is "driver cam"), you can track their progress via GPS and keep up with the gang via a Twitter stream.

Personally, I am most looking forward to the expose on "skanky hotel rooms". But if you are lucky enough to live on the Plaid Nation route, then you there is an opportunity to meet up in real life! Enjoy!

Monday, July 21 : Vancouver, Canada

• 10am: Ideas on Ideas
• Lunch
• 2pm: TBA
• 3pm: Cupcakesonline (come share a cupcake!)
• Travel to Seattle

Tuesday, July 22 : Seattle, WA

• 8:30am: Tweetup! (come say hi!!)
• 10.30am: TBA
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• Lunch
• 2pm: Jones Soda
• Travel to Portland

Wednesday, July 23 : Portland, OR

• 9am: Voodoo Doughnut (come share a donut!)
• 10.30am: TBA
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• Lunch
• 2pm: TBA
• Travel to Redding, CA

Thursday, July 24 : Redding, CA

• 10am: TBA
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• Travel to San Francisco

Friday, July 25 : San Francisco, CA

• 8:30am: Tweetup! (come say hi!!)
• 10:30am: Twitter?
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• Lunch
• 2pm: Google (who can get us into the Googleplex??)

Saturday, July 26 & Sunday July 27

• We're off enjoying San Francisco. Where should we go?

Monday, July 28: San Francisco, CA

• 11am: Robert Scoble/FastCompanyTV
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• Lunch
• 2pm: Seesmic
• 5:30pm: Tweetup! (come say hi!)
• Travel to San Luis Obisbo

Tuesday, July 29 : San Luis Obispo, CA

• 9:30am: San Luis Obispo Creative and Marketing Alliance (SLOCAMA) group meeting
• 12:30: BIG IMAGE/ iii DESiGN

Wednesday, July 30 : Los Angeles, CA

• 8:30am: Tweetup! (come say hi!)
• 10:30am: Yari Films
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• 12:30pm Lunch @ Leads 360
• 2pm: Sony Pictures
• Travel to Carlsbad

Thursday, July 31 : San Diego, CA

• 10am: Aptera
• Travel to San Diego
• Lunch
• 2pm: TBA

Friday, August 1: Las Vegas, NV

• 8:30am: Tweetup! (Come say hi!!)
• 10:30am: Zappos
• Tune in for the 11:40 show!
• Lunch at that killer Thai place
• 2pm: TBA
• 4pm - ?? PlaidNation wrap party (location TBA)

Can You Help Give Kids Some Fresh Air?

For over 130 years the Fresh Air Fund has been giving inner-city children the joy of a summer vacation with volunteer host families and at Fund camps, creating unforgettable memories and fresh possibilities.

This year, the summer holiday has been scheduled for August and there are still 200 NYC children who need to be placed with host families next month.

Unless all prospective host families are screened and vetted by the end of July these 200 children may miss out on an invaluable experience .

If you can host a child -- great! If not, it would be appreciated if you can help spread the word.

One last thing that is actually very important. Fresh Air Fund are looking for families who want to extend an invitation to a 9-12 year old. They really need more families who want older children and boys.

Please e-mail Angie, immediately and she'll speed you through the process! Or, you can call Fresh Air Fund at 1-800-367-0003 (212.897.8900) -- ask for Angie.

If you want to help but don't live in these areas -- BLOG about this program, tell your friends, recommend someone, or DONATE .

There are trip dates set for August 2008 for over 200 children and we need host families to volunteer to host these inner-city children. The dates and locations are as follows:

8/11-8/21 New Jersey: Warren County, Bergen County, Union County, Somerset County, Morris County, Hunterdon County

8/11-8/22 Pennsylvania: Lancaster, Akron, Christiana, Denver, Donegal, East Earl, Elverson, Lititz, Manheim, New Holland, Quarryville New York: St. Massena, Ogdensburg, Potsdam

8/12-8/22 Harrisburg, Pa

8/15-8/22 Central Massachusetts: Acton, Hopkinton, Lexington, Marlboro, Wayland

8/15-8/25 New York Western Fingerlakes: Canandaigua, Canal Towns, Dansville Central New York: Fulton, Marcellus and Oswego

Massachusetts: Cape Cod

Pennsylvania: Doylestown, Upper Bucks, Lower Bucks, Chalfont

8/25-9/1 New York: Columbia County Red Hook/Rhinebeck (Dutchess County) Albany County

Mining the Gold #1 - Marcus Brown

First up, I am looking at the exceptional work of Marcus Brown. He is, in my view, one of the foremost PRACTITIONERS of social media creation. He views the Web 2.0 technologies and the social networks that they enable as a fertile creative space in which he can artistically experiment, investigate and expose the various intersections of story, character, history, advertising and performance. He treats social media with both the reverence and contempt it deserves -- rigorously decontructing expectations, desires and forms and then rising, phoenix like from the ashes to surprise and delight us all one more (last) time. He has single-handedly brought to life a variety of personalities that have asked the difficult questions that many choose to ignore -- Sacrum, for example, sent a job application to Wieden + Kennedy in London which simultaneously demonstrated his skills while also showing how one of the leading advertising agencies on the planet were not adequately listening to digital conversations swirling around it.

In many ways, Marcus' searing investigations remind me of Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty -- his intellectual and creative endeavours devouring, in their articulation, the topics that he interrogates.

While he has generously left his Kaiser Edition website intact, despite the resignation of its host personalities, there are some key series/posts that any serious student of marketing/brand activation should spend some time with. These are:

• If I were a client today -- this series looks at agencies from a client-side point of view.
• My first night -- authenticity? How do you make a story real? Read this if you dare.
• Content will kill your agency -- some acute thinking around advertising agency business models and the need for innovation.

Dig deep.

Trawling in a Sea of Sharp Thinkers

One of the things about blogging is that it is immediate. I can think of something, write and publish it very quickly. In minutes it can be in thousands of feed readers and available on the web.

One of the downsides of this is that we can often miss some great thinking -- or forget about it in the rush to the next, new thing.

So, with this in mind, I am going to devote a post each week to the trawling some of the older posts from the bloggers that I admire. These posts may be a week or a month or even a year old. This new category is called MINING THE GOLD.

I am also interested in anything that you may want to see re-featured. Drop me an email, add a comment or DM me on Twitter with your recommendations!

Future of Media Summit 2008

Ross Dawson's Future of Media Summit was held simultaneously in Sydney, Australia and San Francisco, USA.

I live blogged the proceedings using CoverItLive (my first real usage of this service) while also attempting to feed this information into the Twitter stream -- which you can view via Summize.

There was much "traditional media" vs "new media" discussion which bogged down the flow. This was particularly evident during the panel discussions which were heavily laced with members of "traditional media", with bare and often no representation from the "new" side of the business. This forced the alternate conversation into the "back channel" -- the Twitter stream which was equally one-sided.

It wasn't until later, during the unconference sessions, where Stephen Collins and Jed White took the lead in introducing the participants to Twitter (and the under-conference that had been happening all day). Unfortunately I had to leave by this time, but was able to roughly follow proceedings via Twitter -- with new names popping up every couple of minutes. Perhaps, in this way, the future of media is PARTICIPATION.

But before we can get to participation, there is some work to do on education and on technology. There is some effort required to re-think the business models and the frameworks that we use to value communities, consumers and the space where they intersect with brands and publishers. It seems that ten years on, the vision of the Cluetrain Manifesto is coming into focus.

Congratulations go to Ross Dawson and team responsible for bringing together some of the stakeholders. I will be interested to see the way that this conversation pans out over the next 12 months.

I will have more analysis around this event in the coming days -- and keep an eye out for the coverage from Stephen Collins, Stilherrian, Chris Saad, Craig Wilson, Mark Pesce and other attendees.

Future of Media Summit Live

The Girl Effect - Learn Change Share

Learn - Change - Share.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?

This is a powerful piece of storytelling. It is raw, powerful text. It is reality writ large.

And while you can watch it below, take my advice. Immerse yourself. Click here.

More to come on this. As there should be. But I will leave it with you for now.

Via Katie Chatfield and Luc Debaisieux.

There Certainly Was (Something About Olive)

When we think of social media, we often think of younger people. We think of people who are fully-immersed in the world of Web 2.0 -- a 3G iPhone in one hand and an attitude ready to take on the world and win. But even a cursory trawl through the wonderful world of the blogosphere will show that there are many others using social media to connect with their friends and others with agile like-minds.

Last year I marvelled at the spirit of the world's oldest blogger, Olive Riley. And while her story was mediated -- discussed and typed up by someone else -- Olive soon found that there was a certain pleasure in conversing with people from all over the world. Being 108 years old, Olive was able, through her blog, to share snippets of her life -- reflections on her childhood as well as current realities -- in a way that is often overlooked in the rush for the latest new thing. It is clear that Olive was a master storyteller -- her personality, sense of humour and zest for life (even her crankiness) all coming through in each and every post.

Alas, Olive's last blog entry has been written. Over the weekend, Olive passed away peacefully. May she rest in peace.

Growing Good Creatives

Growing and nuturing talented creatives is a long term project. It takes time, talent, focus ... and it seems, plenty of fertilizer. But the rewards are significant -- the ability to distil the "creative juice" that is needed for the demanding advertising, online, direct marketing and game development industries can provide significant competitive advantage. Watch this video to see how one region in the UK has been harvesting creative talent for generations. With thanks to Kris Hoet at 'Cross the Breeze.

Measuring the Hybrid Car ROI

A car purchase is the second most expensive investment that an individual is likely to make (the first being their home). And in that respect, consumers come close in behaviour to their B2B counterparts -- after all, vehicles are expensive, have ongoing cost requirements and (whether we like it or not) reflect on our own sense of self. Accordingly, when it comes to purchase time, we shop around, do our homework, check blog posts, search engines and customer satisfaction ratings. We ask friends for recommendations, take a keener interest in the cars we pass in the street, and think through the implications of this major purchase.

Recently though, the greater awareness (and concern for) the environment, coupled with ever spiralling oil prices has seen a massive spike in the popularity of hybrid cars. (Some US states have gone so far as to mandate the production of eco-friendly cars.) But, even a cursory glance at the prices of hybrid cars shows that they are significantly more expensive, meaning that you will need a longer timeframe before your hybrid car breaks even with its petrol equivalent.

However, there are other factors at play in the calculation of ROI -- and Todd Andrlik has developed a great online tool that brings carbon emissions into the calculation. Originally developed to assist his employer, Leopardo Constructions, in calculating the ROI impacts for their fleet of company vehicles, the calculator has now been made widely available. Simply enter a few variables about the vehicles you are comparing, press calculate, and you will receive data about fuel savings, unreleased carbon emissions and ROI timeframes. Check it out here.

It is a wonder that companies like Toyota or Honda, makers of leading hybrid vehicles have not produced something similar.

Coming to Love Classical Music

Katie Chatfield shares this great presentation at TED by Benjamin Zander. It takes 20 minutes to play, and at its completion, you will come to love classical music.

Six minutes in, Benjamin positions this transformation beautifully -- in terms of leadership. As he says, "one of the characteristics of a leader ... [is] that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he is leading to realise whatever he's dreaming". But then, Benjamin spends the rest of the time taking us on a journey, inviting us into his own story and into the story of the music which is his passion. He explains how the music taps into our emotional intelligence and then demonstrates its power by asking us to go deeper into the music -- to make it personal.

He wraps up this artful talk magnificently with anecdote and personal story, explaining his own revelation -- "My job is to awaken possibility in other people". Fascinatingly, he also demonstrates how you can tell when this has been achieved ... but you will need to watch until the end to understand. Not a bad way to spend a lunch break on a Friday afternoon. Enjoy.

Dancing All the Way to the NYT

When brand marketers are considering social media, the first question they ask is what is the ROI? After all, most marketers have been trained to believe that every piece of spending has to have a short term return to their brand -- hence the idea of the campaign. (Perhaps this is why Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has taken some time to gain traction -- though that is the subject for a whole other post.)

But what happens when your return is uncertain? What if the potential returns remain beyond your measurement horizon? Or outside of the normal market boundaries in which you operate? This post, Where the Hell is the Sponsor?, about Matt Harding's dancing video has received quite a bit of traffic over the last week or so, and has generated some great conversation. And this morning, the great connector, Christina Kerley, referred me to both Mario Sundar's post on Matt's video and the New York Times article on the infectious nature of the video which has generated around 4-5 million views.

Think about the value here. There are 4 million people around the world willing to sit through almost 5 minutes of video. These people are receptive to the simple brand message offered by Stride Gum. That is 20 million minutes of brand engagement -- opt-in. That is the equivalent of one person spending 38 years watching your brand message -- in good faith. And I have a feeling that this may well go a whole lot higher now that the NYT has begun spreading the news. Now, not all videos or brand activations will "go viral", but the niche targeting and the goodwill halo achieved (if you have good strategic planners working for you) with only a moderate number of impressions can generate a significant amount of roll-on coverage, PR, blog reviews such as this -- and a whole lot of offline discussion.

Developing the ROI for social media is not an easy measurement, but it can be done:

1. Start with your "time with brand"
2. Expand this with  some sharp guestimates around mainstream broadsheet adoption for a good NYT story
3. Factor in some multipliers for influence networks and the strength of weak ties (blogs, online coverage etc)

... and before you know it you have a fairly powerful model that will make your jaw hit the floor.

And if that is not enough, the shouty, Katie Chatfield raised yet another perspective -- that it is not about the return on investment, but about managing the risk of NOT participating in the conversations that are ALL ABOUT your brand.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo

Special thanks (again) to Ian Lyons for introducing me to Where the Hell is Matt!

@WadeIs Nude?

Wade Millican has been setting the scene for a revelation over the last couple of days. Yesterday he tweeted about an impending nude photo shoot, and then shared this with his many Twitter followers. Before sating your voyeuristic tendencies, I suggest you get to know @wadeis on twitter, or maybe check out the Brain of Wade. There's more than meets the eye!

iPhone Goodness - Viking Smackdown

To celebrate Hello Viking's first anniversary, the entertaining Tim Brunelle is inviting all iPhone and iPod Touch owners to a "viking smackdown". The smackdown takes advantage of the inbuilt motion sensor -- your challenge is to acheive the highest score by August 15, 2008. If you do so, you will, in Tim's words, "win big":

We’ll fly the winner to Minneapolis, put ‘em up in a fancy hotel, then give ‘em a really large birthday cake and the chance to throw it at our CEO—all broadcast on the Internet.

So if you have one of the aforementioned Apple devices, glide over to www.vikingsmackdown.com and join in the fun. Now, I wonder if that prize covers non-US vikings?