Digital Signals

Do we want technology to be able to reach us wherever we go?

2010-02-24T14:30:00.002Z

Over the last few years we've seen a massive growth in the mobile technology area.

Now, as we become more dependent on these technologies, we often find ourselves wanting in terms of coverage.

Over 27% of the UK's mobile user population now use their devices to connect to the internet in order to receive e-mails, update social applications, access online maps and many other uses.

The adoption of technologies such as femtocells to improve mobile signals at home are one solution to more macro issues, but receiving a good 3G signal in some of the countries "not-spots" continues to be an issue.

With an ever increasing demand to use mobile technologies, and more importantly the increasing demand for mobile data, we are likely to see an ever increasing number of ground based mobile antennas improving our national mobile coverage.

But in this chase to improve data connectivity is anyone considering the flipside of the coin?

Do we all really want data/mobile access everywhere we go?

I remember my time in London as an infrastructure engineer, I was pretty much on call 24/7/365. I used to relish tube journeys where just for a few minutes I would drop out of mobile reception ensuring some time without intrusion.

As a semi counterpoint to my last post, is anyone ensuring that we protect not only the landscape from the infringement of mobile transmission towers from an aesthetic perspective; but also attempt to protect the solitude and escapism that can be attractive in the more remote parts of this already heavily populated country?

Speaking for myself here, I always carry my mobile with me whilst out on the hills, either mountaineering or fell running, in case I have an accident and need to call for help. But I don't rely on it.

In addition, when I am out in the mountains the last thing I'd want would be someone disturbing my thoughts with a mobile call or for that matter the person next to me whittering away about a subject or world that just for that moment I'm trying to forget about.

In the dash for 24 hour connectivity are we as a species going to lose anything about our character if we are always hooked up to a global network of communication?

Do we need our isolation in order to be able to reflect on the busier moments in life with better perspective?

Or, at least, should those that do want the isolation be able to choose to visit these locations without the intrusion of other visitors bringing their technology with them?

Obviously there are a number of technologies that are already out there in regular use that negate the need for mobile transmissions in order to operate.

Satellite dependant technologies already jump geographical boundaries that the likes of GPRS and GSM are unable to compete with.

But the use of satellite phones for voice communications is still a rarity mainly due to the prohibitive costs of hardware and network subscriptions.

GPS devices are common place in the mountains, although I do find them a more regular sight in the less remote locations with leisurely Sunday walkers ensuring they are fully kitted up with the latest and greatest of outdoor kit.

GPS, however, does not allow you to perform communication between other device users, instead simply allows you to discover and track your location.

Technologies can bring economic benefits to remote regions but, like the highways that came before them, they can also bring intrusion and unwelcome change.

From an overall stand point I am an active supporter of ensuring that wired broadband technology should be available to all, in all areas.

But from a wireless or air-bound perspective, I'd like to think that we as a nation would perform some protection of the sanctuary that can be found in the more remote parts of our busy island from the ever growing world of mobile technology.

What are your thoughts?

Related reading:

When is Google going to starting using OS maps? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2010/02/when-is-google-going-to-starting-using.html

Data Management - The social world is a vast multiplier of data - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2010/02/data-management-social-world-is-vast.html

The future of digital - So where do we go now? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/so-where-do-we-go-now.html

When is Google going to starting using OS maps?

2010-02-11T21:30:00.000Z

I like maps, always have.

There's something aesthetically pleasing about their appearance, well good ones, but also they're a great method of illustrating content.

I'm not talking about your average tourist brochure map here, more your outdoor pursuit suitable maps.

In this world of cartographic data you'd be hard pushed to find a more reliable and excellently executed example of good cartography than the products that Ordnance Survey (OS) produce.

Their contoured, graphically clear maps can be spell binding for me as I envisage new areas that I'm exploring, creating a 3D landscape in my mind.

Working in the digital arena I'm always interested to see new digital developments on the map front.

One of the better known innovators or certainly technologists of modern times is the Google corporation. Google have introduced some truly interesting ways of improving methods of displaying and utilising content through the map format over the last 5 years or so.

That said, Google have continually let me down with their implementation of the "Terrain" feature or similar alternatives. Okay, it shows that there are hills, but come on I need more context.

Why don't Google use OS maps for this particular requirement like many other digital map solutions do such as Streetmap?

I thought this was a simple question and after some quick investigation it seemed like it might be a simple answer.

It seems to bore down to the fact that Google are obsessed about owning all content that they publish. There have been numerous articles published on issues with Google terms of use and using Ordnance Survey data.

Following the governments key advisers reading books such as Groudswell and Here Comes Everybody (no affiliate links on here) it seems as though the UK government have woken up to the fact that sharing valuable data can extend the benefit of that data for the greater good and they've embarked on a program of "active sharing".

So here we are a few months later and the government has announced an active plan to make OS data available to the public. News stories cover the decision far and wide.

Yet has this really changed the relationship between Google and OS at all? It seems not, while the UK Government have taken the giant, but long overdue, leap of faith by opting to free up data in the public interest, Google are still mired in their obsession with wanting to own the data world.

This has only been further illustrated just this very week with Googles announcements about their social media platform Buzz and their decision to dive into the broadband market.

Google seem to be dead set on ensuring they have a piece of all action going on in this fast developing digital world, leaving their fingerprint on historical records of the rise of a data giant.

So where do we go from here. When are Google going to start adopting the same trend curve the rest of the world is surfing on and start thinking Open Source?

Yeah sure they use Android on their phones, but from what I've read the latest incarnation is actually taking ownership away from the community and taking it back to a more exclusive environment.

They are already in the OS market, PC and mobile, now the social landscape (although they've been there for a while with Blogger and other tools), search is theirs, video is doing pretty well on YouTube.

At the end of the day all I am really looking for from Google is for them to accept that they can't have sole rights to the data world and give people in rural areas or with rural activity interests, access to decent map data?

The popularity of Google software, and now hardware, can only mean that Google maps are going to become more widely used and accessible.

When are Google going make an concerted effort to address this failing properly and focus on good content rather than spending money on the likes of snow mobiles to improve their great, but supplementary to requirements, Street View.

Come on Google, surely you can illustrate the flexibilities of modern corporations to create new rules in order to improve your customer offering?

Or perhaps they can't . . .

I'm going to talk some more about how technology, and the pioneers behind technology, should be working more to penetrate remote geographical areas of the world for the greater good at some other time.

I'll leave this post on a commercial point, Google only need to look to the percentage of time the average adult spends pursuing outdoor activities to see how this could benefit their application uptake to justify some further improvement in this area.

But I would hope that for company that seems to base at least some of its core principles on actions for the greater good that it could endeavour to do better with its rural map service without the need for commercial reasoning.

Further reading:

Data Management - The social world is a vast multiplier of data - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2010/02/data-management-social-world-is-vast.html

Data visualisation - The beauty inside the data - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/data-visualisation-beauty-inside-data.html

Sharing content - Extending the value of existing data - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/sharing-content-extending-value-of.html

Data Management - The social world is a vast multiplier of data

2010-02-04T16:30:00.003Z

Photo credit - Michel Vuijlsteke's

In this world of disparate data sources it is now more important than ever before to ensure you have good data architecture/structure and validity.

While the world may currently be obsessed with the adoption and influence of social technologies, their benefits will not as readily realised without a thorough understanding and a strategic plan in place for the management of collated data.

The likes of CRM, e-mail marketing and contact management systems have been a round for some time now, allowing customer service teams to track contacts and relationship developments for their customers.

With the advent of two-way/group communication and web interfaces such as forums, comments, product review sites and now more recently social media products such as Twitter, Facebook et al, the amount of valuable data that a company could be tracking has increased significantly.

More importantly, this data is often far more valuable than the previously recorded data in the likes of CRM's.

Unlike the data recorded in more traditional customer relationship/management platforms, this current breed of data is usually written by the customer themselves. It's direct from the horse's mouth.

There's no need to guess what the customer might desire for your next release, they're actually telling you directly.

If my experience (gained from a decade or more working in enterprise environments as a infrastructure manager) is anything to go by, business units will be embarking on little engagement projects perhaps without thinking about the bigger picture.

Possibly gathering data without consideration of how that could be merged with pre-existing data to provide better insight, or how this specific data could benefit another arm of the business.

The data gathered from all of these sources can add up to provide a real profile of your customers. Amongst other things, allowing you to identify brand advocates to empower your product in this dynamic environment, but also to find customers that are less impressed and might require customer assistance to help with improving their experience of your brand.

It can help you pinpoint minor issues before they develop into major problems. It can provide insight into which products are looking like they might be big hits compared to their less favoured counter products.

A final point, that is a powerful reason for this approach, is that it should significantly reduce the chance of accidental spamming of certain customers by multiple departments using the same contact details without knowledge of their actions.

So what data should we be considering when embarking on this data consolidation?

Well the list is slowly becoming more and more expansive, but items that should be consider are predominantly within the social tools field. This could include Facebook conversations, Twitter streams, LinkedIn conversations and contacts and the often forgotten realm of the blog comment.

There are a number of companies out there that can help you with information monitoring such as this.

These data sources need to be combined with the usual pre-existing data sources such as e-mail marketing databases, CRM's and other customer relationship data sets.

When reviewing your on-line budgets for the year it might be idea to consider the value of this data consolidation project before embarking on your next all singing and dancing website.

Not that I'd want to put you off that as well . . .

Once a data consolidation platform is in place it should provide you with a single source for all of your customer relationship and information. Investing in a development company's time to assist you with this process should be money well spent.

If you need to restrict access to certain elements of the data to certain departments within your organisation, then do this within a single application, ensuring that the validity of your data is preserved.

The data out there about your brand or product has multiplied ten-fold over the last decade in this self-publishing/self-editorial generation.

We should all be making a concerted effort to ensure that we are compiling and reviewing this data to gain the greatest insight into our customers wants and needs.

Related links

Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

The cost of social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html

Sharing content - Extending the value of existing data - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/sharing-content-extending-value-of.html

Nexus One - The Android phone I've been waiting for?

2010-01-27T11:55:00.001Z

Is this it?

Is the Nexus One going to be the phone I commit my hard earned monies towards and sign myself up for a lifetime contract with one of the UK's fine mobile carriers?

Or is it an over-hyped Google play thing that has connectivity issues and no pre-conceived launch plan in the UK?

Well, who knows, as without wishing to pay in the region of £500 (which is an estimate on how much it will cost to order a Nexus One for delivery to the UK from the US) it may be sometime before I actually manage to get my hands on Nexus One.

For me it seems like it's the first mature Android phone to hit the market that looks okay, has a decent and reasonably well tested OS and the hardware is capable of complimenting what the OS can offer.

Sure the Droid is out there and most that use it, love it, but its just ugly! On top of that I've never had a Motorola phone that I find intuitive to use.

I'd been watching and listening to HTC developments via the rumour grape vine prior to the official admission of the Nexus One's existence and I had been excited by the prospect of the rumoured HTC Bravo or the HTC Legend as Android based smartphones.

But as with every other time I'd nearly committed my enthusiasm to a particular piece of hardware I've found myself waiting to hear some hard release dates for the UK.

So here we are, there's a phone on the market that I actually like, it meets my requirements from a hardware, OS perspective and visual perspective, but yet it is still not easily available in the UK.

Get your act together Vodafone/Google, get it released in the social media/mobile hungry market of the UK before someone else steals your glory!

HTC are already discussing release dates for the Bravo and Legend in the UK and Vodafone seem to have gone very quiet about their release date for the Nexus One in the UK.

I've managed to enlist the informed help of Ali Lubbock, who works for a PR firm that work for Vodafone, as an early warning system as to it's official UK release on a network. Hopefully she'll be tweeting me an update in the not too distant future.

So why don't I just forget once more about anyone getting close to the iPhone and actually just get one of those you ask again?

I read this yesterday which kind of reflects why I've been debating or refusing to get an iPhone so far. It's a relatively brief, but interesting, article in which Belinda Parmar talks about the tribal followings some technology brands have managed to achieve and how this affects their perception amongst consumers. In summary, apparently I am snubbing the ubiquitous iPhone due to inverse snobbery.

The recent arrival of the iPhone on Vodafone was welcomed and I must admit I am almost tempted by Vodafone's new offering of the iPhone. The network, after all, is an important factor. While Apple strictly control the prices of their hardware, they don't control a network providers ability to offer decent network coverage.

In fact the idea of taking a smartphone on Vodafone's network in general has become more appealing after consideration. Vodafone have been supporting data with their Blackberry relationship for years before the arrival of the iPhone. Which should lead to some better resistance against some of the issues that have quickly become apparent with O2's data support.

Either way, my dilemma is still not resolved. I am still not "smartphone enabled".

I joked on Twitter the other day that my followers are probably rejoicing this fact as it reduces my banal content, but then isn't this what social media is all about, bombarding people with data and content from every which direction?!?

I still feel odd talking about "my followers", I feel like I'm pertaining to some sort deity status, perhaps that is what social media is actually all about, a God syndrome condition.

Anyway, moving on to more transient consumer matters . . .

I still want a smartphone and believe I would utilise the device for more than just the standard voice and text based communication, and at the moment I don't want the iPhone.

How much is it to ask for the other manufacturers and network providers to get their act together and actually release, on time, a competitor to the iPhone?

I still hold some hope that Vodafone will announce the arrival of the Nexus One in the UK in the very near future . . .

Anyway I leave you with this rather daft light hearted take on tribal rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, oh and if I've never stated this before, I certainly wouldn't currently consider getting a Microsoft based smartphone.

Related reading:

A punters view of the smartphone options - Is the N900 going to challenge the iPhone? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/11/punters-view-of-smartphone-options-is.html

Hyperlocal audience engagement - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/hyperlocal-audience-engagement.html

iPhone set to rule the smartphone world? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/iphone-set-to-rule-smartphone-world.html

Digital and PR work well in collaboration

2009-12-23T16:10:00.002Z

Throughout this year, as I've talked about previously, we've been doing more and more digital work in collaboration with traditional agencies, in particular PR agencies.

The work, on the whole, has been very successful for all parties. The partnership seems to compliment the strengths of each of our skill sets well.

With a PR agency's idea and communication skills combined with our digital media expertise we've produced a variety of products from micro-sites through to more viral ideas that have generated a lot of social media interest.

Having worked for a PR agency for nearly 5 years, I'm fully aware how too often PR is overlooked or PR budgets cut to ensure extra monies are spent on the shiny gloss of the main advertising campaign.

In this age of social media, PR has a very important role to play. We are all learning how to become more engaging, yet PR agencies have made personal engagement their business for years.

Combine PR companies experience in engagement with the bespoke capabilities and instantaneous nature of the digital media format and you're cooking on gas, or you should be.

In order to fulfil this relatively new market requirement we've seen a few specialist agencies filling this gap.

This week the internet has been a-buzz with talk of We Are Social's involvement in the Eurostar problems. We Are Social are one of the specialist agencies that deal with this kind of service, offering expertise in the digital arena with years of experience in PR.

While the Eurostar case is not an example of a perfect implementation of PR in a digital environment, in fact it is anything but, I don't see We Are Social as being to blame for this. It is, however, an illustration of the potential power of the combination of PR in a digital environment.

The facility to tailor content delivery or capture real time content and then publish responses to those conversations in a real time environment enables PR agencies to engage brands with their audiences like never before.

The daunting element for many brands with this is its real time nature and equally the uncontrollable aspect of unrestricted feedback. In order utilise this channel to its full potential decisions need to be made on a real time basis with the experience required to make those correctly.

Clients need to trust their agencies to advise them correctly about the right course of action to take; this trust should have been built up via working examples of collaborative work already completed.

Another recent social media campaign that seemingly missed the point of digital engagement in a real time environment was the Toyota social media campaign in Australia. User generated content or product has, or should have, all the call signs of being driven by peoples own interpretation of a subject.

Toyota put a challenge to their internet fans and the creative community to create a new advert for its Yaris model. The process that unfolded was far from the transparent process that this kind of campaign expects and demands. It followed that the feedback and response it received was inevitably not positive in this community driven environment.

With good PR experience this kind of mistake should have been avoided; and had it not been avoided they would have at least had the experience on board to deal with the backlash that followed.

Digital media, and the social media landscape that has evolved out of it, present brands with a great opportunity to raise awareness in a positive and personally engaging fashion.

Ensuring you have the right advice and experience to complete the work well is an essential component for success.

I look forward to a new year that includes many more digital projects delivered in collaboration with the expertise that PR agencies bring.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Further reading:

Managing the difference between traditional and digital media production - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/12/managing-difference-between-traditional.html

A digital evolution for all media agencies - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/digital-evolution-for-all-media.html

Brands on Friendfeed - A different proposition to Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/brands-on-friendfeed-different.html

It's all about communication - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/11/its-all-about-communication.html

I've changed my Twitter follow policy and some thoughts on Twitter lists and the infamous retweet

2009-12-15T12:15:00.000Z

Twitter is on everyone's screen now.

The adoption of Twitter for commercial purposes is now old hat, as is using the platform to broadcasts all sorts of useless and spammy information.

Several months back I spoke of my idealistic approach to following people, who was I to judge whether what someone had to say wasn't going to be helpful or informative for me, if they've followed me I should follow them back and see what they've got to say.

Well I've altered my approach and no longer follow people back based on this hope.

Why?

Well, for one, there are many accounts that now follow me that with a quick glance I can see they are going to add no value to my feed what so ever.

Generally these accounts are those that just broadcast links relating to a specific subject matter. I can only follow so many accounts that broadcast links on a news subject area.

Some of these purely use Twitter as a RSS feed, just publishing their latest blog posts from their corporate site and no person to person engagement. Why do this when you could gain so much more from the platform? Personally I find this has a negative effect on me about a brand.

Using Twitter for auto publishing blog updates utilises none of the real benefits of Twitter. Using Twitter just to share URL's with a personalised message is no different from using Google Reader's share functionality.

I was reading one Twitter users bio and I am sure they had something along the lines of a "every tweet will contain a link" statement. I believe the user in question worked in user experience. This just doesn't equate with my user experience of Twitter.

Again, I just can't follow any more Twitter users that only broadcast quotes, I think I now know the whole of the Collins Quotes reference front to back. Equally the same goes for anyone that feels the need to mention making money via Twitter every 5 tweets or so.

I guess I'm just being a little bit grumpy with some of these actions and as I've said before, who is anyone to dictate how to use Twitter. It's a rule free platform and that's one of its greatest assets.

I’ve talked before about the hyperlocal community on Twitter and the benefits this can lead to; this is something I’m realising more and more. I’ve increased my deliberate following of individuals within the UK (an even more locally to the north of England) and within my industry sector. This has improved the generally value I’m finding I get from my feed dramatically.

At the end of the day, as hard as it may be to believe at the moment, Twitter isn’t going to be the headline grabbing platform it currently is. At some point there will be a new application that will be riding the tipping point wave.

Creating a more personable on-line representation of yourself or your brand will help you with this transition when it occurs. After all, being active on Twitter is not about Twitter itself, it's about raising brand or your own individual awareness.

In the meantime I'm liking most of Twitter's recent updates, particularly lists. Twitter Lists are a fantastic method for growing your relevant community, delving around someone else’s list for interesting new additions to your community has become a valuable process.

I’ve also been immaturely enjoying creating some rather pointless lists myself in order to communicate a bitterness that lies deep within my soul!

I now have a sin-bin for those that I communicate to, but never deem it necessary to reply to me. I know we are all busy and some have enormous Twitter accounts (try saying that in the pub without receiving some funny stares), but hey, after several messages it just feels like anti-social media. Putting people into this list provides me with hours of pointless mad cackling.

I wish Twitter would implement some way to search your followers more effectively and also some inbuilt filtering. Scrolling through page after page of followers is tedious; if I can search within them it would be far easier. Better still, why doesn’t the web interface not yet support a filter to show which of your followers are following you back?

The same love can not be given to Twitter’s implementation of the retweet. Thankfully the likes of TweetDeck provide you with the option to send the message as a Twitter retweet or to edit the original still. I’d be interested to see some stats from the likes of TweetDeck on percentages using each option.

Anyway, that's enough meanderings for this post. How's everyone else finding lists and the retweet feature?

While I'm at it, has anyone done any detailed investigation into the benefits of Google live search functionality yet?

Related reading:

What makes us social and is social media a good thing? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/what-makes-us-social-and-is-social.html

Is social media the perfect tonic to pre-recession greed? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/is-social-media-perfect-tonic-to-pre.html

Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

Managing the difference between traditional and digital media production

2009-12-03T12:15:00.001Z

I've talked about the digital evolution that is occurring at a rapid rate within the digital and more traditional media agencies before. Where digital teams are having to grasp in greater detail traditional marketing metric requirements, and the approach of delivering media on a large scale to meet the new demands being placed on it from more traditional advertising sources.

Equally, how traditional media agencies are having to evolve their thinking in order to understand how the digital media format works. Then leading on to how they can utilise the format to achieve the same results and metrics that their clients demand from press and television and other above the line formats.

The collaboration that is currently going on between more traditional agencies and digital agencies is producing some nice hybrid work, that takes the best from each of their key skills sets.

Digital agencies have a lot to learn from the more traditional channels, long may this relationship continue to grow.

There is a bridge being built between agencies through the sharing of knowledge and skills. An essential component of this bridge in understanding is a grasp of the difference between each of the respective production processes.

While delivering a banner campaign is likely to have a lot of parallels in general with running a campaign in a press channel, delivering a community engagement site is a different beast altogether.

It's the delivery of community and engaging digital media that is the big differentiator between the more traditional formats and this is very much the type of digital investment that clients should be, and are, looking more often to leverage.

The main issue with estimating production demands of digital work is having a deep enough understanding of the technical requirements needed to deliver particular types of functionality.

Where traditionally a change to copy on a press campaign might involve some additional spend with your creative agency to implement the changes, this type of change with experience is easy to estimate.

However, how about changing a community site to allow visitors to login and tailor content to their own needs? It's not a simple matter of just placing a login link in the top right corner.

In order to complete this work there needs to be a lot database driven work implemented, not only to create the whole user account registration and management, but also to then associate the user account fucntionality with content on page.

Acquiring the insight into estimating work like this is a lot more complex than it might first seem and it's not something that most can produce off the back of their hand. I still rely on the technical development team, whom I trust, to assist me with estimating this type of work

It is this relative complexity involved in the digital production process that will catch many out as they tentatively dip their toe for the first time into digital media.

During this transitional or learning process having an agency or individuals that you can turn to assist with this understanding is an essential component that any brand should be ensuring they have at this time.

As the media industry as a whole becomes more digitally aware technical understanding will become more common place; more will have a greater idea of the work required to complete a specific task.

In the meantime traditional agencies will have to take the lead from more technically capable agencies when quoting and calculating work.

Attempting to scope functional and technical requirements to deliver digital elements without the requisite knowledge, in order to please a demanding client, can result in some potentially very expensive mistakes that will only harm your relationship with your client.

Delivering digital work is very different from traditional formats. What appears to be a relatively simple process, to the untrained eye, often takes more resources than expected to deliver. Equally sometimes there may be a method to deliver something seemingly complex more easily with the right knowledge.

Having a good production management process/team in place with digital media is essential to providing you with the reassurance that you will receive the value for money that you are calculating for your campaign.

This isn't intended to be interpreted as a "holier than thou" praise of digital agencies, far from it.

More of an encouragement to trust in those that hold the expertise to be able to advise you correctly, leaving you with an informed process to deliver what you desire.

Related reading:

Digital Production Management - Risk vs Value - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/10/digital-production-management-risk-vs.html

The future of digital - So where do we go now? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/so-where-do-we-go-now.html

Digital Ethics - Does increased competition diminish the requirement for them? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/07/digital-ethics-does-increased.html

Digital brand guidelines - More than an after thought - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/digital-brand-guidelines-more-than.html

A punters view of the smartphone options - Is the N900 going to challenge the iPhone?

2009-11-18T19:35:00.001Z

I've been waiting to invest in a smartphone for too long now.

Considering the use I'd get out of the technology with its mobile access to my online requirements such as my blog, social media profiles, work etc . . . it's been bemusing watching the popularity grow for the devices in the general consumer market without owning one myself.

Everyone from your 65 year old grandma through to your 12 year old school kid can be seen sliding their fingers across their touch sensitive screens updating their Facebook profiles or just simply still texting or calling family and friends.

What's held me back from investing?

Well I had hoped that there would be a competitor to enter the market that was going to truly challenge the iPhone. While it would make sense for me to buy an iPhone, what with me using an Apple at home to manage contacts, music, calendar etc, there's an inverse snob in me that favours the Open Source and slight underdog position of Android and I had hoped to see a piece of hardware appear that could support my desires.

I'm still waiting . . .

The recent arrival of the Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 seemed like it may be the perfect answer. Hardware from Nokia, who have long been my favoured mobile hardware provider of choice. Running an Open Source OS with Maemo to keep my community driven roots happy.

But, like the iPhone for many months it sounds like the N900 is going to be network tied initially. Also, I'm still not sold on the need for a sliding keyboard. The iPhone on-screen keyboard seems to work so well; why can't others replicate this functionality?

Additionally, Nokia have once again gone with a resistive screen interface for the N900 rather than the seemingly more popular and successful capacitive screen that the iPhone uses. But from responses on Twitter the screen is far better than the N900 predecessor the N97:

"@DigitalSignals On the N97 you *really* notice the resistive screen. The N900? Not so much... i.e. Hardly at all. It's awesome."

The other question is why have Nokia opted for the Maemo OS over the more popular Android? Is it sheer stubbornness on their behalf or was there a technical or business reason for this decision?

Surely opting for Android would have opened the way to a more mature application source for users, which in my opinion would have made the phone more attractive.

All this considered I'm still not quite sold on the Nokia N900. I'm just not able to be flexible with my technology choice for a smartphone as some others may be, and therefore I'd like the phone I choose to be the best on offer for the 18 months I'm likely to have the phone for.

There's talk of a Android HTC Dragon coming on to the market, but I feel I am continually waiting to see what the next Android phone brings in case it can compete, in my eyes, with the iPhone, none so far have managed to do this.

So could this be decision time? Could I be about to commit myself to an Apple iPhone with Orange?

Well, while I'm on the subject, after signing up to Orange's "Register your interest in the iPhone" I still haven't received an e-mail from them telling me it has launched.

Has this inspired confidence in Orange for me? Hmm well . . .

Who really is going to challenge iPhone for the consumer smartphone market?

What smartphone are you using?

Further reading:

Mobile Mentalism - Hands on Nokia N900 review
http://mobilementalism.com/2009/09/14/hands-on-nokia-n900-review-the-best-nokia-smartphone-yet/

TechRadar - Nokia N900 hands on review http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/hands-on-nokia-n900-review-631040

Related reading:

iPhone set to rule the smartphone world - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/iphone-set-to-rule-smartphone-world.html

Apple i-Phone in Walmart - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/12/apple-i-phone-in-walmart.html

Hunt for a smartphone hots up - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/12/hunt-for-smart-phone-hots-up.html

It's all about communication

2009-11-12T13:00:00.000Z

This last week has been a digitally reduced week, I've had relatively hardly any interaction with the world from a digital perspective.

There's a rather wonderful reason for this and that's been the arrival of the little chap pictured above into our lives at home.

This digital rest has allowed me to focus on my family and those around me that I hold very close, they've had my almost undivided attention.

During this period I've had to alter my approach to communication almost entirely, it has mostly involved caring and close attention (as to be expected), lots of hugs and cuddles for our two year old daughter to ensure there's no feeling of exclusion, lots of help and assistance for my wife and then gentleness for our new son.

But at the end of the day, it is all still communication, just a different type.

Good communication keeps the mechanics of a family running as well as it keeps a project on schedule or a brand campaign high in the awareness spotlight.

Come next week, when I return to work from my paternity leave, I'll have to alter my approach to, and method of, communication (although I am sure some of our developers would appreciate a hug every so often), but the principles will remain the same.

Ensuring everyone feels like they know what's going, everyone feels like the have their roles to play and they're included in plans, and that what was expected to happen is still happening are essential components of all progress.

This isn't the first time I've spoken about the importance of communication in the work place, but again and again I experience issues that could have been avoided had their been a clear and honest approach to communication.

When managing projects or production schedules the communication needs to be combined with good definition to ensure that matters discussed can be clearly agreed by all and approved before the work begins.

Some will avoid communicating, feeling uncomfortable with either the process itself or because of a fear of communicating the wrong message or making themselves sound inexperienced or out of the loop.

Avoiding communication will not resolve any issues, it will only hinder progress.

Address issues early; 99.99% of the time I find getting a debate going about a developing concern in its early stages avoids lengthy and costly task alterations at later stages.

If you find yourself comfortable with the task of communication you'll often have to take on the role of a mediator in order to encourage others to share their thoughts with you and other individuals that are involved.

So whether you are at home or at work, or even at play, if you feel there is an issue developing speak up.

Choose your words carefully and consider what you are going to say before approaching what might be tricky or diplomatic situations, but do approach them.

Speak out before a concern develops into an issue and then creates a real problem.

Further reading:

The art of conversation - A brief synopsis - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/art-of-conversation-brief-synopsis.html

Client & staff engagement - The importance of soft skills - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/02/client-staff-engagement-importance-of.html

The real value of Social Media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/real-value-of-social-media.html

What makes us social and is social media a good thing? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/what-makes-us-social-and-is-social.html

Twitter Lists - Network redundancy for the Twitter conversation cloud

2009-11-05T15:23:00.000Z

I wasn't going to write a post on Twitter Lists; I thought everyone will be writing posts on Twitter Lists across the blogging world.

But then why make life hard for myself, it's certainly one of the hottest happenings of the last few weeks and something I'm actively involved with.

Lists appeared for me last Wednesday, one day they weren't there, the next I had a new link on my Twitter homepage and an intrusive promo at the top of my page.

So I set about exploring . . .

While I understood the concept of how lists were going to work before they were launched, until I actually saw them in action I hadn't really grasped how they could potentially change the face of Twitter very rapidly.

Users following others lists will not only strengthen their nodal network connections rapidly, effectively offering a vast increase in potential network value redundancy, but they will also improve network reach enormously.

Take Mike who knows Dave and Emily through his connections at his agency. Emily used to work at another agency and knows many more connections from her time there, some of which Mike has never heard of.

One of those connections places Emily on a list of agency contacts and Mike investigates, he decides to follow the list. Multiply this effected by x amounts and you suddenly have a very connected network of like minded people.

This should ensure a greater sharing of information between similar users, which in turn should increase the overall value of Twitter as a social media tool.

Prior to lists, finding people from your industry or mindset, who you had never heard of before, was often labourious process that might not have been achieved without the use of third party tools.

A knock on effect of this increased network strength and growth will be the potential for users to increase their following numbers dramatically overnight.

However, I think most will approach this cautiously, not wishing to outbalance their following numbers against their follower numbers, or am I the only one that considers this factor any longer?

Either way it should improve Twitter market penetration, with 58 million visitors to Twitter in September 2009 globally, their market growth is certainly on a sharp curve upwards at the moment. I'll be interested to see what effect the adoption of lists by users will have on this growth.

There will inevitably be some humorous blog posts appearing in the near future detailing the names that people have used, sometimes unwittingly, to classify their followers into lists.

It will also create a new competitive element for people to aspire to improve, along with the current concerns of improving follower numbers that most have.

One item of great interest to me will be the third party manipulation of the list data that will become available. Often the spin-off products from Twitter offer some very interesting data applications, giving greater insight into the platforms information.

I also expect the likes of TweetDeck and Seesmic to have full list integration in the near future. I'd hope to see some option to migrate existing TweetDeck Groups into lists, something that TweetDeck founder Iain Dodsworth seem to confirm when I queried him on this early last week.

Whatever happens next, I think the launch of Lists for Twitter will have a positive effect on the application.

I'd be interested to hear of any lists people have discovered that you think are worth sharing.

Shared lists, now that sounds like a good idea . . .

Related links:

Twitter - The global voice of the people - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/10/twitter-global-voice-of-people.html

What is the cost of social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html

What now for Twitter? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/what-now-for-twitter.html

Twitter - When was the tipping point and what does it mean? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/twitter-when-was-tipping-point-and-what.html

Digital Production Management - Risk vs Value

2009-10-29T12:00:00.000Z

I'm currently reading Mike Cohn's book - "Agile Estimating and Planning", a very worthwhile read I'd recommend to anyone in digital production.

There are numerous gems I've learnt during the read, the one I'm going share today is actually an old concept to me, but a very valuable one. The process of risk vs value definition.

Using a simple diagram, which I've included below Mike describes the process of risk vs value assessment on a project.

Source: Mike Cohn "Agile Estimating and Planning"

Knowing this kind of information allows you to prioritise attention to your projects deliverables, with the high-risk/high-value items ideally being dealt with first. Perhaps low-value/high-risk items being dropped from your production schedule all together.

The arrow in the diagram illustrates the order of delivery priority, moving through three of the sections, but avoiding the high-risk/low-value section altogether.

The analysis of risk like this is usually most relevant on larger projects, although risk analysis in some form should always be considered when planning any project.

Risk can be broken down into many elements, but for the sake of the book Mike Cohn breaks risk down into the following types:

Schedule risk - "We might not get this done by . . ."
Cost risk - "We might not be able to buy/hire that resource for . . ."
Functionality risk - "We might not be able to get that to work . . ."

I could write a whole post on risk, but I'm not going to go there today so back to the risk vs reward profiling.

I'm currently working with a very tight scheduled project of a relatively small scale, but prioritising tasks like this with this particular project was essential due to the immoveable delivery date. This can occur in web development often, usually when projects are just one element of a larger marketing campaign.

Larger projects can come with endless production wish lists that would deliver functionality beyond what was originally required. Sifting through these wish lists and matching them against the original project objectives and then classifying the risks against their delivery can be an invaluable operation.

The wish lists are not always just the creation of the client either; you'll often find development and design teams trying to add elements to a project they think might be desirable that could skew your delivery times.

Following this simple operation can ensure you deliver to your client what they originally wanted on time and to budget without being too distracted by "would be nice to have" additional elements that can be very time consuming.

Mike talks about this process in his chapter about prioritising themes. The other themes he covers when calculating project priorities are "New Knowledge" and "Cost", which combined with "Value" and "Risk" you should be able factor all elements of any project more accurately.

It's rare in any project we get the chance to include all the features and functionality that we might wish to, so considering these factors is essential.

It's simple process that a trained production/project manager can generally do by themselves at the early stages of a project kick off. But if your unsure of any element, go back to your team for further details.

Early stage planning like this can save a lot of worry later in projects; we should all take the time to consider risk vs value.

Related links:

Managing expectations - Keep everyone happy - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/managing-expectations-keep-everyone.html

Have you got time? - Project managing time - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/have-you-got-time-project-managing-time.html

Methodologies - Don't let yourself get boxed in by them - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/methodologies-dont-let-yourself-get.html

Stay calm and be patient - The inner calm of project & account management - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/10/stay-calm-and-be-patient-inner-calm-of.html

Twitter - The global voice of the people

2009-10-22T10:00:00.003+01:00

I'd started writing this post back during the Iranian elections when I was delighted to see the voice that Twitter was giving the oppressed voters of Iran.

Since then Twitter has gone on to prove as equally as powerful a tool and voice of free speech for numerous other causes.

Recently we've seen the Trafigura case and almost on the same day the Jan Moir story receive the Twitter megaphone treatment.

A publishing tool with the ingredients that Twitter offers has never been available before and it seems those components are ideally suited to the domain of public opinion and free speech.

I spoke recently of Twitter and other social media platforms power to enable human intrigue and self involvement. The adoption of social platforms in these other mentioned cases are tapping into similar elements of the human psyche, those that cause us to express outrage and opinion.

Twitter and it's brief format involves less cognitive involvement and effort to enable the expression of opinion than the writing of blog articles or an Amnesty International style fax campaign.

The viral nature of the RT and then promotion or highlighting of a news event in the trending topics creates a buzz about the network that encourages all users to investigate further and perhaps get involved in the process themselves.

Its multi-interface availability and relatively simple API and publish process allow it to produce content from locations that might otherwise be problematic, bypassing issues of political censorship or mobility.

The most commonly used applications and the Twitter web interface are simple to use, allowing most with even the most basic grasp of technology to get involved in a trending topic or developing news item quickly.

There is however a downside or at least another side to this simple and readily available functionality.

With the same ease that some people access a story in order to add a positive element to a campaign, others can access it to add not so positive input to a campaign.

Towards the end of the Jan Moir story, or the orchestrated campaign as she so named it, there was an uglier side to some peoples involvement. One driven by emotive passion, I suspect in most cases, with physical threats to Jan Moir apparently appearing. I didn't witness these, but I'm not surprised or alarmed that they did occur.

With this easy access will inevitably come other opinions that might not please all, but hey this is the nature of free speech. As with the printed press in this country, of which Jan Moir is a contributor, there are plenty of articles published that we won't all agree with.

The latest case of unfounded repute is currently doing the rounds, with Twitter seemingly reporting the demise of rapper Kayne West.

It is it's own beast. This is the beauty of Twitter that will continue to keep it in the public spotlight, much to the delight of many and the annoyance of a few.

Related reading:

Twitter - Use it as you see fit, but don't expect us all to like it! - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/twitter-use-it-as-you-see-fit-but-dont.html

Twitter link bait - Is it worth it? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/twitter-link-bait-is-it-worth-it.html

Twitter - Just enough geek and plenty of cheek . . . - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/twitter-just-enough-geek-and-plenty-of.html

There is no substitute for hard work

2009-10-15T22:30:00.000+01:00

There's no getting away from it in my book, if you want to really excel at something, you'll struggle to do so without some hard work along the way.

We live in a generation where we've all heard stories of the vast wealth that some of the tech pioneers have managed to accumulate in a relatively short space of time by simply coming up with an idea.

Believe me there will have been nothing simple about this process.

Your Biz Stone's, Kevin Rose's and Mark Zuckerberg's of the world will have all put in many more days of hard work than many will care to imagine.

There is no golden egg to be found at the end of "Earn $10,000 a day" tweets and e-mails; generally they are all scams.

You'll need to make sure your hard work is focussed correctly and you're not just thrashing around in the dark.

Set yourself goals, hard goals, but achievable ones. Unachievable goals will help no one, all they will do is demotivate you in your actions.

Once you've these are set, get on with the work.

I speak for myself here, as always, but objectives that have been achieved through hard work are always far more rewarding than those achieved easily.

Just like a pint in the pub at the end of a big day out in the mountains, superb.

So work around your objective to ensure you have the background knowledge to support your idea or project development; greater insight will help you be successful.

Run that extra mile when you're out on your run, pushing your limits just that little bit further. The extra effort will pay off the next time you race or complete a running challenge.

Spend that extra hour completing additional tests before you release a product to your client for approval. The extra effort should ensure greater quality.

Then when you're done with all this extra effort, make sure you spend some extra time with your partner/family/friends making up for your absence!

This is a "note-to-self" as much as anyone else.

Now get on with it . . .

Related links:

Stay calm and be patient - The inner calm of project & account management - digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/10/stay-calm-and-be-patient-inner-calm-of.html

Creative thinking needs time and reflection - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/creative-thinking-needs-reflection-and.html

Have you got time? - Project managing time - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/have-you-got-time-project-managing-time.html

Passion, what value does it bring? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/passion-what-value-does-it-bring.html

Let human impulse do the foot work for you

2009-10-08T11:00:00.002+01:00

Impulse, intrigue, curiosity and a requirement to feel involved and involve others in what is effectively gossip is a powerful force in our human nature.

I've recently been involved in a on-line campaign for a brand that harnessed the power of this need and combined it with social media to great effect. It got a serious message out to many people, which in turn did a great job of raising the awareness of the brand in question and their expertise in this area.

Social media is the perfect transport for this kind of interest and traffic generating work. It uses the conversational element of the technology to feed peoples intrigue and interest and encouraging them to involve others and share their personal facts or perspective on an issue.

The commitment required to manage a social media campaign can be one of the biggest turn-off's for marketeers considering using tools such as Twitter to promote a message or a brand.

It doesn't however necessarily require a vast commitment of resources and carefully worded on-brand responses to utilise the power of social media to your brands benefit.

All it can require is the careful generation of a perspective or perhaps statistical data that an individual can associate with themselves and then the functionality to share this with their community.

Intrigue and other human impulses that occur to us naturally will do the rest of the foot work.

Developing the idea that creates the perspective or data that others might want to share is the hard bit. Keeping it on brand and in tune with a brands key messages, also making the idea creative and interesting enough to entice people to get involved are a tricky combination.

Once achieved though there shouldn't be any need to start managing Twitter accounts or allocating resources to manage Twitter accounts, simply provide visitors the facility to tweet the result and let them promote the message for you.

Social media is still being treated very warily by some, sometimes you just need to take a step back and see what other approaches there may be, other than the obvious one that's staring you in the face.

Related articles:

What makes us social and is social media a good thing? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/what-makes-us-social-and-is-social.html

A digital evolution for all agencies - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/digital-evolution-for-all-media.html

Why bother with social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

Brands on Friendfeed - A different proposition to Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/brands-on-friendfeed-different.html

Comments on blogs - An online visitors book?

2009-10-05T16:15:00.002+01:00

I was up visiting my parents in the Lake District this weekend with my family. Lovely time had, I always enjoy returning there.

While up there my parents had to spend part of their time on Saturday cleaning their holiday cottage in Eskdale; I took the time to squeeze in a good fell run in the valley (how selfish of me I hear you cry!).

On my return, just before the new guests arrived, I spent some time reading the guest book they have in the cottage, what a rewarding experience.

My parents are very conscientious about the state of their holiday cottages and take great pride in the hard work and effort they put in to maintain a good level of service and return in value for the money people pay to stay.

This hard work and effort is reflected in some of the visitor comments they receive in their visitor books.

Reading the comments in the visitors book and talking to my parents afterwards reveals that the comments often fire the motivation they need to service the cottage week in, week out. They take great pleasure in hearing of great family holidays had and the peace and comfort found by visitors.

The Analogy.

You may be wondering what the hell I'm blathering on about here. Well a very simple analogy can be drawn between the purpose and resulting pleasure drawn from visitor book entries and comments on a blog.

Writing a blog can be a thankless task at times, but I have my own reasons for doing so, as my parents do with their holiday cottage.

However, once in a while you'll receive a comment on your blog that makes it all worthwhile and it can provide you with the motivation you need to push on and the drive to improve your standards further.

If I feel this motivation when receiving comments on my blog, I'd assume the feeling to be universal.

Take the time to comment on other peoples blogs, not only will it reward you with stronger community relationships, but it might just be the motivation that a blogger needs to continue with their work.

I've found myself using other forms of commenting on blogs recently, such as tweeting articles I've found.

While this may result in more traffic to the article, it still doesn't have the same value as a genuine comment on the article itself in my eyes. Comments generally carry the conversation further

As I close this post, no this isn't a cry for comments, just an observation, however . . .

Further reading:

10 personal branding habits of the professionals - Octane http://www.octane.uk.net/blog/2009/10/10-personal-branding-habits-of-the-professionals/

The benefits of comments - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/benefits-of-comments.html

9 great blogs I enjoy reading & find inspirational . . . - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/9-great-blogs-i-enjoy-reading-find.html

Blog knowledge - The importance of titles - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/blog-knowledge-importance-of-titles.html

Stay calm and be patient - The inner calm of project & account management

2009-10-02T10:45:00.001+01:00

We all need patience in our jobs, but to some it comes naturally and to others it will never come at all. That's just the way it is.

As a project or account manager it comes with the territory that you'll have to learn how to have patience.

You'll be expected to stay calm and to have patience when a client rolls through a whole new round of changes to a website, when you've just finished that last round of changes.

Equally you'll have to be patient when the your production schedule doesn't allow a minor change to be completed until others larger items are finished.

Minor mistakes will be made on all projects by everyone from the project manager, client or production team; some won't be so minor. You'll need to be patient with the person responsible and work to find the best solution, calmly.

Being patient shouldn't be confused with agreeing to changes outside of the original scope of a project. Being patient should just avoid you getting too stressed as you see the final hurdle of a project moving, once more, further away.

Being patient is key to your ability to manage stress when involved in complex projects or projects where elements are seemingly outside of your direct control.

Managing your stress levels is key to delivering projects successfully. There are a number of emotions that I often feel are a waste of energy. Anger, which often stems from stress, is one of them.

If you can feel yourself getting stressed about a particular aspect of a project, try and take a step back, reflect and re-evaluate the issue and try and define a solution.

Allowing yourself to become wound up by an issue will never create an effective production process or allow you to act effectively.

Instead, in the case of a client project change, allow the change to be conveyed, being patient as reasons for the change are explained. Then take some time to step back and review what was proposed rather than responding immediately, tell them you'll call them back in a moment after you've had time to think the change through.

A calm state of mind will allow you to push back on a project scope change far more effectively than trying to do it in the heat of the moment, no matter how alarmed you may feel during the initial conversation.

Taking a break and calling back later also illustrates that you've taken the time to consider the change properly and then considered your response; rather than just the possibly knee jerk response of "no more changes!".

This isn't, I must emphasis, an agreement to accept all changes as that would be foolhardy to say the least and goes against all project and account management principles.

More, just a encouragement to take your time when making decisions about project deviations, production issues, mistakes that are inevitably made by all and other things that can crop up on every project.

Reacting immediately can sometimes cause further stress and issues. Instead, pause, reflect and then respond.

Things that have helped me stay calm:

1. Music - I've always found comfort in music. The right music can encourage my idea generation and problem solving skills and keep me level headed.

2. Fell running/Mountaineering - These past-times have always given me lots of time to reflect in a quiet and inspiring environment.

3. Family - My family and friends I've always found a great point of reference/focus in times of stress, whether that be at work or even when climbing.

4. Honesty - This might seem a strange one to add, but I've found when I'm under pressure being honest can save a lot of time that might otherwise be spent beating around the bush.

5. Humour - Keeping conversation light hearted in the heat of the moment can help others relax. This, however, is a fine line and can annoy some. You need to ensure the humour is combined with a feeling of control at the same time, reassuring others that you aren't belittling the commitment that might be required to resolve an issue.

and breath . . .

Related articles:

Managing expectations - Keep everyone happy - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/managing-expectations-keep-everyone.html

Creative thinking needs reflection and time - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/creative-thinking-needs-reflection-and.html

Have you got time? - Project managing time - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/have-you-got-time-project-managing-time.html

Communicate and define - Basic rules of any project - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/communicate-and-define-basic-rules-of.html

What makes us social and is social media a good thing?

2009-09-23T21:00:00.001+01:00

Why do we do this?

Why do we feel the need to share, communicate, converse, promote ourselves with our fellow human beings to varying degrees?

How has the evolution in our methods of doing these said things affected our personalities and positions within the natural pecking order in comparison to forms of communication that have come before this on-line world?

What motivates us all to participate in these new forms of communication and how do we as an (digital) industry attempt to encourage further participation either by utilising existing platforms or by the creation of new interfaces.

Finally, from a moral stand point rather than from a commercial perspective, does encouraging further participation on these social interfaces actually serve a purpose that is beneficial to us all as a race?

We're all different, that much is apparent and is one the key results of our sentient abilities as a species.

For most our habits, that define us as the individuals I spoke of earlier, seem to take shape slowly as we find our feet in this new on-line community. We find more confidence to act "naturally" the longer we spend in the company of a particular interface and its associated community.

But also it takes a while to convey the full picture of our individual nature truly, rather than the snapshot that we can sometimes be judged on through a passing comment or an off the cuff remark.

This is no different to what we'd usually see in a physical meeting between strangers. There may be some that push right on in to a room, declaring who they are and why they are there, others who introduce themselves slowly and gradually disclose more over time. The sincerity of each of these approaches can only really be fathomed with time.

I was reading an interesting post on Adina Levin’s blog about the use of leader boards on web applications and how this affects our motivations and actions when using a particular application.

The post reviews a discussion on whether the presence of a scoring system affects peoples actions, perhaps making them deviate from what would be their normal reaction to a social process. Citing Twitter and the pursuit of new followers as an example of a scoring system of sorts; do you find yourself making decisions on Twitter in order to increase your following that might be contrary to your usual actions?

Twitter is a great people watching portal, following conversations and how people portray themselves, the roles they take within their communities, their follow habits and etiquette.

Self analysis, I'd hope, is inevitable. Taking the time to go back and read your Twitter stream on regular basis to see if what you're tweeting about is a good portrayal of what you are hoping to convey about you and your place in this complicated equation of thoughts, needs, messages and social position.

This assumption in itself though is an insight to my own requirement for self analysis and assessment, why should anyone else feel the need to do this?

Do we meet less face to face than we used to? In my mind I'm running through working and social circumstances as they were perhaps 50 years ago and comparing them to today. Perhaps more of us would have worked in large scale production environments, working in large teams rather than the smaller service industries that employ many now. When we wanted something done we'd have talk face to face rather than send e-mails, did this give us the opportunity to be more honest about our approach or vice versa?

Or does the temporary façade of anonymity of on-line services provide us with the self confidence to speak our minds more freely?

Here I am typing this post here in the comfort of my own home, listening to music I enjoy with a cup of tea at hand. I'm not sitting in front of you all, who are mostly strangers, discussing this rather philosophical subject.

Does what I'm writing now convey a more valid image of myself than perhaps I'd manage face to face?

Personally I believe the on-line social communities, like face to face, or written word communities of other media formats, or spoken word on the likes of radio that have come before the internet, all reveal the individual characteristics of each of us.

For some the internet will be a social revolution that takes their personal make-up and propels them to heights that wouldn't otherwise have been achieved with other interfaces. Others will harbour fears of social regression against the internet with its lack of physical contact.

We will we as a race suffer from the change in format for social exchange?

I don't believe we will, we'll likely just adapt and evolve.

Will this effect our personal lives and relationships we have with friends and family?

I am sure it will have an affect, but I doubt it will be a significantly detrimental effect and may well for many have a thoroughly positive affect. If detrimental, no more so than the arrival of stage coaches, post delivery, telegraphs and telephones that have preceded the internet.

I'd been interested to investigate the social exclusion aspect of the internet and whether the financial requirements needed to grant access to the internet has a had a detrimental effect on society. But I suspect that we could, as before, point back to similar developments within our evolution as a race that have had the same exclusivity of access.

Finally, how do we in the digital industry develop and design platforms and applications that facilitate social interaction naturally? This is such a vast subject that I'm not going to insult it by trying to cover it in the closing paragraphs of this post, I'll save some thought on it for another day.

However, it seems Twitter has managed to achieve this goal. By providing a simple set of rules and syntax that has encouraged first early adopters to partake and now the upsurge of use by the general public has allowed them to progress and perhaps now refocus the applications original function.

Twitter has managed to push itself through the early stages of uptake and entered a self propelling curve of adoption through its establishment as a trending technology within our new social landscape.

But this wasn't by chance. Without the right balance of parameters such as security, incentive of target driven goals (leader boards), spam reduction and a good bit of user interface development and an open API, I doubt Twitter would have seen the success it is now witnessing.

Social media, I believe, will continue where other mediums have gone before, growing in popularity before some other new communication order takes hold.

But it has seen the merging of two facilities of previous mediums of communication before it, the ability to address the mass semi-targeted audiences of newspapers and television, and the more personal and two-way communication of the telephone.

For some it will be an opportunity to self promote, for others to follow leaders in their wake, others to shout without listening, to others to engage and listen, and for some to ignore and to continue without interest or involvement.

Further reading:

Twitter - Use it as you see fit, but don't expect us all to like it! - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/twitter-use-it-as-you-see-fit-but-dont.html

Why bother with social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

The power of the connected age - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/power-of-connected-age.html

Social divide, can digital bridge this? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/social-divide-can-digital-bridge-this.html

Luxury brands - Are they taking digital and social media seriously?

2009-09-17T12:40:00.001+01:00

To me, luxury brands seem perfectly suited to embrace social and digital media, using the platforms to extend their customer service engagement to a new level and improve their brand awareness by engaging with their audience.

Yet from previous searching for luxury brands using social media, I can see that this is still a market in its infancy.

I read a few months back of the Middlesbrough Player, Andrew Taylor, who has recently started a web based luxury suppliers directory in an attempt to reduce fraud among the football player community.

The Platinum Players site is now, I believe, live. I dropped them a note to see if they would give me a sneak peak into what they offer and how they've gone about doing it, but never received a response back from them. It must be very exclusive.

So instead I went hunting again, using Google and their very basic search syntax to see what I could dig up.

Dom Perignon

First up was the Dom Perignon site, not my personal choice of bubbled refreshment at the weekend, but still a very nice drink for those that like to partake in a little champers. A luxury for most, particularly under current economic circumstances.

First item that greets me on the Dom Perignon is an age verification request which, if honest, doesn't offend me or detract from my experience in the slightest. This is, after all, a product that can't be sold to individuals under the age of 18 in the UK so why not keep the content for over 18's?

The site behind the check is nice and has a luxurious feel about it, Eva Herzigova acting provocatively in luxurious surrounds. Low text content, high video content, lots of brand messages, I like it in the context of a luxury product.

I'm no big fan of Flash websites but this seems to suit the format, although the navigation fades too quickly, if you're using the right hand navigation items and then trying to access the sub-pages you have to use your wits.

But where's the social media I hear you cry!

Well, there isn't any. A quick search on Twitter for Dom Perignon returns no accounts except BroDomPerignon an odd comedic account following a few threads on Champagne in general; Dom Perignon itself belongs to a Japanese owner.

What I did find from visiting Brother Dom's account was a Twitter account for Veuve Clicquot.

Veuve Clicquot

What an entertaining account, seemingly enveloping the feeling of being involved in something exclusive and luxurious without the requirements for the feed to be subscription only.

Attending fashion parties and name dropping like there's no tomorrow the Veuve Clicquot account seems to be approaching Twitter in a way that wins my seal of approval.

With over 3000 followers, and a pretty much equal number of people they follow, they seem to have address my usual gripe of not allowing the account generate a community feel.

The Veuve Clicquot Twitter stream left me wanting to be a guest at all the parties they were visiting, surely this is what any social media engagement could aspire to.

Although I'd be crazy if I didn't realise it must be a whole lot easier to encourage this feeling of engagement when talking about champagne parties with the global fashionista than it might be for a commercial banking giant promoting its products and services.

That said, we must consider that it's about addressing the right audience, with the right tools, in the right manner. What that says about me I shudder to think . . .

Brava Veuve Clicquot!

American Express Centurion

American Express Centurion is the card to own if you're amongst the last of the big spenders.

Sadly I am not, so I was unable to go any further than the initial login screen. Although I was able to gain some information even from this visit that, I have got to say, disappointed me.

First up, the URL is hardly memorable, I would have thought American Express could have spent the time to make it a little more customised for their exclusive customers?

Equally, I'm not sure what the styling is like once you've logged in, but if you ask for help at the first screen you can forget about any continuity from the landing page with regards to design.

They don't seem to be using social media yet for their luxury arm of the business, although American Express have delved into social media for the parent company with a bespoke offering on their Open Forum. Open Forum utilises the likes of social media illuminati Guy Kawasaki to help with brand promotion and they seem to have the American Express Twitter URL reserved for some purpose yet to be revealed.

But they still don't seem to be addressing their luxury offering in social or digital media very well or, in fact, at all. They are obviously looking at ways to work the digital channel for them to pursue the Open Forum, perhaps they will turn their attention to the Centurion Card once they are more comfortable.

Burberry

While Burberry has achieved a rise in popularity due to its association with less than luxurious adoptions, I still see it as a luxury brand and I think the majority of their product prices and the quality of their products support this opinion.

Initial investigations found a nice site, not dissimilar to Dom Perignon's approach with a high level of visual content and also a Burberry Twitter account.

Looking at the content on the Twitter feed certainly doesn't lead me to think that this is anything other than an official brand feed. Although they could do with altering their style choice on Twitter, as you are unable to read details such as the website URL with the black font on the black background.

The feed seems relatively new, with only 15 tweets and a feed that was established only in July this year. To date I don't see much more than promotional posts about new products being released.

They have however in those few tweets tied in a few calls to other Twitter accounts and utilised hashtags which is promising to see.

I also followed one of the Twitter links which took me to a YouTube video of a recent Burberry fashion show. Clicking on the account link I found a Burberry YouTube account with 7 uploads and a completed profile that had been created in 2005 no less.

There seems to have been a recent burst of activity on the site, with new content and new followers. Is this the signs of a Burberry social media campaign in it's infancy?

There was however a comment on the site asking whether it was an official site, that had gone unanswered, but only for 2 days at the time of writing this. One issue with social media is that once you're out there, you need to manage all of these presences pro-actively, a factor that can put many off the adoption.

My investigation took me deeper into Burberry's on-line presence where I found Burberry's hub of social media operations, a Burberry Facebook account. With over 660,000 fans, this is a Facebook following to be proud of.

Listed on the site were the brand's Twitter and YouTube ID's, their videos were also uploaded from the YouTube account and they'd even got a Facebook campaign page developed in XFBML by the looks of it.

There still doesn't seem to be much of a conversation going on via the Facebook page, but it is allowing Burberry fans a good opportunity to view new products on the cat walk and for fans to provide feedback in the comments.

It almost seems that Burberry could justify having a Friendfeed account to allow all fans to access this aggregated content.

Equally it's disappointing not to see any reference to their social media activity on their web site or in fact vice versa, not many links from the Twitter feed back to the main website generating further traffic and interest.

Most of the activity didn't exploit much of the luxury feel that I gained from the Veuve Clicquot Twitter stream, but it's still early days for their Twitter feed.

All said, this is the first example I've found of a "luxury" brand really addressing the social and digital media market with any gusto and Burberry need to be congratulated for this.

Luxury Directory

The Luxury Directory Twitter feed seem to be a pre-dominance of content publication and not much customer engagement sadly.

To make matters worse a lot of the URL's in the feed were returning 404's. They seem to using a URL service called Eight7Teen which I had never encountered before, I checked the URL of Eight7Teen and all seemed to be okay.

I then tried to create a URL of my own via Eight7Teen, err err. I'm not sure what's going on with the service, but it certainly didn't seem to work for me. Luxury Directory need to investigate this and switch URL shortener if this is the issue it appears to be.

The Luxury Directory website also has a link to a Facebook profile, after visiting the profile it seems as though this is associated with the "La Dolce Vita" magazine. Which initially I couldn't seem to associate the ownership relationship between the two, until I noticed the e-mail address domain for the contact details.

"La Dolce Vita" is a travel magazine for individuals of high net worth looking for their next holiday location. A perfect domain for the luxury social media engagement that I'd spoken of in earlier posts, linking up with partners in locations and offering luxury services to readers upon arrival.

Sadly it doesn't seem as though "La Dolce Vita" are using this particular social media avenue, perhaps they can hook with Veuve Clicquot to offer champagne upon arrival?

It was good to see a luxury group using social media to address their audience, although I do think they could have got the brand family in tune a little better and also gained further value from their use of social media.

Other mentions

I tried finding any other specific luxury brands utilising social media, but my search wasn't very fruitful. I found a Twitter account for the Lamborghini Club of LA which seemed to be doing a good job of promoting the brand, but I am sure it will be from the Club's perspective and not an official brand perspective even if it does carry some form of official endorsement.

This club perspective was further enforced when I looked at the "Model" section on the Club's website expecting to see official Lamborghini car images (how naive of me).

While I didn't see many luxury brands utilising the social media channel or even the more traditional web channel (since when has the web become traditional!) I did see plenty of evidence of other aggregation of luxury content.

There is Luxse which offers a luxury lifestyle on-line guide and has a Twitter presence. Tweeting about new luxury products hitting the market that they've been featuring, but there didn't seem to be much of a conversation going on.

Luxury Suites International offers access to numerous luxury accommodations across North America, tying in with a web presence.

I also found Luxe Branding which initially seems to be the answer to all of my investigations, but at the moment is little more than a minimally used Twitter account to promote the release of a new book, which I haven't read.

Lux Guide is a male focussed luxury guide on Twitter, with seemingly no other presence on-line. This stream just seems to feed links to items that would be of interest to men of a high net worth.

I noticed a lot of the links were passing to Amazon so I am assuming the feed is simply using an affiliate account to generate revenue from the likes of Amazon.

I still feel the digital industry is crying out for a good implementation of a luxury brand web presence. Offering their exclusive customer base a portal or interface to access a level of customer service on-line that isn't available to mere mortals.

I think both the Veuve Clicquot and the Burberry work were heading in the right direction and hats off to both of them. I was particularly pleased with Veuve's use of Twitter, it would be great if they could back it up with perhaps a Flickr or Vimeo account.

I'd love to hear of any examples people have encountered on this subject; but judging from the number of searches hits that I receive on Digital Signals for luxury brands I guess everyone else is asking the same question.

Related reading:

American Express Open Forum - Compete http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/12/american-express-open-forum-twitter/

5 ways luxury brands can overcome the conundrum of social marketing - Web Strategist http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/09/03/five-ways-luxury-brands-can-overcome-the-conundrum-of-social-marketing/

Middlesbrough player launches Platinum Players - The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/aug/10/middlesbrough-player-launches-website

Tweet Cloud for Luxury Brands – Using Twitter for Exposure - TwiTip http://www.twitip.com/tweet-cloud-for-luxury-brands-using-twitter-for-exposure/

Further reading:

Social media and luxury brands - Perfect engagement platform? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/social-media-and-luxury-brands-perfect.html

Is Apple a luxury brand? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/12/is-apple-luxury-brand.html

Online Luxury Embrace Me . . . - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/10/luxury-brands-and-their-online-presence.html

Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

The future of digital - So where do we go now?

2009-09-14T13:00:00.000+01:00

I was having an "out there" thinking session on my commute back from work the other day, umming and arring about the next developments that are going revolutionise the way we use the internet.

We're all "socialed" up to the hilt now, with our social network accounts, communicating with each other from the moment we wake until the moment we go to sleep at night.

But, what's going to be the next big leap in the way we use technology?

Well I'm not going to pin my career on anything, but what I thought I might do is have a meander through a few areas that I think we'll see some big changes from in the future.

I'll likely return to some of these ideas in the future and explore them in some greater detail.

Search

I think the future of search is vast, way beyond the function that we we currently associate with search. I envisage a future where search is integral to everything we do.

Intelligent searching beyond what we have now. Integrated with other parts of our on-line lives.

The next developments in search will see a greater integration of the more research and intelligent search features which are currently synonymous with start-ups and technology early adopters/ground breakers.

Functionality such as the semantic web offers will grow as content becomes more tagged and meta data improves, offering far better intelligent searching in the future. Social media is helping with this, creating vast quantities of data that is being interrogated and tagged on a more regular basis, by you and I as we all become more tech savy, taking the grunt work away from developers.

Deep search will delve deeper into on-line content providing more access for those needing more complex and research based access to data. I think this will predominantly be driven by users, granting greater access into currently off-line domains as further data is uploaded on to the internet.

I see search integrating, as we are already experiencing, with other technologies such as geo-positioning to provide further functionality.

Household management systems that help you with your food shopping; searching and indexing current cupboard stocks via smart codes, connecting to your local supplier and providing them with a shopping list for delivery.

Search facilities to find objects and possessions around the household, if you're looking for a specific book (yes, I hope they will stand the test of time, there's an aesthetic value that will never be replaced by on-screen content) or your vehicle keys. Imagine searching for object such as these via your mobile device.

I think our current understanding of search is going to be blown out of the water, taking it to a whole new world of functionality. I'm looking forward to seeing the SEM tie in for searching for your car keys!

Search will be one of the most extensive areas of growth I believe outside of our current obsession of integrating advertising with search. Although don't expect advertising to miss out on this game, it's ideally suited to getting involved.

Interface

Interface is an area I think we'll see some massive growth in over the next decade or two. It's already begun to happen with the popularity of mobile devices that have become "smart" allowing users to browse and interact with their social communities on the go.

There's plenty of talk about the growth of Augmented Reality at the moment and whether it will be the hot topic for 2010. Augmented Reality is an odd one really in the context of this post, as it's less to do with our interface with technology and more to do with technology's interface with our world.

I'm sure it will be very popular, but what about beyond that, where are we heading further into the future?

I was interested to read about the development, or developing technology, of visual interfaces on contact lens and this is more along the lines of what I was expecting for future development.

Retinal Scanning Displays are another take on the same idea, using projectors inside an eye piece or helmets to project data on to the pupil, or something else similar are the Virtual Retinal Displays being developed at The University of Washington with funding from MicroVision.

But I don't think we'll see interface changes being restricted to visual interface alone though. Alterations to the way we interact with devices using our hands. The further integration of technology into clothing will be development I think we'll see growing, with power cells being integrated into clothes and interfaces to activate communication devices.

Perhaps further developments on gesture tracking as an interface, with technologies that interpret movements into commands.

Envisage a man who's lost his car keys at home, standing in his kitchen gesticulating oddly with one of his eyeballs rotating as he searches for his car keys via the device embedded in his sleeve, what a future!

Either way I am sure that, like search, interface will be something that will evolve dramatically over the next decade.

Interaction

Not our interaction with the internet or computers, as I think that's covered in the interface section, but instead the internet or computers interaction with our world.

I've touched on this already in the search section, but I see far greater integration with our currently off-line world in the future. With automated tasks that are fired from computer applications either by ourselves remotely or via scheduled tasks.

Suggestive processing that is already part of many on-line social applications, "if you liked this, perhaps you'd also like this" entering into our screen viewing habits and perhaps even other things such as food and recipe suggestions.

As the internet gains a pseudo intelligence I see it entering this realm on more regular basis, trying to assist us with our hectic lives.

Some will see this as intrusive and resist this interaction, others will embrace it, inevitably it will affect us all eventually.

Connectivity

We are all demanding higher speeds and unrestricted access from our Internet Service Providers today, this demand will only continue to grow as we move more content into the on-line environment.

Our current street-to-home connectivity is provided by the ageing copper infrastructure that was installed by the then national telephone network, British Telecom.

Copper, contrary to popular belief is still a very reliable and fast method of transferring data. The Digital Britain report pointed towards the tax payer helping replace this ageing infrastructure with optic fibre cabling.

Personally I believe that while we might initially see the taxpayer starting the process it will be the service industries that will finish the process as they start to realise the commercial benefit to improving data services to their customers.

Changes to wired infrastructure will only be the start of changes to our access to on-line services. With there already being a growing number of people accessing their content via mobile devices, this trend is expected to continue.

Improvements in GSM and local area protocols will see mobile devices being able to handle faster data rates and store more content locally, changing how we see internet connectivity forever.

Access, and quality of access will continue to improve, enabling us to utilise on-line services in a greater number of locations with greater reliability. The key to this equation will be ensuring that the technology improvements move faster than our growing demand for data.

Energy

I don't think I could talk about this many advances in technology without considering how all of these developments are likely to be powered.

The big talk about energy sources of the future has to be hydrogen, the developments in hydrogen cell technology has got to be seen as exciting.

But for me, it's not necessarily where we are going to get our energy from, as so much how we are going to use it. I see energy efficiency as the key to our future energy sourcing, getting far greater value out of the energy that's already available.

Cloud computing should start to reduce the need for as many local data centre requirements, replacing them with larger geo-irrelevant solutions. It's therefore essential that the business owners of these enterprises consider the real costs of on-line services when developing these offerings.

Ensuring what ever happens with technology in the future that it doesn't end up costing the earth.

Powering micro devices is something that will need to be developed further, allowing us to get power to devices that might too small to hold conventional power sources.

What else?

As an aside to these technology changes, there will be other changes such as the social and economic impact that will occur due to these advances. Will we benefit from these changes as a race or will it leave us without that necessary physical community presence?

Whatever happens in the future, it is inevitable that technology is going to be an integral part of our development as a race.

Technology is growing at a faster rate than we've probably experienced before with other revolutions.

Working within a technology focussed industry this all presents an exciting challenge to me. I just hope it just doesn't come at the expense of important human interactions and instead compliments them.

Further reading:

Semantic Searching - Evri - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/semantic-searching-evri.html

What is the cost of social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html

Universal translation- The global communication mashup - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/universal-translation-global.html

Diving deeper in to deep web searching - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/diving-deeper-in-to-deep-web-searching.html

Twitter - Use it as you see fit, but don't expect us all to like it!

2009-09-03T18:25:00.001+01:00

This post started as one idea and has evolved into another.

I was going to rant and rave about how to use Twitter and how I see it as a communication platform, taking on everyone's opinions as equal and adding them to my understanding of the world.

Then I paused . . . and then thought who the hell am I to dictate how anyone else should use the Twitter platform?

Surely it's a democratic platform, with the exception of banning a few spam accounts people are pretty much free to say what they wish and we are free to follow or not follow them as we wish.

Sure, in an ideal world, I'd have you all doing what I'd like and that's not just in Twitter! But hey, this is the real world!

Anyway, so in this fictional world of "Ed", I'd have everyone follow everyone back as long as the account had some value, i.e. conversation rather than just irrelevant link publishing or "make $1000 in 5 mins" tweets.

I always saw Twitter working as a method of finding out more about your specific industry or interests with others who share those passions or common grounds. Sharing your own ideas and personal form of engagement back with that community.

This community should consist of those just starting out, finding their feet, industry leaders and everyone else in-between. We all have something interesting, insightful and valuable to say on our good days and who are am I to say others have got nothing to add to my knowledge . . . I'm nobody.

You work at your content, mixing up interesting on-line content you find with conversation between your community. Developing trust and building relationships with other people within your network.

You use the multitude of tools that are out there to filter and group your following stream to ensure you find what you need when you need it; if I was to pick a favourite mine would still be TweetDeck although to do keep meaning to spend some more time with HootSuite.

Find more people that might add to your community by reading other interesting users feeds to see who else they are talking to.

Isn't this how it's supposed to work?

While I wouldn't wish to push my ideals on individuals use of Twitter, I'll quite happily have a go at brands on Twitter.

While doing the research for my 10 brands on Twitter post I followed many global or national brands to see how they were using Twitter. I would say of those I followed only 20% of them followed me back.

This shocked me.

Okay, so they may not think I have anything interesting to say, but do they need to make this so apparent by not following me back? Because that's what it feels like when they don't.

But don't worry, I don't take it personally . . .

I feel brands should follow everyone back that isn't an autobot or spam account. Then using one of the numerous applications on the market filter their interest stream down to the conversations they want to listen to.

But, hey it's a democracy, I'll leave you to define how I perceive your on-line brand.

Anyway, that's about it. Everyone should be free to use Twitter as they wish, but don't expect everyone else to agree with your use of the platform.

If you're unsure of how to go about using it personally or for a brand, then get some advice from someone who claims to know more . . . and then get a second opinion.

But remember we've all got more to learn on just about everything, and if you're choosing not to listen to anyone but a select few you might just miss that gem that revolutionises your thinking.

Related reading:

Brands on Friendfeed - A different proposition to Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/brands-on-friendfeed-different.html

Why bother with social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

TweetDeck - The benefits a groups - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/tweetdeck-benefits-of-groups.html

In support of Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/in-support-of-twitter.html

A digital evolution for all media agencies

2009-09-02T12:00:00.000+01:00

Media is evolving, well it's always been evolving, as everything does on this planet we inhabit.

I'm specifically talking about Digital Media here though, the industry that pays my rent and bills.

Digital Media has been around a lot longer than most credit it for, although in those days it may have been called Interactive Media.

But the growth in commercial interest in digital media, specifically from the advertising and marketing world has evolved the demand on digital agencies from a simple application and website build resource into a more expansive offering.

Agencies dealing in more traditional media formats are getting a greater number of digital demands these days from their existing clients and are currently finding themselves turning to digital agencies to fulfil these requirements.

To a degree, this period will only last for a finite amount of time, in my opinion, as they find their feet. Then either their parent companies will provide them with digital partners or, if they are one of the few independents left, they will employ their own staff.

Meanwhile the digital agencies will need to evolve their game in order to compete with this change. Some are already well on there way, others are still playing catch up.

It's no longer going to be a process of just developing and delivering websites. In order to compete with more mature media agencies, digital agencies will need to offer a true campaign solution to their clients.

This solution will need to offer clients advice and expertise on how to attain the most from their digital channel. Moving digital media production from a nice to have, to essential marketing and income generation channel for nearly all businesses.

Creating a dynamic and retainer based approach to digital media that reviews traffic and visitor journeys on a regular basis, evolving the site as required. Also looking at new possible sources for traffic in-roads such as social media campaigns and SEO/SEM is going to have to be something that all agencies offer by default rather just the larger, more marketing focussed, agencies.

The appearance of more Account Manager roles at Digital Agencies is indicative of this transformation already taking hold. The evolution is changing not only how the industry operates as a whole but also how individuals roles play out within the agency environment.

My role for example, I sit somewhere between a Project Manager, an Account Manager and a Production Manager. Liaising with the development and design teams about production progress, but also defining the project from the off and then communicating with the client throughout.

We are responsible for advising clients about how they can further utilise the digital channel and raise awareness of their digital presence. While this role has always had a requirement for an understanding of the technical requirements of the project and also a strong involvement in the creative process of a project; it now also has an additional requirement to be aware of all the peripheral actions that may be needed to take a digital project from the shadows into the spotlight.

What is essential during this evolution for all agencies, from whichever background they may originate, is that they don't lose sight on where their core skills sets lie.

While we digital agencies should evolve our understanding of Marketing and PR, we shouldn't, for the time being, sell ourselves as experts in the field. Instead we should still focus on our core skills of technology and creative delivery. Likewise traditional Marketing agencies, while they may acquire digital skills in-house, should, for the time being, continue to focus on their core expertise in the marketing field.

There are hybrids out there already, Digital Marketing agencies, but would you turn to them for a complex on-line web application, with extensive back-end requirements involving work flow modelling? Equally, would you turn to them for an extensive marketing campaign that involved multiple on-line and off-line requirements?

A digital media evolution has and is continuing to occur; we all need to adapt our game and understanding a little in order to stay in the mix.

What we need to be wary of is losing our focus on our key skills sets in the pursuit of this evolution. We need to ensure our evolution is complimentary to the industry’s natural progression and every growing maturity.

There is enough space for all agencies to co-exist in this digital future without stepping on each others toes.

Here's to a digital future for all . . .

Further reading:

Hyperlocal audience engagement - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/hyperlocal-audience-engagement.html

Is social media the perfect tonic to pre-recession greed? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/is-social-media-perfect-tonic-to-pre.html

Digital brand guidelines - More than an after thought - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/digital-brand-guidelines-more-than.html

Launch day - How do you promote it? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/launch-day-how-do-you-promote-it.html

Hyperlocal audience engagement

2009-08-27T13:00:00.001+01:00

I've been meaning to write something on audience for a while and recent additions to my followers in Twitter have prompted me to write now.

When writing a blog or even just your 140 character blurt on Twitter you need to consider your audience.

You need to consider what your writing, who your targeting when you write and why you're writing it in the first place.

Twitter is an almost unique platform to write for, once you have a large number of followers or are following a large number of people your content stream will pass by in the blink of an eye.

Writing content that is going to appeal to a specific audience becomes more of an art as you try to catch their attention as it fleets by; to do so you need to engage on a level that's appealing.

Inevitably your audience on Twitter should tune into a similar background as your own. I look at mine on Twitter and it's a mixture of digital & social media folk, outdoor and travelling interests, friends and locals to my geographical location or somewhere I've spent some time at.

This geographical element can sometimes throw a spanner in the works, but it shouldn't. Hyperlocal audiences (I'm adopting the term hyperlocal for this post) can actually provide you with a communication channel that can be the easiest to address.

The hole you have to be careful not to fall into is talking about subject matter that turns the rest of your global audience off, with a high content level that no one else can relate to.

But addressing a hyperlocal audience can introduce a personal tone to your Twitter stream or blog that grants others insight into the person or brand you are, rather than just a URL publishing automaton.

Hyperlocal Twitter communities also assist with the collaborative component to social networking that Twitter can be so great at. While not all of us will get the opportunity to meet great social media luminaries such as Chris Brogan or Jason Falls at SWSX or elsewhere, you should all be able to attend more local events such as TweetUps.

Believe it or not meeting people in the flesh should strengthen any relationship that was established on-line and lead to better collaboration in the future.

Hyperlocal tweeting also adds an element of others being able to relate to specific information, cursing the traffic on the A6 will mean everything to those travelling into work from south Manchester, but not much to those travelling in from south L.A..

As with all things, don't over indulge. A sure fire way of putting anyone off listening to you, is ranting on about stuff that means absolutely nothing to them.

I still think the best way to gauge your conversation balance is to click on your own stream at least once a week and see what you've been twittering on about, that's the first thing I do with others when they follow me, so why not apply the same rule to yourself?

It's sometimes shocking looking some peoples streams, do they realise what it might look like to visitor?

At the end of the day, you should try and make your Twitter as natural as possible, with as little forced content in the stream as possible. This will be the easiest account to maintain as it will be an honest representation of you, but it should also ensure that your audience stays with you and stays engaged, because that's why they followed you in the first place.

Hyperlocal audience engagement shouldn't seem limited to individuals either, on the whole as a brand you'll struggle to find people to champion your brand with stronger conviction than those who feel some allegiance to you from a geographical perspective.

Tap into your local community, in fact Twitter is an ideal way for a brand to illustrate any local community work that they may be taking part in in the near future, attracting attention from both your local followers and hopefully approval from your global audience as well.

At the end of the day, it goes back to what I started with, identify your audience, purpose and content. Once you're there try and keep it as natural as possible to illustrate who you really are as a brand or individual.

Oh, and check your stream at the end of each week and see what you've saying, some days it will shock you.

Related reading:

Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

Honesty is the best policy - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/honesty-is-best-policy.html

The art of conversation - A brief synopsis - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/art-of-conversation-brief-synopsis.html

Quality not quantity - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/02/quality-not-quantity.html

Methodologies - Don't let yourself get boxed in by them

2009-08-21T10:00:00.002+01:00

It seems, like my previous industry IT, digital media is slowly becoming obsessed with associating itself with methodologies such as Prince2 for nothing more than the assurance that comes from a recognised name.

Whilst it might be perceived that I have a personal agenda here, not being qualified in Prince2, I hope that there is another, more objective, outcome from this post.

Recognised methodologies are a very good way to assist anyone with trying to find some clarity in the grey fog that can descend when you're up to your neck in delivery deadlines. They provide you with a framework that can help you work towards your delivery targets whilst providing others around you with some insight into "how things are going".

They can give you the steps you should follow in order to achieve the successful delivery of projects. Some believe (some really do, I've worked with several) that as long as you tick all the chosen methodology check boxes long the way, your projects will have been a success.

This is nonsense and I would hope those behind the leading methodologies would be the first to agree with this sentiment.

In this fast paced competitive world, we are all seeking that edge that gets you the contract over your competitors. Equally, we are all looking to ensure that we cover our positions and define accountability in order to exonerate ourselves of any blame.

It is in my opinion, now becoming an obsession within the digital media industries to focus on naming a methodology to be used rather than the more important matter that the methodologies were originally designed for - delivering projects successfully, on time and on budget with transparency for all involved.

Where is this obsession coming from? Well I believe it to be a self perpetuating force. Agencies are looking to distinguish themselves from the crowd (or as is becoming the cause, towing the line) and clients are looking for common methodology to reassure themselves that the project management that they'll be receiving will be of an acceptable level.

We all need to have reassurance in areas that we might not understand ourselves. For instance when booking a plumber to help us with our gas boiler at home, the first thing we ask is are you Corgi registered? The almost blind reassurance we get from the registration provides us with the comfort that the individual knows what they are doing.

Project methodologies and qualifications in the methodologies are not quite the same. Using the same analogy of gas plumbing, it's akin to being qualified in installing large corporate boilers but never having had any experience with small home based appliances. You know the principles, but you might have to guess the bits in-between.

Wouldn't it be better to ask for testimonials and past track records?

The Prince2 methodology is a well developed, well supported and popular methodology that's used across the world in many different industry sectors. Does this mean it's appropraite for the delivery of every type of project? No.

Web project management more often than not needs to be flexible, as functionality is developed ideas develop and the project can evolve. As a project manager you need to be able to draw a line between minor adaptations and scope changing functionality.

You then also need to consider these changes on a client by client basis, providing a project management structure that is appropraite for the way the client likes to work. Sure there are times when you need to stand firm and state that a change is outside of the scope and will have to be dealt with in another phase. Then there are other times when you'll need to revise the delivery schedule on-the-fly.

To complicate matters, not only do you need to deliver on a client by client basis, but you also need to deliver on a project by project basis for each client. Larger scale projects can lend themselves to more structured and strict approaches. Smaller project can be expected to be delivered on a very flexible basis.

Then there's the standard documentation that can accompany a Prince2 project, sometimes this documentation is just too formal for some clients and they prefer a more story like approach to a delivery process.

At the end of the day, what I'm trying to convey is that we can't just state we deliver all our projects via a Prince2 method or by any other single method, because we don't. There's a good reason why, that's because I don't believe there is one methodology that is always appropraite. We need to pick an approach or a methodology that is appropraite for the project.

This should not be seen as a slight on Prince2, Agile, Scrum, Waterfall or any other type of methodology, as they are all thoroughly well developed and accepted approaches of delivery and I like elements of them all.

It is, however, a slight on the practice of naming a well known methodology in the hope that this instils the reassurance required to win business without ever necessarily needing to use the methodology in practice.

Instead of focusing on the specific methodology, we should spend more time focusing on the method.

Whatever the chosen approach or methodology, it should always hold the two key principles of definition and communication at it's heart.

Related reading:

Self organising units - Optimum performance? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/07/self-organising-units-optimum.html

Digital Project Management - The Communication Brief - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/communication-brief-initial-project.html

Digital Project Management - Episode 3 - Planning, Pitching & Acceptance - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/digital-project-management-episode-3.html

Communicate and define - Basic rules of any project - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/communicate-and-define-basic-rules-of.html

Brands on Friendfeed - A different proposition to Twitter

2009-08-18T20:15:00.003+01:00

Following on from my relatively popular post on 10 brands on Twitter, I thought I'd repeat the operation with Friendfeed, a far more daunting proposition.

These posts can take some time to come from an idea into a completed post, in that time a lot has changed for Friendfeed. Facebook has recently bought Friendfeed, causing some to throw their arms up in disgust and others to declare that this will be the making of the less known micro-blogging platform.

I'll save what I think this will mean for Friendfeed for another post, but for now I'll continue with what I intended to write about, brands on Friendfeed.

While this might seem like flogging a dead horse, I don't agree. Twitter has now established itself within the mainstream media, Friendfeed on the other hand is still in the realm of early adopters.

One of the main points I noticed during the Twitter post was the large increase in activity and account creation since the beginning of 2009. I'll be interested to see if there has been the same enthusiasm to embrace a social media platform that is yet to hit the media spotlight with a bang.

Friendfeed, for those that don't know, is very similar to Twitter in that it allows you to "microblog" but without the same 140 character limitation. In addition to micro-blogging, Friendfeed allows you to consolidate or aggregate all of your social media activity into one stream.

It keeps the same following/follower facility as Twitter, allowing you to tailor your feed to your industry interests. Creating lists of specific people around subject matter to customise your feed.

Enough on Friendfeed's service and on to the brands, my first port of call was Being Peter Kim's excellent social media wiki to see what it had to offer. I extracted these three brands from there:

Rubbermaid

Not a brand that is very well recognised in the UK, we still talk about Tupperware. Rubbermaid have been mixing it up on the social media front, with feeds coming from Twitter, Blogs, Google Reader, Stumbleupon, YouTube and Pownce.

With all of these streams quite active (except for Pownce due it no longer being operational) Rubbermaid are taking the social media channel for what it's worth and good on them. They seem honest and down to earth in content, engaging social media at level that gets the best from the channel in my belief.

With plenty of activity on Twitter, promotional product promotions on YouTube and staff pictures at a recent staff fun day on Flickr I like what I see.

Daimler

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage with Daimler as my German isn't up to scratch to allow me to gauge the conversation level very well. This point in itself is important though, in that Daimler have obviously made the decision that their social media audience, or at least the ones they are targeting, are predominantly German speaking.

They have a good mix of mediums, with a Flickr, YouTube, Mister Wong (bookmarking), SlideShare and a blog feed coming into their Friendfeed stream. Their Flickr feed alone is interesting, presenting a very uniform approach to image distribution using cropped wide format shots only.

I had a quick look to see if I could find any presence of a Mercedes Benz Friendfeed, to see if they were presenting a more international stream, but couldn't find anything.

Daimler seems to have grasped the concept of Friendfeed well.

EMC

EMC are fully on board with Friendfeed with over 20 feeds coming into their Friendfeed stream. This is brand that I'm fully aware of from my time working in IT Infrastructure. A very strong competitor in the storage and information hardware market.

The majority of EMC's Friendfeed streams content is coming from the large selection of blogs they are streaming. I couldn't identify whether all of these blogs are run by undeclared members of staff or whether they are just relevant in content. If just relevant in content, EMC having taken an interesting step away from the normal control that brands like to have on their on-line presence.

With 3 YouTube streams, a large Flickr stream, a busy Delicious stream and 2 Twitter streams EMC seem at least to be attempting to have a global approach to social media.

After taking a quick look at these three Friendfeed streams I returned to my searches for other brands that appear on Friendfeed.

Pepsi

My search lead me to the Pepsi Cooler, not a stream, but a Friendfeed room. A room that looks like it could do with some attention! The room had four feeds coming into it, an official Pepsi Twitter feed that is busy, another expired Twitter feed, an expired Flickr feed and an unused YouTube account - Is this how Pepsi do Friendfeed?

At first I was a little lost trying to recognise the Pepsi branding, whether it was a new or an older logo and it reminded me of a Greg Verdino post I'd read recently on Greg's Posterous.

To say I was disappointed to see how neglected the Pepsi Cooler room was is an understatement. With the illustrious name of Steve Rubel and three leading lights on Pepsi social media team listed at the top of the room I'd expect more from an easily accountable presence.

Pepsi either need to give up their claim on the Friendfeed room or take some time to do some maintenance on the rooms streams.

Cisco

I had subscribed to Cisco's Digital Cribs Twitter feed a while back, so thought I'd check out whether they were using Friendfeed. Sure enough they were.

Cisco seem to have two Friendfeed streams, Cisco Learning and News at Cisco. Well these are the only Cisco Friendfeed streams I've found.

The News at Cisco is simply a conglomeration of all of their news blogs and site news feeds. I suppose a handy one stop shop for those looking to follow Cisco news development, but there's nothing more insightful from the Cisco social media presence. This hardly takes advantage of the potential offered by Friendfeed, but it still seems to serve a purpose, utilising it for news content aggregation.

The Cisco Learning feed on the other hand seems to take advantage of more of Friendfeed's capabilities. With streams coming in from Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Delicious and Google Reader.

The Twitter account was registered September 2008 and the Friendfeed account only days later. While these aren't old accounts, they have been around well before the recent surge in Twitter uptake and certainly before any interest was really shown in Friendfeed. So a hat tip to them on their relatively early adoption.

The Digg account however hasn't been used since it was created and should probably be dropped from the feed. Leaving a used, but only lightly, Delicious account. The Google reader account seems to have had some attention spent on it and the YouTube account is being used well to share video content published by Cisco.

All in all Cisco seem to be giving Friendfeed a go with their learning arm of the business.

Virgin America

I included Virgin's Twitter account, for their Atlantic arm of the business in my original 10 Brands on Twitter article. Sadly this Friendfeed account seems little more than a simple replication of a Twitter feed on Friendfeed. Something that is all too common.

While it's great for a brand to explore all of these options for social media promotion, if they decide it's not serving any real purpose then they should stop using the platform.

Sharing Twitter content on Friendfeed does give them a presence on the platform, but it doesn't add much value to their social media channel. I'll be honest, the good majority of my Friendfeed is Twitter content, but that's the nature of Twitter more than anything. I have however, at some time, added content to all of the streams on my Friendfeed. Equally I'm not a global brand and therefore not likely to be under the same spot light as Virgin can find themselves.

National Trust

A charity (I'm pleased to be a member of) that has been using Twitter successfully for a while now has, I discovered, also got a presence on Friendfeed.

Admittedly it only feeds in its Twitter stream and its YouTube stream, but that's one more stream than Virgin America and Pepsi can manage. Who would of thought, the National Trust getting one over Pepsi and Virgin America in a brand awareness exercise.

What it did help me find was the customised YouTube page that the National Trust have taken the time to create, well done to them for taking advantage of these features to ensure better brand relationship on a third party site.

I like the way the National Trust has integrated their involvement in social media back to the main National Trust website.

They seem to have grasped social media and the Friendfeed platform and I love their video content on YouTube - How to build your own wormery.

As with the investigation into brands on Twitter, it was interesting to explore various brands usage of the Friendfeed social media platform.

As expected, the adoption or use of Friendfeed by brands seems much lower in comparison to Twitter. Friendfeed requires more commitment than the relatively simple upkeep of a Twitter account (although even this is not always simple) and therefore it was less likely to have the large numbers of brands that can be found on Twitter.

That said, a true commitment to a platform like Friendfeed could provide a brand with a complete portfolio of on-line content for visitors to consume. Presenting video, micro-blogging, bookmarking and even music content for followers to view.

An interesting, yet obvious, stream that I found on a number of brands Friendfeed's was the SlideShare application. Ideally suited to brands that might be presenting on a regular basis at events and wishing to share this content beyond the life of the event itself.

I'll be interested to see how Friendfeed develops after its recent acquisition and how this development will affect brands possible adoption of the platform as a publishing tool.

Helpful articles:

How brands will use Friendfeed - Web Strategist http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/06/10/how-brands-will-use-friendfeed/

Social Radar Top 50 Social Brands (July 2009) - Buzz Study http://infegy.com/buzzstudy/social-radar-top-50-social-brands-july-2009/

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples - Being Peter Kim http://wiki.beingpeterkim.com/

Related reading

Do you get social media? 10 brands on Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/07/do-you-get-social-media-10-brands-on.html

Is social media the perfect tonic to pre-recession greed? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/is-social-media-perfect-tonic-to-pre.html

Why bother with social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

The real value of social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/real-value-of-social-media.html

Creative thinking needs reflection and time

2009-08-12T10:00:00.001+01:00

I was asked to read a colleagues post on the re-branding of the Twitter home page the other day and to provide an opinion.

After reading the post, I was left thinking how well written it was and how it had all the right elements of becoming a successful and popular post.

At the time I was very busy with my work and had been struggling to dedicate the time I like to my blog. The writing ideas had dried up and the drafts prepared in my publish queue were looking tired and old.

After some time off, I usually publish at least twice a week, the ideas have slowly started returning.

Taking some time out and allowing your brain to slow down a little from the usual manic idea generating and production managing mayhem that can take hold of the creative energies, allows for some much needed reflection.

From this reflection I find the order starts to return and ideas start to flow more naturally once more rather than the forced process that often happens under stressed situations.

Ideas generated under stressful situations are never as good as ideas that are allowed time to formulate and develop properly. These ideas can lead to new digital campaigns or just new copy for a blog.

This weekend just gone a took time out with my family and friends to attend the Big Chill festival as mentioned on my Posterous. It was a great opportunity for my mind to revisit old times with a good supply of music, great conversation and a generally relaxed atmosphere in great weather.

I came back some what exhausted from the lack of sleep, induced from trying to balance seeing as many of the artists as possible and then early rises with my two year old daughter, but strangely refreshed and revitalised.

Now that I'm slowly recovering from the sleep deprivation the ideas are slowly bubbling away again and its giving me the ability to write once more and suggest ideas to clients and staff.

So, next time your stuck for what to do next, how to write a piece of copy or where to turn for creativity, instead of forcing the situation take a step back.

It can't always been done in such style as a weekend trip to a festival, but even a walk around the block can be enough time to reorder your thoughts and refocus your attentions properly with a little reflection.

We all need a break from our work sometimes in order to give the best when demanded, recognising when you need to do it is what takes time to learn.

Related reading:

Universal translation- The global communication mashup - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/universal-translation-global.html

Thinking "inside the box" - Not always as easy as it sounds - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/thinking-inside-box-not-always-as-easy.html

Passion - What value does it bring? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/passion-what-value-does-it-bring.html

Quality, not quantity - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/02/quality-not-quantity.html