I went to an event last week to launch a new research paper. A bit dull and sales-y but what made my ears prick up was a bit of a stat outlining that while younger types below 25 define themselves by the brand of “personal stuff'” they choose to buy, those between 25-35 have a growing preference of ‘no discernible label’.
“Gadzooks! That’s me ” I thought. “Finally I’m part of a trend”.
I love interesting, bespoke, unique and no one knows where I got it stuff. Well designed stuff. Stuff that’s created by the imagination and brought to reality by a couple of people. Stuff that gives you insight to the boundless energy and imagination of motivated people. Great Stuff. So I’m starting a new category on this blog and sharing some of the people that I find who inspire me.
In each issue of Dumbo Feather five remarkable individuals tell you their stories. Their backgrounds and dreams are as unique as they are but what unites them is their creativity, passion and integrity, and somewhere they found the courage to fly. In their own words they tell you how they discovered their passion, what inspires them, the lows as well as the highs on the journey and ultimately why they do what they do.
Each person’s passion is unique whether it’s baking the best 100% natural sourdough bread in the world, producing fabulous fashion in remote Northern Pakistan, writing poetry, making music, fighting for human rights, finding a cure for malaria, painting, choreographing, exploring, wine making, film making…
Dumbo feather respects its readers, the environment (by printing on 100% recycled paper using soy-based inks by one of the most eco-friendly printers in the country), and its contributors’ work.
Don’t just take my word for it. Read reviews of the mag at Lovemarks
Filed under: Digital Strategy
This fun and ultra topical viral piece in beta testing from the terribly clever Thought By Them guys gave me some food for thought on my recent widget crusade.
I wanted to blog about it, add my own fuel to the fire and introduce it to people whose email address I don’t know…I wanted something to embed, something to share, to create a signpost so that others could discover it too.
This experience reminded me of a post I saw over at Greg Verdino‘s blog about an interview he had with Adweek about widgets on MySpace:
For advertisers, widgets hold the hope of cracking the social media code, giving consumers the ability to spread a brand’s message. This viral component is sorely lacking in standard ad placements on social sites. “Widgetization [is] about getting the consumer to take the brand with them,” he said. “It’s ultimately the key to success in community-based social media implementations.
I’m loving the notion that “time with brand” is not about demanding that people come and spend time on a brand’s website. Widgets allow brands to join in conversations where their consumers spend their time, and are a great starting point for consumer centric digital design. They can help answer some the most compelling questions brands need to ask and answer in creating digital brand expressions:
- Does this digital expression further the undersanding and the relationship between the brand and the consumer?
- Does it start a conversation?
Any ways….see what it’s like for the Australian Prime Minister to say something that you might want to hear (for a change) over at SameSame.
Filed under: Digital Strategy
David Armano, thought starter extraordinaire, has continued his series on the mindset and team structures required to create truly fabulous brand experiences. This diagram comes from T-Shaped + Sun-Shaped People.
I love it, and not because I think it describes a great structure (which it does)- but because I think it describes the kind of feeling you get when you’re lucky enough to be able to contribute and participate in a great creative team.
The idea of creative people being brought together by passion and shining their light on brands is a really compelling one. Sunlight can make a thousand flowers bloom in a brand’s garden.
What’s really interesting to me is how passion is shaped in the burning heart of the creative sun. The core of this passion must be empathy with consumers and insight into their needs- that’s where truly creative problem solving can spring.
Filed under: Digital Strategy
A cheat sheet for my workshop attendees today.
Audio 2.0
Lastfm* – Profile your taste, share, personalize your radio. http://www.last.fm/
Pandora* – Personalized radio. http://pandora.com/
Blog 2.0
Cocomment – Track back your commentosphere. http://www.cocomment.com/
Feedblitz – Notification2email. http://www.feedblitz.com/
Blogger.com, WordPress.com
Bookmarking 2.0
Delicious* – Social bookmarking. http://del.icio.us/
Digg* – Social bookmarking. http://www.digg.com
Chat 2.0
www.twitter.com
Communication 2.0
Skype – Call, conference, messenger, file sharing. http://www.skype.com/
Community 2.0
Facebook – Student communities. http://www.facebook.com/
Frappr – Put your group on the map, share photos. http://www.frappr.com/
Friendster – Connect with friends. http://www.friendster.com/
Email 2.0
Yousendit – Email large files. http://www.yousendit.com/
Images 2.0
Flickr – Upload & share photos. http://www.flickr.com/
Photobucket – Upload, publish & share photos. http://www.photobucket.com/
Knowledge 2.0
Squidoo – Share knowledge. http://www.squidoo.com/
RSS 2.0
Feedburner – Manage your rss & podcast feeds. http://www.feedburner.com/
Tagging 2.0
Tagcloud – Folksonomied, personalized tag clouds. http://www.tagcloud.com/
Zoomclouds – Make & publish tag clouds. http://www.zoomclouds.com/
Video 2.0
Youtube* – Upload & share video. http://www.youtube.com/
Vsocial – Upload, rank & share video. http://www.vsocial.com/
Extensive list of web 2.0 sites here.
Filed under: Digital Strategy
Annoyingly good.
How to bridge the distance between business strategy and design .
Filed under: Zeitgeist
I love Sydney coffee mornings for the great conversations. It being Friday the 13th the natural question was:
Is being unusual lucky or unlucky?
Wikipedia says:
A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German, Polish and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. Similar superstitions exist in some other traditions. In Greece or Spain, for example, Tuesday the 13th takes the same role.
And as for black cats:
Some countries, such as Britain, believe it is lucky to see a black cat. An alleged cause for this would be that Emperor Napoleon saw a black cat just before he lost a battle against the British. This would explain the cat being seen as a bad sign in Italy and Bermuda (and Continental Europe) and as a good one in Great Britain.
In China “may you live in interesting times” is a curse.
Interesting and unusual- I say bring it on! May this Friday the 13th bring you luck and interesting adventures.
Widgets are great. A well designed widget is a class act of cleverness.
You’ll have to follow this link to see the beauty of this one though.
Have A Slogan promise to deliver a wee app that has terrible things matched with popular commercial slogans:
Retardation:
Keep that schoolgirl complexion.Paris Hilton:
That was easy.Child Abuse:
It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.
WordPress, however isn’t as happy with this as me… but do check it out.
Found on the fab BannerBlog.
Never backwards in coming forwards, I’ve put my hand up to be a part of a project set up by the ever fabulous Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan .
I’ll let Drew outline it:
Gavin & I concocted the idea for an e-book about this new era of communications we’ve all entered together. But not just any book. It has to be a quick book. Exciting. Sharp. Inclusive. It had to be a book about community and conversation that came from that community and spoke the same vernacular. The title — The Conversation Age.
And that is why we are talking to you. Our idea:
- 100 authors. We’re a few but need more.
- The overriding topic is “The Conversation Age” — where you take it is up to you.
- The items are short – one 8.5″ x 11″ page — it can be words, diagrams, photos (again up to you) If it is words – about 400, give or take a couple.
- We write it quickly and get it out there. We publish electronically.
- We make it available online for a small fee and we donate 100% of the proceeds to Variety the Children’s Charity — which serves children across the entire globe.
Here are the contributors to date:
Please do come and join in the conversation!
Filed under: Digital Strategy
Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network have collaborated in producing a map of major trends for 2007 and beyond, across ten segments: society & culture, government & politics, work & business, media & communications, science & technology, food & drink, medicine & well-being, financial services, retail & leisure, and transport & automotive.
It’s lovely work.
Go here to download a full sized PDF from Ross Dawwson’s blog, Trends In The Living Networks.
Thanks to Lyndelle for the great find!
Filed under: Zeitgeist
I’m always interested to find out the pathways that people have used to find my site.
Today I met a new member of the Sydney coffee morning blogger crew who had read my site before meeting me. She said that it felt a little voyeuristic. All very interesting stuff.
Interesting and voyeuristic is one of the search terms that continually pops up as an indicator of what people are looking for in Google before they land on Get Shouty. I’ve checked and I’m the third or fourth listing for this search term (ew!)….and it just doesn’t seem to be going away.
The reference point is this post about being featured on the Z-list, and it’s a reference to the line in Sally Field’s Oscar acceptance speech: You like me, you really like me. Innocently enough in that post was a reference to one of my biggest referrers at the time- a naughty cowgirl site.
I’m sure we all have these strange anomalies. Gavin? I’m sure you get them! Sean? How about you? I’m sure fabulous 1st birthday blogger Mack has some interesting ones too.
And the rest of you- what’s the weirdest way you’ve drawn in a new reader?
Filed under: Digital Strategy
Twitter is real loud and demanding. It’s a bit like a hangover on a sunny day- you just want to grab some shades and head for cover.
Twitteroo allows you to draw the blinds a little, even if it won’t make you breakfast or get your slippers.
Not too sold on the whole thing just yet- but joining in on the conversation is the way to tell.
Yesterday was a Bollywood extravaganza on the Blogsphere- very ordinary ugliness, hints at machiavellian plots and threats of foul murder (I just can’t believe what’s going on over at Creating Passionate Users, Kathy is a source of great kindness and support).
….and yet….
I found Elizabeth Perry’s lovely Woolgathering site which is a wellspring of quiet vision and gentle observation. She shares her delicate watercolours everyday and graces us with her mantra: Looking, Thinking, Drawing, Being.
….and yet…
Gavin, Paul and David and a posse of good sorts joined in on a Twitter call for Marsupial Madness- and a show of what makes this community of bloggers great. They , en mass, chose to change their photo personas to the small furry creatures who inhabit my continent- a burst of fabulous silliness.
I’m a big believer that silliness and beauty outweighs ugliness.
In true American Beauty style, being ordinary is a great fear of the deeply shallow and insecure, and that fear expresses itself in many ugly ways. On the Blogshere ugliness can hide, but so many wonderful flowers bloom.
Filed under: Get Activist
Food, activism and technology. Could this grand widget be any cooler?
Much more useful (but not as funny as) this:
The Virtual Fruitcake will not count the days left until Christmas. It will not sing or play classic Christmas tunes. It will not suggest the perfect gift for that special someone on your list. Just like real fruitcake, the Virtual Fruitcake will simply sit there, uneaten and forgotten, until sometime early next year when you find it and throw it in the trash
Love the comparison. 
The collection here of tag clouds shows the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the Presidents of the US between 1776 – 2007 AD.
Scroll through, have a play- it’s an education.
Filed under: Get Activist
In the rush towards green living, it makes sense that eco-crusaders would eventually turn to the other booming elements of popular culture to get their message across. Today, it’s gaming that’s come over all conscientious.A series of films posted on YouTube uses the form of Machinima – the production of mini films employing computer game characters – to make a serious point for eco-brand of the century Fair Trade. Our favourite shows trade within massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, in which one character is cheated out of his rightful payment as more and more middlemen get involved. The films make their point nicely, and were produced by Edinburgh-based machinima specialists Strange Company
Equally interestingly, 2007 has seen the launch of what we reckon is the first non-profit publisher of videogames. OneBigGame is aiming to sell videogames in order to raise funds for children’s charities.
By playing games published by the company, according to the website, ‘young game consumers around the globe will effectively be helping their disadvantaged age counterparts across other parts of the world and improving the likelihood that these other children will one day be able to.. do what all children should be doing: play.’
The company will be focusing mostly on small casual games which can be constructed in short periods of time and donated by developers.
‘Any little pet project that you have running in your studio and that you think fits our portfolio is welcome’. The game is then published on the OneBigGame casual games portal.It’s an interesting idea, combining not only the notions of user-generated content and charitable enterprise, but also the potential to become a useful recruitment tool for developers. MTV described it as ‘Band Aid for the games industry’. We hope their office is Bono-proof.
In other news – 42 Entertainment’s Jane McGonigal is constructing an Alternate Reality Game aimed at saving the planet. It looks intriguing, and McGonigal’s past efforts in this area have been nothing more than ground-breaking. Waste time at work, meet new people, solve puzzles and save the planet here: http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/
Filed under: Zeitgeist
Friday night gold:
If anyone can prove me wrong…..
I’d really appreciate it.
It’s a year since I started posting to Get Shouty. As it’s been such an adventure in the Hundred Acre Wood I thought I might let Pooh and Piglet have the microphone (through Benjamin Hoff) to help me describe it:
1 Blogging makes me hungry for my day:
2 Blogging allows me to listen:
“Lots of people talk to animals,” said Pooh.
“Not that many listen though.”
“That’s the problem.”
3 Blogging helps me simplify:
4 Blogging lets me know that there is no one right way right way, there is only conversation:
The Hundred Acre Wood grows for me every day- it’s my thinking spot and helps me demystify Heffalumps and Woozles. Thank you to: Gavin, CK, Paul, Mack, Sean, Emily (and all the Sydney coffee crew), Terry, Russell, Richard, Clay, Luc, Nina, C.B., Marcus, Mike, Cam, Lebowski and everyone who has visited, commented, inspired, provoked, delighted, informed, prompted, educated……and made Get Shouty what it is.
How can you get very far, If you don’t know Who You Are?
How can you do what you ought, If you don’t know What You’ve Got?
And if you don’t know Which To Do Of all the things in front of you,
Then what you’ll have when you are through
Is just a mess without a clue
Of all the best that can come true
If you know What and Which and Who.
I do love having a new job. One aspect of this is learning new things, which I need as a motivating drip feed just to get me out of bed each morning.
You learn a new language with a new job in a new field, and just as the tool shapes the hand of the craft-er, a language helps shape your thoughts.
Moving over from digital creative concept/execution to digital experience strategy/planning has brought me this fantastic new term ‘chart’.
This might be Dumbass 101 but the difference between a ‘slide’ and a ‘chart’ seems to me to be rather large. A slide has all the the evil associations of a templated structure, and the presentation style associated with it can be as mind numbingly dull as a verbatim read.
A chart is read differently- a simple glance should allow it to tell it’s story. It’s an exiting and sometimes terrifying process to write- because you know that you don’t have a script that you can see on the day. It really does make you craft your story.
The tremendously talented Jessica Hagy who writes Indexed is a bit of a champ at designing a diagram to tell a story. Smart and funny, she is well worth checking out.
Travelling down to Melbourne last week to pitch I saw the entire Australia Post on the Qanta inflight. Lovely- it’s quirky, real, gentle and proud.
Campaign Brief reports that it’s the first time in over eight years Australia Post has gone to air with a brand campaign, which consists of seven 30 second spots. Two units shot for 16 days in 39 different locations to create these tvcs which brings us up to date with what the company does today. There is a different execution for every day of the week and a media schedule that plays them that way.
I can’t say how many conversations I’ve had about this campaign- what is the call to action? How will it translate into tactical expressions?
I think that the connection thought expressed in the TVC is so much more than just an education piece. It outlines more than just the benefits of the company, like the joy of recieving letters, it really underpinns how well Australia Post understands Australians, the ebb and flow of our daily lives and how we identify ourselves to ourselves.
The website is so dissapointing. There is no reason for ‘everyday’ suddenly to become ‘ordinary’ because it’s online. How did the message change from ‘every day people’ to ‘totally empty workstation’?
Such a wasted opportunity to listen to stories, allow interaction and exploration, and build on a fantastic emotional base.
