Enjoy

Catering for student needs
I thought I’d start with a nice collection of links and ideas. Read the article and focus on those sites that interest you, rather than trying to visit every single one.

The power of the collective
GruUpy.com was formed by a bunch of guys who one day realized just how much money they’d spend buying electronic crap over the years. They decided that their mission from that day forth was to become purveyors of the cheapest possible gadgets on the planet. Then a few of their friends actually offered to buy some of this stuff from them and lo, gruUpy.com was borne.

Ralph Lauren goes 4D
In celebration of 10 years of digital innovation, RalphLauren.com presents the ultimate fusion of art, fashion & technology in a visual feast for the 5 senses. Watch as the London flagship at 1 New Bond Street disappears before your eyes and is then transformed…

Awesome trailer site for tron
This has kept Dixy and Russ occupied all week. It’s a nice immersive way of promoting something, by broadening the appeal of something by focusing on the category (in this case gaming) rather than the specific game itself.

Thrill of the catch
Fun educative game for children. Nicely executed, too.

Hodes tweets meets needs
The Copywriting team has been manning the Hodes Twitter account for the past few months with a combination of insight, witticisms and topicality. They have done a great job, and our followers have dramatically increased from 20 to 154. I’d encourage you to sign up to the Twitter account if you haven’t already done so. And sign your clients up, too!

Have a great evening tonight and a Happy New Year!

A move towards Genomic Advertising?
I talked earlier in the year about the prospective rise of genomic advertising, where the DNA of living organisms are altered or adopted for the purposes of advertising. Well,  I spotted an interim step towards this – using glow in the dark bacteria for campaign purposes. I’m not sure whether I should be impressed at the inventiveness of the company that came up with the idea or terrified at the direction we are taking. Anyway, decide for yourself.

Christmas Tweets
It would be remiss of me not to cover Twitter, so I’ve come across quite a nice site that uses Twitter in a very inventive way. The site allows a user to discover what Christmas means to people this year, by using an unique visualiser. It’s a nice idea, well executed and I’m heartily glad to see that Christmas Spirit is currently out-tweeting Commercialism by 268,213 tweets to 145, 457. I’m sure that the Catholic and CoE will be a tad concerned to see that Religion is only covered by 57,964 tweets…

The Pepsi Challenge: phase 2
In an attempt to leverage the current trend for involving people in decision making process, Pepsi has created the Pepsi Refresh Project, reportedly setting aside USD $20 million to fund a variety of community projects across America. Rather than simply donating to existing charities, however, it will be inviting consumers to suggest and vote on the projects it funds. Pepsi will hold contests every month for 10 months beginning in January, with grants split into four categories (<$5K, <$25K, < $50K and <$250K). The first contest will begin Jan. 13, when consumers will have 10 days to submit ideas “that make us think, inspire us and ignite participation”. It’s a nice CSR initiative which uses social media in a positive way and should gain a lot of traction. The only issue is that I prefer Coke…

Decode at the V&A
The V&A Museum is currently running an exhibition called Decode which showcases the “latest developments in digital an interactive design”. The exhibition explores three themes:

• Code presents pieces that use computer code to create new works and looks at how code can be programmed to create constantly fluid and ever-changing works.
• Interactivity looks at works that are directly influenced by the viewer. Visitors will be invited to interact with and contribute to the development of the exhibits.
• Network focuses on works that comment on and utilise the digital traces left behind by everyday communications and looks at how advanced technologies and the internet have enabled new types of social interaction and mediums of self-expression.

Anyway, the V&A commissioned Karsten Schmidt to design a digital identity for the Decode exhibition using open source code (his blog is quite an interesting read, too), and is giving anyone the opportunity to recode Karsten’s work and create their own original artwork. Many of the efforts are displayed here and you can also see them on the Underground.

Now events aren’t new, especially those heralding the ‘must attend’ nature of content. Nor are the endless debates about the digitisation of media, innovative products and ideas and the impact of new technology on the social and business landscape. So why the exposure and what makes SXSW special?

The answer, it seems, lies in the innovative approach to the event. SXSW, which stands for South by South West, started life as a music event in Austin, Texas over 22 years ago. Adopted by the digital literati of Silicon Valley, the event morphed into a random combination of debate, discussion and drinking which, over time, has itself transformed into a more formal event covering music, film and interactive.

This year, the event has been attended by a number of British companies representing the Digital Mission, hence the twitterings. The Digital Mission is a trade mission, organised by Chinwag for UK Trade & Investment, designed to enable digital companies to expand into overseas markets and attract investment outside the UK. Given the increasing amount of international and cross-border projects that we get involved in, such an enterprise can only be a good thing.

The real difference, however, is that the majority of content at SXSWi is created by the people attending: a true example of crowdsourced behaviour. Individuals submit an idea for a panel, plus a list of panellists which is reviewed by the organisers. If the idea is accepted, the individual gets to go for free. Sessions can be quite active, with panellists being voted on or off by the audience.

There are formal panels, but according to insiders, these can be extremely hit or miss, with panellists tamely agreeing, rather than engaging in heated, vociferous and stimulating debates.

It’s a great notion and one I would love to see adopted by many of the companies we work for. Imagine how incredibly useful it would be to have crowdsourced training programmes, where employees can vote on the topics they would like to see presented, on the fly.  Imagine a recent event has occurred which would be much more appropriate for discussion –simply vote in the change to the agenda and the people you think would be most appropriate to discuss it. Or if someone is a poor speaker, or is being too safe in their opinions, simply vote them off and get a more contentious one.  

A similar approach could be used in running assessment centres, where both interviewers and interviewees were assessed on a live basis. Some people just don’t perform in interviews and it would be better to get a gauge as to where an individual is in real-time, so they can try to polish their performance, rather than get into a downward and ultimately negative interviewing spiral.

It would put a huge amount of pressure on individuals involved, both in planning for such a session and in presenting. To be frank, though, the output that would be provided would be invaluable to both the companies and the individuals involved. Why should you have to wait for a formalised feedback session where most of the comments have been diluted into a series of generalistic ramblings? Putting pride to one side, wouldn’t honest opinion be better for your development in the long run?