Ben’s Eye – 19/6

Hello one and all,

‘Tis been the week of the Iranian hash tag and those expenses finally getting their official release – complete with special black bits.  But enough of all that, here’s some media(ish) news…

Twitter story of the week / month / year / decade!

So aside from indicating to people that Stephan Fry is stuck in a lift, Twitter can apparently be used to organise politcal protests – as seen by the events in Iran over the past week.

http://tr.im/oYKb

But let’s get a little perspective on this, without Twitter all this would have still happened.  A good POV here – http://tr.im/oYLc

Digi Britain

The other big ‘tech’ story of the week that shouldn’t have escaped your notice is the publishing of the government’s Digital Britain paper.  Essentially laying out how Mr. Brown and his cronies (whoever’s left) intend to create universal broadband suffrage for all, amongst other things.  Required reading.

http://tr.im/oYMB

Does Youtube really need advertising?

Love this, a great example of how Google get us looking in one direction whilst actually going off and making money / a success out of something completely different.  The jammie so and sos

http://tr.im/oYNY

More recession marketing…

This time from Orange with the advent of the £5 a month contract.  Only problem being you have to sign up for 3 years…. so Orange not hopeful of us coming out of this anytime soon then.

http://tr.im/oYP7

I just love this

Planners, MBA, online – never be stuck for words to stick in a presentation ever again

http://tr.im/oYPG

And finally…

check out the new internet thing we’ll all be talking about in the coming months – http://www.hunch.com/ it will literally tell you what to do (I would give a shout out to Seany B for bringing this to my attention, but he recently stole an innovative digital outdoor idea of mine and passed it off as his own, so this makes us quits)

Americans with lots of bubble making machines, in Time Sq, lovely – http://www.vimeo.com/1229431

Have a great weekend one and all

Ta,

Ben

Ben’s Eye – 7/6

Hello one and all,

‘Tis been a week of resignation and expenses indignation (still).  So here’s some media news to lift the gathering doom…

Broadband as essential as electricity and water

Say the residents of Britain.  Interesting stuff to chew over, apparently respondents valued a broadband connection above TV and mobile phone access.

http://tr.im/nxJF

Vote for your fav ad

New feature on Digg will allow users to vote up and down ads on the site.  Power to the people and all that.

http://tr.im/nxN6

Tsunami time

It’s what email would be if Google had designed it (apparently).  And unsurprisingly it looks pretty darn cool.

http://tr.im/nxQn

What social media can learn from education…

A lot apparently.  Always good to apply lessons from the past to our current situation, ‘those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it’ etc etc

http://tr.im/nxXN

Twitter story of the week!

So according to this, 10% of Twitter users are responsible for 90% of all Tweets.  Make of that what you will… is it just a load of narcissistic marketeers talking to a load of other narcissistic marketeers?

http://tr.im/nxZ9

And finally

Having been in the US of A for a week or so I thought I’d link you to a couple of my fav TV ads

This -  http://tr.im/ny11 simply for the line ‘he lives vicariously through himself’

and this – http://tr.im/nHfm the sports star endorsement is still king and Kobe and LeBron are up there with the biggest

and lastly this is just cool -  http://tr.im/ny3q

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Ta,

Ben


u, i, the 3 g’s 29.05.09

i’m not sure BAD fulfilled their remit last week so i’ve revisited some favourites here: godin, ted (well godin @ ted), gladwell and google – call it the 3g’s

1) http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/is-marketing-an-art-or-a-science.html

more stuff on ziggin and a zaggin, this time from mr godin, stealing from mr de bono – hats and stuff

2) http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html

the self same mr godin on “what do we do” – he argues we seek out change, i like the change agenda, if you’re interested in this, go find Kotter’s Leading Change for a much more academic guide as to how to construct it

3) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?yrail

how david beats goliath – by not taking goliath on at goliath’s game .  .  .

4) http://www.nicholine.com/_attachments/4200483/Motive,%20means%20and%20opportunity.pdf

those of you who have engaged in the loving data schtick will have seen/heard the using google as a planning tool for your stories thang – nice to see i’m not going mad . . .

have a ball

x

Google Zeitgeist – highlights

Google hosts a conference for the good and the great each year. Our very own Sue Unerman was there and delivers this round-up of the best of the best:

Agenda : Day 1

Opening address Lord Mandelson.

Said nothing for half an hour about making what we could of the world after the storm and being pragmatic as opposed to idealistic.  He fears a W shaped recession and admitted that the govt is underequipped to deal with the 24/7 digital world (echoing Andrew Neil at our first Age of Dialogue Conference three years ago).
Best bit was when Richard Eyre asked him to guarantee that the internet would not be regulated in a way which might hamper entrepreneurialism and he asked the question back : “Do you really think the people of this country want a totally unregulated www?”  Richard had no answer.

*The World in Data – Hans Rosling.

Well worth watching his act if you haven’t seen it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SynjhagPiw

Panel1

Staying the Course
CEO and Chairs of Daimler, John Lewis and Telecom Italia
Bit tame as you’d expect.
Franco Bernabe “Not all that is new is good, not all that is good is new”.
Charlie Mayfield J. Lewis “I can see a time when we make more from assembling a bbq than selling it”

*Panel2

Staying the Course – Nassim Taleb and Ian Bremmer.
Taleb author of brilliant book The Black Swan says “the more you study economics the less competent you’re going to be…. the past is not similar to the present.. we’re in something we’ve never seen before”.
“Forecasting is futile, being prepared is worthwhile”.  Watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9nTsM5npZ8 .
Taleb says the nation state is irrelevant in the time of Google, get rid of nation governments.  Bremmer says local and state issues are a bigger concern to people than ever.. they don’t care about the rest of the world now.

Prince of Asturias

Bit dull.

Prince of Norway

Dignity in development
“what will you say to your grandchildren when they ask you what did you do about the major challenges of our time”
Talked about Millennium Development Goals (we haven’t made much progress… nb one of the goals is gender equality – delegates 90% male)

Panel – Reinventing media

Lively debate especially enjoyable rant from Pedro Ramirez of El Mundo against Google.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-LfwlIr7pE

Realising Responsibility

Mo Ibrahim and Mary Robinson on ethics.

*Itay Talgam – Conductor

How to lead – well worth watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGF6E0R5tj4

Day 2

Panel – the road ahead

Deutsche Bank, Banesto, George Osbourne
Lively and honest debate re financial crash… Fantastic question re ethics vs regulation from the floor.
Anshu Jain says “bankers suffered from an excess of animal spirits”

*Prince Charles on Rainforests

Stop cutting down trees!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-G-XSRqPWA

Combining Tradition with Technology

Chief Surui – his tribe only met the outside world in the sixties.. now he’s using Google to fend off loggers. “Technology is an instrument for dialogue” .  He’s been chief since he was 17!

Panel New Frontiers

Spinvox, Spotify, Playfish, Space adventures

Panel Collaborative Creativity

Nice presentation of Nike Plus, Havas have a Global Youth piece of research and are proposing to hold a conference : One Young World next Feb chaired by Kofi Annan, you have to be 25 or under to attend (and pay £3k).  Nice bit of promotion for Havas though, why we should expect the next generation to come up with answers to the problems this generation have created is another question.  Tony Davidson from Weiden and Kennedy wants to build a giant sundial in the desert.  Chaz Jenkins talked about the YouTube Orchestra

*Panel Citizen Politics

Inspiring and humbling story from Oscar Morales Founder 1m voices against FARC – do not miss this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7225824.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQWWK4tb9RU&feature=channel

*Google perspective

Larry Page and Eric Schmidt double act – whats next ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se-wlHw9XQM&feature=channel

*Fireside Chat

Then joined by Richard Branson who is the only man with any answers… to war (Elders Group), to global warming (BioChar and inland lakes in deserts as seas rise), to Darfur (just done  a 3 day fast).
Can’t knock the creativity, energy and enormous ideas and charisma.

Closing reflections

Nikesh sums up (and tells people off who are leaving the room!)
Short highlights here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7UfiDbrQc

Sunday Best: 18 May 2009

A round-up of this week’s consumer news….

Nearly twice as many Brits are considering a camping holiday compared with last year
http://tr.im/lDNt

M&S to sell 2m items for 1p
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/may/14/marks-and-spencer-penny-bazaar

Shoppers of the future will ‘pick’ fruit from supermarket shelves
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5330690/Shoppers-of-the-future-will-pick-fruit-from-supermarket-shelves.html

Free–range is still important to consumers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/15/free-range-egg-sales-increase

Google rival, Wolfram Alpha to change the way people use online data
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8052798.stm

Twitter breaks its social network: how quickly can it fix it?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/13/twitter

Older workers hit hardest by unemployment crisis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/5330496/Older-workers-hit-hardest-by-unemployment-crisis.html

The top ten web brands accounted for 45% of all time spent online
http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/905544/Major-websites-grow-share-Britons-internet-time/

UK unemployment now at 2.22m (up 244k in Q1 of 2009)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8046128.stm

Follow us on for more regular updates from the Real World Insight team.