PSFK's Good Ideas Salon, London-Style

PSFK will be hosting a full day-long Good Ideas Salon, in London on January 30, 2009. From a varied mix of PSFK hand-picked innovators and leaders in creative thinking, attendees will gain insight into such areas as: arts & culture, collaboration, design, digital, marketing, mobile, and youth.

A Metaphor for Web 2.0: The Bubble Project

Consider this a living metaphor for Web 2.0 (in fact, he says so at the end):

This artist and his Bubbles are the Web 2.0 enablers sprouting up all over the web and mobile (YouTube, Dopplr, Yelp, Twitter, etc), inviting people to participate. People add value by contributing to the blank space in the Bubbles (without the contributions of the masses, the Bubbles are valueless). And well, the collective canvas and conversation starter is the ads (and TV shows and news).

Agencies and creatives now have the choice to acknowledge that these Bubbles will now increasingly pop up throughout the web (and the real world). We may even embrace these Bubbles and actually leave space for them and let their contribution make our communications ideas better/contextually relevant/innovative/participatory/engaging/personal/collaborative ("people add value"). Or not. We can pretend that our ad ideas are the special ones, and we won't ever be Bubbled over.

But it is likely that the Bubbles are coming whether you intend it or not. Don't fear the Bubbles! They don't have to be malicious threats to our idea, in fact, many are simply co-creative and collaborative additions that actually improve on and expand the communications idea (or they can be). And if the Bubbles are negative, we may need to ask ourselves why and is there some truth to be addressed in the Bubbles' response to our brands?

Either way its a fresh and slippy idea for our times.

Workshop Recap - DEEPSPACE STRATEGY: Modern Brand Building

Last week we (Alyson and I) had the extreme pleasure of attending Space 150’s DEEPSPACE STRATEGY: Modern Brand Building workshop. Adrian Ho from Zeus Jones, Dion Hughes of Persuasion Arts & Sciences and space150’s Paul Isakson spit some knowledge at a small crowd from an assortment of MPLS agencies.

What were the top three most interesting tidbits that floated to the top of the presentations and subsequent conversations? Thanks for asking.

One: Manners and Parties
Dion’s focus was on how modern brands should look at themselves like they’re guests at a party and how manners, courtesy, and the desire to leave a good (and lasting) impression can translate into a brand image. Our question: Do all brands want to be the life of the party and talk of the town (Consumer Goods), or do the rules of the party change if you are a different type of guest at a different type of party (BtoB)? Short answer: It’s less about being the life of the party and more about being the ideal guest. It may be OK to rock a lampshade on your head, if that what’s the frat party calls for. Other parties, however, may require more subtlety, manners, and conversation.

Two: Element of Time
This touched on the fact that digital media has extended the audience for brands and increased the importance of timing in brand messaging. Brands need the ability to react to the almost immediate fan feedback (and cynic backlash) that has become available with product and brand specific blogging. The point was made that there are certain limits on cognitive capital, and consumers will only blog about expensive items or those that play a important role in users lives. (It’s at this point, that the words “Apple” and “iPhone” were used a combined 247 times) Although we’ve been seeing plenty of product blogs that do not fit into one of those categories (i.e. Breakfast Cereal), it’s difficult to find a brand blog that does the same (i.e. Cheerios Blog).
Brands also need to rethink the term “first-to-market”. Paul explained how “If you don’t define your brand, someone else will”, illustrated in the Mac vs. PC (248) ads. This also includes beating your consumers to the digital space, or at least playing nice with them if they’ve beat you there.

Three: Advertising Community
Lastly, the workshop itself was evidence of the internal and external changing landscape of ad agencies. There seems to be a move toward a communal exchange of knowledge between advertising minds, especially in MPLS. This allows green planners to mix it up with experienced thinkers, while all can benefit from the occasional re-learning and re-vamping session, especially since new-and-improved branding practices have already given way to smarter-and-sleeker ones.

Community 2.0: Hurricane Gustav Information Center

A collective assembly of Gustav Information. Using Ning platform, the site aggregates content from a variety of social media resources, including; Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Utterz, Technorati, etc.- all you have to do is tag the item gustav.



*Hopefully, this will be a merely academic exercise in pre-caution.

via Social Media Club

Mass Interactive: Cymbolism

Cymbolism is a new website that attempts to quantify the association between colors and words, making it simple for designers to choose the best colors for the desired emotional effect. Taking web 2.0 folksonomy to the next stage, users are invited to organize the definition of color itself with word associations and tags.