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1. Objectified: giving objects memories

   Wow – this is such an interesting post. I guess you must have read some of Bruce Sterling’s stuff on Spimes… all particualrly interesting because in some ways he’s the bridge between real technology advance and scifi/near future history. Have a look at this interesting post from Boing Boing.

   http://boingboing.net/images/blobjects.htm

   January 27th, 2010 at 12:20 pm

2. 2010 Prediction: Many people will continue to not get it

   So many people continuing to not get it…

   “Far from delivering a ‘wisdom of crowds’, social networking sites have created only a deafening banality”

   And the evidence for this is…?

   And what the hell is he talking about with this??:

   “One of the most embarrassing features of recent British political life is the unseemly haste with which our politicians and their wonks have chased after the latest modish ideas book.”

   Morons

   January 3rd, 2010 at 11:28 pm

3. 2010 Prediction: Many people will continue to not get it

   Please send links.

   I’d quite like to see any research that says you’re more likely to be well-adjusted, healthy, happy, balanced etc etc if you can maintain a big network of all sorts of real and virtual relationships. I’d love to know if you’ve come across anything that proves social networking, or using lots of digital services in general, is good for you in any way.

   Ta

   January 3rd, 2010 at 11:16 pm

4. 2010 Prediction: Many people will continue to not get it

   I know. Me too. It’s hilariously ignorant. I might start a collection of the most idiotic examples. Have a look at the one Mike has posted below. Again, from the Guardian. This time it’s “The trouble with Twitter”.

   January 3rd, 2010 at 11:08 pm

5. 2010 Prediction: Many people will continue to not get it

   To be honest Mike, I totally dodged the religious angle. I actually couldn’t work out how it was connected to her concerns about the effect of social networking at all!

   January 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 pm

6. We've been nominated for a BIMA, and now we need your votes

   Zorro – forgot to ask… does that mean we *can* count on your vote or not?

   November 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm

7. Spot the difference: mobile phone websites

   Is that true Zorro? You sound angry…

   November 1st, 2009 at 11:40 pm

8. Grow a spine you wimps

   I want to make it clear that Total Freedom is purely a money thing for me. There are no lofty motives. It’s a very simple deal. I smash your stuff up. You pay me £50.

   October 28th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

9. Grow a spine you wimps

   Imagine turning Freedom ‘on’ just as some robbers break in… watcha gonna do then??

   October 27th, 2009 at 12:08 am

10. Grow a spine you wimps

    That’s an interesting suggestion Mike. Thanks.

    October 27th, 2009 at 12:06 am

11. Grow a spine you wimps

    Don’t know. I’m a bit extreme on this kind of stuff. I think people will cope, and find more and more advanced ways of coping – including getting rid of these slow old meat-bodies and augmenting ourselves with machines… bring it.

    October 27th, 2009 at 12:05 am

12. Grow a spine you wimps

    Yes – please send the money immediately.

    October 26th, 2009 at 11:58 pm

13. Grow a spine you wimps

    Great article on writing. Long though isn’t it? I found myself glazing over.

    Can you pay the £50 upfront?

    T

    October 26th, 2009 at 11:57 pm

14. Google Wave is Underwhelming

    This post is a Total Balloon Boy then. Thanks for your comment.

    October 20th, 2009 at 8:16 am

15. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Hi Barry. Thanks for taking the time to comment at our blog.

    First of all, let me just say that I think the Nike+ platform, and all the work R/GA have done with Nike, is *brilliant*.

    The truly groundbreaking Nike+ platform is cited in nearly every meeting I have been to where people are discussing the future of advertising or what they’d like to do with digital – and this has been the case for three years. So, *in no way* do I seek to take anything away from that.

    However, I’m not sure it is correct to say that:

    “There was absolutely none [paid-for advertising] for over a year after the product launched in August 2006.”

    There are these two from November 2006:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDw5uQvK5Y
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEs8NIRRyYc&feature=player_embedded

    And there’s this one from December 2006:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDw5uQvK5Y

    And then there are these three from 2007 (before August 2007):
    April 2007 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9yn_3fromg
    April 2007 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTd2vEkWTj0
    July 2007 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WVN6xULZqo

    So – that’s six different ads that I found in fifteen minutes on YouTube from the first year. There were a further 3 or 4 plus localised ads in September 2007 – a date that is only relevant because, as you say, there were none for OVER a year…

    I really don’t mean to split hairs, but the point that I was trying to make (obviously, not well enough) was that Nike+ *was* supported with traditional paid-for channels – and not just earned media – and that the paid-for support was undoubtedly *relatively* expensive when compared to most people’s budgets for digital platforms… and that this makes a like-for-like comparison difficult.

    In summary, I hope you don’t feel that I was in any way detracting from the value that the Nike+ platform has created, its business impact or the significance of R/GA’s innovative model. I totally accept that the platform is the thing that makes what you did work, that drove the earned media attention, and that the value of the earned component is much greater over time. But, traditional advertising played perhaps slightly more of a role than you claim in establishing the platform.

    October 19th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

16. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Wow – great comment Matt. Thanks, there’s a lot in there.

    I wonder if tomorrow’s ad agencies should be more like consultancies? It feel like there’s a big chunk of ‘change management’ required if we are to help some client organisations achieve what they want. I’ve always been interested in the question, “Is it easier to get the right clients than turn the wrong clients around?” I honestly don’t know the answer – maybe it’s the wrong question.

    You are definitely right to identify the gap between the ‘ideal’ we’re all aiming for and the reality of what gets delivered. I’m certainly not going to bullshit you that we always get it 100% right first go – but isn’t that the point of committing to the permanent beta…? As BBH Labs say over at their related blog on “So what exactly might ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ be?” (http://bit.ly/2lvZNG) “To Fail Is To Learn”. We move on our thinking about process with each job – it is never good enough, and there is always a new challenge.

    I’m very interested in your point about ’social business design’, as Dachis have coined it. It feels like clients are going to become more like agencies in some respects, while some agencies will become much more like a cross between management consultants and talent agencies… and the recession is the perfect excuse to take the gloves off and try this difficult seismic-scale change out stuff out properly… in fact, maybe a lot of people have been waiting for this moment.

    October 18th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

17. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Thanks David,

    I love your point:

    “if it was just about hiring some digital people and enforcing some process we’d all be writing about something else, because the problem would be solved.”

    And your observation that everyone has to give something up to move on is an excellent one that really rings true for us. We’re not an ad agency – but we are living inside one (totally independently) – and that experience has, I think and hope, been challenging in all the right ways for both parties. It’s not always without its tensions – but that’s a really constructive tension and has certainly made us better. It’s absolutely about negotiating your way ahead.

    October 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm

18. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    I missed your suggestion of dropping titles, which is interesting because it’s something we are ’sort of’ in the process of doing here at Made by Many. We realised 18 months in that there is a natural tendency if the majority of people have come from agency backgrounds, for you to settle into an ‘agency’ way of thinking over time… it’s a kind of inertia force. There isn’t much you can do to stop it happening – other than recognise it and re-commit to being more radical periodically (or “radding it up” as we say internally). So we are currently “radding it up” – and doing away with job titles, and replacing them with this thought:

    “Job titles are limiting for employees and clients. No-one has a job title, you are the sum of abilities in disciplines”

    Still working out what this means practically – but we think it might have pretty exciting implications for recruiting, training, measuring utilisation and billing. We’ll keep you posted – Stuart said he’d blog about it at some stage…

    October 18th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

19. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Hi there Mike – thanks for taking the time to comment.

    Emotionally, I am totally with you on the “starting from scratch”, but I realise that (1) that is because I have a tendency to be an extremist; and (2) that’s what we did two years ago.. so of course it’s the correct answer!

    With my rational head on on, I understand that it is not possible to start from scratch for most companies – but more than that I genuinely don’t believe it to be necessary. Undoubtedly, it would make it easier in some respects but no-one can afford to throw away the accumulated value – the wisdom, culture, smart people, breadth of creativity, scale and breadth of communications planning etc etc – all of the things that start-ups crave and find very difficult to ‘get’. My prediction (for what it’s worth, which quite frankly isn’t much) is that we’ll see the smartest agencies – or at least the ones where the smartest people wield real influence – get this pretty quickly. The dumber ones will die.

    October 18th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

20. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Thank you James.

    Maybe we should re-draw the Eye of Jupiter as The Four Leafed Clover of Jupiter to represent “luck”? ;-)

    If only 25% of a big company gets it I guess they might find it hard to “clean up”?? Although, I guess it depends which 25% n’est pas? The 25% most influential might work…

    October 18th, 2009 at 2:12 pm

21. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Ahh Mr Perkin,

    Thank you so much for bringing both of those posts to my attention. The first, on the subject of ‘Agile Advertising’ contains some thoughts that I think anyone trying to create a long-term platform for clients should have a very serious conversation with them about. It’s absolutely spot on and I honestly think that this goes over many people’s heads when they’re inn the market for ‘a social’. Here it is, as it’s so perkinent (arf) to this discussion:

    “Tough perhaps, to keep focused on the long-term when the average tenure of a Marketing Director is 18 months and when, now more than ever, it’s all about hitting the next quarter’s number. But the structural change that needs to happen in marketing and advertising works to a different set of rules. In an environment that is participative it is rude to start a conversation and then walk away. In an environment where your audience have contributed to the success of your idea by building on it, and helping it spread, it is rude not to acknowledge that contribution. In an environment where your audience demand interaction with your brand at their convenience, rather than yours, it is rude to ignore that demand. Conversations can strike up at any time, with anyone, and will last for as long as they are interesting, fun or useful.”

    I do believe that although (as you rightly also point out in that post) traditional advertising is “not set up around continuity. It is set up around campaigning” advertising is also full of very smart people who have bot failed to see what is happening to this world. Last week’s joint post at BBH Labs by my brother Ben and Greg Andersen, the MD of BBH NY, shows how some agencies ARE experimenting with new and more agile ways of working. Ben and Greg take this on a step further as well by highlighting the challenges to brands:

    “We believe marketing communications are already being forced to become increasingly agile; particularly for more youth-oriented brands… it’s our view that communications for certain types of brands must make a dramatic shift from highly polished epic launches to a continuous and diverse stream of messaging and content designed to ride hyper-current cultural trends, consumer attitudes and competitive maneuvering. The performance of this diverse activity continuously monitored and optimized like a portfolio of stocks…”"

    I don’t agree with your commenters that “advertising is still meant to be a “one-way cyclical endeavor designed to drive awareness, not necessarily a tool to drive social interaction”.”

    Sure, it is still possible to spend a lot of money and reach a lot of people (probably more money for less people, with less effect) but what is that really worth nowadays. It’s a race to the bottom isn’t it? Spiraling, diminishing returns. I also wonder what kind of people go home at the end of a day thinking they’ve done a great job? I suppose some must – but they must be feeling more and more like spammers.

    All that said – I see there are some interesting points of view below, notably:

    Mike Scheiner: “The big problem here is that in order to achieve what your suggesting, you really need to start from scratch or from the ground up.”

    Matt Spangler: “Agencies do have great people many of who get the culture and will be brought up to speed over time. I think they will need to get smaller before they can grow again though and the ones who take the hardest look now and make the most painful choices for today, will be the ones that succeed tomorrow.”

    Is ALL advertising content becoming socialised? I’m not sure I would go that far. I am grimly fascinated with the £11m Kingsmill Confessions campaign (http://www.kingsmillconfessions.com). It’s taken the *form* of a social campaign – but there’s nothing authentically social there… and so it feels like a lie, which is perhaps even more damaging. It’s like a very expensive microsite that won’t die. Check out the value exchange – I love this: “We’ll pay you to say something nice about us [pretend you have a bread confession, and make it as cringe-worthily, arse-licking as possible...] with the *CHANCE* to win £250 of Red Letter Day vouchers [another brand and product - not Kingsmill]… but it doesn’t stop there… no sirreeee, we’ll make you FAMOUS.. [i.e. we'll print your name on a bag of bread so everyone can see what a weak-minded idiot you are, and that that you'll utterly debase yourself and say **anything** to be in with a chance of driving a car round a racetrack].

    Bit of a rant – but you get my point!

    October 18th, 2009 at 2:08 pm

22. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Thanks Mel. I’m thinking of getting a T-Shirt done. If we do I shall get you one done.

    Tx

    October 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

23. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Thanks Jeremy – and thanks for commenting!

    Getting the right talent is something we all find hard. Here again, total immersion in the culture helps – we recruited the last four people at Made by Many through the community of like-minded people we got to know on Twitter and blogs. We found a project manager for BBH last year for Metrotwin.com in 15 minutes using the Twitters.

    The real upside is never having to talk to recruitment consultants!

    October 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

24. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Yeah – no probs – it’s an unfortunate phrase. Try this:

    “the right kind of digitally savvy creatives: service designers, not graphic designers (or mere Web designers), and both pure technologists and creative techies”

    Does that make more sense? Thanks for pointing it out – I kept stopping there when writing it, but I think it made more sense late at night ;-)

    October 16th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

25. Pulling Off The Optimal Platform Job

    Hi Andrew

    Thanks for your comment. Sure you’re right about the continuing need for mass media – and I’m certainly not arguing that everything should be digital. Rather that digital platforms are increasingly ‘the glue’ that makes the sum of the parts greater.

    To be clear, neither am I arguing against campaigns – campaigns are delivered on platforms (think I called them ‘platform campaigns’ in the post) – but that’s a different approach to creating an isolated microsite to support each campaign.

    I think this video of Bob Greenberg and Barry Wacksman giving a talk about the changing world as they see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsRpXZML5YU
    It’s a great video – quite long and worth looking at. What it shows graphically is the difference in long term value of a traditional, linear, approach to advertising and the resulting spikes versus the incremental value to be gained through a series of platforms running on the same campaign (in this case Nike+, which we must remember was also supported in many, expensive and traditional channels – and not just the digital stuff as you might believe from this video!). There are some interesting charts.

    I certainly don’t see digital ‘replacing’ advertising like that – technology usually adds something rather than replace something.

    It would be interesting to know whether advertising must always be a linear process as opposed to an evolutionary and adaptive one.

    Speak soon.

    October 15th, 2009 at 2:48 pm