Marrying one large multinational consumer manufacturer giant with all things green, was never going to be a walk in the park. But this particular job for Agency D was made a whole lot easier. When I discovered that said manufacturer, was the producer of some of the worlds most innovative and environmentally friendly solutions. Let alone my surprise to hear, that not only are they a giant in the world of consumer goods. But also in the world of Power Stations, Data Storage Centres, Hybrid and High Speed Passenger Trains and the Construction Equipment Industry to name but a few.
In a funny way the answer wasn't so far away from the challengers we're facing in the Advertising Industry today. Which is why I'm adding it here.
That of Integration.
Where ours is joining the digital age, adapting to the fragment social and media landscape the public now reside in. Theirs is having to incorporate themselves within the worlds dwindling resources. While living in harmony with it and it's populations.
The answer to their brief went something like this.
"If you're in business today, you don't need a consultant or consensus group to write your companies mission statement. The environment is writing it for you.
The issues of marrying technological innovation, social responsibility and global sustainability are wide, varied and challenging. But the goals are simple. To limit future carbon emissions, minimize the effects of climate change and improve the quality of life for all. While enjoying a sustainable living from it.
Sustainability is also about a companies ability to balance drive for growth and profits with the responsibility of how it users resources. What effect it has on the environment, it's people and how it works with them. Delivering something good in their lives.
All this is only possible by having a working environment that encourages and fosters innovation, trying new ideas and doing what hasn't been done before. Creating new jobs and finding ways to operate more efficiently.
It's also about being open and transparent with your customers. Because the more you try to hide things from them, the more they're going to suspect you. And that's never a good thing.
Then, when it all comes together, it becomes part of your business model. Apart of your culture, everything you do and what you believe in.
It should also make companies stronger and more profitable. Because it forces them to meet the needs of their customers in a far more efficient way than ever before.
It's a sustainable future through social and environmental innovation. Protecting natural resources by forcing companies to become more efficient. Making a positive impact on peoples lives, through improving the quality of life here on planet Earth. Both ours and it's.
The world is asking some very tough questions about how we'll solve the growing social and environmental issues that govern our world today. Ensuring that the future belongs to those companies, that are already delivering answers to these questions here and now, today.
Take a look into our world and see how we can improve yours."
Year on year the number of books we read continues to fall. Longer blogs are receiving less traffic than short ones, and '140 characters' appears to rule the world. Are we really in danger of falling attention spans?
This was the question put to some of us on LinkedIn, through the group - TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. And below is a selection of the more noteworthy replies.
But before that, consider this...
...wow, now there's a lot of information for you. Did you manage to keep up and take it all in ok? And has the answer to the question just popped in your head?
"Has the attention span declined or was it artificially elongated in the past by books and slow learning methods? Kids learn very quickly as is demonstrated by how quickly they take to computer games, yet are bored stupid in school.
Great Ted talk by Bill Gates saying how he went into the new type of school and sat in on a class which was totally different to anything he'd experienced. The teacher was highly energetic and constantly evaluating and re-motivating each student as he/she saw the attention dropping off.
Perhaps new technology allows us to learn at our real pace - an small example is that I read D'Vinci code in a couple of days, but watched the film in a couple of hours. I'm learning about things on Ted I would never read about, as perhaps my attention wouldn't be kept long enough by a book to the point of becomming interested."
... "There was an era when symbols of communication later and now known as letters of the alphabet were the highest technological achievement, a development that would allow the spoken word and later written word be communicated to those that failed to be part of that conversation, so that they would reap the benefits of the discussions, events, speeches, you name it.
Written records, accounts, became the then bridge that closed the gap in the communication divide experienced by others due to factors like time, geographic locations and countless others that restricted them and us on being part of; and to be engaged in such discussions. Because of these developments we can still have the conversations with Darwin, Newton, Socrates through Plato, Ras Tafari, Ghandi, Moses, Mohamed, OR Thambo, Steve Biko.
This is an era where by these very same symbols have just changed the medium, from ink and paper, now to binary and the facilitating interfaces. It is an era that facilitates quick responses to inquiries that could have taken ages to respond to. This is an era that is accommodative of those that have a short attention span (of which we should not vilify) and those with a long attention span (if there is such an expression).
Maybe books have lost the appeal they used to have, but the very symbols that the books carry are still used for the very same purpose; and that purpose is to have that conversation, be part of that event and the discussion as we are having right now."
...
"This is an issue for theatre performance as well. Traditional story telling is losing its appeal. Linear storytelling with a beginning, middle and end may well be a thing of the past. The importance of plot and character may fall prey to celebrity and spectacle. The time pressure to communicate an idea or meaning in a very limited amount of time will ultimately reduce available alternatives. Will books, movies and theatre performance hold our attention? Will they remain financially viable means of imparting information?"
... "Stefan, if I may...
Possibly we can consider here that allowing the general population access to books and long literary works is a relatively new phenomena. Going back in time (for the majority of the history of mankind) it was only few scholars and leaders that were given the opportunity. Then, these 'leaders' would issue proclamations, give verbal lessons and, essentially "tweet" salient points, together with their views, to the masses. It has only been in relatively recent times, with the advent of the printing press and the publishing industry, that people were encouraged to read, and this began mostly so they could learn the skills needed to support the industrial revolution. Literacy of the masses became useful to the economic/industrial leaders.
Now, we have come out of the industrial revolution, things move seemingly at the speed of light, and once we have completed our formal education people are now encouraged, and given access to electronic reviews, posts, short news clips and sound bites as a resource to 'keep up' and at the same time still have time to do the things leaders need them to do in order to support the economy. Reading full books has once again become a counterproductive luxury...
It's not a new phenomena, and I submit (tongue-in-cheek), the readership of books, long blogs and the like is once again rightfully returning to the world of scholars."
...
"There is great value in brevity.
A message can be improved by presenting it is less time. At toastmasters, I encourage members to improve their speech by taking things out.
A ten minute speech is too long for the regular weekly meeting format. Speakers must make their points in 5 to 7 minutes. Inexperienced speakers think they should talk faster. But the better speakers will include only 3 main points. By thoughtfully selecting which points to include, they remove something that is less important; less valuable; less interesting. This process makes the resulting presentation better.
Do the same exercise for a two minute elevator pitch. Include only one important point; open with an attention grabbing concept and finish with a call to action. When a message is reduced even more, as in a 60 second commercial, it will be even better. "I'd like to teach the world to sing..."
...
"I would say knowledge in 21C has got seggrated in different buckets, thanks to internet. We have instant knowledge beepers like Twitter which are more for reactive knowledge adaption(you read and then react to knowledge), then comes wikis which are highlighters, as in it provides a high level information.
But books still remains as most credible source of knowledge. People still use books as source of information and not wikis and twitter, since success of former is defined more clearly with credible facts and information versus success of a twitter or wiki which can be easily manipulated with false followers to reflect as leading ones in their category.
The explosion of twitters of the world will always be short lived, and will be killed by next smarter application. Orkut was once considered as "The" networking application before Facebook.
I would put it like this- The interest in books has not decreased that much but there has been an increase in interest by people to read more about knowledge of new areas which they could not afford earlier due to high price tag of books. I would see this as a growth of a century coined as - Knowledge based Era."
...
"The function of a book is not only to deliver a categorical message. For example, the "message" might be an experience of tension and resolution which is created by a skilled author to present a moral or ethical paradox.
Mark Perloe is correct that it is an issue for theatre, and of course, for all the "classical" temporal (performance) arts. They all share a level of subtlety that is transparent only to those who have developed their understanding of the 'vocabulary'. Unfortunately, many people aren't even aware that such vocabularies exist.
Stefan, when you refer to "books", what category of books are you referring to? Great literature, or corner store thrillers, or business books? And in which cultures?"
...
"Perhaps the challenge is the time pressures that we all feel from 21st Century living .... along with the instant gratification conditioning that have crept into global society.
It's the "I want knowledge and I want insight .... I want it FAST. If it doesn't grab my attention in 30 seconds .... bye, bye.
This reminds me of the old elevator speech ... and I think it is more critical than ever. I believe we can no longer sit back and think "I've got some really good stuff here, why isn't it getting a fair hearing?". In the world of media communication overload - we all have figure out our own 'Dive Bomber Leadership' for getting our messages across. Irrespective whether that message is for business, for pleasure, for community, for charity. We have to create our own 30-second elevator speech in order to get through the noise and for the good stuff to be heard.
Dive Bomber Leadership" [with acknowledgement to Bhanu Dhir]
Taking a high level overview helps you see what is really going on, however, unless you fly low, you will never really undersatnd what you see.
1. Dive Bombers fly low, take chances and act with precision 2. Acting with precision is necessary because there is always too much to do 3. So, what is the intervention you can take that will yeild the greatest results 4. It's all about Project Management and Stakeholder Management 5. How are you managing your 'social media communication' project? Are you managing it as a project? 6. How are you managing your 'social media' stakeholders LinkedIN, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ecademy, Xing, Ning, Ping, iPhone, SMS, Voicemail, Email and not forgetting to mention the myriads of webmunities (web communities). That's what we see at 40,000 feet ... but which one should be our target - you can see that as 'destroy' or to be 'saved'.
Finally, Rand MacIvor (commented here already) has a wonderful blog about creative communications - it's simply brilliant and refreshing in the world of blogs. It contains few words but the message about thinking creatively is clear and it captures people's attention quickly and it is very, very inspiring."
...
"Could it just be we're moving rapidly towards a "hive mind," where no particular node (i.e. human being) needs to have large, in depth thoughts...but where each of us contributes our bits and bytes to the larger organism of which we're a part? As the internet, frequent jet travel, globalized economies and cultures continue to grow, the value of the individual appears to be changing...and where it once required a human to have a complete and in-depth picture of what was going on around them in order to be effective contributors to society, that something else is now (or will be) required?"
... "I believe that this interesting topic has a deep element of human nature in it. I believe the human animal is tied innately to symbolism, due to the his/her reliance on the sense of sight first.
The speed of conveying this symbolism has progressed geometrically throughout history. From cave paintings to stone tablets to illuminated manuscripts to paper and pen to pencil to typewriter to email to twitter. In the same way as the conveying of information has evolved, so has the receiving of it. What would have taken a whole night to paint on the side of a wall can now be tweeted in minutes. A friend of mine told me he had just read that it took 80 years for the pencil to be accepted and in general use. How long did it take twitter to catch on? 3 months? I believe we all hunger for knowledge, and we think the faster, the better.
Genrich Altschuller describes the general description of this evolution in his Eight Patterns of Evolution of All Technical Systems. One of the patterns says that systems progress from mechanical to electrical to electronic to "fields". Another says as systems evolve they become more dynamic and more controllable. Another says that systems go from macro systems to micro systems (and now to nano systems). Smaller and faster.
All that being said, I think there is something unique about the book. It is in your hand. It has all the knowledge. It is a textural and tactile a physical experience. You can re-read anything you want at your own pace. You can dog ear the pages and no one knows. You can even make notes, and no one can hack into it (if you keep it hidden). There is nothing like sitting beside a fire in the fireplace with a glass of port and a good book for a night of imagery and imagination.
Books might get used less, but like those who said the video would kill the movies, we are more complex than that, and there is more to it than that."
...
"Kent, Good point. How can attention spans be 'getting' shorter. Our attention spans the length required to attend to the specific item. If it is a 30 second YouTube video, then it is a 30 second span, if it's 2hrs for Avatar then the span is necessarily 2 hours if we so choose. I think perhaps the original observation is that we are seeming to choose to attend to things which require a shorter span of attention?"
...
"I am probably older than just about everyone (if not everyone) who answered as I am in my 60s. I strongly believe that attention spans are a lot shorter than they used to be - part of the reason is that we have so much coming at us due to technology exploding that we are losing the ability to concentrate on any one thing for very long. I also think that we are trying to fit so much more into our days because we all believe we have to. I find that everything I do now has to be fast - that I don't want to waste time. In many ways, technology is wonderful, but in other ways we forgetting that there is a lot more to life than just being busy. We really do need to learn to "stop and smell the roses".
You can both read and contribute to the thread here.
Out of the world's top 100 social brands, iPhone and Disney lead the way. With Apple's famed iPhone being the most social brand in the world, according to the Virtue 100, a list of the world’s most social brands compiled by social media marketing agency Virtue. The top 100 list is generated through reviewing popular social media sites covering what Virtue refer to as:
Social Networking - general sharing.
Video Sharing - high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimension.
Status Updates - aka Micro-Blogs: key influencers who chatter and actively push content.
Photo Sharing - social meta data.
Blogs - general blogsphere, commentary mentions.
Thanks to existing and newly emerging Apps from the likes of Nike, Wave Machine Labs, Lynx, Square Up, WIKITUDE and Parrot to name but a few. The revolutionary iphone not only sits at the top spot for the second year running, but is very probably going to remain there next year too.
Nike - True City
Wave Machine Labs - Voice Band
Lynx -The Perfect Man
Square Up's - Unlimited Mobile Payment Facility, alloys you to accepting credit or debit cards absolutely anywhere. Enabling you to read credit and debit cards through an easy interface from any device with an audio input jack, including your mobile phone. Accepting payments has never been faster or more convenient.
WIKITUDE - Augmented Reality In Car Navigation
Parrot - AR. Drone 1
Parrot - AR. Drone 2
Nike id - Trainer Design Customization
Last year marked the tipping point for social media with Facebook reaching 350 million active users worldwide as adoption of social media by marketers also followed suit.
Disney was rated 2nd with CNN taking the 3rd spot. Interestingly, Apple’s music and download service iTunes wasn’t in the top five – it was listed 6th. Apple itself came in 8th place with its iPod listed 34th. British brands which made the list included Burberry, which was ranked 94th. Media brands make up 8% of list with CNN (3), MTV (4), ESPN (23), CBS (32), Turner (36) and Fox News (56) appearing.
Marketers are increasingly adding social media as a foundation into the marketing mix and need the infrastructure to manage their increasingly robust presences, according to Virtue. TV ads are now tagged out with Facebook URLs instead of corporate web sites and point-of-sale call to actions now direct you to fan them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.
According to Forrester research, social media marketing is projected to grow at an annual rate of 34%, faster than any other form of online marketing. Furthermore, as eMarketer reported, the percentage of the Fortune 500 not using social media has dropped from 43% now to only 9%.
This year’s list is a provocative mix of blue chip brands – cross category from CPG to auto to electronics to retail. While the iPhone still reigns supreme, game consoles dominate the top of the list with the Wii rating in the 7th spot, Xbox 9th, PlayStation 13th and Nintendo coming in 21st. The biggest gainers in the Virtue 100 this year according to the agency were NBA (5), Nike (10), Victoria’s Secret (41) and KFC (66). Luxury brands had good representation on the list this year with Gucci (27), Louis Vuitton (81) and Prada (88) all featuring.
Some powerhouse technology brands were omitted from the list as they provide the backbone of many social networks. While Google, Facebook and others are top brands, the Vitrue 100 is measuring companies that are using social technology, not those who are the technology.
Isn't it always the case that. In times of rapid acceleration, man takes a reassuring look back into his past.
Never more appropriately timed than in the midst of the current digital revolution, relentlessly redrawing the world we live in. The BBC delivers "The History of The World In 100 Objects". I don't know about you but I'm fascinated at the prospect of following this on Radio 4.
The BBC and the British Museum have joined forces to bring a series running throughout 2010, narrating the global history told through the British Museum's world collection.
A History of The World In 100 Objects, written and narrated by the British Museum Director, Neil MacGregor and produced by Radio 4.
The 15-minute programmes are planned to be broadcast at 9.45am from Monday to Friday, repeated at 7.45pm. Each programme focuses on one object from the Museum's collection and will include additional voices from a range of contributors including Bob Geldof, Wole Soyinka, Grayson Perry, Madhur Jaffrey, Seamus Heaney and many others.
Each week of programmes will be tied to a particular theme, such as "after the ice age" or "meeting the gods". And objects will be selected to cover the broadest possible chronological and geographical period, telling a history of the world from two million years ago to the present day.
The series explores the key developments in human history, from ancient cultures and more recent events, some objects will be familiar, others equally fascinating but less well known. And tells of parallel developments that took place throughout our global history, which highlight often unexpected connections and universal themes. Any given week in the series will give listeners a sense of the cultural achievements across the world during a particular time period. The 100 programmes will be broadcast in three tranches throughout 2010.
Expanding to include a 13-part series on CBBC. Activities across the UK with contributions from 350 museums across the UK, all telling a history of the world from their local perspective. Many more are expected to join up as the project gains momentum through 2010, with these partnerships reflected across the BBC local websites. It's planned that information and programmes will also be available on mobile phones. CBBC and BBC Schools are looking to offer a range of activities, lesson plans and history trails for both children and teachers. Omnibus editions broadcasted on the BBC World Service and holding all of these elements together is an interactive digital proposition found at A History Of The World.
The website is expected to offer a combination of opportunities to listen, watch and take part in "A History of the World", with the Radio 4 programmes available to listen to or download, forever. Through video and a 'zoom in' facility, users will be able to examine photos of the 100 objects in intricate detail. In an initiative service, listeners and viewers will also be encouraged to offer pictures of objects they own and explain how these objects can help tell a history of the world. With ambitions to create a unique digital museum online of objects that tell history through the eyes of museums and audiences across the UK.
It sounds like the BBC have big plans for this series and I expect to start seeing a lot more coverage running throughout the BBC. I've also noticed it's aimed at involving the nation at large. I sincerely hope they're successful in this, with social media playing it's part. As I can think of a better way in achieving this, than in encouraging social media to take some ownership in it. Helping the BBC to spread the word and getting us all involved.
Last but not least. I also can't help but wonder if by the end of the year. The curators of the series haven't found themselves adding something that wasn't there at the beginning of it.
