• MeasurementCamp – what it is, what I learnt about managing an offline community
• Channel 4, the Chop or Not project and the ‘two screen experience’
• NM’s recent playing with an iPad
• Twitter friendships – are they real? how do they differ from ‘normal’ relationships?
• UK politics and the social web
• US politics, and the US / UK divide on boldness and willingness to innovate
• Organisational change in the context of the social web
• Which agency disciplines are ‘right’
• The Hollywood model of loosely joined networks

It’s not Clay Shirky at the RSA – put it that way – but do let me know if it throws up any questions or reactions :)

And thanks to Kelvin.

Fig 1: Ross, excited.

There is a ton of cool stuff flying around at the moment, and rather than attempt some kind of comprehensive mega-list, here is a snapshot of why I think 2010 will rock.

1. Applications are hitting their stride; as a devoted iPhone user, i’ve downloaded many apps in the past 12 months, some terrible (countless crappy games spring to mind) and some inspiring (music apps such as RJDJ and Bloom), but more recently some really highly developed apps have captured my attention. Firstly, the Guardian showed how traditional media can thrive on such a platform with their beautifully executed app, and secondly game makers are capitalizing on the unique characteristics of the iPhone with games such as Doodle Jump; on paper it shouldn’t hold your attention for longer than five seconds, but in practice it’s painfully addictive.

As the app store reaches maturity, serious developers and content providers will continue to make headway amongst the bottom feeders, and more consumers will be happy to pay for genuine goodness. Add in increased iPhone power, bigger sexier Android phones and potential rumblings from Microsoft, and you have an exciting mobile themepark for developers to play in. Also, even the recent approval of adult-themed apps in the Apple app-store can only be a good thing seeing as how pornography has driven so many online innovations.

2. Properly good, targeted advertising; if like me, you enjoy total banner blindness from so much browsing, recent developments in behavioral targeting and the news that Facebooks’ partnership with MSN is coming to an end can only be a good thing. Whilst it would be wonderful if websites paid for themselves, the truth is that they don’t, and so for many sites advertising is a necessary evil. Therefore, it’s good that ads are becoming more and more suitable, to the point that they’re actually helpful. We (thankfully) may not reach the scary Minority Report style of advertising in 2010, but hopefully advertisers could get better and better at popping up with genuinely useful images and offers.

Taking this one step further, imagine a social layer to all advertising; in a similar way that Facebook suggests mutual friends, why not suggest mutual purchases? Amazon, ebay and a whole host of retail sites are doing this based on your own purchases, but I cannot think of an example of a truly human method of recommending products or services based on a complex and unique online persona. That would be good.

3. Music is getting more exciting; whilst some argue that all the best tunes have been written, in the tale end of 2009 and coming into 2010 there have been a whole load of artists that have made my head spin. As a big fan of dubstep the rise of peeps like Gaslamp Killer and Joy Orbison is brilliant as for me it represents an exciting and futuristic area of music; this isn’t electronica for the sake of electronica, it’s genuine creativity using the best technology at hand.

Also, if 2009 saw Spotify make a foothold in the online music space, 2010 should hopefully see it reach its potential. Once you get past the giddying breadth of choice, its uses as a collaborative experience are amazing. Here in the office we’ve recently set up a company account with group playlists for different days and moods, including Soundtrack Tuesday and the infamous Love Hour™, which means that we save a whole load of time discussing music selection, and get to enjoy the whole range of interests housed within our team. Take this one step further and you can imagine large corporates (or even councils and governments) setting up and encouraging motivational playlists, creating highly regarded curators in the process. The Now series (and many others) could even evolve from its current incarnation as a crappy double CD, to being a nationally sourced, collaborative playlist available to the consumer for a minimal fee, with some kind of special content to warrant a fee, if any.

4. Real stuff matters; as somebody who works online, it’s important to remember how much we appreciate ‘real’ stuff. We occasionally forget that as more and more things are made easier online, it’s actual, touchy-feely goodness that drives us as human beings; like the way as people lament the loss of tangible CDs or vinyl when they get hooked into Spotify. I spent a lot of time before Christmas making a couple of Blurb books as presents, and after what felt like days of tweaking photos and adding captions, the joy of receiving, and then giving, real/readable/breakable books was immense. Blurb is not alone, there are many sites that offer real life outputs for virtual inputs, like this one for knitted hats made by actual grannies.

As an agency, in brainstorms we think about the needs of the audience and the objectives of the client, before thinking about whether it might be a Wordpress build or Twitter feed etc. If the audience demands physicality, and the client is offering real-world stuff, then any online presence should enable this rather than attempt to replace it. By remembering that we are driven by experiences and ‘things’, hopefully throughout 2010 we will be able to bring all-encompassing realness to our clients.

5. Intelligence explosion; this is a random one, but resulted from a conversation I had with Max and Will. Talking about singularity, I stumbled across the idea of an ‘intelligence explosion’; this wiki article does a great job of explaining it, but basically it’s the theory that as soon as human’s create technology even a tiny bit smarter than ourselves, there will be a huge surge in intelligence as machines think for themselves in ways that human’s cannot, meaning that “the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.”

Now, whilst i’m not thrilled about this kind of outcome, part of me is incredibly curious as to what artificial intelligence could create. Forgetting about war machines and Austrian cyborgs, imagine the music or architecture or even recipes that a higher level of logic and thinking could create. Then imagine the layer of human intelligence and emotion that could be applied to this, and the beautiful result of the two. I’m sure we’re a long way off, but I think it’s definitely something to be aware of.

So, there you go, a random collection of things that are keeping me happy. Feel free to add your own below, or question mine :)

1. Recruiters abound

One of our team has had four recruitment callers in two weeks. One directly from a substantial traditional agency with a name your nan would recognise even though you nan doesn’t know agency land, two from ‘headhunters’ and I can’t remember where the other was from – a start-up agency abroad perhaps. Another of our team (and board) had a call last week. Some of our friends in the industry are finding that their needs for good people in this area exceed the available supply they can find.

As a side note, on this front I’m not personally fussed about our team getting calls. It’s distracting for them, but also motivating (I imagine).  I can never understand it when my clever and hardworking agency MD/founder peers bust a gut when someone from their team gets poached. I’m hardly above getting emotional about business (quite the opposite), but I always reckon that all an employer/manager can do is look after their people. What they do is up to them :)

So the recruitment space is heating up.

2. Mergers & Acquisitions are poised

The whole agency space is warming up. The guys doing social media agencies to sell out to the established agency ecosystem will probably succeed – I know personally and directly that big agencies and groups are actively opening conversations with the new boutique firms. The professional intermediaries like Results and Pembridge seem to be fairly sanguine and patient about the agency M&A market as a whole at the moment but are starting to build their networks and engagement with the new social media thing. I guess for those on the fence at corporate finance and deal-making advisory firms the Headshift deal will have catalysed that.

3. MeasurementCamp attendees have evolved

A different sort of input: a human one! :) Yay for humans.

When I started MeasurementCamp with the help of the nascent social media community about 18 months ago it was the pioneers with a lower case ‘P’ – the lovely smart and down to earth writers/talkers/thinkers that are interested by the new and who naturally were investing their time investigating new interesting stuff. Today we have more of a blend which still includes the super-thinker hardcore people but the archetypal (though thankfully we still have lots of diversity) MeasurementCamper is younger, much more likely to be part of an agency, and is working on live social media projects. The market exists. And thank the lawds, there’s some REAL talent there. Even just last week at MeasurementCamp London there were three or four new very smart young agency people in attendance. I predict inflated salaries and big ‘welcome to traditional agencyland – now socialmediafy the world, by tomorrow please’ jobs for them all.

4. Clients are hiring

This is great news I reckon. Perhaps the best bit of all for all of the real people in the world. At NixonMcInnes we try hard to not build relationships with our clients based on dependency but prefer to help our clients build their own capabilities to do the stuff they need to do. (We will do stuff for them – but over time we prefer that they learn to do it for themselves). And so we have helped in some way BMW, Channel 4 and now one of our other clients (I don’t think I am able to name them just yet) shape a role and/or find a person that can come on board and be part of the internal revolution inside client organisations to embrace and harness the social web. Good good!

So what next?

I try to stay away from predictions but if I’d say it’s pretty obvious what happens next:

• Salaries will go up bubbliciously for the few genuinely capable social media professionals (regardless of their flavour and original background) for a while until supply starts to meet demand
• Some of these people will end up in jobs they aren’t yet ready for – but that’s OK, it’s called ‘learning by doing’!
• M&A will kick off in a big way in 2010, with big agencies buying small social media agencies for the next two or three years
• Eventually everything in the agency ecosystem and in client communications and engagement will be normalised and go back to everyday-abnormal

Enjoy the ride between now and then. We plan to :P

A conversation popped up around that recently here in our proudly digital city of Brighton & Hove, where the council is employing a Social Media Communications Officer (or similar title!), had been ‘challenged’ by the local media org, and I wrote about it over on my personal blog. Some of the comments that have been added in the last few days have enhanced my original post.

If you’re an interested tax payer or a public servant with a digital outlook or maybe a rubber duck or a collector of North African butterflies, then feel check it out and join in that conversation.

The five aspects of the deal I picked out for marketers to be aware of are:

1. ‘Real-time’ is the social media soup du jour
2. FriendFeed is a stepping-stone between Facebook and Twitter
3. Google and Facebook are fighting it out
4. Discovering content needs more than Google Search
5. Conversations happen around content

If you’re not familiar with FriendFeed so much, or want to think about what the deal means for the bigger picture, check out the piece. (This piece is for digital marketers so if you’re some kind of sick gnarly social media black-belt you probably don’t need it – you need other things, like daylight and poetry).

This social web thing. It’s hard to keep up, no? Sheesh :)

We have been busy at NM Towers with the help of our friends at Hotwire contributing to articles and generally getting ourselves and our opinions out and about on the social media scene.

Here is a round up of the recent press we have been contributing to since the New Year; I hope you find this interesting, please feel free to comment.

Jan-09 – Revolution Magazine – ‘Social Networks Must Prove Their Worth’

Will’s comment in response to the call for social networks to prove their worth to investors and advertisers in 2009…

-    What does 2009 hold for social networks?
-    Is it a case of monetise or die?
-    Have social networks mistakenly focussed on growing their user base rather than generating revenue?

02-02-09 – BBC Radio 4 – iPM

Jenni was interviewed for a Radio 4 podcast featuring passionate debate from across the web with Eddie Mair.  Unfortunately I can not find the sound bite online, however I can give you an overview of what the interview was about below.

As UK workers woke up to several inches of snow on early on a February Monday morning they naturally turned to the web to look for up-to-date weather reports and travel bulletins.  With what seemed like the majority of the UK going online at the same time, traditional web sites began to falter and strain under the weight of so many people accessing their data.

Queue the social web and sites that enable dynamic conversation like Twitter.  Are these the places that people will turn to in future to get the real time information they need?

04-02-09 – Anna’s comments included in an article for TechRadar.com

On Facebook’s fifth birthday Anna gave her thoughts on how the social network has impacted the internet and how new audiences are being brought online.

Five Years on what is Facebook’s future?

24-02-09 – Will in the Argus

Following on from Will’s now famous interview on the BBC, our local Brighton newspaper; The Argus picked up on the story and ran a nice article about it.

25-02-09 – Letter to the Editor in Marketing Magazine

Will’s response to an article written by Alan Mitchell who wrote an opinion piece suggesting that marketers shouldn’t focus on social networks but should turn their attention to community-based advice sharing websites like moneysavingexpert.com.

Thanks to just.Luc for the photo – http://www.flickr.com/photos/9619972@N08/

The premise of the survey was ‘what would 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketing professionals describe as their Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future?’.

I would add that given that it was sponsored by Sapient and was such a small sample size, the findings whilst useful and interesting aren’t conclusive in any way!

So here they are:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. With more than a third of marketers surveyed revealing that they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising, it‘s clear that agencies need to have a greater knowledge of the digital space in order to thrive. In fact, nearly half (45 percent) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns. Further, when it comes to an agency‘s area of expertise, 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital“ functions as ‘important/very important.‘

2. More use of “pull interactions.“ When trying to engage consumers with their brand, 90 percent of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions‘ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push‘ campaigns.

3. Leverage virtual communities. An overwhelming 94 percent of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.

4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. Ninety-two percent of respondents said it was ‘somewhat‘ or ‘very‘ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending. For example, it is important that agency executives regularly use Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, etc. in their personal social media mix.

5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing. Forty-three percent of marketers surveyed said that agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.

6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy. Sixty three percent of marketers surveyed said that an agency‘s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important‘ when it comes to agency selection.

7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior. Seventy-six percent of respondents deemed this as an ‘important/very important‘ aspect of their agency‘s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.

8. Demonstrate strategic thinking. Seventy-seven percent of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.

9. Branding and creative capabilities. Sixty-seven percent of respondents ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while seventy-six percent ranked creative capabilities as ‘important/very important.‘

10. Ability to measure success. It‘s no surprise that marketers want an agency that can report on where campaigns succeeded, fell short and where they should be fine-tuned. Sixty-five percent ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list.

My lightweight conclusions:

Well it’s awfully comforting for us digital agencies isn’t, as you’d expect from a survey commissioned by a digital business.

And doubly-triply-super comforting for those of us digital agencies that already specialise in the social media aspects of digital, given that this neatly ticks off points 1,2,3,6 and 7. (And for us at NixonMcInnes, where we hire on the basis of ‘Agency executives using the technology they are recommending’ too, so that’s nice).

But where does it really leave us? What are the gaps?

I think point 10, the measuring success piece, remains a yawning and tricky chasm between what we as marketers would like and what’s acceptably and reasonably achieveable right now. I hope that initiatives like MeasurementCamp are helping us take steps towards a better grasp of the measurement thing, but it’s a hugely complex task.

I reckon the other stuff on the list is very achieveable.

In fact, in the email I sent around to the team here at NM HQ, what I moved the conversation (or was it a monologue?) onto was instead the building blocks of professional services success that these wishlist items need to sit on top of.

Not the cherry-on-the-cake digital specialisms and cutting edge ‘Web 2.0′ expertise that clients also rightly demand, but actually the basics, the bread and butter. As I suggested in my email to the guys:

“However, I would add that this is built on top of a list of ‘What clients expect from all agencies’ which always includes things like:

- Delivery: they do what they say they’re going to, by when they said they would
- Communication: They keep me informed
- Honesty: tell me when they can’t do something
- Proactive: bring ideas to us, suggest things, don’t wait to be told or asked
- Responsive: can turn things around quickly, nothing is too much

And it’s here, in these much more mundane pragmatic areas, that we at NixonMcInnes are working hard.

The top list is well under control: that stuff is what we do, and we’re increasingly recognised by our clients and the client community for it.

But the bottom list, the agency-underpinnings, that’s where we need to do much much better…

As a small agency, our limited resources can be easily stretched.

And as a specialist in a new, complex and rapidly evolving area, how we actually deliver work can change on every single assignment. So these practical delivery bits are the pieces we’re now working on.

What do you think of these suggested client wish list items? Ring true, or sound a bit wonky to you?

24.07.08 – NMA
An article announcing our latest work with Oxfam including a quote from Eddy Lambert, Web Producer for Oxfam’s Youth Team.

26.07.08 – The Financial Times
Coverage by Mike Southon of an interview with Will on turning browsers into spenders.

29.08.08 – PR Week
Tom received a two paragraph comment in a feature on the subject of Monitoring Social Media (even though they called him Tony Nixon).

View page one & two of the article here and view page three here.

Channel 4 has set itself the task of leading the industry in embracing the new era of online communications.

A bold mission, and one we’re outwardly chuffed to be helping with.

To accomplish their bold mission, like a few other smart brands (including BMW, who we’re also helping along a similar path) the head honchos in the Channel 4 Press and Marketing teams have recognised the need for a dedicated digital dude to unify and glue together the two converging worlds (Marketing and PR). This person – who could be you, or your friend – will help to continue driving Channel 4’s online marketing and communications activities ahead by being the lynchpin of a new virtual team to pioneer new techniques, new levels of engagement, new activities and new tools and processes.

So we’re hereby promoting this role to any smart cookies out there: if you’re a switched-on digital PR & Marketing person, check this little bad girl/boy out:

——————————

Digital Publicity Manager - Channel 4

The Department
The Press & Publicity department is responsible for all Channel 4’s editorial dealings with other media. The department publicises Channel 4’s programmes across print, broadcast and online media, to drive viewers and users to the Group’s programmes and services and help it deliver its commercial objectives. The department also aims to protect and enhance the Group’s public service reputations through external communications. It is responsible for rapid rebuttal of critical press comment, generating positive executive profile and managing issues arising out of content and operations.

Key Responsibilities
Reporting to the Chief Publicity Manager and/or the Head of Marketing, New Media, he or she will:

• Co-ordinate a “virtual” digital promotions/publicity team, bringing together resource from across picture publicity, listings, publicity, marketing and new media to promote key programme priorities most effectively through online digital media.
• Lead the execution of the highest priority promotional campaigns in online digital media, seeding content across the web including social networking sites, portals and blogs.
• Establish, run and maintain community sites for these and other campaigns.
• Work with genre publicity teams to ensure that all lower level priority PR campaigns have a significant online element.
• Act as the key point of liaison between Channel 4 Press & Publicity and any journalists working primarily in online media.
• Create a directory of key sites, online journalists and bloggers for use by the press department
• Introduce publicists to key contacts at social networking and other sites to open dialogue about content placement
• Educate the wider press department about tactics for online PR
• Lead on opening up the press intranet allowing great access to press materials in conjunction with the New Media department
• Identify a set of metrics to assess success with the longer term aim of helping Channel 4 secure an equivalent share of voice in online media to print media.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Wide experience of delivering promotional campaigns in online media, including proven track record of using social networking.
• Extensive contacts within social networking and other key sites.
• Excellent personal/written communication and influencing skills

Desirable Skills

• Experience of consumer PR with leading UK brand
• Knowledge of UK broadcast sector.

Cool eh.

I think this is a brilliant opportunity. Genuinely.

Why?

Because it’s a super brand, because it’s a role sympathetic to the new online ecosystem (you’ll see words like community, dialogue, access and education above) and because these guys are already ahead of the game in that they’re thinking about this stuff, planning, and (ahem) working with some recognised specialists like us to pave the way.

Know someone? Apply here.

The background

Traditional digital marketing has been around for at least 10 years now. During that time benchmarks and standards have built up around this form of promotion. We have tried and tested techniques to measure and apply best practice to this area. At present, no such principles and values exist in relation to measuring social media and online PR. Queue MeasurementCamp.

MeasurementCamp was born on a rainy mid-February evening in London as a result of a Chinwag event dealing with the subject of Measuring Social Media where our MD, Will McInnes was invited to be a panel member.

It became clear to Will on the night that what was needed was an open source set of agreed measurements for social media. This was confirmed by the feedback of the various audience members after the event. So what started as an off-the-top-of-the-head suggestion by Will quickly became a journey to devise a set of standards (using the Creative Commons model who work to ‘offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their work while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved’).

An open forum was proposed, it was named MeasurementCamp. It may have first been suggested by Will however the idea does not belong to him, nor to us here at NixonMcInnes or the funkalicious digital, social media crowd that was present that evening. The web belongs to everyone, so whilst Will may have laid down the gauntlet for such a movement, he can’t take all the credit for it. It was formed from a discussion, a debate and most importantly the natural inquisitive nature inherent in us as a human race, the need to justify and measure things. Some might call it progress or at least a way to kick it off.

The audience

Come one come all. The event is open to everyone who has an interest vested or otherwise in measuring social media. You might be from a social media or digital agency, you might work in an organisation dealing with analytics or you may be an all important client who has a digital brand. At MeasurementCamp you will meet all three types of breed. There are peeps from the agency world such as Hotwire or Dare, representatives from the world of analytics such as Onalytica and Nielsen Online. Last but not least there are representatives from the client side; people like Bauer, University of Southampton, Make Your Mark and Hyperlaunch; individuals who are buying this social media shizzle from people like us, individuals who work in marketing and are obliged as part of their role to prove ROI.

The purpose

The purpose is continually evolving, however at the core is the desire to create a set of open source resources which allow interested parties to measure their social media communications online and offline.

What is understood is that you and a lot of people like you have to prove that social media works in the campaigns that are being devised. We don’t really know how to do this yet. However we’ll certainly give it a blooming good bash.

The manifesto

All good movements have a manifesto, something for the audience to get behind. A municipal declaration of the principles and intentions allayed to the purpose of the assembly. In other words a set of values that can be worked to and from by the group that help them focus on the task in hand.

The citizens of MeasurementCamp believe:

1. that social media are about relationships and language. This makes conversations difficult to ‘measure’ by existing metrics
2. measurement is important and we strive to find clarity in and derive better insights from the work that we do
3. technologies to measure will probably be proprietary but that to use these technologies effectively we as a community can help one another to develop understanding and resources to fill the yawning gaps in our own education and knowledge
4. whatever we produce together should be freely available for others to use and improve, and that together we are stronger than apart
5. whilst every case is different and unique, there are benefits to common standards and approaches around the world and across regional boundaries

What we have learnt so far

MeasurementCamp is not aiming to develop a ‘one-size fits all’ approach. The development of the project is based on an understanding that measures will vary greatly on a client-by-client basis and the network in which we are communicating/participating. We are consistently learning, we do not profess to have all the answers, yet!

Resources

In true social media style a wiki has been created as a central resource where the pioneers of MeasurementCamp (and actually anyone who chooses to) can collate their findings and gather together a pool of resources to help develop clarity around ‘what’ to measure rather than ‘how’. These resources may not be measuring devices themselves. They may come in the form of information as guides, a framework, suggested units of measurement, icons, basic software or tools, or other stuff entirely.

What next?

Does this sound good to you? Do you want to immerse yourself in the challenge? Check out the MeasurementCamp wiki and get yerself along to the next event. You never know you might have some valuable contributions to add to the melting pot. Together we are powerful, get involved!

MeasurementCamp would be nothing without the commitment from people to provide their valuable time and contributions. Particular thanks goes out to Helen Lawrence – Dare Digital, Flemming Madsen – Onalytica, Robin Grant – 1000heads, Sam Michel – Chinwag, Lauren Fisher – Propellernet, Adrian Moss – BottlePR/Focus, Simon Quance – Hyperlaunch, Robin Wilson – Bite PR, Giles Palmer – Brandwatch, Daljit Bhurji – PR & Social Media Consultant, Jonathan Hopkins – Bite/Shed/middledigit.net, Tim Hoang – Rainier PR / New Media Knowledge, Jenny Brown – jenny-bee.net, Ged Carroll – Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, Kelvin Newman – SiteVisibility, Craig Hepburn – STA Travel, Dan Thornton – Bauer, Mark Rogers – Market Sentinal, Chris Reed – Fishburn Hedges, Drew Benvie – Hotwire, Helen Aspell – Univeristy of Southampton, Luke Hay – Wired Sussex, Dom Whitehurst – Hotwire, Richard Bagnall – Metrica & Measurement Matters, Karl Havard – Propellernet, Jason Ryan – iCrossing, David Hughes – iCrossing, Tim Callington – Edelman, Simon Collister – Edelman, Drew Davis – Chameleon Net, Katie Barber – Digital Outlook, Rachel Clarke, Chris Applegate – Outside Line, Anjali Ramachandran – http://www.one-size-fits-one.blogspot.com/, Alex Burmaster – Nielsen Online, Katy Howell – Immediate Future, Michael Blowers – Media Evaluation Research, Ben Bland – Ryan MacMillan, Damien Mulley – Mulley Communications and Aliya Zaidi – e-Consultancy.

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacesuitcatalyst/536389937/