Archive : July 2009

Here we go:

1. Semanti:A few months ago, after Facebook introduced Facebook Connect, Razorfish created a presentation that looked at the possibilities of a world with portable social graphs online.

So we were quite intrigued to hear about Semanti, a browser add-on that automatically shares things you bookmark with your Facebook friends. Currently, we can share individual links on Facebook. Semanti will take this one step further and instead of bookmarking in Delicious (for example) in isolation or posting separate links to Facebook, you can share your bookmarked links with your Facebook friends straight away.

Thanks to Graeme Douglas at W+K London, I was able to attend the Nokia-sponsored live-streaming of TED Global’s talks on Thursday afternoon. 

I’ve been a big fan of the TED talks for years, and this was as close as I could probably get to actually being there. Some of my favourite talks/performances: 

@bbhlabs sent me a link to this great blog post on the Harvard Business site by David Armano (@armano).

I say “great” because David sets out an approach that’s core to our thinking and practice here at Made by Many – namely, the use of visual design to develop and articulate strategy. (Armano is a true awesomeist, especially in terms of visual thinking, and if you don’t read his blog Logic + Emotion, then you should.)

I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that in keeping with the spirit of Chris Anderson’s Free, which was the inspiration for the evening, the IPA had chosen to make its latest event free to attend – something that I don’t think they are accustomed to. In return, attendees had to blog, tweet, take photos or videos of the event and help publicize it. So here I am, doing my duty.

Last week, Howard “Smart Mobs” Rheingold came to give a talk here at Made by Many. It was a fascinating look at how smart mobs have functioned when given tools that are largely outside the authorities’ control, and some future gazing on how these phenomena might evolve over the medium term.

I don’t want to talk about smart mobs here, but rather to focus on one, perhaps throwaway, line that Howard used:

Greed helps innovation. Fear prevents it.

Aside from the rather unpleasant echo of Gordon Gekko which turned my stomach a little, my first reaction was that this is mistaken. I’ve given it some more thought and I’m even more convinced that greed is not the prime motivating force for innovation.

We’ve recently launched an activity dashboard for Audi at Goodwood festival.

Goodwood Festival of Speed is the world’s biggest and most diverse celebration of the history of motor sport and car culture. Audi UK has had a significant presence at the event for 14 successive years. The 2009 festival took place on the 3 – 5 July.

Last month Audi asked us to design a dashboard that would bring this and previous years photos, videos and tweets taken from behind the scenes by Audi and their loyal fans at the Goodwood festival.

It was a very quick project to embrace, and I was assigned to design it!

I was at a talk on how internet word of mouth (iWOM) works in China a couple of weeks ago. There were a few noteworthy things that Sam Flemming, CEO and Co-Founder of CIC, said:

1. Social media is very much existent in China, but it’s like it’s on steroids: 298 million internet users, 105 million bloggers, 91 million members on their Bulletin Board Systems or BBS (discussion forums around different topics), and 58 million people on social networks. It’s all about perspective: Facebook has only 200 million users WORLDWIDE. 

2. BBS have a huge influence on consumer purchases – over 80% look at reviews there or go there to ask questions before making a purchase. Much as I like Amazon, that’s not where I go to decide what to buy: but could Amazon or something like it channel prospective buyers in such vast numbers successfully?

Yesterday I went to the RSA to watch Wired editor-in-chief and author of the Long Tail, Chris Anderson, speak about the issue visited in his latest book, ‘Free: The Future of a Radical Price’. He started off by covering the history of free through the ages: from Jello who used to give away free recipe books to drive demand in the early 1900s (a pioneering marketing tactic at the time), to Microsoft BizSpark‘s model in the current decade where start-ups that are less than 3 years old and have a revenue of less than $100 million can access it free, but others have to pay. 

He also presented Alan Murray (executive editor of the Wall Street Journal)’s 5 tips on charging for content, something that we often discuss at Made By Many, and that will be useful to everyone who has thought of the micro-payment system. Murray’s tips are:

1. The best model is a mix of paid and free content.

Has the future turned out the way it was supposed to?

That’s something we’re very interested in here at Made by Many, so we’ve invited world-renowned author and futurist Howard Rheingold to present an evaluation of the outcomes and predictions he made in the 2002 best-seller “Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution”.

Howard’s talk will be followed by an open discussion – I’m sure it will be a lively one! The event will appeal to anyone interested in new models of mass collaboration, crowd-sourcing and emergent intelligence that are made possible with the advent of ubiquitous social computing. We’ve only got a few free seats left, so if you’re interested, get in touch with me asap at elin@madebymany.co.uk and I will try to get you on the guest list.