A break

It has been quite a while since I last had the chance to get on the internet outside of the brick work confounds and IT restrictions I am now apart of. THREE months has past and with the urban nomadic lifestyle I have adhered to has meant a true lack of knowledge of things digital and new that has gone on.

Part of me regrets this, another has felt a new style of ignorance. It was welcomed. Being away from something that many of us have a heroin style relationship with is a good thing in my books.

Addition takes many forms and the past spell of freedom has given me the chance to ponder... consider and reflect.

This post is to request you consider taking a none religious lent from something we all don't consider as an addictive aesthetic. Enjoy other things and shift that un-considered rigid formality

The Freedom of Integration Act 2000 and ...

A lot of people are posting a lot of messages proclaiming the death of the ad agency, this lack of client pie that is eaten by adlands finest. One of many brain child's of the industry is Integration and also the reason why people shouldn't worry.

Are we seeing the industry become fragmented or are we really seeing the industry evolve away from the traditional off line campaign and embrace the opportunity of the diverse. Working on the more eclectic, and considering consumer involvement.

The voice of the person is... sorry scratch that, HAS changed and WILL change again, a point that brings me back to the industries sphere of influence. Change has seen expansion, expansion into campaigns that fuse specialties, that evoke collaboration and in my opinion see more interesting things churned out.

I may be speaking very out of turn but the four father quote that is so widely known; "The medium is the message" is not as relevant as it once was. We should note that it is not the way you say something or what you say, its is the elasticity that infuses the two, that can produce the 'new.' Whilst considering the relevance of the chatter, will it benefit anyone, and not just try to convince people that it will do. Great things do not stay unknown for long, if you produce the great, the rest will fall into place.

Memory like a pot with hols and a Facebook attempt at Twitter

The last week or so of events have been tough on the old top hat, memory is a little frazzled from late nights and featuring on a Channel 5 police show; when we nearly got arrested for postering around brick lane for my house mates exhibition which starts next week, RealrecogniseReal will be one to watch if your into illustration and other lovely art stuff. Anyways I remember reading about two and a half weeks ago about Facebooks attempt at stealing Tweeters!

The name itself leaves nothing to the imagination, it has no creative flare, no new aspects, just facebook but the "essentials," so really it is for the people that have yet to discover twitter properly. Or "don't have time" for Facebook.

Unfortunately it will do well, the reason facebook is more successful than twitter is three fold:

• It was first

• It offers more

And...

• It services most peoples needs for social media

Twitter is great because of all the other stuff that comes through twitter. Facebook lite will hook the Facebookers that have a need for something like twitter but are scared of adoption and not wanting to find out about another site, when FB does what they need.

It is a sad time for social media, I am a fan of twitter, but unfortunately and slight hypocritically I am never on their enough.

Adopt to change

Behavioural traits always surprise me, people who adopt the random interaction with others based on a common interest or entertainment value. Life is good, even when its bad, why not start a movement in the street, worst case, you have a good dance, know one joins, you’ll never see them again and they’ll have a story to tell their friends that night “This weird guy started randomly dancing in the street today ...!!” It is a win win situation.

Why don't we have a dance in a random place every now and then? Well, conditioning for one, many believe that the impression we give off from having a good time like the chap above is could mean we come across as; weird, crazy, "unusual" and/or "special." So what. After living in London for the past two months and observing the ‘heads down, pissed off’ mentality that we all adopt when we leave the house and before we enter a place where we know others. Flash Mobs are great buckers of the trend but even they’re spontaneity is planned. Who knows, but it would be great to see the trend change from planned to true spontaneity mob. You start and I’ll join in!

Lunch break fun and curry

Yet again, Ikea have come up with a brilliant way to portray the simplicity and local thinking of their brand through an effective digital medium. Admittedly it is not an original idea, but Ikea, have made it their own; the site is called Space maker and it aims to help you organize your room to get the most out of the space and your items within it. I feel it is more for the student and career starters that don't have a lot of space to fill and usually a lot of accumulated trinkets that seem to have become irreplaceable in the process of leaving home and starting the uni/career ladder. It even has a bells and whistle based animated explanation, its title "Watch it work" if you can't work it out, a little tip on another subject, tippex is a quick eraser than the delete button, try it out!!!

The brilliance of Ikea is in the simplest part of the brand, the part that whilst browsing through their products (on or off-line) you will at some point look at a piece and think "Why was that not designed like that before, that would be perfect in my living room, dinning room, bedroom, bathroom etc."

Having said all this I feel that there is still some work to be done to integrate it. It's one thing producing something great, its another, getting people to use it. I look forward to see how they intend to launch the platform fully; PR, social media, university drive (on and off-line), giant rubber Swedish animal, with lazer beams for eyes, or have I seen that before...

Hope the weathers better where you are, London is as muggy as a sweaty robber! But left-over curry makes lunch happy days.

Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%

Social media is powerhouse, data is a scary thing and not one to be taken lightly

Courtesy of socialnomics, and my collegue craig!

Bankrupt businesses infographically

Sourced from Good

This is a really lovely representation of the companies that have gone south in the last 22 years, interestingly though, 8 of the top 20 largest sinking ships have sunk in the last 2 years. We have been subject to much change since the whispered 'R' word was first mentioned, what will be really interesting is how we come out of this.

Whether buyers confidence increases and the markets pick up from there (leaving us with no learning's) or we realise that change is the true way forward, our insatiable over consumption of everything does not lead where we want it to lead us. We started off wanting, we lost ourselves on the way, and now, maybe we might have the chance to get back on track. Hopes and dreams, passion and thirst, these are the food for thought. And I'm hungry...