Licence to Roam

My ex-boss, who left the company the other week, was interviewed in the Wall Street Journal (subscription req.) about the challenges facing her in new job and those facing a traditional advertising agency as it tries to integrate digital. Some key points from the interview:

• an agency appointing a ‘digital czar’ is not enough, you need to have the people to implement the plans
• you can’t just drop a bunch of digital people in the middle of a traditional agency as they’ll all just wonder what they are doing. Digital needs to be more than an extension of the ad campaign.
• to understand digital you need to live it, otherwise you will never get it as a creative medium. it’s not something you can just read about

The points rang very true, it’s difficult in an agency where many live TV but few seem to live digital.

Last night I had dinner with a few people at Red Bamboo, a vegan restaurant. This place seems to make it’s name from the fake food it provides – soy protein shaped and flavoured to pretend to be meat. We had ‘Chicken’ wings, ‘prawns’, just ‘meat’ in general.

There you see fake prawns, shaped and painted to look just like the real things. If that was not surreal enough, it got even weirder as the talk turned to Star Trek (it was a table full geeks) as one of the party discussed an out standing question he had about Wesley Crusher at the end of his tenure on the show (names and actual question hidden to protect them). Luckily, another guy had Wil Wheaton on IM and proceeded to ask the question. So our pondering friend finally got the answer to something that had bugged him for years.

Through a serendipitous meeting yesterday, doing some work on another conference, I got invited to a BBQ in Queens yesterday (my first visit to the Borough). Whilst there, I had a good chat with the main host, a 70+ year old gentleman who talked about his media habits and how so many companies just did not get it these days. The sort of things he does:

• ripping all his CDs to the hard-drive, to run through his planned house-wide network
• buys much of his new music digitally
• ad avoids on the web using ad blockers
• watches all TV programmes online, from DVDs or via DVR. Only watches the news, sports and Lost live. He only watches Lost as his wife insists on watching it live and not the next day
• listens to new radio, such as Live365; he finds it brings him all sorts of goodies, such as jazz from the 20′s or 30′s. He pays a subscription to be ad free.

He loves how the web can bring him the long tail of music (he has a music degree), how technology lets him avoid intrusive ads and choose services which are subscription based or low ad level. He watches TV and entertainment when and how he wants. So it’s not just the teens the advertisers have to worry about changing behaviour, it’s all ages.

Do I believe what it says in the blogs? This time I hope so – Venture Beat is reporting that Clipmarks is being bought by Forbes.

The New York-based startup lets you select text, photos or videos on web pages, then use Clipmark’s bookmarking feature to save the URL and your selected information to your Clipmarks folder. From there, you can share your “clips” with friends and colleagues and even search to find the most popular clips on the Clipmarks site.

As Forbes people have popped up in the comments to the article stating that it is essentially true but premature, with the deal not yet closed. Roger MacNamee says:

First, the story is premature, but only by a little. Second, Forbes is committed to transforming business journalism so that our audience gets more insight about business and investing in a lot less time. We think Clipmarks will play a really key role in this.

So I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the deal to go through and for Eric Skiff, a good friend who works with the site, as a Community Evangelist. Eric was one of the few people I knew when I moved to New York last year, having met him randomly at parties at SXSW – we kept bumping into each other at the same places. He went out of his way to welcome me and introduce me to more great people in the city, so I’m hoping all goes well for him and the rest of the company.

My hair got used as a model for a website – as part of a Hair Makeover tool for Sunsilk. So I took one of the original shots (on the left) and added my own hair back onto my face to see what the different colours look like. I do like the red!

Two great launches have taken place over the last few weeks, the Apple iPhone and the seventh and last Harry Potter book. So had did the launches compare?

Facet	Harry Potter	iPhone
What is it?	A book	A phone. With extras.
Audience	Ostensibly children 9-12. In reality all ages.	Gadget freaks and Apple fans with enough cash to spend or parents who would spend the money. Plus speculators looking to make a quick turnaround.
Cost	$34.99, although many places discounted	$599 plus 2 year phone contract
Queues	Yes. Although pre-ordering and common sense meant that they really only formed on the day. Queues reached round blocks; the ones I saw were far larger than for iPhone	Yes, some forming 5 days in advance. Press and speculation potential meant people wanted to be first.
Attire	School uniform, cloaks, pointy hats (a wizard is not a wizard without one). Face paint.	Jeans and t-shirts. HP fans definitely better dressed.
Typical Fan	Harry Potter fan Originally uploaded by RachelC	Apple iPhone Launch Palo Alto – Robert Scoble Originally uploaded by b_d_solis
Celebrities	I’m avoiding reports at the moment, so no idea	Over and above the tech geek celebs, Spike Jones, Whoppi Goldberg, more people I don’t know. Looking for clues on this one,
Charity Factor	Not really – can’t resell it.	Some ofthe first people in queues were planning on reselling for charity. Plus they got a lots of PR for being there in the first place.
Scarcity	Plenty. Lots and lots all over the place	Fears were proved pretty groundless as phones were available without too much rush. Initial auctioning value dropped rapidly
Sales in first days	Pre-orders on Amazon over 2m. Just way bigger than the iPhone	500k?
Cool Factor	errrrr, It’s a book. Not really much you can do to up the cool factor.	ooohhhhhh shiny. Let me touch. It’s shiny. Wins the cool factor hands down.
Usability	Only one function. Read it. But at 759 pages it makes a good door stop as well.	Does lots of things well and then does not do things that it should do as a convergent device. Plus does somethings badly. Read the reports – they’re mixed. But did I say it’s shiny?
Reuse	It’s a once only thing. Once you’ve read it the suspense is gone. re-reading is possible but not as much fun.	Years of fun. Lots of things you can do and it has a continuing functionality. Until the battery goes.
Recyclability	Yes. Out to the recycle people and back it will come as next week’s newspaper.	Probably. But lots of components and chemicals so not that easy
A sequel?	No, that’s your lot. The story is over and done with. JK could sit back and enjoy her riches but may produce something else – will it be as good?	Yes. Absolutely. In different colours, sizes, functionalities. One that actually works in 3G. This one has a long way to go.

Now I’m off to read the book for the rest of the day. Anyone got things to add?

I got a little bit of video but hands were shaking too much to do for long. This is about 3 mins after the bang. The roar was the steam pouring out the hole.

Manhattan Explosion, originally uploaded by RachelC.

I was walking out of the office to the subway, headphones on, minding my own business and just cursing the slow people in front and the tourist taking a photo of the Chrysler building when there was a bang and then a rushing sound. I looked up to find what looked like the centre of Lex and 42nd crossing pouring out smoke about one block in front of me.

The general tendency was to go the other way, so that’s what I did before stopping and taking a few images. Interestingly, that this may have been a bomb was not my first thought – maybe I’ve seen too many on the news but given the upward flow and the continued rushing sound, i thought it was more likely a gas main or something that gave a continuous fuel supply.

I thought I’d go back to the office but that was evacuated but I’m lucky enough to live close enough to walk. So 40 blocks later, the shaking has stopped and I think I’m going for a drink.

Update: In the pub, there were 2 other guys who were around the same area. One of them worked above the steam/transformer explosion and said stones were hitting his 14th story window. They thought it was the building next door and it was not until he saw the news in the bar that he realised it was in the middle of the road.

Update: (from press conference) it was a 2 foot pipe installed in 1924 that burst, cold water on the pipe is likely suspect. At the moment 20 people injured 2 people critical, one fatality. Tow truck went into the crater. Oh, great, asbestos released possible – advised to take clothes and put away until confirmed. Grand Central open; Lex ave line impacted – nothing running in the area. Shuttle impacted, 7 not stopping at Grand central. Roads closed all the way round it at the moment.

Do you fancy yourself as a trend spotter? Ray from CScout has asked me if I know anyone in London who wants to take a crack at spotting trends for them

Here’s a job description.

Background: living and /or working in London who is immersed in the web 2.0, technology sector, startup, social media communities. Good candidates in the past have been bloggers, writers, and marketers.

Duties: This is for part-time work, on a contract basis. Scouts could either have a day job in the area, or be a full time freelancer. Typical assignments are short reports in Word doc or PPT with text and images.

Fees and rates depend on length of project and experience.

CScout is a global trend consultancy with 12 full time employees in offices in New York, Munich, Tokyo, and Beijing. In addition, 25+ scouts placed globally are activated depending upon the needs of our clients.

They also have opening in Sydney and/or Melbourne. Contact Raymond for further details if interested: r a y . c h a at g m a i l ( d o t ) c o m , (you know the drill with munged addresses)

On Saturday, my friend Noel set off on his seven month trip around the world. Some of us gathered to wish him farewell as he gave his goodbye speech.

You can follow him through your medium of choice, with the Luck of Seven blog being one of the main hubs.

I think the weather bug on my browser is telling me it’s going to be a little bit warm today.

Noel and co, as part of his Luck of Seven series, have filmed two Apple fans waiting outside the Apple store at 5th ave New York. They both have blogs. Greg, from Long Island, does not own a Mac nor an iPod, still want a phone and does not know if he can keep it. Dave is third in line and wants to buy two and sell one for charity. Who’s second in line then? Dave’s reasoning:

I just graduated from college, and have another week of vacation to burn before I enter the work world. I can’t think of a better way to learn about New York than hanging out with a wide cross-section of the New York population. Granted, the thought of waiting in line might not strike you as an ideal vacation, but in my travels I’ve found that the best memories come from unscripted interactions with locals.

So go meet them and ask them why..and find out who’s number 2 inline

Update: and here’s why Greg has no Apple products..he’s just a ‘professional’ liner-upper, who spends his life getting on the media. Dave sounds far more interesting (wonder if he’s told his parents yet?)

danah boyd has posted a thoughts-in-progress study on class divides in the US youth use of social networks, looking at the different behaviours and cultural expectations of users of Facebook and MySpace.

Over the last six months, I’ve noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That’s only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it’s not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Who goes where gets kinda sticky… probably because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.

A fascinating read, especially as it tries to delve into US class paradigms, which apparently are not spoken of, as opposed to the UK where we can have a ‘healthy’ debate about it, especially in comedy shows.

The BBC has also picked up this story, although they are identifying it as a formal study:

A six-month research project has revealed a sharp division along class lines among the American teenagers flocking to the social network sites.

and seem to be treating what is observational essay as a formal academic study, despite danah claiming the opposite: “Hopefully, one day, I can get the words together to actually write an academic article about this topic, but I felt as though this is too important of an issue to sit on while I find the words. So I wrote it knowing that it would piss many off.’

Looking at the UK home page for YouTube I see this video has been featured..a run through of a few of the regional accents from the UK. My home accent is close but not quite to the Brummie one, being from west of the city in the Black Country.

This guy’s pretty good at doing generalised version and throws in some jokes along the way. Just for those non-UK friends who’ve heard me talk about accents and words.

I was listening to local radio this morning. Local radio in this case being Leith FM and the lunchtime show provided by Ewan Spence. Through the power of the internet streaming the show and through the connections Ewan has around the world, he had listeners from San Francisco, New York, New Zealand and London. What do the ‘locals’ make of that, when requests for songs are global? ( I had my first radio request played. Woot!)

I’m also earwigging on the NMK forum, through Twitter and Jaiku and blog posts, finding enough content to have a pretty good idea of what is going on and the announcements that are made. For example, Jason Calacanis’s announcement of his ‘publically’ driven Mahalo Greenhouse came via Twitter and Suw Kevin. Not through any press release or traditional media method. (Corrected as I’m getting my Strange Attractors messed up. Not enough coffee when I was reading things)

Although one thing I remind people constantly is that the rise of a global connectivity is still only for the minority – a growing minority sure, but confirmed to people in certain countries of certain ages or inclination. Very few of the people I know ‘before web’ are connected in the same way; in fact very few of the people I’ve met where the meeting was not facilitated through the web, are connected in that way. So whilst a lot of us are all busy globalising the local, still remember the people who are local only.

I had an interesting if slightly worrying experience last week with MySpace. A case of mistaken identity, I received 11 MySpace mails over 2 days from someone I had no recollection of ever meeting. Not of reporting him to the cops, which the first email accused me of doing. I got cajoled to phone him, threatened because I did not add him as a friend, questioned about who all my friends were, accused of being glam and then finally

woops: my bad thought u were another

For a moment, I did question how easily it would be to find me if someone wanted to. The abuse was reported – even if I was the person he thought I was, it was still abuse, but there has been no response, not even an automated one, from MySpace which does not fill me with confidence about their support service.

Dan Hon, who I met at SXSW when he was talking on a panel about ARGs, is leaving Mind Candy, the company behind Perplex City. He’s been involved in building some of the more interesting online experiences that I’ve seen and is now looking for the next big thing. Anyone need somebody like that?

The most read BBC article at the moment is a piece entitled Brummie girls ‘not pretty enough’. Despite the local antipathy that I should be exhibiting to my Midlands’ neighbours (I’m a Black Country girl), I think it should really read ‘Brummie girls too intelligent to enter beauty contest’

After Frisbee on Saturday, it was back to Bre’s loft for barbeque, a pretty quiet affair with the holidays and people being away. Between burgers and beers, I did get to try out the Brain Machine, “It flashes LEDs into your eyes and beeps sounds into your ears to make your brain waves sync up into beta, alpha, theta, and delta brainwaves!”.

You come away from the experience feeling pretty relaxed, after staring at a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours for 14 minutes. Interestingly, everyone had seen different things and saw different predominate colours. Mine was yellow, others had pinks or reds or greens.

It looks like there is an hot market for digital advertising people; I’ve had 3 calls already this week for various roles, although none of them are much use to me as they don’t come with a visa. Anyone looking for media director, online account directors, worldwide directors of online strategy etc who can work in the US, let me know and I can point the cold callers to you next!