Seven Actionable Marketing Trends
via slideshare.net
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Project Dispatch - Subscribe to Art!
Project Dispatch is an artwork subscription service offered by a group of artists nationwide.
Patrons have the opportunity to purchase a 3, 6, or 12 month subscription to receive original works by the artist of their choice among the group. Subscriptions range from $15 to $40 a month. Once a month subscribers will be sent an original artwork.
Informal learning, technologies, and retention in the trades
One question going through my mind is how formal readers expect Posterous posts to be. The way that I am using this account may tend to make it very informal. In fact, what I am about to write was going to go into a notebook for my later reference, but I feel those are the things that can be here for easy retrieval and, perhaps, for the occasional comment by a reader. Hey, I just remembered I can make it private if I just want an electronic reference for myself.
I'm an amateur (ham) radio operator. I just had a chat on air with a trades instructor that included talking about apprenticeship training and the fairly high numbers that do not continue from one year to the next. This took me back to my MDE research where only 46% of the distance students completed their studies for the year (comprised of those in years 1 to 4, up to 6 months at a distance in their first to third years and 9 months in the fourth) in comparison with 97% of those attending classes on a regular basis in an 8 or12 week period (p. 58). One of the considerations was certainly the possibility of having more interaction with their advisors. Many of us would be recommending online communities to connect the advisors and apprentices during the training, but let's take that further. Could we build Communities of Practice that would not only keep them in contact during the study period but throughout their total apprenticeship training? Could we do the same with those attending classes for the 8 or 12 week periods who have longer times in the field before returning for the next period of training?
The bottom-line to my thought is whether developing Communities of Practice would lead to higher retention in the program from induction to journeyman status. This may well be an area to examine when my research begins. My interest is in workplace learning, e-learning, and technologies.
Smashing Magazine Killed The Community (Or Maybe It Was Me)
It used to be so much better than this. Every article that you came across wasn’t a tutorial or list. Hell, the majority of them weren’t tutorials or lists. There were articles that actually talked about design. There were articles that made you think how you could become a better designer and encouraged intellectual discussion on design. Those articles still exist here and there, but they are drowned out by the copycats.
The web design community is split into two sides: 1. loves to view every single list article there is 2. hates that list articles were ever invented. I fall into both camps because to me some list articles do serve a purpose, but when we start to see Design Trends of Spa Websites I think we might be going a bit too far.
via drawar.com
Soon: zoopa home site
I'm going to open zoopa.org soon. You remember dont you? Our new community for building&maintaining an open source application. A software to bring them alltogether. A free software. A lifestreaming application. Yea it's zoopa!
Here you see zoopa's possible homesite sketch. Take a look and comment me please.
Arvidsson, A (2006) 'Quality Singles': internet dating and the work of fantasy. New Media & Society, Vol. 8 (4) pp 671-690.
Arvidsson offers an exploration of Internet dating which tracks notions of identity and fantasy within the users of match.com and considers the way in which the acts of the user are activated by match.com to build a brand and generate profit. This is very much a marxist review of online communities that posits the community member as a worker who contributes to the brand of match.com in a form of “informational capitalism” (p. 672): “The imagination is empowered, but it is also put to work as an important site of profits” (p.672) Here he talks about “fantasy work” - “the work of imagining situations, people and relations – is activated to an unprecedented extent in the online economy” (p.672) - which, from the perspective of the community owner can be seen as the role of members in maintaining the means of production and profit within the community. Brand management is described as a way of organising knowledge so that I can be commodified (p.673). In the example of match.com, profile creation is mediated through a data collection form (p. 679) which contributes to a structured expression of self that informs a wider discourse and savoir (p.685) within the community. The prevalent discourse within match.com normalises a certain approach to finding love encapsulated by the phrase “quality singles” (p. 678). The notion of ‘quality singles’ is important to the brand of match.com. It allows match.com to recruit new members, thus ensuring stability in the means of production (p.685). It also allows the company to synergise with other brands, generating more profit form the activity of its members: “it does this in ways that makes its fantasizing and communicative investments of affect evolve within a branded space, which in turn it makes directly economically productive.” (p.687). We are also presented with a brief survey of other online communities that may be said to function in a similar way through “fantasy work” or other methods that monetise communities and user generated content, for example AOL, Ebay, MMPORGs (p. 673). As readers we could also suggest additions to this list such as Twitter which, if it ever finds a business model, will be reliant upon user activity to generate capital and financial value. We should also consider how these ideas have become accepted as a common sense mode of operation and are articulated in the wider media and popular culture. For example the current Windows 7 advertising campaign which has the strapline “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea” seems rooted in the idea that consumers happily generate intellectual property and brand value as a by product of their acts of consumption.
Global study of salmon shows: 'Sustainable' food isn't so sustainable
The choice to buy frozen matters more than organic vs. conventional or wild vs. farmed.
via scienceblog.com
Find out why here: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/global-study-salmon-shows-sustainable-food-isnt-so-sustainable-27545.html
For a start, let's have Social, Tech & Community Service
I’m thrill to say that, following yesterday Manifesto post, a few of you have written back to indicate your support and interest in building the SCE Community.
For a start, to give you an idea of the general direction we are heading, perhaps I am going to categories the types of Alumni activities that will be organized into Social, Technology and Community Involvement.
Social Events
For Social events, it will include Dinners, Movies Outing, Functions, Wine Appreciations, and Reunions. Social events not only is about chill-and-relax, it will be give excellent opportunity for you to network with one another, to enlarge your social circle, to get to know other people.
Technology Events
Technology events will include Talks, Seminars and Discussions revolving around IT, Computer Engineering, Social Media. I am hoping that I can invite someone from Google to give a talk about Google Wave, or Android Platform next year. I believe having such events will be helpful in your work; upgrading, and being in touch with latest technologies.
Why can't we start something like Ted.com?
Community Involvement
Lastly, Community Involvement events are about enlarging our vision, as a whole, on how we can give back to the society, and impacting lives around us.We will start by visiting homes. In the future, I hope we will have enough support from Alumni to commit long term community service such as sponsoring IT training to Homes, Awesome software inventions, Impact training to 3rd World countries. etc.
Actions Needed
So, I am looking for volunteers in either category to form small committee to help collate ideas, and organize the activities. Don’t worry, I will be here to do the main bulk of logistic and liaising work, but I need the alumni support to initiate, and suggest to me what you want to do.
The categories are not complete, but I think it will be a good start. Please get involved, leave a comment belong or discuss it in the forum.
Thanks!
Moses
BE SOCIAL, MY FRIEND: Ángel González, Founder and CEO of Ideagoras
You have an impressive agency background, please tell us a little bit about yourself and Ideagoras. I have worked in the advertising industry for the past 30 years, 20 with multinational companies. In the last decade, I specialized in Healthcare advertising, leading and managing change and innovation.Ideagoras was founded in January, 2009. It is a fully independent startup company looking to bring the new paradigm of Social Marketing to the Healthcare industry. Great name! Ideagoras means "marketplace of ideas" and was coined by Don Tapscott, correct? Yes, Wikinomics was the inspiration. It was clear that the new collaborative Web was radically changing everything: politics, information, education…and the way brands were built. Ideagoras – market place of ideas – as a company name conveyed all the attributes we embrace: disruptive ideas, branding in the new markets of conversations, collaboration, crowdsourcing, innovation, creating talkable brands and “socializing while advertising.” Who should participate in Ideagoras? Do you see Ideagoras as a European organization or a global organization?We have our own in-house team and talented people. However, we state that Ideagoras is a wiki and an open organization, meaning we are open to the external “wisdom of the crowds.” It is absolutely true that the many are smarter than the few, and talent does not understand boundaries. You can find very talented people willing to contribute their ideas and suggestions driven solely by the joy factor. This being said, I see Ideagoras as a global organization. Actually, we say we are based from the entire world. You use Ning for the My Ideagoras community. Can you share why you picked this social media platform, and how it is working for you? Ning is an intuitive and friendly social platform. In addition, it is very flexible; you can offer your members the basic utilities, but you can also introduce new ones, according to their “expected experience.” In less than four months, My Ideagoras, has welcomed over 150 members from all over the world; all of them Healthcare Marketing and Advertising professionals excited about Social Media and its spirit of collaboration. As a thought leader in the industry in Europe, what is your view of healthcare/pharma's adoption of social media? What are the challenges/opportunities for 2010? Social Media adoption will take time in Healthcare as well as in other sectors. I would point to two main reasons: the lack of knowledge in the “big and very valuable picture” and, the fears to embrace failure and deal with regulatory issues. However, SM adoption is unstoppable, wanted or not, and those responsible for branding, communication and marketing will have to escape from their comfort zone in addressing social media. I see many opportunities for 2010: evangelizing social media, monitoring the existing brand conversations, defining social media strategies, designing open ecosystems, integrating social media as mainstream at the communicating mix. Those few paving the way of social media communications in Healthcare are in a position to strongly demand respect and reciprocity…we are not commodities. How can agencies help?Agencies should play an active role in helping clients to understand social media and adopt it. Many “do not get” what is going on yet. Addressing social media with their clients is uncomfortable, not only because in many cases they lack skills regarding this discipline, but because doing things differently challenges the establishment and status quo. Agencies need to be radically reinvented; the model as we have known it is over. Agency professionals must be willing to leave their vanity embedded in the streams of the social conversations that has brought about this “silent digital revolution.” Under what department in an organization do you see Social Media? Who is responsible?As an emerging area of communications, social media is trying to find its place. Currently, you can find it in e-communications, in PR departments, in the marketing department as well in “no man’s land.” My personal opinion is social media is a radical change in paradigm and has to be adopted by the whole organization, from the top to bottom. Social media mindset has to permeate with everyone throughout the company. With regards to social media analysis, planning and implementation, I would assign that responsibility to the marketing department. Anything else you would like to add?Be social, my friend, and join us at My Ideagoras.
You can follow Ángel González on Twitter at @angel189 and @Ideagoras.
Window Watchers
Recently, while reading the New York Times online I came across Julie Scelfo’s Window Watchers in a City of Strangers, and was reminded of just how different life even in an urban Midwestern setting can be from that of an East or West Coast city. Scelfo discusses the nature of window watching one’s high rise neighbors and seems to be commenting ultimately that window watching in New York City is a manifestation of urban planning, architecture, and city culture through human agency: the act of watching, or choosing not to watch.
Included in the article is a project, Out my Window NYC composed by Gail Albert Halaban, a window watcher.
My attention was drawn to this article because my time living in the residence halls at Ball State, in the La Follette Complex provided me with a similar experience which pails in comparison to those instances Scelfo and Halaban have shared, but none the less have changed how I lived and acted as governed by my space. La Follete, unlike other residence halls on campus is composed of four adjacent halls— each towering over the buildings on campus at nine stories high. The four halls are interconnected by dining and offices in the center of the complex, but in a sense stand alone. Each hall is an “L”; and so, much like city dwellers did, I myself had many experiences peering into windows and being peered upon. My roommate and I not only had neighbors to the left and right, but around the entire side of the hall out our window. We knew some of these neighbors, but as the year progressed we became more and more intrigued by our upstairs and downstairs neighbors’ lives as framed by their windows. This is what Karen L. Fingerman according to Scelfo’s article would deem a “vital anonymous connection” and “a sense of emotional stability.” And too think, it was the ghastly “L” 1960s architecture which provided my roommate and me with these experiences of togetherness with our neighbors. At one point, we watched as our downstairs across the way neighbors assembled their loft in front of a window, clearly a fire code violation. Just three days later, before a break when the Resident Assistant made rounds they were reported. And so my roommate and I happened to catch them disassembling the same loft. We were entertained. We laughed and they waved to us… ok they actually made a derogatory gesture. Clearly, we were communicating.
According to Scelfo, this practice of silent communication is extremely common in urban settings. In fact it is a trend which is discursive I contest may even redefine or add a new layer to my peer’s working definition of discourse: language in use. These silent exchanges, according to Dr. Calvin Morril, editor of Together Alone: Personal Relationships in Public Places, “ Simply looking our your apartment window and seeing other humans doing an activity in a consistent way and at a similar time can provide stability and support” he deems our daily lives “. . . a kind of reassurance” for our neighbors. Scelfo compares window watching to the entertainment reality TV crazed US citizens crave.
Naturally, human agency surfaces with regard to nudity which comes up in this discussion. Surprisingly, a variety of cultural norms dictate window watchers actions. While some follow the Friends “Ugly Naked Guy” sitcom mentality of watching, this is not consistent across the board. One woman comments in Scelfo’s article “The woman who lives there [across from her apartment] often wears nothing but underwear. So I try not to look.” Despite isolation from the rest of society, these window watchers face dilemmas. Another comments on strangers in the heat of the moment who according to Scelfo one man chooses to ignore: this has become mundane.
Because my roommate and I cought an eye full more than once, we closed our curtains to maintain our own privacy. While this seems like common sense, I sensed that for many residents who were not used to living in such close and intimate quarters it took an embarrassing moment to alter their agency in their rooms. What is most interesting to me then is the manner in which the “L” shape of the dorm served as means for us to seek privacy, and to say to our neighbors when our curtains were open, “Here go ahead and watch. Be a part of our lives.”
