Cx3: Win a Google gold

Win your own gold medal with this great interactive Slalom Canoe Google Doodle game, continuing Google's ongoing celebration of the London 2012 Olympics.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3: Musical Google Doodle

Cx3: iPad magic Stockholm PR

Came across this fabulous iPad presentation promoting Stockholm...just watch and be amazed.

Similar approaches to integrating illusion techniques with technology using infra-red sensors, canvas projections and connected device applications are disclosed by 'cyber-illusionist' Marco Tempest.

A bit of fun, or serious attention grabbing awareness?

Cx3: The Nimblists are coming

I came across an article in the Architects Journal today, ‘King’s Grove, Peckham, South London, by Duggan Morris Architects’ - completely unrelated, with the exception of a quote that stood out:

“The Nimblists are coming: architects who can spot an opportunity where others might not. They practice Nimblism, good architecture wrought from unlikely circumstances”.

Being opportunistically nimble is more relevant today than ever before (and not just restricted to the domain of architects). The number of business start-ups fell in 2011, and governmental schemes introduced in 2012 dominate an entrepreneurial tone for economic growth opportunities.

Applying nimblism to communications, simply turn to current real-time big data technology drivers that are transforming interactions with stakeholders. Targeted communications based upon speedy in-memory analysis, with the intention of leveraging a competitive advantage, and resultant shareholder value.

Our own nimblistic behaviour, driven by social media growth and a preference for mobile platforms has changed brand loyalty paradigms. Does value-based sustainable loyalty commitment exist any more? Or, is today’s loyalty driven by potentially spurious influence accessed on the fly?

Either way, the influence of nimblism in technology driven communications and consumer behavioural science, is speedily making its mark.

 
RELATED LINKS:
Cx3: The growth of cloud computing

Cx3: Diamond showcase

The past four days has seen a carefully orchestrated journey for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, telling a story of British Tradition, History, Culture and Youth.

Tradition:
Saturday 2 June: The Queen attended the traditional sporting spectacle that is the Epsom Derby. Her unashamed love of horses celebrated at the annual event with added pomp and ceremony, which introduced the extended bank holiday festivities.

History:
Sunday 3 June: The Jubilee pageant tried to re-create the historic Canalleto painting, The Thames London, by accumulating 1,000 boats on the river itself. A spectacle that would have had more impact if the typical British wet weather hadn't dampened the occasion, and unfortunate infrastructure planning halted traveling spectators. Us Brits 'Keep Calm and Carry On', though.

Culture:
Monday 4 June: A magnificent eclectic 'pop concert', organised by Gary Barlow, showcasing tolerance for creative disruption connecting music, comedy, art and architecture. The streets were conquered by the masses, music climbed atop Buckingham Palace and art quite literally graffitied upon its walls. Global Twitter trends for #jubileeconcert, #giverobbrydonaknighthood, Kylie and Elton were on an equal footing.

Youth:
Tuesday 5 June: Today focused on sustained values at a commemorative service inside St. Pauls Cathedral. The presence of the younger royals was more prominent and the cream of Britain's youth were presented for lunch, defining the positive qualities of the country's future generation.

On the whole, an expert PR exercise for Britain by the Royal family firmly focusing the expectations of the world's eyes on London in preparation for the Olympics (with a few learnings along the way). God bless you ma'am.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3: Royal Change Management
Cx3: London calling

Cx3: Ben Eine Communicates

Ben Eine works on 'Communicate', which reads: 'To express thoughts or feelings easily and effectively', for his exhibition at The Lowry gallery, Salford. The exhibition runs from 2 June to 16 September 2012. More pictures of Ben Eine's work taking shape for the exhibition can be seen at www.einesigns.co.uk. Looks amazing.

Cx3: Burberry digital drivers

Angela Ahrendts, Burberry Chief Executive Officer, discusses the drivers behind the Group's performance for the full year ending 31 March 2012. Digital strategy maximising social channels and immersive digital environments still driving retail growth for the luxury brand.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3: Burberry digital runway 
Cx3: The digital renaissance of Burberry

Cx3: Musical Google Doodle

Again, Google create a great interactive musical Google Doodle to celebrate the birthday of electronic music pioneer Bob Moog. You can record and playback your musical efforts - wonder how many people's first choice will be to play Happy Birthday. Explore your musical talents at Bob Moog Google Doodle.

Cx3: Pepsi football champions

I bet Pepsi are loving Chelsea Football Club's Champions League win ;-)

Cx3: Integrating social media survey

InSites Consulting conducted a quantitative online survey among 400 senior marketing managers.

Markets included are the US and the UK.

The goals of the study are: understanding the current adoption level of social media among corporations and getting insights in the integration of social media in their business processes.

Some of the most interesting findings relate to valuable performance indicators. As social media increasingly becomes integrated into strategic communications, benchmarking of performance is going to be key in winning-over the adoption laggards. Those considered the most valuable performance indicators include:

52% - Leads generated via social media
46% - Volume in online reach
34% - Adoption of social media by employees
34% - Impact of online conversations
28% - Influence indicators

To the right is a useful infographic (click for full size) that gives a summary of the findings.

View the Social Media Integration Survey presentation on SlideShare including more presentations from Steven van Belleghem

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Transmedia storytelling
Cx3 blog entry: Social Media Content Grid
Cx3 blog entry: Conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: Fry's Planet Word

Fry's Planet Word - The inimitable Stephen Fry provides expert curation on language and the written word across the world that has driven communication. If you have not already seen it, I do recommend you take the time to watch.

The series provides fascinating insight into the evolutionary (and revolutionary) characterisation of language and the essential development of the written word that supports interaction, engagement and technology. Without it, we would not be where we are today.

In last night's programme, "Stephen discovers the earliest writing - cuneiform - at the British Museum, and learns how our alphabet came from the Phoenicians. As part of his exploration of the diversity of scripts, Stephen visits 106-year-old Mr Zhou, the inventor of the Chinese phonetic writing system called Pinyin, who relates how literacy increased four-fold after its introduction under Mao.

After the written word came the printed word, and Stephen looks at how this has shaped our relationship with writing, giving us libraries, dictionaries and encyclopaedias. From the Bodleian to Diderot's favourite café to the cutting-edge research at MIT, Stephen explores how the written word evolved into printing, then libraries, encyclopaedias and computer code. Blogging and twittering is just the tip of a brave new future which no one dares predict."

There are echoes of Steve Jobs' passionate story about taking calligraphy classes upon dropping out of college, which retrospectively turned out to be a 'connecting dot', introducing multiple typefaces and proportionately spaced fonts to the Apple Mac.

Stephen Fry has carved his niche as an expert wordsmith and an influential voice on Twitter. He curates the programme with a down-to-earth raw passion that cannot help but draw you in. Watch Stephen Fry's Planet Word on BBC iPlayer.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Steve Jobs
Cx3 blog entry: Why follow a celebrity?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and Halibut

Cx3: Transmedia storytelling

I'm always impressed by the collaborative infographics created by Brian Solis and JESS3...and the 'Social Media Brandsphere' is no exception. It illustrates a transmedia approach to storytelling connecting brands with audience groups spanning five media landscapes:

"Social networks and channels present brands with a broad array of media opportunities to engage customers and those who influence them. Each channel offers a unique formula for engagement where brands become stories and people become storytellers. Using a transmedia approach, the brand story can connect with customers differently accross each medium, creating a deeper, more enriching experience. Transmedia story telling doesn't follow the traditional rules of publishing: it caters to customers where they connect and folds them into the narrative. In any given network, brands can invest in digital assets that span five media landscapes.

1. Paid: Digital advertising, banners, adwords, overlays
2. Owned: Created assets, custom content
3. Earned: Brand-related conversations and user-generated content
4. Promoted: In-stream or social paid promotion vehicles
5. Shared: Open platforms or communities where customers co-create and collaborate with brands

Any combination of the five media strategies defines a new Brandsphere where organisations can capture attention, steer online experiences, spark conversations and word-of-mouth, and help customers address challenges or create new opportunities. Each media channel connects differently with people and thus requires a dedicated approach integrating tangible or intangible value. Doing so ensures a critical path for social media content: relevance, reach and resonance."

Visit www.theconversationprism.com for more on this and other infographics in this series.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Social Media Content Grid
Cx3 blog entry: Conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: Steve Jobs

A while since my last post, but the demonstrable influence of Steve Job's death has reignited my Cx3 blog posts - and in tribute, written and posted in totality using my iPad.

In the past few days, since Steve Jobs died, there has been an unprecedented global outpouring of grief, tributes and reflection. He is labelled a genius in parallel with Einstein and labelled the creator of the 21st century.

Steve Job's Apple empire touches the world, quite literally, as it shapes the way we behave and communicate today - providing platforms to connect, share, inform, inspire, influence, educate, perform and entertain.

I myself (as did many others) found out about Steve Jobs death via my iPhone and actively shared the news appropriately - via my iPhone, which can only be a fitting tribute to a man who revolutionised communication. Twitter recorded 10,000 tweets per second on news of his death - the highest ever.

Clips of Steve Jobs were shared including his Commencement speech at Stanford University 'How to live before you die' and multiple i-product launch performances, which have a presentation style of their own. The 'opportunity in death' that Steve Jobs actively talks about, provides the world with the opportunity to 'save to memory' recognition of a man's leadership genius, and a not-to-be-forgotten creative visionary.

Cx3: Burberry digital runway

Burberry's 'holographic' runway show in Beijing is one of my favourite videos on YouTube at the moment. There are only six real catwalk models in this show and it is quite mesmorising. The full show (see video below) also includes avatar models and an Inception based environment that has Burberry models parading up walls and on the ceiling. Full credit to Christopher Bailey's genius.



RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Digital renaissance of Burberry
Cx3 blog entry: Royal change management
Cx3 blog entry: London calling
Cx3 blog entry: Brand Beckham ambassadors

Cx3: Royal change management

Yesterday, there was the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. The day was declared a bank holiday in the UK, we were glued to the television and there were thousands of very British street parties up and down the country...hurrah for the happy couple!

However yesterday, the royal wedding also re-positioned the popular 'William and Kate' brand past a superficial excuse to have a party. The new 'Duke and Duchess of Cambridge' brand, for a day, lead the nation (and the world) with values of awareness, relevance, accessibility and acceptance that will be influential in shaping the future monarchy in the United Kingdom.

It was an uncompromising marriage meme connecting tradition with modernity, regal with common, youth with wisdom, Smiths with Beckhams, Grace Kelly glamour with fascinator fad, respectful etiquette with carefree abandonment, serious with fun, old with new...I could go on with the dichotomies, but the message is clear.

Accessibility to the royal couple's wedding day embraced today's technology. Live streaming records were broken as people around the world watched the wedding over the internet, topping 300,000 concurrent users on Livestream.

Social amplification of the event dominated trends on Twitter, Facebook and Google. 65% of the conversation came from the USA and 20% from the UK.

Healthy social commentary including the good (that McQueen dress by Sarah Burton); the bad (Princess Beatrice's ridiculous Royal Wedding hat - OMG); and the unexpected - the matron of honor upstaging the bride (the earthy 'Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation Society' on Facebook), says it all.

The official royal wedding photographs have been released on Flickr.

So, to a truely global, social and accessible Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - royal change management facilitators, I raise a glass.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: London calling
Cx3 blog entry: Brand Beckham ambassadors

Cx3: Consumer touchpoints [INFOGRAPHIC]

Loving this infographic from BLITZ that simply illustrates the daily channel touchpoint lifecycle of a sample consumer. The graphical concept easily translates across any specific audience demographic to identify high-value touchpoints when approaching targeted channel communications.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: Social media marketing spend [INFOGRAPHIC]

Cx3: Growth of mobile marketing and tagging

View more presentations from Microsoft Tag.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: QR codes vs Microsoft tag
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen
Cx3 blog entry: QR codes - the future of mobile channel communication?

Cx3: Japan earthquake and tsunami

In the wake of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the maturity of digital networks and social media is being demonstrated.

Less than an hour after the earthquake, Japan's phone system was knocked out and Twitter became the go-to place in the emergency - the number of tweets coming from Tokyo topped 1,200 per minute according to Tweet-o-Meter.

Google has set-up its Person Finder service so people can look for others, or post information saying they are safe - more than 4,000 records were posted in the first hour.

On YouTube the Japan tsunami channel hosts official news and user generated videos. The video below has already been viewed more than 3 million times.



Mashable has posted an article Japan earthquake and tsunami - seven simple ways to help in the aftermath of the disaster.

No-one can say that the devastation of Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosion isn't shocking, and the essential need of digital and social channels for connecting people and connecting the world with information is clear.

RELATED LINKS:
Mashable: Japan earthquake and tsunami - seven simple ways to help
Cx3 blog entry: Iran's social media voice
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

Cx3: The virtual business

I like this article 'The virtual business: Doing deals in your pyjamas' - the article also poses the question, do modern businesses need four walls?

There is renewed interest in businesses leveraging the internet and the power of 'the cloud'. Although conceptually, the virtual office has been around for a while, it is only now that the convergence of technology connectivity and the economic climate as business drivers that a virtual reality is raising to the fore again.

But is a paradoxical virtual business reality a viable option? And can technology and digital communications sustain a virtual business?

The economic climate drives global operational economies and digital communications facilitates cost-effective management of those operations. No secret there.

The full-time/remote workforce split. Again cost effeciencies minimise full-time workforce overheads and temprorary on-demand remote-working specialist 'suppliers' make-up the balance that enables a business to negotiate beneficial rates. However, relationships with these temporary specialists is now the connection for a driven and motivated workforce. Cloud computing and social solutions are connecting stakeholders digitally, and nurturing loyal relationships.

There will always be grounding forces. Finance, corporate regulation and compliance. Growth may necessitate a physical reality, and can a virtual brand and its values be sustained?

Also, layer on top of this a generation of digital natives' natural virtual persona multiplicity, which is now grown-up - technology giant Microsoft is already exploring avatar technology for conferencing (interesting sign of the times). Going forward, the business drivers for virtual working may not be solely economic and technological, but behavioural.

RELATED LINKS
The virtual business: Doing deals in your pyjamas

Cx3: Yahoo! MarketDash for iPad

Yahoo! launched MarketDash this week, their new iPad app that brings all of the real-time stock and financial data of their existing iPhone app, but optimised for the larger iPad screen.

The MarketDash app for iPad allows you to display real-time stock information for any company in your portfolio and see trend data and a stock's history over time period or stock performance and closing price on any day with a single tap.

If you use Yahoo! to track your finances, you can import a watch-list of your portflio and access real-time data also. Once markets close, you see closing price and access relevant news.

Another example of the tablet platform potentially finding a corporate niche with 'on-the-go' investor and analyst audiences? As the Yahoo! MarketDash app promo video says 'Money never looked so good'. One to watch.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: The Daily iPad
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen
Cx3 blog entry: Interact with your iPad
Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview

Cx3: The Daily iPad

News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.

Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an "indispensable source of news" in the tablet era.

The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.

The paper will initially only be available in the US.

News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.

The Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, HD videos and 360 degree photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.

It will add Twitter feeds into some articles and offer personalised content.

"Our target audience is the 15 million Americans expected to own iPads in the next year," said Mr Murdoch.

"In the tablet-era there is room for a fresh and robust new voice. New times demand new journalism," he said.

He promised that the Daily would combine the best of contemporary technology with "shoe leather reporting, good editing and a sceptical eye".

According to Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of internet services, 200m news apps have been downloaded and there are 9,000 different news apps to choose from.

Revenue share

It is believed that Apple will use the tie-up with News Corp to change the way it charges for subscriptions.

It means that any publisher offering content via the iPad will have to use Apple's payment method, known as in-app purchase, which in turn means Apple will get a share of the revenue made from any subscriptions.

"That is quite a big deal," said Adrian Drury, principal media analyst at research firm Ovum.

"The specific terms News Corp have negotiated are unknown, but every other publisher now faces paying 30% of their hard won application subscription revenue to Apple," he said.

It follows a tightening of the rules around e-book readers, which will also now be required to offer customers the ability to purchase books from within the app as well as from other sources.

News Corp's move onto the iPad reflects a wider industry appetite for selling device-specific exclusive content, Mr Drury said.

What sets the Daily apart is the fact that it has its own editorial staff.

"Others re-use content but the Daily has hired expensive US journalists and has its own editorial staff," he said.

"Its parent has deep pockets, and this is going to buy it time to build an audience and refine its model," he added.

Others who have already gone down the iPad route find it a difficult road, he said.

"Anecdotal evidence [suggests] that such publications have strong download sales when they first come to market, but when it comes to subscriptions, getting people to repeat buy, it gets really tough."

It also faces stiff competition from free apps such as Flipboard, which allows users to pick the websites they want to create a personalised magazine.

Paywalls

Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the web.

The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Mr Murdoch, have introduced paywalls for their websites.

The Times has since revealed that it has seen a 87% drop in online readership.

In November, Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson launched his own iPad publication, called Project.

Unlike the Daily, it is a monthly magazine dedicated to style and culture. It costs £1.79.

Other paid-for newspaper apps for the iPad include Esquire, Glamour, GQ, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired.

RELATED LINKS
BBC news article: News Corp launches daily newspaper for iPad
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen
Cx3 blog entry: Interact with your iPad
Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview