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