Feel Creative

Social Media Analyst Charlene Li discusses the correlation between selling a product and campaigning for a politician, and why in many ways political campaigns are more effectively utilising the social medium to engage and inspire their target audience.

While not all products would suit this type of marketing (For example, I wouldn’t think of using it for Malboro), I think that business could definately learn something from the way that political campaigns are run.

Check out the video at What Political Campaigns Can Teach Business.

Thanks for the tip Tim!

I stumbled upon this while browsing Yahoo Answers. It was a callout for a volunteer to help judge a Google Sites web design competition, hmm interesting I thought. After further reading I found that the motivation behind this competition was to help non-profit organisations, more specifically non-profit organisations that don’t necessarily have the funds to boost their online presence.

So what is Code Kindness? It’s a hub for non-profit organisations like charities to get in touch with able and willing developers or designers who can help them spread social good.

All too frequently in this industry of ours we get bogged down in “sweating the small stuff” like making the logo bigger (hehe), or moving the image 3 pixels to the right, or getting stressed and angry about scope creep and imminent deadlines, and inevitably someone utters the phrase “We’re not saving lives”. It’s at this point in time that some of us (or maybe its just me) get all philosophical and wonder if there is a way to make a positive difference in the world utilising our skills.

I think this is a brilliant initiative and a great cause to get involved in, so please check it out and spread the word, you even get an appreciation T-shirt for the projects you help on (woot!) plus it’ll be a nice addition to your portfolio.

Check them out at Code Kindness.

Last thought: Any designers out there want to show some kindness to Code Kindness by designing a better template for their site?

That talented lot over at Visual Jazz have done a brilliant job on this ad. I won’t spoil it just check it out at National Breast Preference Survey 2008. You’ll need speakers.

Saw this in my email today, thought I’d share:

Lesson 1

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.
The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour.
Before she says a word, Bob says, ‘I’ll give you $800 to drop that towel.’
After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.
The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.
When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, ‘Who was that?’
‘It was Bob the next door neighbour,’ she replies.
‘Great,’ the husband says, ‘did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?’

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Lesson 2

A priest offered a Nun a lift.
She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.
The priest nearly had an accident.
After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, ‘Father, remember Psalm 129?’
The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, ‘Father, remember Psalm 129?’
The priest apologized ‘Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.’
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.
On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, ‘Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.’

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Lesson 3

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.
They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, ‘I’ll give each of you just one wish.’
‘Me first! Me first!’ says the admin clerk. ‘I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.’
Puff! She’s gone.
‘Me next! Me next!’ says the sales rep. ‘I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.’
Puff! He’s gone.
‘OK, you’re up,’ the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, ‘I want those two back in the office after lunch.’

Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.

Lesson 4

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.
A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, ‘Can I also sit like you and do nothing?’
The eagle answered: ‘Sure, why not.’
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson 5

A turkey was chatting with a bull.
‘I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree’ sighed the turkey, ‘but I haven’t got the energy.’
‘Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?’ replied the bull. They’re packed with nutrients.’
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.
He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:
Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there..

Lesson 6

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.
While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.
As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.
The dung was actually thawing him out!
He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.
A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.
Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you’re in deep shit, it’s best to keep your mouth shut!

This concludes the 5 Minute Management Course. I hope it gave you a chuckle

The Facebook privacy debate has gone on for a while now, but something just happened that drew my attention to it again.

As reported on CNET video dating site SpeedDate.com has just purchased the rights to the Oregon Trail Facebook application, an old western pioneering type game with wagons and saloons, nothing to do with dating. They are planning to replace it with a Video Dating application.

This basically means that SpeedDate.com now has access all Oregon Trail registered users’ Facebook data (except for their contact information) as well as their friend’s data. (As stated in Facebook’s Platform terms) The net result being SpeedDate.com gets a few thousand new users, and royally pisses off the rest.

I don’t know about you but this doesn’t seem right to me. When I sign up and agree to an application having access to my data and friend’s data that I can see, I’m making that judgment on the state of that application at the time of signing up.

So the question is, where do we draw the line? Developer’s are making improvements to their applications all the time releasing new versions, which is great as the consumer ends up with a better product. If Facebook allow for users to re-agree whenever an update is made to the application, it would create a roadblock for budding developers aswell as a whole lot of annoyance for users. So how do we measure the differences or deltas in application updates?

Another argument would be that when we put our information online we do it at a risk and shouldn’t be surprised if it is available to companies that want to use it. I mean we get to use Facebook for free, maybe this is the price to pay, it’s the model thats worked for almost every free to air medium so far. We get to use a service in exchange for being marketed towards.

I guess one of the things we need to realise is that once you put something out there whether it be a video posted to vimeo, photo on flickr, comment on facebook, or a digg or tweet, it will always be out there, even 10 years from now when you’ve completely forgotten about it, it’ll be out there sitting in multiple copies across several servers in a farm somewhere.

Anyhoo I’m rambling now.

What do you guys think about this? Is it a matter of concern? or would the majority of users not really care?

You can read the original article on CNET - Oregon Trail Facebook app to be replaced with dating service

I stumbled upon this list of Project Management Truths and thought it’d be worth sharing. And while they are very amusing and tongue in cheek, I can’t help but feel an eerie sense of deja vu as I read through them, and I guess it follows Homer Simpson’s adage “It’s funny cos it’s true”.

Here’s the final part:

1. There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop.
2. A project gets a year late one day at a time.
3. If you’re 6 months late on a milestone due next week but really believe you can make it, you’re a project manager.
4. No project has ever finished on time, within budget, to requirements. Yours won’t be the first to.
5. Activity is not achievement.
6. If you don’t know how to do a task, start it, then ten people who know less than you will tell you how to do it.
7. The person who says it will take the longest and cost the most is the only one with a clue how to do the job.
8. The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
9. The nice thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.
10. Good control reveals problems early - which only mean you’ll have longer to worry about them.

First up let me just say that I am a big supporter of social media, web 2.0, and really excited about working towards a semantic web where sentient applications understand user context, but I decided to have a look on the flip side and can’t help but wondering if too much interaction or reliance on it is making us less social?

Are we getting our social fix satisfied by reaching for the laptop or the smart phone instead of calling and having a real conversation or even arranging to meet up? Is a phone conversation just a little too confronting and intimate now?

What did we used to do with the time we now spend blogging, tweeting, facebooking, or digging? Are we headed towards a watered down version of the Matrix? (Ridiculous, right?)

Heres a couple of ways to tell if social media is perhaps making you less social:

1) When you want to contact a friend your attempts follow this order (more or less):

• Instant Messenger (If available)
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Email
• Phone Call

2) You find yourself Twittering about things you do as you do them, instead of just enjoying the experience.

3) When you are with family or friends you have thoughts like, “I can’t wait get home and post my blog/check facebook or twitter”

Overall I think that Social Media presents us with the opportunity to have a broader reach to our interactions, but could result in us having a less deep or lower quality of interaction. That is, we have more friends and contacts but less time to engage in quality interactions with them, for example we’d spend an hour sending messages and tweets to 50 or so friends instead of having a phone or face to face conversation with a couple of them.

What do you guys think?

I stumbled upon this list of Project Management Truths and thought it’d be worth sharing. And while they are very amusing and tongue in cheek, I can’t help but feel an eerie sense of deja vu as I read through them, and I guess it follows Homer Simpson’s adage “It’s funny cos it’s true”.

Here’s Part 3:

1. Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance.
2. For a project manager, overruns are as certain as death and taxes.
3. Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best practices.
4. Fast - cheap - good - you can have any two.
5. The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale.
6. A two-year project will take three years; a three-year project will never finish.
7. When the weight of the project paperwork equals the weight of the project itself, the project can be considered complete.
8. A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well-planned project only twice as long as expected.
9. Warning: dates in a calendar are closer than they appear to be.
10. Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.

Have you made any social media blunders? I certainly have, it’s reassuring though, to know that even the guru’s in the business have done the same according to an interesting article by David Spark (Social Media Guru and founder of Spark Media Solutions).

Here are some highlighted blunders:

“Over-architect a site with features and content without talking to your customers – Deb Schultz, social media strategist for P&G, fell into the trap of making too many assumptions about what an audience wanted and just started developing a site loaded with features and functionality. It’s what happens when you work at a big company and you don’t see outside of the four walls of the organization. Schultz admitted she should have spent more time talking with customers instead of adding more content to the site.”

“Respond to all negative comments – When I, David Spark,
started being seen publically in print, TV, radio, and online I read everyone’s comments, but focused more intently on the negative ones. I wasted a lot of time putting far too much effort into defending myself to these anonymous naysayers than they put into attacking me. I soon understood that some geeks simply can’t help themselves being negative. They’ve got an obnoxious strand of DNA and must constantly try to prove themselves smarter than you.”

“Post a comment on your own Facebook profile wall – David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and the upcoming book World Wide Rave, needed his teenage daughter to point out his massive social networking faux pas. After setting up his Facebook profile, he showed it to his daughter to which she responded, “You’re not supposed to write on your own wall. You’re such a dork, dad.””

“Don’t come to your own defense when people bad mouth you online – It’s often a good idea to have others defend you in a public debate. But Peter Hirshberg chairman of Technorati and co-founder of The Conversation Group got into a situation where his silence in a debate about a product release was just seen as rather peculiar and it backfired on him.”

You can read the original article at Biggest Mistakes Made by Social Media Gurus.

I stumbled upon this list of Project Management Truths and thought it’d be worth sharing. And while they are very amusing and tongue in cheek, I can’t help but feel an eerie sense of deja vu as I read through them, and I guess it follows Homer Simpson’s adage “It’s funny cos it’s true”.

Here’s Part 2:

1. A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.
2. If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven’t understood the plan.
3. If at first you don’t succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.
4. Feather and down are padding, changes and contingencies will be real events.
5. There are no good project managers - only lucky ones.
6. The more you plan the luckier you get.
7. A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.
8. Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.
9. If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.
10. Everyone asks for a strong project manger - when they get one, they don’t want one.