Naomi Klein's No Logo was a rallying cry for the anti-globalisation movement. It crystallised the sentiments of a public who had become disenchanted with the machinations of Big Business. Whilst No Logo brought some previously ignored truths into the mainstream limelight it was short-sighted in placing the blame for society's misfortunes at the feet of multinationals. But Klein did a great job of picking up on the frustration and resentment felt by some towards the intrusion of brand messages into their day-to-day lives. Klein's book is over a decade old now. Published in 2000, shortly after the anti-globalisaton protests at the Seattle WTO conferences, it was a different digital era to the one we enjoy today. These were the days before Facebook and Youtube, when even Google was just a dot on the horizon. The dot.com bubble, few high-bandwidth home connections and a lack of user-friendly platforms meant that internet use, whilst on the rise, was far from the level it...

The Hare With Amber Eyes chronicles Edmund de Waal’s family history through a collection of Japanese netsuke, intricately-carved miniature sculptures, passed down from one generation to the another. I’d read the reviews and learnt the author had studied pottery in Japan. I picked it up last week and found myself engrossed within a few pages. I couldn’t help but see parallels between the presentation of William Gibson’s sci-fi work, All Tomorrow’s Parties and de Waal’s historical take on Japonisme . Vastly different in subject-matter the authors present their work in a minimal but evocative style; Sharp, sparkling sentences where every word is placed with careful, offhand precision. In doing so both authors attempt, with mixed results, to capture the zen-inspired spirt of traditional Japanese art, whether that of the potter in the The Hare or of the martial artist in All Tomorrow’s Parties. I’ve always felt business and technology solutions should share the same balance. Or to ...

Techcrunch reports that Facebook is proposing a ban on sponsored updates by users and any other monetisation activities of profiles on the site. However, FB, or rather advertisers using FB, can still utilise user data and photos for their own ads. Even adjusting privacy settings on FB only prevents Facebook itself from using user photos in “social” adverts. Third party apps and other parts of the site can still, in theory, access user photos and information for advertising purposes whether the user approves of it or not. But are sponsored adverts that bad? In some respects, yes. As the Techcrunch article points out the ability to talk about products or brands within a social space could be geneuinely useful but its also open to abuse in the form of unwanted spam. However, since FB is happy to give up user data to its advertisers and commercialise the site in as many ways as possible it’s doubtful whether the motives behind this recent proposal are to do with protecting the sanctit...

I came across a set of new videos on Seth Godin’s blog. One of the videos, on using social networking sites for business, was particularly interesting. With typical clarity Godin cuts straight to the heart of the matter: any networking should be about making genuine actionable connections with people. It’s the quality and depth of the relationships within a network, rather than the size of it, that makes difference in business performance. But in the same breath B2B social networking shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand since it depends on how a business’s social networking is managed. The central issue is whether or not there’s an online networking strategy in place that can benefit the business in concrete terms. How are you measuring networking success? Do the connections you make online further your overall business objectives? Are there methods in place to leverage the fleeting contact and attention gained by initial contact through an online social network? Is your business...

The relationship between brands and the blogosphere has generally been characterised by failure. Failure to understand the nature of the dialogues that happen within online communities. Failure to respect the cultural attitudes of said communities. And failure to realise what relationship building really means within the online world. So how can the likes of Walmart and McDonald’s , with their huge PR and marketing budgets, lack the insight and strategy to effectively cope with something as straight-forward as blogging? It boils down to aims, culture and a growing consumer resistance to brand communications . Bloggers, like most web users, want to discuss and share authentic content. Brands want to sell and promote. The two aims aren’t mutually exclusive but brands struggle to reconcile the difference because of the second reason: business and marketing culture. Traditional offline brand management thinks in terms of media buys, sales funnels and the sort ...

Blogging about the need for innovation during the financial crisis reminded me of an inspiring Juan Enrique TED presentation made earlier this year. In the first 7 minutes Mr Enrique succinctly, and often hilariously, summarises the current financial downturn. Some of the causes and consequences of the recession are discussed and possible short-term solutions to the crisis are outlined. In the latter part of the talk Mr Enrique, a leading tech and economics expert, presents a fascinating insight into how innovative technologies could solve our global economic problems and radically alter how we work and live. (First posted, July 28 2009 on viralmojo.net)

I just found out recently that the US Debt Clock has gone digital . Now we can all watch the US economy haemorrhage in real time. And in case you’re wondering, US debt stands at about $11 trillion as of today. Late last year the real world US Debt Clock was shut down. The reason? In the decade since the Clock was first launched the US has racked up over $10 trillion in debt. Ten. Trillion. That’s a whole lot of zeros. So many in fact that the Clock didn’t have enough digits to cope and had to be switched off. The Clock was first launched in 1989 by real estate developer Seymour Durst and apart from a short period from 2000 to 2002 had seen the US debt climb from around $3 trillion to a whopping $10 trillion in 2002 . The accuracy of the Clock is debatable, US debt actually exceeded 10 trillion in 2006 .  The real strength of the Debt Clock lay in what it symbolised. A stark reminder of the state of the US’s finances it received particular media attention during times of ec...

Earlier this year Burger King launched the Whopper Sacrifice on Facebook. Over a 10 day run around 23,000 FB users downloaded and interacted with the application. The popularity and innovation of the app garnered plaudits from both the mainstream and digital marketing press as well as from social media commentators and observers. The response from Web 2.0 pundits was typically guarded: Whilst everyone agreed the campaign was innovative, concerns ranged from doubts about ROI and execution to musings on how web 2.0 has “changed our ideas of what friendship really means” . ROI aside, an FB application that causes grown adults to worry about the social fabric has to be doing something right. But what’s the real significance of BK’s Sacrifice? The application, developed by CP+B, will hopefully become a benchmark and inspiration for the potential of innovation in new media. The app was a nicely targeted communication, beautifully in-synch with the brand message, and flawlessly leverag...

Whilst browsing Ben Haim’s blog I came across a great series of visuals by David Armano . One of them, shown here, shows the interplay between social media fragmentation and influence. The ripples between individuals nicely illustrate how Social Influentials, one of the subject of today’s Basics post, affect their networks and accelerate the spread of communications. Social Influentials, e-Fluentials, Digerati, New Media Mavens. The terms are often used interchangeably but they all refer to net users who are more engaged with the online world than average. These individuals participate in online and offline communities, discussing and sharing topics of interest as they do so. They don’t always have leadership roles but they do have authority and influence. Basically, when Socials speak people listen. One of the main reasons Socials have credibility stems from the fact that they’re seen as community members rather than as outsiders trying to push an agenda. In effect Socials are t...

After shelving my blogging efforts in the aftermath of a difficult MA thesis I find myself returning to the fold. I plan on building on my thesis work by continuing to explore digital marketing, media, business and culture. I’d also love to get some interesting discussion going too. Researching online communities, viral spread and e-fluentials was rewarding but tricky. Armed with a background in psychology and statistics, a taste for the digital zeitgeist and a fascination for social media and marketing I attempted to pin down viral phenomena in all its glory. During the course of the study I blogged about my investigations as a sort of record-cum-livejournal detailing the many-headed beast of a problem that viral research presented. Investigating virals was fascinating but tricky. Virals can be almost anything: Short gimmicky movies or deeply involving multi-channel media extravaganzas. Virals are at once a form of old skool marketing comms whilst at the same time being radical...