Nokia have hired a couple of guys at a usability institute to have a bit of a think about how they might come up with some interesting interfaces and how people might want to use their mobile devices.
There are 3 short videos that are worth looking at: “Playfulness”,
Spotted this on the digital buzz blog. Nice use of blue tooth, digital outdoor and a phone app.
Also fits in nicely with the strap line for the Prius - Moving forward - which works on a number of levels and gives them permission to do activity that is pushing technology on.
This time a really nice variation 1 million clicks against poverty - a million pixels - a million clicks. Each click of your mouse reveals a pixel of a hidden picture.
Great idea, nice and easy and what is very interesting and clever is that after clicking 10 times a message comes up to let you publicize your involvement and invite freinds to help via social networks.
and if you click 100 times then an invitation to use your time to volunteer and get involved in Amnesty ongoing work.
Another great example of a brand responding to user/customer types. Realising that different levels of engagement exist and creating customer journeys for each various type. Not trying to force everyone down the same tunnel.
Courtesy of Adverlab this blew me away. A really nice example of a brand that understands consumers and how their changing media consumption behavior affects the way they need to communicate with them.
Mazda has developed a TV ad specifically designed for ad skippers and people watching programming on time shifted PVR/Sky + / V+ devices - genius
I lied, it was created by HHCL in the mid 90's it was well ahead of its time - aimed at VCR audience fast forwarding the ads. I think they were on to something just a decade too early - now it might just work.
Other great examples of this type of insight is the ability to choose the still images for a You Tube upload - by choosing the right image over the entire video can improve the viewing rate by literally 1000's.
I have to hand it to Penguin this is the best use of Twitter I have seen so far. Really nice little campaign in which Penguin have re-written 60 classic books in Tweets - 140 characters.
Dave who is completely mad in a good way, and the other very talented boys at 12foot6 have very kindly sent me a 'Dog Judo' T-shirt and some postcards.
Dog Judo if you haven't seen it is a crazy web comedy series, featuring two dogs dressed in Judo suits giving their slightly existential view on everyday life. Definitely worth a look on a Friday afternoon after a hard week.
I went to a talk last week as part of the NABS Fast Forward course that I mentor on. It was a fantastic night for two reasons.
The first was a talk on PR from Chris Satterthwaite who gave a fantastic talk on PR to the teams.
He also told a brilliant joke about PR as follows: Moses and his flock arrive at the sea, with the Egyptians in hot pursuit. Not knowing how to proceed, Moses calls a staff meeting. "Well, how are we going to get across the sea?" Moses asks. "We need a fast solution. The Egyptians are close behind us." "Normally, I'd recommend that we build a pontoon bridge to carry us across," the General of the Armies says, "but there's not enough time - the Egyptians are too close." "Normally, I'd recommend that we build barges to carry us across," the Admiral of the Navy says, "but time is too short." "Does anyone have a solution?" Moses asks. Just then, his Public Relations man raises his hand. "You!" Moses says, "You have a solution?" "No," the PR man says, "but I can promise you this: If you can find a way out of this one, I can get you two or three full pages in the Old Testament..."
The second was a talk by Jon Steele
Jon Steele Talk: - he needs no introduction but here it is anyway. Several things impressed me about this guy. Firstly, he was in Perth Australia at the time and we were in London, and was happy to give a talk via video conference at 2.30am his time to a group of young people in the industry - not many people would or could do this. The second was that he was by far the best, most engaging, insightful, and inteligent speaker on the entire course. He was incredibly charasmatic and haqd us all hanging on every word.
This isn't the speech he gave but its pretty interesting and gives you an idea of how he communicates.
Also highly recommend reading his book The Perfect Pitch - This guy get's it, knows what he is talking about and has done it all, and won it all. He gave some very funny and inspirational stories and annecdotes about the Porsche Pitch, an argument about Acqusiition and retention and his mobile phone, and the Sainsubry's pitch amongst other things.
Nice one Jon and thanks for making not only the grads night but also mine.
Really interesting post frrom Seht Godin about the motto of the web - Notice Me.
I'd go further and say it seems to be the motto and ambition of everyone in the UK under 25 judging by the reality TV shows. But anyway he goes on to say that far more powerful are the following alternatives:
Spotted this on http://adverlab.blogspot.com/ really nice poster site that gives something away to passers by. Here is also a link to some other similar types of poster site.
Taking the functional and making it fun is pretty simple. Really nice ideas here from VW showing how you can change ingrained behavior for the better. Two simple things - getting people to take the stairs rather than the escalator,
and put litter in a bin
and recycle
It is called Fun Theory and is a beautiful little bit of work.
I'm interested in the power of interaction, digital media and technology. I've been lucky enough to work in the field for the last 12 years at some of London's best interactive agencies. The content here has mainly been gathered from other blogs and is just a convenient place for some of my colleagues to find out about new developments in the field.
I run a new digital agency called Spike www.spikeuk.com
