Having declared last week that it was not illegal to jailbreak iPhones the U.S. government effectively gave consumers the right to fiddle with their proprietary software, allowing them access to other providers or to use apps and music from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes Store. This all became possible thanks to the exemptions made to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA.)

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF,) a selfstyled civil liberties group defending consumers’ digital rights, more than a million iPhone owners are said to have jailbroken their handsets in the past few months. The EFF hails the DMCA exemptions as a landmark victory and a good percentage of iPhone users might agree with them.

Apple on the other hand has warned that although jailbreaking may not be frowned upon by the law of the land, it won’t take the matter so lightly. Not only will jailbreaking void the warranty, but there is a risk of bricking the handset, effectively turning it into an expensive door stop. However, according to a journalist friend of mine it can be easily restored to a non jailbroken state.

If you’re after my personal opinion,  I’m torn. On the one hand, I agree that Apple should be able to protect their IP with some legal recourse, however, emotionally I’m with the EFF (who remind me a bit of the Wolverines from mediocre 80s action flick Red Dawn) who believe a handset shouldn’t be locked down once you’ve purchased it. This battle will continue to rage. Choose your side carefully, maybe grow a mullet, wear khaki, buy an AK.

Let me know what you think about jailbreaking; a digital taboo, or your revolutionary right?

mmmmm the 80s

Image via Wikipedia

As I ponder England’s dispirited performance in the World Cup, or to be more honest, listen to my colleagues discuss it, I wonder about what makes us great. How can we be our best? Apparently, the Spanish had nothing to lose. They could play with no fear. A united team that played to its strengths and had the spirit to win.

I read an interesting article in the FT this week from Lucy Kellaway ‘It’s time to sack appraisals’. She argues that appraisals are a waste of time.

I agree. Mostly.

Lucy suggests that real management is preferable – absolutely right. If managers stopped to give real constructive feedback on the spot – people would have a clear idea of what is expected.

However, often people don’t seize the moment. And later at appraisal time they hide behind jargon, complex templates and cut-and-paste objectives and imagine that is managing. They simply don’t have the appetite, tools or training to do it properly.

Well thought through appraisals are valuable. Even where real on the job management is happening. I’ve seen success stories where someone has been able to improve their performance and turn a corner. Or consolidate their experience to earn a promotion.

A clear roadmap of career development is often cited as a core driver for job satisfaction and the appraisal system allows for that. Put simply, people are motivated by making progress.

Engaged staff make for happy clients and a successful business.

But surely the flipside is equally important. Without appraisals the good can’t get better, but the bad can’t get fired. Ditching appraisals is the business management equivalent of issuing staff with a Cappello contract.

In a competitive world, we can’t afford to coast. Appraisals, used right, are effective tools for ensuring we perform. After all what business can succeed in an environment of enduring mediocrity?

Ask any PR or advertising professional about the value of having a story to bring a campaign to life and it’s recommended that you be seated comfortably, ready to listen, with a very sympathetic look on your face.

Whereas authors and journalists have the pleasure of starting with the story and then working towards a conclusion, communications professionals often find themselves with things presented the wrong way around.

The time-old tale of creating a campaign will play to something along the following lines:

Enter client, stage left.

“Here is our latest [project, product, service] and we want it to become the next best thing since… well, our last [project, product, service.]”

The goal is simple and clear-cut, elementary really: “stimulate desire!”; “amplify awareness!”; “change perceptions!!”

As the script inevitably goes, the next question is how?

• What is the compelling hook that will make people want it?
• What is the pitch that will change peoples’ minds?
• What is the story that people will tell for ages to come?

Exit agency, stage right, not to be seen again until act 3.

Fast-forward several months and, ultimately, the campaign does exactly what was intended. Measurement – key performance indicators… numbers – prove exactly how well the campaign delivered. How perceptions were changed and how it all affected the client’s bottom line.

But, what about the story? Unlike authors who can measure the “value” of their story based on book sales, the value of a PR story has only ever been indirectly measured by the global success of the campaign. If the campaign was a success, then the story must have been great.  The fact is, though, calculating the unique value of a story was simply never done before.  Until now.

Joshua Glenn, Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance, and Rob Walker, author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, have been able to measure the value of a story through a quasi-anthropological experiment, based on the hypothesis – “Narrative transforms insignificant objects into significant ones.”  The experiment is called Significant Objects and their conclusion is quite astounding:

The value of a story is 2,776%. Why percent and not Dollars or Euros? The answer is in the experiment itself:

• They bought objects considered to be of little to no value from garage sales, thrift stores and eBay.
• They then asked a selection of writers to bring each object to life create in the form of a fictional story about the object’s past.
• The object is then put back up for sale on eBay with the fictional story written out instead of a factual description.
• The lucky purchaser is shipped the object and a hard copy of the story that sold the object and the proceeds go to the author.

With a story by Susannah Breslin, the Necking Team Button went from 50 cents to $36.88

How did they reach 2,776%? SO v1 – the first batch of 100 objects – were bought by Significant Objects for $120.  Through a complex price adjustment scheme over 19 weeks to neutralise Duration Factors, the final profit on all objects sold came to $3,612… for a total mark-up of 2,776%.

As far as quasi-experimental experiments go, this is an incredibly heart-warming example. And it may also go a long way to helping communications professionals in recognising, if not calculating, the value of their own stories.

This ash cloud has been quite a strain, my wife and baby are still stuck in Dubai five days after they were due to fly home. The good thing is that they are staying with friends and have a great support network.

What it has shown me is how great the internet really is. Searching for information on Twitter, airline websites with the latest information (sometimes), news sites with real time video and Skype to stay in touch and more has provided real peace of mind.

Let’s talk specifically about use of social media platforms to help deal with the crisis. Twitter has become the web user’s right hand. The way the platform is set up allows a number of really useful things. You can choose to follow everything from airports to sports personalities, each wrestling with the problem of the lack of air travel in their own way. I have put together a targeted list of some of my key sources for keeping up to date. It just takes a little time to search on the site.

With a mix of journalists and news sites as well as the likes of Jake Humhprey and the Formula1 teams struggling to get home from last weekend’s race in China, there is a lot of information out there to wade through. It gives real world insight into what might work for getting the family home and is building camaraderie online.

The next key feature of Twitter is the hash tag, a really useful way to gather conversations on the same topic together. You just need to make sure that you include the right one. It is also proving a great platform for people to help each other out. The #getmehome tag has been widely used and is enabling people to share rides across Europe. I have even seen organisations and companies – one is a car share organisation called Roadshare – that are using these tags to communicate out their services to people with a specific problem; clever.

What will be interesting is to see if there is any direct increase in Twitter users as a result of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter does see a European surge on the back of Iceland’s latest contribution to the global economy – I know, an act of God.

It’s taken a while but the fashion industry has finally woken up to the wonders of the World Wide Web! Online stores such as ASOS are booming, fashion designers are tweeting like there’s no tomorrow and the majority of high-street retailers now have some form of blog to keep consumers up to date with fashion news and trends.

Innovative brands such as ASOS have leaped ahead and successfully created platforms which allow users (43,000 visitors per month) to interact with each other and build their own community.  The ‘my fashion my way’ and ‘Saturday night style’ sections, as well as the ’share your outfit’ group spark conversations and encourage members to share their own ideas, tips and insights.

River Island has also responded to this growing trend with Style Insider, an editorial and community site. Attracting 27,000 unique UK visitors a month, much of the site is written by the creative forces behind the brand – clothes, shoe and accessory designers. This makes the content compelling, relevant and appealing to those interested and involved in fashion and the brand itself.

And it’s not just the fashion brands and designers that are harnessing the power of social media platforms to speak directly to fans of fashion. Fashion magazines have also joined the online explosion. The Marie Claire Twitter account not only regularly updates and interacts with their following (it currently has an impressive 79,283 followers!); it has even been known to look for writers from their Twitter community.

In the midst of this exciting new landscape are the fashion bloggers – providing real insight and up-to-the minute commentary. Whether they’re posting images live from the catwalks, revealing latest trends from the streets of Tokyo, they too have become a huge force within the industry and a voice for a new generation of fashionistas.

Blogs such as Catwalkqueen and Stylebubble boast more readers per day than Vogue’s website and the Sartorialist has been named by Time magazine as one of the most influential forces in design. What’s more, bloggers such as Susanna Lau, creator of Style Bubble, are frequently snapping up front row (and extremely limited!) seats at the catwalks of high profile shows such as London Fashion Week.

One thing is for sure – this is an exciting time for the fashion industry and an incredible opportunity for brands to interact with consumers!

With Obama’s ‘masterful use of social media’ and the tweets of his 3 million Twitter fans sealing the election of the Democrats’ golden ticket, can our politicians and parties emulate this success and seduce the online masses and turn them into advocates?

There’ll be new blood on the hustings. According to Home Office sources, 134 serving MPs will be “spending more time with their families” instead of contesting in May (87 Labour, 35 Conservatives, 7 Liberals and 5 others.) While natural churn of MPs is only to be expected for personal, health and career reasons, that is an almost 50% rise on the 85 who stood down in 2005.

Various news sources have indicated that this might have something to do with expenses, surely not! Nevertheless, the stage is set for new firebrand candidates to fill the vacuum and the re-standing candidates to face fresh competition. These candidates have been immersed in social media explosion of the last 5 years in their private lives and now are looking to galvanise support with it through their political careers.

The vast majority will be utilising social media and search mentions to push their agenda and their shiny politician faces, at present a mere 81 serving MPs are without their own website.

New web savvy and Twitter prolific Prospective Parliamentary candidates (PPCs) or ‘iMPs’ include Chuka Umunna (Lab, Streatham, Twitter following 1,397) Iain Lindley (Con, Worsley and Eccles South, Twitter following 481) and Bridget Fox (Lib Dem, Islington South and Finsbury, Twitter following 698.)

We’re not expecting the right honourable member for Bexhill and Battle to boast a Twitter following in the millions, but parliamentary process is becoming more and more integrated with social media, one need only look to the fervent activity on Tweetminster to see that.

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at how specific iMPs’ social media campaigns are progressing and our ever changing Election Dashboard will also analyse how Brown, Cameron, Clegg and co are competing in the social media stakes.

Finally, there’s always that elephant in the corner to confront after the election dust has settled: ‘Does a big online following translate into a seat in the Commons?’

Launching with four new categories, AOP publishing awards opens its doors for this year’s entrants. The new categories acknowledge that social media, is making a significant impact on the media business model. They include, use of video, best podcast, digital creativity and online community of the year.

Last year we saw a terrific increase in publishers using community platforms and blogs to add a new dimension to reader engagement.   

Back in May, Martin Belam published a couple of really insightful articles looking at how web 2.0 British newspapers are becoming. Coupled with his review of RSS subscribers it seems that the Guardian comes out top with a strong RSS based readerships as well as a wide adoption of new media tools and techniques. Nice analysis Martin J

6.58pm – Broadcasting now on the goggle box is the BBC’s money programme – all about second life. But wait, if you are at a computer, you can see it in second life and if you miss that, you can see it again in second life at 8pm and 9pm.

I am the lady with no hair and purple eyes (can’t be bothered to fix it!). In real life I have hair and brown eyes (most dull)

Will blog later on whether it was any good….

Update: well the programme turned out to be pretty basic, but then I guess I should not be surprised. All that excitement for nothing.

Well I am posting again on infographics sooner than I first expected! Two separate initiatives have recently gone live on the BBC – showcasing great use of visual online tools.

The first is a visual timeline allowing the viewer to ‘explore all of British history, from the Neolithic to the present day’. You can zoom in and out of different periods in history, following pre-set themes or jump around to learn about specific points in time.

The second again is based upon a timeline, showing the seven ages of rock music. Designed to support a TV series, the site also incorporates some great functionality – from video content that can be grabbed and posted on blogs and social network personal profile pages, to ‘tag clouds’, showing what music acts people are most interested in.

So the US isn’t as far ahead as I first thought! There is plenty of functionality that brands can use here to support their marketing activity online. If the BBC simplify something as complicated as Britain’s extensive history from Neolithic times, there is plenty of scope to describe products and services in an interactive, engaging way.

Also, the more something can be grabbed and shared with family and friends the more success you’ll have in this spread across the web and reaching the right people. The BBC definitely has cottoned onto this – will be interesting to see where this ends up.

Technorati Tags: infographics

I’ve been finding myself using the word ‘infographic’ more and more frequently recently. The online medium offers PR new tools and areas of creativity previously just not possible. Increasingly, we’ve been finding that the best solution to communicating complicated messages and concepts online has been to use visual representations. These can be anything from still images or video content to widgets and interactive micro-sites.

Whereas in the past, PR traditionally relied upon words, images, interviews and the odd real-life stunt or event to communicate, online offers whole rafts of new, different ways to get across a message.

There are suddenly far more tools at our disposal. Our role is taking a client brief – understanding what they want to communicate – and translating this into the best online medium for the target audience group. The key aim being to create social currency: Valued content for a specific audience group that inspires them to talk about and share it with friends and contacts online.

So we are always on the look-out for new and different ways to create social currency, to inspire conversation and debate. When fresh, new examples pop up I will run these on this blog – giving some insight into what is happening online and how it can be best used to support a company’s communications.

To kick this off, I’ve turned my attention across the pond to the recently updated USATODAY site – who seem to have experienced a Eureka moment in the past few months. There is now a dedicated ‘Interactivity’ section on the site, which uses all manner of different online tools to track news developments and provide entertainment respite. Have a play around and see what you find.

One infographic that particularly stands out is ‘Going Green’ a visual depiction of what can be done to lower the average home’s carbon footprint. This follows an earlier journalist article and invites user contributions, with readers being able to add their own suggestions and send on to friends.

Its great to see a traditional media site beginning to creatively play with the Internet as a medium – this is only the beginning…..

Technorati Tags: infographic, social currency