I spent a few days last week trying to write up a comprehensive post on the important of integrating different elements/specialisms of marketing to create successful social media campaigns – by successful, I mean those campaigns that break out further than niche communities. The campaigns that have the same impact that a Nike TVC would have. Successful offline and online, integrated and successful.

It was harder to write than I thought. Serious writers block.

So I turned to Keynote, and here it is…

Find it here!

Hello.

If you read Becca’s blog or my Twitter feed you’ll have realised by now that we’re going on holiday.

It’s our first holiday since September 2009 so we’re understandably quite excited. By quite excited, we packed our suitcases last Friday. We don’t fly until Wednesday. Excited is an understatement.

So we’ll be leaving for Kos for ten days and pretty much laying down by a pool (one of twelve, yep, twelve – fancy!) and drinking cocktails the whole time.

However, and I’m sure you saw this coming, I’ll be taking some light reading with me. Which is the motive behind this blog post really – I thought I’d share my reading!

I’m going to finish Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness, and I’ll be trying to smash through these new ones too:

• An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, by Dominic Strinati. Impulse buy, has two big sections on feminism and structuralism – love both.
• Predictably Irrational, by Dan Iriely. Lost my copy, got mad, tried to find it, couldn’t find it, definitely lost, bought another. If I find it, comment and you can have it .
• 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Green. I loved the Art of War and I’m hoping that this is just as good!
• Six Degrees, by Duncan Watts. Watts is my hero. Period.
• How we Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. Lehrer has been on my radar for a while yet I’ve never read anything he’s published, just read about him. This looks like a good starting point!
• Free, by Chris Anderson. Haven’t read it, should’ve read it, gonna read it.

Undoubtedly I wont read any of these and I’ll come back moaning about sleeping for the whole of the holiday. However, I bloody need ten days sleep. I appear to be running on coffee and the odd cigarillo at the moment, and I’m not Jack White so that’s not cool!

Everyone knows that I’m a lot bit of a geek when it comes to network theory and the internet (basically because the internet makes  understanding networks  about 8,345,134 times easier). So when Facebook announced OpenGraph I practically wet myself.

Now this isn’t going to be a post about how Facebook OpenGraph will make the web better (there are some great posts already, me adding my 2c isn’t going to achieve anything!) or how it’s ‘infringing our privacy and I wont stand for it’. Nope, nothing as exciting as either of those areas. I’m going to write about how Facebook and content providers may/may not/should/shouldn’t be using the theory of ‘betweeness centrality’ and the ‘Like’ button across the web to make us all feel a little bit more warm and fuzzy inside and give us better content.

Before I write anything contentious or ill-informed, let’s break down a couple of things (which will probably be both contentious and ill-informed)…

Network theory – the understanding and analysis of networks of people (either online or offline) – even more basic, the dots are people and the lines are friendships (for arguments sake, before you shout at me).

‘Betweeness centrality’ – the theory that if two people that don’t know each other but have a friend in common, then they’re likely to know each other soon, or like the same things, or have some implicit similarities (this is a really stripped down explanation, read Tim’s blog for me gumpf on it).

Facebook ‘Like’ button – Facebook wants to rule the world, and the first step in doing this is extending it’s internet roots all over your favourite websites – basically you’ll be able to do things on Facebook, without being on Facebook – making sharing content much, much easier.

So here’s the ‘Jed theory’…

Websites (note: not Facebook) could target content (and banner advertising, but that’ll need a little more explanation (hopefully tomorrow)) at people in a much, much more effective way. Here’s how:

So if person A and person C both ‘Like’ a piece of content (or click on an ad, but again, more on that tomorrow) then the website should be able to interact with the Facebook OpenGraph API and determine that person A and person C are both connected to person B and so (according to popular network theory) person B is also very likely to ‘Like’ the same content – so the website can then promote that content (or ad) to person B and begin to build an idea of relationships (if person B doesn’t like this content, then don’t use the judgement of person A or person C again) or it can collect this data and begin to build a profile of  person B – this would help to focus information on person B in the future, making their web experience much more bespoke.

This whole concept works on Markov chains (computational learning, based on empirical evidence) and the ‘betweeness theory’ developed in the 70’s by Freeman.

Oh, and look how pretty my drawing is.

So this weekend was perfect. In the truest sense of the word. Here’s why…

Friday – an evening in with Becca Caddy and Lost (we were catching up before the finale on Monday at 5am).

Saturday – I woke up (naturally) at 5am, attacked a PowerPoint, made it bleed. Had breakfast with Becca on the balcony and listened to The Kills. Loud. At 9am. Had lunch with Tim Hoang in Saltaire. Gossiped. Made plans to rule the world. Made awful jokes. Then I spent the afternoon in the park, laying, watching the clouds roll by, reading my new book (Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – massive thanks to Will). Then we went to the theatre. THE THEATRE. Look how cultured I am. We saw Death of a Salesman. It was amazing.

Sunday – we woke up and went for an amazing picnic with Rob (Becca’s brother) at Roundhay Park – we lay, listened to Vikki’s playlist (a must for summer times) and then went to Tropical World. It was hot. We came home, watched more Lost and watched the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in a while.

I don’t usually post like this, but sometimes the world and my loved ones overcome me and I just have to share. If you didn’t read the babble then at least you enjoyed the photo…

Creativity is something that you cultivate, not something that you’re born with. At least that’s what I was told at University. Look how that turned out…

I’ve been doing a lot of data manipulation and analysis recently, so when I have to switch my right side on it can be a bit challenging. So I’ve come up with a few ridiculous things to resolve creative block.

1. Music
   I use Spotify obsessively. Try the M83 album, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts.
2. Location
   Lay on your desk (see picture), sit on your desk, sit under it, next to it. In the garden. On the roof. On a train. In your flat. On the stairs. In a car. In a bar. Give yourself different surroundings and you’ll spark something. This whole post was inspired by Leo Ryan – read his post now.
3. Clothes
   I think better at night, which invariably means I’m wearing pyjamas. This might be connected.I also own a pair of ‘thinking jeans’. And I like to put a black hoodie on sometimes to help me think. Yes, I know, it’s stupid.
4. Equipment
   On my desk I have; a book on multinationals, New Hart’s rules, a billion printed off web pages (I’m old school), a slinky, two moleskines (one classic black, one turquoise), three pens (each with different thinknesses), a Rubix Cube and my favourite black and white coffee mug.These things give my hands something to while my brain thinks. By taking bits of my brain that are used to concentrate on puzzles or doodles or words then the other bit gets space to think about things. Give your brain some space.
5. People
   Surrounding yourself with plenty of different people is an amazing way to get creative – I work in an office with a tory, a girlie girl, an arty girl, a Stuart Bruce, an American, a Liverpudlian and an ex-army sergeant.Then bug them and talk lots. Creativity stems from the most unusual conversations.
6. Thinking patterns
   Throw it all out. Everything you’re thinking about right now, throw it out. It’s rubbish. Think about this instead; a duck running up an escalator. Now imagine the duck has a book in its hands. What’s the book? Why is the duck reading it? What colour are the ducks shoes.TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF THE MIND SET OF NOT BEING CREATIVE AND PLUG INTO SOMETHING NEW.
7. Caffeine
   Red Bull, Coke Zero, Monster, Coffee, Two Tea Bag Tea, Pro Plus… ANYTHING. Once you’ve started to twitch, you’ll find yourself thinking at about a million miles an hour. Pull a Jack Kerouac and start writing. It doesnt matter what you write, just as long as it’s stream of consciousness. Write solidly under caffeine for fifteen minutes and after that you’ll be full of ideas and thought-presents.

Do you have any tips to share?

I love a bit of network theory, so I thought I’d write down my ideas on how political parties can reach audiences more effectively and reach further into the network.

A few things to point out initially;

• This post is not designed to show any political bias (I am, in fact, a libertarian)(I work at Wolfstar, and both the MD and deputy MD are active members of the Labour party – this is inconsequential to this post)
• My work at Wolfstar involves a lot of analysis and sometimes involves analysis of networks (sometimes…)
• There’s currently a lot of people talking about how parties can reach people with political messages

So, how can political parties use online networks to spread messages? Simple. Understand the network you’re trying to reach.

If I was a digital Tory boy, the first thing that I’d be doing now is analysing the UK web and how it interacts with politics. I’d identify almost everyone that’s talking about modern politics and begin to figure out how everyone was connected to each other.

I might even draw an image like this…

Each dot size would collate with it’s influence (defined using one of these ideals) and then I could go on to analyse it further and figure out whom was connected to whom. And draw an image like this…

Then I might choose to look at a formula that would calculate how a message was likely to spread from one to dot to another based on empirical information I’d gathered from the internet.

This would then allow me begin to understand how I could reach everyone within a network of people more effectively. Struggling to get 18-24 year olds to vote? Find a way into their networks using the above process and strength-of-weak ties theory…

The key to reaching people within networks is simple; understand who’s in your network, define how influential they are, connect up the dots and craft what ever you have to ensure that it adds value to the network (if your network is mainly made up of YouTube members, an emailed news release is probably not going to cut it).

I’ve come straight from reading a post on MediaBistro about Alex Bogusky being promoted and retiring at the same time – those crazy advertising kids!

But something that Mr Bogusky said really resonated with me, he said;

“I had one seemingly impossible dream when I started in advertising and that was to leave the industry different than I found it. For people to be able to say, ‘It was like this before Crispin Porter+Bogusky. It’s like this now.’ I feel like that’s been done.”

Wow, a pretty bold claim, but (and I’m sure you can see where this is going) one that I also aspire to. Most people fall into PR and enjoy it because it’s fun, social and creative. I enjoy PR because I feel like everyday I get a teeny bit closer to making an impact. I probably don’t, but in my head a bit changes.

So (and here’s the kicker), I’m putting it out there; I want to leave this industry different from how I found it.

Hopefully I’ll be leaving it at about 30 (the plan is to do a Freud and sell an agency for 11million at 31) having made some sort of difference.

Even if that difference is a big black mark on the industry. Which is quite likely. And I’ll probably be poor, no one leaves an industry at 30.

I thought you might like this, it shows how the whole world accesses the internet using their mobile. And it’s from the ever-impressive iCrossing.

Word up.

Full Circle, by Knut Henrik Henriksen. Kings Cross tube station, London.

Image via Londonist.

Nabokov edits Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

Image via KillerPoke, Cynical C and World of Found

What does China censor online?

Image via Information is Beautiful

A beautiful pocket watch.

Image via Xskell