Michael Litman » Digital

Dare staffs up to meet social media demand

litmanlivecouk — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:46:48 +0000

Word seems to have made its way around then. Way cool.

Digital Visions: Ten Ideas for the New Decade

litmanlivecouk — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:32:38 +0000

In the video below I outline the big themes in the paper. My full introduction follows.

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During the last decade, we’ve seen social and digital media move from being purely the domain of tech-savvy types into a mainstream phenomenon. All you need to do is consider one statistic: Twitter was mentioned on television nearly 20,000 times in 2009, according to SnapStream. As a result, companies are investing in it and – slowly – seeing results.

Given the hype, much attention has turned to guessing what will become “the next Twitter.” It’s ample fodder for tech and marketing pundits, the media and clients – especially at the beginning of a new year and a new decade.

However, in many ways this is the wrong question to ask. Where once it was hard to sleuth out emerging platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook before they grew, now they just seem to surface out of nowhere. You’ll know the next Twitter when you see it.

The bigger opportunity for clients, we believe, is to identify the global societal and technological trends that are reshaping how we think, act and buy – and to pivot into them early. Trends today tend to develop more slowly and are harder to see, allowing clients to take a more thoughtful, thorough and systematic approach.

In the following pages you will find 10 essays on such trends written by some of the smartest thinkers in digital marketing. These ideas, when looked at together, reveal four key themes:

The shift to digital technologies by both consumers and marketers is now global and pervasive across all aspects of our life and growing daily.
Our engagement with each other is migrating rapidly from computer to handset.
Companies (and organized interests) are just beginning to wake up to the engagement imperative – and how to fund and develop it over time.
And finally, the future is about carefully using the data people generate to make smarter decisions, while adhering to concerns over privacy.

We hope you enjoy our 10 ideas for the new decade. We welcome you to challenge us on our thinking. After all, that’s the only way we can grow.

via steverubel.com

Google’s 87 Cool Things from Advertising Week

litmanlivecouk — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:16:24 +0000

Andy Berndt, MD of Google Creative Lab and Tom Uglow, Creative Lead presented this recently on Day 1 of Advertising Week 2009. Well worth your time.

You can grab the PDF and the PPT versions of the presentation here. The podcast is here also.

During, Andy asked them to obviously think about Google when creating experiences. For me, what resonated most was that he reminded everyone to experiment often, be creative, try new things, and don’t be afraid to fail.

I don’t think that happens enough. Trying, innovating and sometimes failing. It’s easier to stick to what’s known rather than taking risks to potentially produce truly innovative stuff. Creativity and ideas generation is still alive and well but execution is being stifled by budgets and ignorance to enter new and unchartered territory. Budgets will always to some extent stifle what can and can’t be done. Also, understandably, it’s difficult from a large client perspective when there’s a lack of knowledge about all things digital and a hesistancy to try something that bit different. But that’s what the agency is there for, to bring them in to this new age of brilliance. I commend the one’s that make it out there in the wild and receive award after award but for every one stand out idea, there’s a thousand that get binned. It’s a shame.

Many of the experiments in 87 cool things highlighted mashups, interactivity, unique data usage, and the fusion of virtual worlds and reality.

From Google Maps and YouTube Annotations, to Insights for Search and a wide array of APIs, it’s easier than ever to play with inventive marketing ideas, using Google of course. We’re told to think of these tools and platforms as our blank canvas, and just have fun.

These innovative campaigns, projects, and even accidents can encourage us to expand our imaginations, think beyond our expectations and consider the impossible. Did you ever think Ohio could be a piano? Or that you would analyze your daily food consumption, and catalog it by cuisine? Or that an engaging and informative website could live entirely on YouTube? I didn’t!

Via Adwords Agency Blog

Enjoy!

Hello Digiphobe, 4 minutes of your time please..

litmanlivecouk — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:00:26 +0000

Watch this.

The hierarchy of digital distractions..

litmanlivecouk — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:00:11 +0000

This is brilliant.

Click for the full size version.

Your phone is going, you’ve got a direct message from someone on Twitter, and a new Facebook message also. Which do you look at first? Never fear! The above will take you through the hierarchy of digital distractions.

Via Information is Beautiful

Digital Media isn’t Mass Media for Cheap

litmanlivecouk — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:35:35 +0000

Digital Media isn’t Mass Media for Cheap

View more presentations from Bud Caddell.

E-consultancy Christmas Party.. See you there?

litmanlivecouk — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:47:18 +0000

I got an email a while back from E-consultancy about a Christmas party in December.. I thought I’d put my name down and see how it all pans out, have been a fan of the E-con site and a site most companies I’ve worked for had a membership with. I saw a few familiar ‘online faces’ cropping up on the attendees list so at Number 141, I got my name down and forgot about it for a while.

It was completely off the bat so I just wrote a bit of spiel, didn’t expect to hear anything of it.. A few have however commented and said that in 3 lines they knew the essentials and where to find me to find out more.. Turned out to sum me up nicely & professionally(ish) in a short space.

I did think afterwards that I should have included my Linkedin Profile which others followed suit by doing but it did the trick!

Amazingly by the time it closed a few days ago now 740 people had registered their interest. I’m envisaging 740 people in a room now and that’s an impressive achievement. Just goes to show the reach of E-Consultancy and the cachet of the name.

All that’s left for me to say is if you’re going then leave a comment or drop me a ‘tweet’ (An @ message on Twitter) and let me know. Would be great to meet up with some online faces, offline.