Customer Service Social infographic

Click to enlarge

Source: ClickSoftware service management software

Snow Flake - design at its finest

As it's Christmas, I was always intrigued on snowflakes as a kid even now their shapes and how they are formed fascinated me, now this video shows you in detail, enjoy.

2nd Screen TV viewing habits

7 Things You Should Know About 2nd Screen Interaction from Alan Wolk

Coke

Who said print is dead. Lovely and functional comms

Electrolux Design Awards Great Ideas

Yanko The 30 Shortlisted Entries for the 2012 Electrolux Design Lab have now been narrowed to the Top Ten Finalists. Each of these ten designers will be invited to Milan, to showcase and present their design concept in front of a select Jury. The event will be telecast live online and Yanko Design will be in Milan to capture the excitement for you. This is the first time that ten designers, instead of the usual eight finalists are being invited.

Finals On: October 25, 2012

Memory by WenYao Cai

Memory is a coffee maker that uses hand print recognition to make the right cup of coffee for the right person.

SmartPlate by Julian Caraulani

SmartPlate is the world’s first intelligent dish that physically understands food and transforms it into sound, completing the circle of senses by which we understand what we eat.

Tastee by Christopher Holm-Hansen

The Electrolux Tastee is a taste indicator that is used when cooking to assist the chef in bringing out the flavours in the meal.

Mo’Shere by Yunuén Hernández

Mo’Sphere allows the user to experiment with and experience new flavours and sensations through the exciting world of “molecular cooking”.

Impress by Ben de la Roche

Impress is a refrigeration wall that holds your food and drinks for you, out in the open and not behind closed doors so you will always remember the lunch you prepared for work or find that midnight snack with ease.

Treat by Amy Mon-Chu Liu

The Treat seamlessly combines classic food storage techniques, such as vacuum sealing, with modern remote, mobile technology for the perfect combination of freshness and convenience that is more important than ever in our increasingly busy lives.

Easy Stir by Lisa Frodadottir Låstad

By utilising magnets that react to your induction stove the Easystir will literally save you time and money by never needing to be charged, batteries replaced or plugged into a wall socket.

Spummy by Alexandre de Bastiani

The Spummy is the future of flavor creation. Using nano-technology the Spummy creates edible foam with any flavour or combination of flavours you can imagine.

Aeroball by Jan Ankiersztajn

The Aeroball is a revolutionary way to improve the spaces in which we live. In tiny bubbles that float and hover, the Aeroball cleans and filters the air while hovering in place.

Ice by Julen Pejenaute

ICE can not only be used as basic lamp with adjustable brightness or colour to fit the mood of any dining occasion.

Smart Phone Smart idea

I had this idea while teaching my youngest how to ride her bike, the thought of how in the event of an accident could I reach the emergency services even quicker. I thought there must be an idea especially with smartphones in geo-location and mobile sensors etc. I then came across this from ICEdot.

ICEdot have recently collaborated with SenseTech LLC to develop an innovative helmet-mounted impact sensor. How it works is it comes as a yellow slim device that resembles a sticker when paired with the ICEdot app on a smart phone, the system is able to detect motion, changes in forces and impacts.

In the event of an impact, the device sends critical data to the app which sounds an alarm and initiates an emergency countdown. Unless the countdown clock is stopped, the app will then notify your emergency contacts and send GPS coordinates of the incident so that appropriate follow up actions can be taken.

A very smart idea and something that could be a lifesaver. The whole project is still in development and like everything I'm sure has some things to iron out but I do hope this idea comes to fruition personally having lost one very good friend in a bike accident and two who were seriously injured in London.

Maybe one day with technology and innovation like this we'll hopefully reduce the number of cyclists been killed on our roads.

Cube laser virtual keyboard

Like this, useful and beautifully designed - all you want as a paying customer.

K.I.S.S

This made me laugh out loud - sometimes in this business we over complicate things, simple and straight to the point, advertising at its best.

Source: designspiration.net via Kevin on Pinterest

What's your point of view?

This is bloody amazing, by using the one point perspective how one of the legends in film makes his films look so stunning and dramatic.

Don't make me laugh, well actually please do.

As marketeers we all know the importance of laughter, how many times have we laughed at an ad or sketch and felt warm towards that product? You have a have a common bond if you share the same sense of humour. You are also most likely to try or buy the product. Marketeers have know this for decades. Below is some interesting facts on laughter.

• Laughter is universal: All humans in all cultures laugh

• Laughter is unconscious: You can’t actually laugh on command — it will be fake laughter if you try to.

• Laughter is for social communication: We rarely laugh when we are alone. We laugh 30 times more often when we are with others.
• Laughter is contagious: We will smile and then start laughing as we hear others laugh.

• Laughter appears early in babies: at about 4 months old

• Laughter is not about humour: Provine studied over 2,000 cases of naturally occurring laughter and most of it did not happen as a result of “humour” such as telling jokes. Most laughter followed statements such as “Hey John, where ya been?” or “Here comes Mary”, or “How did you do on the test?” Laughter after these types of statements bond people together socially. Only 20% of laughter is from jokes.

• We rarely laugh in the middle of a sentence. It is usually at the end.

• Other primate and mammals laugh. There are videos of rats laughing while being tickled.

• Speaking of tickling, laughing seems to have “evolved” from tickling.

• Most laughing occurs by the person who is speaking, not the person who is listening. The person who is speaking laughs twice as much.

• Women laugh more than twice as much as men.

• Laughter denotes social status. The higher up on the hierarchy you are in a group, the less you will laugh.

So the next time you're thinking of your next marketing campaign try not to take yourself to seriously and if your team show you something that isn't funny hold the work aloft and shout out: 'you're 'aving a larf' and set light to the work.

Nike - Find your greatness- great, really great

Don't cover it up

Having three daughters myself this put a shiver down my spine.

YouTube makeup star Lauren Luke, a UK personality with almost half a million subscribers and more than 125 million video views, took a break from her regular tips on covering up in her latest video. The self-taught makeup artist encourages teen girls and women not to hide evidence of domestic abuse in her latest post, “How to look your best the morning after.”

This is such a powerful piece of communication, love how they use a make up tutorial via YT as a way to get their message out there, perfect in every way. Beautifully simple and yet so powerful.
 

Show your support by sharing this video. For help in the UK: Refuge UK and for help in Australia

Poster with bite

Love this little number,  simple, graphic and very eye catching, all the ingredients of a great idea.

I also like ideas that use the media too, well done, nice work.

Why brands should care?

Do you remember when you were a kid there was always one kid, who was a spiteful git and by his very nature greedy, always took and gave nothing back. Their response if someone pulled them up, with vented spleen they would reply; ‘I don’t care. We all disliked those kids and over time they would lose friends, and they became the outcasts in the playground.

These kids never had any empathy towards others. As human beings we warm to people who show empathy and these principles are the same for all brands, more so now were a brands actions are for all to see via online.  So why do so many brands totally ignore this human trait?

But they’re companies that genuinely do care beyond selling products take the company Seeds Of Change: http://www.seedsofchange.com here’s a company that 3:1% of net sales go towards promoting the use of sustainable agricultural practices. In 2010 the company used this to support three apprentices for a UK charity; Garden Organic.

They also set up a school programs around ‘Sowing millions, growing millions’ where they helped teach children where food comes from, the best foods to eat, they also went one step further by helping kids to sow and grow organic school gardens. Many of these gardens are in urban areas which have a very poor social demographic, where most kids would be lucky to get one meal a day. Now there’s a company that stands for something, they want to help others.

According to research from Havas Media, which tapped into 14 countries and looked into 300 brands, from a sample of 50,000 people, improving people’s collective wellbeing is imperative for brands. From the research 57% feel that they can make a company behave more responsibly, they feel as a collective they have a say on how a company should conduct itself.

And there’s a connection with the growth of so many social conscious organisations sites like Brand Karma and Kiva.

Brand Karma is giving the power to the people, they now have a collective voice on how companies should act and if they don’t act in a responsible manner they tell others and they all then boycott the brand.

The site http://brandkarma.com/ looks at brands in how good their products, are, how well they treat people and how well they look after the planet, good or bad it’s all there for people to see. There’s no hiding place.

Kiva http://www.kiva.org/ is another organisation that has grown out of caring, but takes a slightly different approach, quite simply they leverage the web and worldwide network of microfinance institutions to help other small businesses, especially women. Since Kiva was founded in 2005, they have 771,590 Kiva lenders with a staggering $317 million in loans given out with an equally impressive 98.94% repayment rate.  Dermalogica the skin care brand in the US is heavily active in Kiva http://www.dermalogica.com/au/fite/index.html and all new employees become part of the Kiva program. Question why wasn’t this started by a bank?

Interesting and much more worrying for many brands is the view that 70% of people surveyed would not care two hoots if brands disappeared completely, according to

Havas Media brands are becoming increasingly irrelevant to people;  ‘We need a new way to measure and build brand value’

So what can brands do? Quite simply, brands who haven’t in place a ‘caring policy’ should get one and get one quickly, believe in something, something that is genuinely going to help people, this needs planning and put into action from key staff. This has to come from the top down where everyone in the company believes and knows that the company they work for is doing something for the better.

This doesn’t mean getting people to ‘like’ your brand or a cheap giveaway, this has to be something much more tangible and it needs to be an ongoing outlook it goes beyond marketing, it’s about a belief.  It’s about a shared value, for instance take Pedigree Dog Food's shared value in the belief that every dog deserves a loving home, they don’t just flog dog food, yes that’s the long term goal by association but they know to get people to respond in a positive manner towards them first a brand needs to clearly communicate a brands philosophy or higher purpose.

Shared values are the new currency and brands with a social conscious are the ones that will be of value to people’s lives, the others will slowly disappear from people’s life’s as people couldn’t care less what they have to offer or eventually have to say.

You can follow me @kevinferry

Imagine another great ad by Lego

Creativity and the Lego brand go together well just like LEGO itself and here's another example of their creativity Using the medium to full effect by using their surrounding environment as part of the composition.  The bus shelter ads titled 'Whale', 'Caterpillar', and 'Monster' was created by Ogilvy Malaysia, lovely creative work, create and play.

Genius

View the ad here 

When I saw this and when the super appeared I laughed my head off. This is so beautiful and well shot, the cast and music, everything I love it. Hat tip to the director Jonathan Gurvit (Mercurio Cinematografica) and the creative's @ Italian agency Armando Testa.

Ideas- it makes you think

Read brief, read brief again - Go for a run, swim, walk, play monsters with the kids, read brief again, read books and blogs, watch films, watch everyday people going about their everyday lives, sit with the cat, read brief, eat cake and drink coffee. Then I begin to doodle, if I'm relaxed, ideas then flow- I usually start by word mappiing - then doodles - then ideas, then scamps.Read brief, read brief again - Go for a run, swim, walk, play monsters with the kids, read brief again, read books and blogs, watch films, watch everyday people going about their everyday lives, sit with the cat, read brief, eat cake and drink coffee. Then I begin to doodle, if I'm relaxed, ideas then flow- I usually start by word mappiing - then doodles - then ideas, then scamps.

Us and US - XL and XXXL

We all know the US have the highest food consumption in the world and Australia is wobbling close behind. Just looking at the stats below it's scary to think we are all eating ourselves to death, we need to start putting a 'fat attack' plan in place, what would you start doing now?
Created by: MedicalCodingCareerGuide.com

Kraft very much Likey

Now here's a nice simple idea that me likey very much, I like when brands reward people for their interaction it's much warmer and you like the brand even more. Kraft asked fans to “LIKE this post” and told them that they “never know what may happen”. Almost 5,000 took a punt and liked the post and in return Kraft said thank you with the aid of The YellowJackets a capella group. They called it “Likeappella – Mac & cheese likes you back”. The brand posted the video in a follow-up post: “We LOVE it when you LIKE our posts. So we’re showing you some love back with a song personalized for you, our fans.” Nice work Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Like it alot, enough of the like gags.

Cool Tool for Social Media Monitoring

Whether you want to do research on a current topic or track a future event, Hash Tracking is your tool to do it. Let’s say you are going to Blog World. Simply enter the hash tag and Hash Tracking will start tracking as the conversation with that hash tag starts. But you can also run custom reports on hash tags, like “networking”:

With the data reports you can see who is using that tag, total tweet impressions and reach, total tweets and a complete transcript of all tweets. Who should use Hash Tracking and why: This is another great tool for the marketing professional who wants to gather information in tweets and links from the social web on a particular topic, who the influencers in that topic are and seeing the reach for that topic. Insights might lead you to plan where you will focus your social campaigns.

Creative Data teams

Last night I was over at LBi shiny new offices for our monthly IAB Creative Social #cs, it was very inspiring and thought provoking, with our key speaker Chris Clarke the ECD from their London office, sharing his thoughts over pizza and beer with much of the talk around how digital is shaping up. One topic that we touched upon was around the subject of 'emotional storytelling' and how as clients and agencies the old model of rational responses really doesn't stack up anymore in the digital arena. (I personally never really bought into that approach from the start). Instead people will be more than likely react to something purely on an emotional level.
but what was interesting was the fact that as agencies we must as creatives embrace and harness data. For us to truly get the big slices of the pie when it comes to the marketing dollars, we need to work our ideas and thinking around the data that others collect, it will be our job to dovetail that into our thoughts, the double edge sword for all agencies is that this can be expensive, and very time consuming, just trawling through the amount of data out there is such a massive task for agencies and client, many feel they are been swapped with the data, the trick for us; is how can we decode that data, and attach our thinking around the data. It’s that moment when people are at their most receptive and have that emotional pull towards a brand. That for me is the next big challenge for many agencies. And no I don’t just mean producing infographics and doing straw polls they don’t count, but mass data analyst does.
Other points that I took out:
• People aren’t in control, platforms are the ones in control - the likes of Facebook and co dictate how you see things.
• According to Paul Adam at Facebook 70% of our conversations is talking about other people (negative and positive)
• People haven't the mass group of friends that they can influence, in fact the opposite is true, for example the average Joe, you and I have only really 5 friends that we share and can influence.

Makes you think

I will leave you with a truly inspiring read that was read out at the IAB Creative Social last night. This is for all you creative's who sometimes need reminding why we do what we do- if you feel the urge to read out aloud at a client meeting then feel free.

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth. T

William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

What happened to the Super heros?

Even superheros need to keep fit- kids keep active

I love stats and not take life to seriously

Not a single one of your ancestors has ever failed in getting laid (Most people on tumblr will probably break the chain)

I love this stat as it makes me laugh and here's some more:

If you are 80 years old, you have lived through over 1/3 of America’s history

At one point, you were the youngest person in the world.

If a woman who is an only child has all boys (or no children at all), they are ending a chain of women that has been going since we were single-celled organisms.

The average human is a 28 year old Chinese man.

Dinosaurs were alive for longer than they have been extinct.

You breathe using just one nostril, then switch to the other 30 minutes later. Repeats for life. (After reading this pay attention)

In 30 or 40 years, people will be having 2000s parties. Just like now people throw “dress like the 70s” parties.

John Lennon is part of a group that has sold more CD’s than anyone else in the history of human life, and he never knew what a CD even was.

Grossness and morals define each other. For example, you won’t spit in the mouth of your girlfriend, yet you will kiss her.

You spend years seeing the same people often and you’ll never exchange words with them.

People hundreds of years from now will stumble upon your image without thought or emotion.

Everyone dies within six months of their birthday.

50% of all doctors graduated in the lower half of their class.

Mammals are just containers water uses to move itself from one place to another.

Many peoples most cherished beliefs come from 1st century writers and religious fanatics whose understanding of the natural world was below the level of a modern 5 year old.

The “food pyramid” that most of us grew up with was published by the US dept of agriculture. Their job is to promote agriculture, not to promote healthy eating.

80% of the images on the internet are of naked women.

If we ever meet superior aliens they will simply classify us under “violent, irrational apes” and will not be amazed by our art or philosophies, the same way we boringly classify newly discovered animals every year.

When the sun goes out, our descendants that watch it go out won’t be human.

When you’re about to die, you’ll regret all the days you took for granted.

The youngest mother in medical history was 5 years old. It makes you wonder about the generation gap for the people around you. Your best friend could be a thousand generations ahead of you. Your boss could be a hundred generations behind you. Makes sense considering he’s an asshole.

We magnify the differences between us, instead of the things that make us similar. You are not really any different than anyone else on earth that is your age, yet you feel like you are just because they speak a different language, eat different food, worship a different imaginary creature, or live somewhere else. In reality, we are all the same species living on the same planet. To bears, we probably look exactly the same.

(Source: iampitchforkmedia http://iampitchforkmedia.tumblr.com/post/4680491655/things-youve-probably-never-thought-about

Scratching the hand that feeds you

As you may know or not know I have recently joined an agency called Sputnik they have offices in Melbourne and Sydney, and I will be based in Sydney I've only been here a week but I wanted to share something the guy sitting opposite me emailed me, say hello to Barry Saunders (A UX gun) it was a memo that was written in '58 by Leo Burnett.

Yes it was written in '58 but still holds true today, and in the digital age to me even more so. The reason the connection with joining Sputnik Sydney and this memo from Leo Burnett is; before I joined Sputnik Sydney, I have a Westpac account, my kids eat Weet-Bix and they have done the Weet-bix TRYathon and I use Google apps- and yes they're three of Sputnik Sydney's major clients.

It also reminds me of a time when I worked on Blackmores as their digital CD one of the designers was not a subscriber to the Blackmores database and he was working on their sign up process, the designs looked all very nice but they didn't work, why do I know that? Not because I was their CD but because I was a Blackmores subscriber.

How can you possibly understand your audience if you aren't the audience. FULL MEMO HERE

Vinnie CPR staying alive

I laughed out loud when I saw this viral from The British Heart Foundation, great casting using Vinnie Jones and his two henchmen are wonderful. The writing, performances to the way it is shot is spot on. The choice of sound track from those disco kings the Bee Gees again is a stroke of genius.

One thing as a Surf Life saver is the fact that the BHF did not encourage 2 rescue breaths in between compressions. Apparantly many people felt uncomfortable doing rescue breaths and when they did, they did it wrong (Not the correct head tilt)

Anyway as the motto goes; Whatever it takes' is my view.

What's your thoughts, good education or misleading?