I'm honoured/scared/excited to have been asked to speak in the innovation section of the APG / Campaign annual 'Battle of Big Thinking' event, which is on November 26th.
That's now less than a month away, so it's time to start worrying about ideas...
...and I think I might have one (it occurred at 4am this morning as I was trying to persuade young James Willshire to sleep for a bit...).
Not that I want to let the cat out of the bag, you understand.
I just want to put a stake in the ground to try and form more solid thinking around it. And if I do it in public here, maybe that'll convince me to not leave it to the last minute...
So I'm not going to tell you what it's going to be about. Not just yet, anyway.
But there's a clue in this Nike video below...
(HT to Iain for sharing the video a while back)
I'd seen this video around in a few places (including Rosie's, Fiona's and Simon's blogs), and I wasn't going to re-post it here... but I now have:
It's promoting the Economist's Media Convergence Forum in October in NYC, and it's a treasure trove of facts, stats and info on the things that, when you piece them altogether, help build a picture of how the world is changing.
(Steve, in his endearingly grumpy way, points out that some of the stats might be a little shaky...)
So, why did I repost when I wasn't going to?
I saw that it was actually created by Xplane, the visual thinking company. Their mission is to 'create understanding' by helping their clients find simple, clear ways to visualise things
I've got a book written by founder Dave Gray called Marks and Meanings I'm a big fan of, and generally think they've got a great approach to simplifying complicated things to explain them well.
It's something I try to do with my own work, and encourage a culture of at PHD.
I guess I'm on the right track; Ted at The Conversation Group took the first half of this 'Future of Advertising' presentation (didn't listen to the audio) and presented it to a University class over in California... which I guess means it must be pretty self explanatory.
So yes, I think we've all slept through enough presentations where people read the 50 words they've written on a chart off the screen.
Let's keep it simple.
Paul Isakson at space150 very recently posted this up on slideshare (found via Simon)... he says it's roughly the first half of what they'll typically show to clients as an introduction to what they should be doing in the social media realms.
As an aside on 'style', I think slideshare as a tool is changing the way a lot of people create 'presentations'...
...the modern shareable presentation works more like a comic book strip, with the speech bubbles embedded.
I believe that the comic book is a great template for presentations. This image from Austin Kleon is represents it well:
I'd be interested to find out from Paul whether he has a different version of this for when he presents live... in fact, I may well ask him.
The Social Bonfires & Advertising Fireworks discussions & continuations have set our little corner of the internet alight (yes, pun intended)...
...a quick recap if you've not seen:
It's all helping improve and refine the analogy (which is great, as the IPA group I'm working with, for which this was originally started, meets tomorrow).
So from Daniel Goodall at Nokia, this fine build...
"many people already have bonfires, and they usually want to build their own bonfires; you know, with their friends and that. They probably don’t want to come to your Corporate Bonfire."
"...how can we help people with what they want to do at a bonfire?
1. Provide some stuff: some blankets to keep people warm, some snacks and drinks, maybe even provide some entertainment (a guitar?)
2. Go along to the bonfire and actually have a conversation or two (remember to be a good listener!)
3. Most importantly, of course, you could do something *genuinely useful* like put some extra wood on the bonfire to keep the damn thing going!"
(You'll maybe remember that we're big fans of being useful to people at PHD.)
Anyway, thanks Dan, great post and a hugely important point.
I shall report back on tomorrow's meeting at the IPA with Mark, Le'Nise, Katy, Neil, Amelia, Graeme, Jamie, Nigel when I get a chance...
PS
Yes, I know, part III in Hollywood Blockbusters is usually where things start going wrong...
...Rocky III (Mr T? WTF??).
...Police Academy III (Zed's now a Police cadet?? WTF???).
...Return of the Jedi (Muppets? WTF????).
Remember though, those Ewoks loved a bonfire...
Bored of spending 3 hours at a time drawing charts and sourcing images fer PowerPoint? Well, a top tip-off comes from the ever-wonderful Techcrunch...
... the very aptly named Lovely Charts offers a really simply interface to take the pain out of simply a drawing a diagram to explain what you mean.
If you're like me, and find yourself drawing weird objects here and there and trying to string 'em together to explain things to people, it'll be brilliant for you.
For example, here's my first attempt playing around with it... a diagram of how I'm permanently connected to t'interwebs whether at home in Brighton, at work in London, or in the countryside inbetween... and apologies to Mark E Smith for the speech bubble.
An iPhone app of this is going to be brilliant for thoughts on the move...
Anyway, go and play, it's amazing.
