Servant of Chaos

Get Into Your Groove with the KaiserMix

Have you ever wondered what social media is all about? Here, I will let you into a trade secret. It is just TWO things.

• Being social -- reaching out, activating, participating and exciting people
• Doing things -- creating content, sharing ideas, holding events

Now, you might think that this sounds easy. But you see, the challenge is, in a digital landscape and in a social world that crosses borders, timezones (and sometimes even boundaries of common decency - jokes), the crafting of a compelling offer and the telling of an enlivening story requires a broad array of skills and expertise. And you will find that the bloggers and social media participants who do this well have a breadth of expertise that normally resides in a TEAM of people.

Now, Marcus Brown is one such person. I profiled Marcus in my first Mining the Gold post, but that was a retrospective. Tomorrow night (Australia time), we all have the opportunity to actually PARTICIPATE in one of Marcus' creations. It is called the KaiserMix and it will be a heady mix of music, streaming, photography and live bar action direct from Munich. It is easy to participate, as Marcus explains:

Twitter:
I’ve set up a twitter account (robbed myself of a former Character’s Twitter account) called TheKaiserMix which you can of course follow. I’ll only be using this twitter account on the evening and it’ll be tweeting my blips - and through that odd @ functionality the blips of everyone following me. If you’re on the road and want a song played just send an @TheKaiserMix to me on twitter - and I’ll play it.

Flickr:

I’ll be taking lots of photos during the evening which will be appearing in the slide show widget you can see above over on The Kaiser Mix blog (the charming Gentleman in the slide show above is Snoop - and along with Joseph runs The Schwarzer Hahn). If you’re there, like in “The Hahn” on the night and you have a flickr account you can upload photos and if you tag them thekaisermix (just that tag) they automatically appear in the slide show. Likewise if you’re not going to be in Munich but you’re listening or watching (see below) you can upload your version/experience of The Kaiser Mix.

Blip:

For those of you who are not going to make it to Munich, there is of course blip itself. If you follow me and use the @thekaiser function you can send me songs you want played. If I play your blip it’s goes into the kaiser’s playlist.

Yahoo Live:

OK, as some of you know I’ve been playing around with the video streaming stuff - and think I’ve got it nailed. You can either watch the event, live (starts around 21:00hrs C.E.T) on The Kaiser Mix channel (where you can chat with me during the evening - and if you’ve got a video camera stream on the channel as well) or on the The Kaiser Mix. If you’re especially excited by all of this you can actually embed the yahoo live widget on your blog.

Hope to see you in Munich ... or a screen a bit closer to home!

It's Not Time to Cut Through But to Cut Out

As I have grown older, I have been amazed to realise that the more I know, the greater is my capacity to learn. Not only can I quickly absorb new information and transform it into knowledge, I can also direct this towards business and branding opportunities. Even where I come in contact with some completely foreign information, my brain scrambles to find a connection that allows me to contextualise it.

But what about you? Do you find that your capacity has increased over time?

Angela Maiers provides a great explanation in this 30 minute class. She leads us through the different types of connections that we can make so that our memories can be stimulated:   

• Easy – the simple connection can be made because of our exposure to a topic. There is no work involved here. A common topic will add a new layer over the knowledge schema that we already possess – and the information will be readily accessible to you in an instant.
   
• Dig – while a piece of information may not have an instantly recognisable hook on which you can make a connection, a small amount of digging into your own knowledge will help you. This will require some effort, but will also help turn a piece of new information into actionable knowledge.
   
• Impossible – when we are introduced to an alien concept, we are faced with an impossible situation. There are no EASY ways to make sense of the information. Digging provides no context and no prism for understanding. When faced with the impossible piece of information, our natural instinct is to begin to memorise, to rote learn – but this is a mistake, for without providing some personal context to this information you will not be able to retain and apply this knowledge. It will gradually fade from memory.

In the last 10 minutes of this video, Angela shares an approach that allows us to begin creating NEW memories. She explains the technique for creating the first thread of retained knowledge upon which you can build additional context.   

 
• Chunking: After reading/absorbing a piece of information, the main ideas are categorised by the ideas that they invoke. This is not about collecting facts. It is about finding one or two words that connect and explain the overall concepts.
• Joining the dots: Once you have the “big ideas” you then need to make connections between them. You need to write them down. You need to establish a narrative between them.

Now, think about this from a branding and marketing perspective. Have you ever wondered why some things stick and some don't? In general, the information that comes to us through advertising is “impossible”. We are hit by facts and assaulted by images. These all seek to CONVINCE us.

However, if we are each subjected to 5000 marketing messages per day, the blink of an eye that acknowledges each new message will instantly erase the previous one. This means that those marketing messages that are mediated, that come with BUILT-IN context, are more likely to anchor in our memory (hence the use of popular music/spokespersons) – and this plays particularly strongly for digital/social media.

And in a time of increasing financial uncertainty, brands will be looking not to CUT THROUGH but to CUT OUT. It won’t be a matter of your brand standing out in a crowd, but of eeking out some space in which it can create meaningful context in which your consumers can participate. Those brands who have begun experimenting with social media will have an advantage in these tougher times; and those who have not will need to accelerate their engagement by hiring agencies and consultants who have a deep understanding of hands-on brand activation in the digital/social media space.

Interesting times? Sure … but really, as Angela Maiers says, it’s about making connections.

YouTube and the Context of "Being Social"

When it comes to understanding the impact of digital media on the way we live our lives, there are few who dig as deeply as Michael Wesch. This is a recording of his speech at the US Library of Congress in June. And while the presentation starts off with some impressive statistics about the number of videos uploaded to YouTube (9,232 hours per day -- 88% of which is original), the fascinating aspect of this presentation is the focus on story. In his own words:

... that is the story of the numbers and this is really a story about new forms of expression and new forms of community and new forms of identity emerging.

For the following 45 minutes or so, Michael Wesch leads us through a discussion on the way in which digital media is celebrating and connecting people in entirely new forms of shared experience. He starts with Numa Numa and his famous The Machine is Us/ing Us. Interestingly, the latter was initially launched the Wednesday before Superbowl Sunday -- and as he had quickly reached an audience of over 200 people he sent a screen shot to the head of school for his permanent record. By Saturday the audience had grown to over 1100 viewings and the video had been posted on Digg. As you probably know, this video has at current count, around 5 million views.

As an anthropologist, Michael Wesch is providing a fascinating analysis of the shifts in society and culture that are already underway. In this video he shows how user generated content + user generated filtering + user generated distribution is reinventing the way in which we create, find and share branded and unbranded material via the web. This potent mix is ignited with a final piece, which Michael calls "user generated commentary" -- ie blogs -- however, I feel this is better represented as user generated CONTEXT. When blog authors share content with their readers, they create a context into which the content becomes more accessible and digestible for their particular audience. It is this final piece which is an essential part of any digital strategy. I fully recommend setting aside an hour to watch this presentation through, however, if you have limited time, I have written my thoughts below.

About 12 minutes into the presentation, Michael turns his attention to the media. Here he talks about the media not as technology but as a system through which human relations are mediated. This is given more context by showcasing the way that remixing and remastering videos allows others to participate in a video meme (eg Charlie Bit My Finger and its 100+ responses). Clearly this is not just about claiming 15 seconds of fame. This type of participation goes to the very heart of the P-L-A-Y (P-ower, L-earning, A-dventure, Y-elp of surprise), delivering an experience that crosses the chasm that is imposed upon us by culture, geography, suburbia and even the isolating experience of TV viewing.

But the experience of this is dislocating. At 23 minutes, Michael explains "context collapse" which is what happens when we first begin to "participate". For example, think back to the first time that you wrote a blog post, think about your first comment on another's blog. By participating in this way, you release your thoughts into an environment in which you have no context. You don't know how it will be read or understood, nor where or when. You don't even necessarily "know" your reader. Now, apply this same thinking to video. You are "speaking" or "presenting" to a small webcam, not a person. Well, not yet anyway. The human interaction is delayed, mediated, spread across time and space. It takes time for "participants" to become used to this new mode of delayed being. It is, perhaps, why the easiest way to understand blogging is to participate.

At around the thirty minute point, Michael walks us through the topic of cultural inversion. This describes the tension that we (in a cultural sense) experience as participants. On the one hand we express individualism, independence and a keen commercialism while desiring community and relationships within an authentic context. YouTube, and to a certain extent, other social media, allow us to experience this tension as a deep connection with others without the responsibility that comes with close, personal relations. It strikes me that by adding a third party into this equation, for example, a "good cause" like a charity, you are able to move quickly from this state of mediated connection to "community actualisation" (thinkng a community version of maslow's hierarchy of needs).

But what happens when this is "gamed"? Michael explores YouTube's authenticity crisis about 36 minutes in, using EmoKid21Ohio and LonelyGirl15 as examples. Ten minutes later the topic of copyright is broached (any remixing is basically illegal). Using a clip from Lawrence Lessig's TED talk, the challenge is contextualised -- the culture has moved on and the law is struggling to recontextualise its own relevance:

You can't kill the instant the technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can't make our kids passive again, we can only make them "pirates" ... and is that good?

We live in ... an age of prohibitions where many areas of our life, we live life constantly against the law, ordinary people live life against the law ... and that realization is extraordinarily corrosive, extraordinarily corrupting, and in a democracy we ought to be able to do better.

The presentation is wrapped up by video quoting bnessel1973:

Some people say that the videos we create on YouTube should be created in hopes to change the world. I have made mine to help me live in it.

What's Next in Media

There is some great discussion going on around the nature, role and function of media. Neil Perkin has put together a great deck that digs into the impact of social media, while Craig Wilson looks at the potential of social media for local and regional brands. Interestingly, that is one of the comment threads suggested by Matt Hazel.

What do you think? What's next? What's missing? What is going to create the next, next thing?

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Interesting South Debrief In-Brief

  Lauren Brown sketches the speakers 
  Originally uploaded by servantofchaos

The Interesting South gang (Emily Reed, Katie Chatfield, Ian Lyons, Gregg Girling, Matt Moore, Rob Marson, Stig Richards, Tim Longhurst, Gavin Heaton, Lauren Brown) breathed a collective sigh of relief around midnight last night. After months of planning, the presentations all came together in a way that held the sellout crowd in thrall.

Our speakers performed very well in front of a large and curious crowd at the Belvoir Street Theatre. As we started, our MC for the evening, Tim Longhurst asked the audience to turn on their mobile phones and contribute to the conference via Twitter or by SMS direct to his mobile phone.

Mark Bagshaw kicked off the proceedings with an astounding speech about opportunity, challenge, disability and optimism -- setting a very high bar for all who followed. Roger Dennis encouraged us to look at different industries to identify innovative opportunities for our own. Emily Reed investigated, to all our fears, why marriages fail.

A brief interval saw the audience burst into conversation, inspired by the six word biographies they were wearing. The Belvoir Street front of house team were busy watering the thirsty audience and the staff from Wagamama negotiated the jammed foyer as best they could.

Christian Mushenko shared some everyday heroes with us all. Tim Noonan lived up to his reputation, delivering a daring, daunting and slightly saucy discussion about what it means to be the real you. Annalie Killian reminded us that change is the constant in our lives and was followed by Wade Millican who brought us to a central meditative space in the space of minutes. Zoe Horton brought tears to all our eyes as she stepped through the challenges and delicate joys of genetic counselling.

During the next interval we ran the brave Tereasa Trevor through Marlaina Read's presentation on the History of Photography. Marlaina was unable to make it to Sydney to present, but she offered to send the slides, and in the spirit of open source, we called for a volunteer presenter. Tereasa stepped up to the challenge via an SMS to MC, Tim Longhurst.

On returning to the theatre, we were treated to Scott Portelli's awesome images and video of swimming with whales off the coast of Tonga. And then keeping with the animal theme, Ian Johnston asked us whether animals think about what other animals think. Suzanne Dagseven gave an inspiring speech about finding your purpose and escaping the mundane everyday prisons of our own making. Tereasa delivered her own take on Marlaina's presentation and then Stephen Collins explained exactly how Web 2.0 technologies can be used to make real change -- in this case his daughter's school board. Michael Lister stepped us through the intricacies and amusing challenges of bus route design. Russ Tucker introduced us to his Viral Waistcoat and all the people who have worn it (BUT it seems to have gone missing. If you know where it is, please let him know!).

I will put together some deeper thoughts on the presentations as time allows ... but for those who were not able to attend in person, we will share videos and photos as they become available. Thanks to all who participated!

Thinking in Pictures

As my regular readers will know, I am more of a storyteller than a visual artist. But I often find that one of the best ways of expressing my ideas will be in picture form. Unfortunately, my drawing skills are poor. Really poor. So this means finding an alternative way of working.

Where I always try to start is with the story. What is it that I am trying to get across to my audience? What is the starting point and where does the end point lie? What is the journey that we are going to take and what sights and sounds will we encounter along the way? I try to think of it as a train trip -- something that has an EXPERIENTIAL element to it.

An essential aspect for me is the metaphor. What is the key theme that I want to apply ... and what is the message? How do I build this up along the way? What are the rhythms I want to interject.

And once I have all this, I ask myself -- is there some visual that I can use? Where can I find it? How can I bring my story with its key themes together around the visual? Normally I start with a Google image search based around my key messages. If that does not result in a winning image, I often go to Flickr and do the same. But every so often both of these great tools fail me. That is when I take a breath and think about my friends and community. I think blogs and I think Twitter. But rarely do I think Facebook.

However, when I was thinking about this post, I knew that there was an image that I wanted. I just needed to think where it was. And sure enough, I remembered. David Armano generously setup a fan page on Facebook some time ago and saved many of his well-known (and well-used) diagrams to image albums. This is one of them. Be sure to check this great resource next time you get stuck!

The Carnival of Content

ReTraToS de CaRnAVaL // CaRniVaL PorTraiTs
Originally uploaded by JucaFii

When I first started blogging I remember reading about blog carnivals -- those group writing projects based on a set topic. Carnivals are hosted by an organiser, with contributors from all over the world submitting an overview and a URL to their post. They are a great way of discovering new blogs, interesting topics and writers who share your same passions. In many ways, The Age of Conversation book was a type of carnival.

Because carnivals are focused around a topic, they draw writers across a range of categories. This allows participating writers to be introduced to a readership that is outside of their normal stomping ground. This is important as it allows you to be influenced by ideas outside of your own sphere of influence but also opens the door for you to grow your readership.

For example, when I participated in a carnival a long time ago, I met Julia Dorofeeva who writes a dating blog. At first I couldn't see the connection, but Julia's thoughtful comments and analysis soon changed that.

So, how do you get started with carnivals? Sue Bride has a great post listing all the blog carnivals that you can participate in. If you are new to blogging, or want to immerse yourself in a whole new world of content, check out Sue's list and get writing.

The Co-creation of a New Calendar Girl

Calendargirl avant la lettre
Originally uploaded by dirk huijssoon

Late last year I was looking around for some music and happened upon a spectacular open source music project. It is the brainchild of Tamara who made the effort to write and record the vocal track for one song each month. These were then made available to the CCmixer community who would mix and engineer the tracks and then republish the finished track.

The aim?

To collaboratively produce an album at the end of the year. Read more of the back story here.

What is interesting is to see the way that the community picked up on this collaborative effort and brought it to life. There is a real tenderness and excitement in the whole creative process. But what is the secret to this? How does it happen?

First up ... any community effort or cocreation project must start with a GIFT. Without the gift of time, contribution, energy and sponteneity, cocreation cannot exist. In this instance, Tamara's initial gift was her songwriting. Her second gift was her beautiful voice. The third was her time and care to record and share the tracks.

Next came the COMMITMENT. Tamara followed through each month to build and sustain the community. Around the world, people would wait, expectantly, for a new vocal to be released ... and then would set to work, collaborating, building and refining their mixes. Comments and feedback would flow between the collaborators and remixes, additions and whole new songs would emerge.

To make this work, you also need a THEME. You need to find some way to harness the creative energies of diverse people. You must allow them into the process, and allow them to tell their own story as much as they tell yours. In open sourcing the vocal track, Tamara turned her single voice into a creative chorus.

Finally, you also need a GOAL. While these projects can be fun, they also need to be serious. By setting a deadline to the project (one song per month for a year), Tamara was able to build support over time. This would allow the community enough time to build and to get excited about the process and the contributions made.

So, if you are thinking of a kicking off a co-creation effort, remember the steps. Better yet, write them down in a notepad, skip over to Calendar Songs and write out a plan for how you will bring your project to life. Remember:

• Gift
• Commitment
• Theme
• Goal

Oh, and make sure you have fun while you are doing it. Enjoy January!