Entries from November 2007 ↓

I went to a C4 event last week about the legal issues around collaboration and Intellectual Property.

Nothing particularly earthshattering to report; however I must say I was surprised with what seemed to be a rather negative attitude towards Creative Commons (a new set of alternatives to Copyright, some of which allow others a greater freedom to distribute and re-use content).

Maybe it’s because the debate was dominated by a lawyer, but for me the prevailing question seemed to be "why would anyone want to give their rights away?"

Specifically, a number of people seemed to imply that putting any of your content for free devalues everything you do in the future. Excuse me? What?

As far as I’m concerned it’s going to get harder and harder to sell content direct. In fact it’s going to be hard enough just getting noticed in this world where everyone’s producing. Any promotion is good promotion. Getting your stuff out there is totally vital to building a name. 

Creative commons means that, if I choose, I as a producer have a way of legally allowing others to remix, copy and do whatever they want with my work.  If it’s done properly however, I can request that it’s always be attributed to me.

I think.there’s something really important about this. Going back to my last post - remixing, copying and attributing is vital to social media.  We need to have a way of telling people what they can and can’t do with our stuff. Hopefully most of them will take some notice.

Yes, people can exploit Intellectual Property, but they’re going to do that however you license it .

And as MC Paula LeDeau pointed out: "As a creative person you’re at far greater risk of obscurity.". I couldn’t agree more.

I’m making the fifth and final New Media 4Cast  at the moment. This episode will look at social media for creative people. It’ll be a good way of bringing together everything we’ve been discussing over the last year.

For this episode I’ve interviewed two of Brum’s most illustrious social media gurus Pete Ashton and Nick Booth. They both made a similar point which really struck me.

The crux of it was about elements of social media not having to be finished off, complete and polished. Whereas traditional media (newspapers, TV shows, films) rely on being produced in this way, with social media the depth comes from how these individual pieces are linked together, built on and discussed on to create something that is a whole.

The problem is, so many people are scared witless of blogging and spend far too long worrying about whether their posts are right, complete or perfect.

I was delivering a lecture yesterday to a group of creative industry types and this point seemed to hit the button. I think a lot of early stage bloggers become gripped by fear as I did when I first started. "What if people don’t agree with this?" / "What if I change my mind?" / "Will this sound stupid in 3 years".

My advice is simple. Screw it, just start writing.

Thanks to everyone from The Hive at Nottingham Trent Uni who came to the "Social Media Makeover" session yesterday.

Some interesting discussion points around how to get attention and openness vs protection of Intellectual Property. Thanks also to our guinea pig  Will Baxter and his  "Around the World in 80 Handbags".

Do let me know if you take on any of the ideas - even if you just set up an RSS reader!

Some extra links which weren’t in the resources:

• Etsy.com
• Jessica Poundstone post

If you have any further questions, please post them here. It’d be good to get a discussion going.

Congrats to my Dad Dave for another 4 works in this year’s Discerning Eye show at the Mall Galleries.

I tootled along to the private view last Thursday with friend and amateur art-critic Anna ("That’s highly derivative") Burrells.

The works for the show are partly selected by "collectors" (i.e. celebs). Past collectors who’ve seemed to enjoy my Dad’s work have been Richard Littlejohn (hilarious - my Dad taught me everything I know about being a right-on Guardian reader) and Anne Robinson.

This year’s star selector was Davina McCall who chose three Dave Goulds for the show.

I came back from getting a drink to see Davina and my dad chatting happily away.

When she left, my Dad asked me "so who’s she then?". He has less knowledge of popular culture than Ian Hislop. 

I patiently explained that she presents Big Brother.

"Load of rubbish" he said.

The show’s on now if you’re interested in taking a look.

A concept I use a lot in my work is that of the Global Microbrand, a company that "stays small but sells all over the world".

Working with social enterprises and other socially focussed organisations I started to realise that this concept could apply quite neatly to an organisation’s social impact as well as its financial success.

Put simply, instead of "stay small but sell all over the world", an organisation can now use the web to "stay small but influence all over the world". This is good news for organisations that want to remain small, nimble and innovative.

Instead of growing in influence by growing in size, organisations can now use the web to tell the world what they’re doing in great detail, start discussions and show others how to get things done effectively. Meanwhile they’re working on the next set of ideas. I mentioned an example of this in a previous post about my work with Impactt.

These ideas aren’t new, but I’ve found this to be a great way of encapsulating things when talking to socially focussed organisations about their web strategies.

Impactt are one of the world’s leading ethical trade consultancies.  They work with many of the world’s leading companies to improve labour standards and have been pushing things forward in this field for ten years. Looking at their client list is like taking a walk down the high street and they’re hugely respected in the industry as a company effecting real change for workers.

I’ve been working with the company’s team to develop a new web strategy; the first phase went online last week and you can see the results at impacttlimited.com

A few notes on the project:

My work is now primarily about strategy rather than straight builds so I’ve spent a great deal of time getting to know the company, the issues they’re working with and the team who run things. This has been fascinating, and also very good fun.

We started with the Global Microbrand principle (stay small and sell all over the world), and tweaked it for a social context (stay small and influence all over the world). It’s key that an innovative company like this are telling people what they’re doing both from a commercial and social point of view. If they can provoke a discussion both on their own site and elsewhere, that’s even better.

Impactt had been producing a printed newsletter full of stories on labour standards ("The Meteor"). We decided after some thought to move this over to a new, two-pronged strategy, and worked with the team to re-develop The Meteor as a blog and a live news feed.

With the help of Mark McGuinness we worked to map out the style, content and potential audience for the blog and coached the team as they made their first tentative footsteps into the blogosphere.  It’s now up and running and I must say, they’re doing an excellent job.

I think it’s vital to avoid a technology led approach with these things. I have a pet phrase which goes something like "Giving someone a blog is like giving them a blank piece of paper. It doesn’t mean anything until they know what to write". The potential readership of Impactt’s blog is a group of people who have huge influence in this field so there’s a big opportunity here to really help make change happen globally.

The Live News Feed is a great feature which allows users to receive the latest news on labour standards daily or weekly. It has the double function of keeping clients, and everyone in the office up to date with the latest news, all filtered by one person. 

Making this happen was an incredibly simple combination of delicious, Google Reader, Feedburner (all free) and a bit of training. This to me embodies the power of what can be done these days with free software.

I also worked together with the team at Rolled to build a brand new, fully content managed, accessible and (in my opinion) beatifully designed website. I’m really pleased with how this came out and initial feedback has been very good.

Moving into the future I’m keen to start looking at the company’s use of video and audio. There could well be a new podcast on labour standards coming your way soon!

I must extend a great thanks to the Impactt team for pulling together and really doing a great job of getting content together, no easy feat when you already have a full time job to do.

Incidentally, I’m not the only one with a pet saying about blogging. Mark McGuinness has one too: "A blog is for life, not just for Christmas".

Food for thought as we enter into the season of goodwill.

Hot on the heels of my rant about Web 2.0, here’s a nice little example of it working quite beatifully.

Jessica Poundstone saw the August Etsy workshop via the webcast, and got all inspired. Here’s a comment she wrote on the blog recently:

"I found your talk to be incredibly interesting and helpful, and was inspired to make my first ever video tutorial, which you can see here: www.jewelrybyjessica.com/tutorials.html. As a start to spreading the word I’ve posted the video on my site, on my blog, and on my flickr site. I also started a flickr group for others to post their pin if they decide to make one. I’ve got Google Analytics set up on my site, so it will be really fun to see where people are coming from, and whether they stay to look around or purchase the earrings and necklaces I have for sale there. Thanks so much sharing your expertise with the world!"

Wow! Talk about embracing the approach!

So, if you’re interested in a project for the weekend, why not have a crack at making a Shrink Plastic Flower Pin?

Good luck! Prize for the best one!

More on her blog.

I’ve steadfastly avoided using the term Web 2.0 until now. I can’t stand it. Reading last night that Joanna Geary feels the same, it made me wonder whether there are more like me with the same frustration.

The problem is that although I hate the name, I love the concept. The principles behind the Web 2.0 are very important, elegant, and vital to understand for everyone. Much of my career is currently based on this particular premise.

Web 2.0 sounds like a new hardware release. When I first heard about Web 3.0 (also describing something pretty important and elegant) it sealed the argument for me. It reminds me of when a bunch of programmers decided that a great way to structure a web address was to put a series of fairly incomprehensible characters (http://www.) before a company’s name in order to access it. I know we got used to it in the end, but that’s not the point.

This obviously presents me with a dilemma. What on earth do I call it? I feel like washing my mouth out every time I use the term, but I often need to in order to explain what I’m talking about.

I did flirt with "The Live Web" for a while - it works much better for me but I’m not entirely convinced that we’re all decided on what that means yet.

Ideas on a postcard please. (Did you see what I did there?)

Since August I’ve been working as part of the New Media team at Maverick TV developing an idea for a major new project for Channel 4 Education. We’ve been looking at how to develop a web-based approach to supporting entrepreneurship amongst 14-19 year olds.

We’ve now been given the go ahead to start work on the first phase of the project and I’m going to be taking the creative director role. I’m excited about this project as it has the potential to be something really groundbreaking. The project also incorporates social media, entrepreneurship, education and social enterprise, all of which are areas of huge interest for me.

It’s at such early stages at the moment that it doesn’t even have a name yet - however I’ll post more here as the project continues.