Wholesome Social Media

Myself and 4Pioneers partner-in-crime Nick Lockey went to the World Entrepreneurship Summit last week at the invitation of Oli Barrett and Steve Moore (thanks again both).

Some really interesting stuff going on - the two highlights of the day were Kevin Spacey’s fantastic talk on the community centred business model of the Old Vic (apparently it has NO arts funding whatsoever - that’s some achievement) and the brilliant session hosted by Oli on enterprise education. This was really useful for us in the context of 4Pioneers which we’re developing around that exact subject.

Most interestingly for me, almost everything I heard had something to do with social enterprise. I was quite surprised as I don’t think it was a theme for the day. Are we really getting to a point where it’s becoming natural practice for entrepreneurs to create a social benefit in everything they do, as well as making profit?

I’d like to think so but I’m not yet convinced - I still meet people to this day who don’t believe that humans are causing climate change so we’ve got some way to go yet.

It was very encouraging though and has confirmed for me even more strongly that social enterprise is going to be massive in the next 10 years.

Myself and a few of my Midlands digital compadres got a mention in Broadcast Mag this week which was nice.

Pete does a much better job than I can of writing it up so I’ll leave it to him to tell you more.

Wow, apparently half the bestselling works of fiction in Japan were written on mobile phones! It’s all about the "keitai shousetsu" apparently - those guys must be quicker at texting than me. They must also have seriously sore thumbs.

I think there’s something interesting in this. For me, books (and maybe newspapers) were going to be two of the last formats to go digital, mainly because accessing the digital version is so different from accessing the traditional one (unlike music where listening to an Ipod is not really any different from listening to a portable CD player).

Every time I mention ebooks I always get the same response. "But I like reading books - I hate reading screens". I don’t disagree of course, but I think that this area is going to take a huge step forward with items like Amazon’s Kindle, coming to the UK next year. It’s a portable reading device - I haven’t seen one yet but I understand that the screen is designed to mimic ink on paper and is very easy on the eye.

I can see myself using something like this. Not necessarily for novels, but the idea of having all my RSS feeds updated on it for me to read on the bus / tube / in bed is very cool.

I love books, and think I’ll always buy novels in the traditional format. But I like feeds too, and the idea of putting these together is going to be killer.

If you’re interested in keeping up with the ever fascinating minutiae of my life (and Facebook updates just don’t cut the mustard) I now have a Twitter feed at twitter.com/antoniogould.

Enjoy!

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.