Social networking tips for creative freelancers and media

Last week I gave a talk in Manchester as part of the DMEX training programme I’m working on which upskills ‘traditional’ (strange term in itself!) media professionals from TV, radio and film to work in digital environments through a series of work placements, mentoring, an online network (email me if you’d like an invite to join), a collaboration project (we’re currently making a machinima film) and a series of workshops.

This one was on the mixed subjects of pitching (with Stuart Nolan from Hex Induction), multi-platform commissioning (with Mario Dubois from BBC Multiplatform) and I gave a presentation of using social media for benefiting your freelance business.  (The full write-up of the event is available on the DMEX Ning website – email me if you’d like an invite to join).

Here’s my presentation with some videos and links to case studies:

Dmex 04 02 09 Blogging And Social Networking

View more presentations from susioneill. (tags: social media)

It was a fun, practical session with a lively group where I did a lot of “show and tell” and created a live blog post to show how easy it is to get going with publishing and connecting your ideas to the wider business community.  I’ll no doubt be writing more on this subject soon, but some key points to take away:

All networks are social

Online networks are much the same as real world networks, you need to feed your network and nurture it for it to bloom, but online networking, rather than just time-wasting, is like the telephone and email – just another new form of conversation so treat it as that – immediate and rich with an equal mix of great ideas and bullshit.

Start with the end in mind

Decide on your goals in advance.  It could be to gain profile because you’re new to freelancing or new in town – in this case a frequency strategy of short but high volume “presence” on blogs and other social networks is effective.  You may want to position yourself as an expert – you’ll then need to define your subject and think of carefully crafted links, comments and posts that define your specialism.  Maybe you want to use social networks to further your own knowledge – in which case you’ll do this by becoming a ’super connector’ giving advice and ideas to others in return for a piece of theirs.

Have fun and value your time

I’ve just started to use the rather excellent CreativePro Office (it’s free and let’s you track projects, milestones, invoices and time spend on projects) and now I monitor how much time I spend as part of my business development on Twitter, RSS and Facebook.  Decide on your goals and don’t let social networking impact on your workload – it takes a while to “work” for you in terms of bringing in work, so I prefer a little but often frequency to avoid internet addiction.  Keep it light and make it fun – you could make deeper relationships between you and your prospective clients, collaborators and peers.

I noticed my old colleague Dave Harte also did a talk recently on social media for business success, so check that out too – he has some interesting complimentary examples.

Hi to everyone I met at the seminar, it was great for me to help other people get a bit de-mystified and fired-up as to the why and how of social media for business.  If you’d like me to give a talk for your group or business on social media, please get in touch.

Ultraband – high speed broadband for Nottingham city?

This week I went to hear a presentation in Nottingham by a project a little closer to actuality that the recent 2012 Design Capital bid I recently blogged about.

Ultraband is a public sector non-profit partnership led by Connected Nottingham whose current mission is to create a high-speed broadband ring hooked around central institutes in Nottingham (including Broadway and Biocity).  The network will enable businesses with high speed broadband needs, particularly in the media industries around Nottingham’s Lace Market, to access high fibre pipes to ail the curent creaking, high capacity broadband network which will be essential for the productivity of businesses in the future.

According to a survey they conducted which you can still fill out online (and you probably should as they’re basing their findings on just 23 responses currently) 71% of Lace Market businesses were unhappy with their internet, and had problems with bandwith and connectivity that prevented service delivery – including outsourcing rendering projects.

If the Lace Market wants to become a creative hub, competing with the net access offering of other European regions like MediaCity Salford, Amsterdam and Paris is essential.

The service would be operated on a non-project co-operative basis, which is how many Scandinavian high speed networks have been established.  However it’s subject to approval of an EMDA bid which could become a longwinded process.  Director Peter Goodwin was keen to point out that if we didn’t reach a decision on moving forward within a year the opportunity would be lost and with it competitive advantage for Nottingham.

I don’t know too much about this kind of technology and the pros and cons, but from speaking to others it would seem that high-speed is available already – though price may be an inhibitor.  A rep from BT was also vocal about a network run by “over enthusiastic amateurs” – assuring us it’s not about the fibre in the ground which already exists but the support and connectivity provided by the service provider.

With Virgin’s announcement of a rollout of 50Mb high speed broadband for the very affordable £51 month,  I’m still left confused as to whether we are missing out on an opportunity to do something radical that addresses a market failure (which is, or should be, after all the point of Regional Development Agency money) or whether the market is actually already advancing in serving the needs of the few for whom ‘big pipe’ access is an imperative.

Yet any infrastructure that makes Nottingham more appealing to incoming investors and retains the high tech businesses we have could be crucial in survival.  But what is it we need most right now in the recession – the telecoms networks or the business networks?

Ultraband are also keen to raise awareness and garner views about the project in the inner-city Nottingham business community.  A blog strategy perhaps?

Amplified 08 – connecting the dots in the social media maze

Yesterday I went along, like the rest of the Twiterrati, to Amplified 08 at the HQ of NESTA. Amplified is the new brain child of NESTA and Toby Moores (founder of Sony game Buzz whom I recently interviewed for a fascinating piece ‘in the mind of the serial disruptive innovator’ for a project for Creative Sheffield). It bills itself as a ‘network of networks’ that connects people from around the country who are developing leading-edge thinking in using social media technologies.

Around 200 people were there from a surprisingly broad range of disciplines – teachers, media producers, techno geeks, citizen journalists - a mix of ages and personalities but with a strong male bias. A fairly lose structure of discussions made for a somewhat chaotic space – having been to the OneMedia open space conference recently I found the sheer volume of people here a bit unwieldy to really have useful conversations – but in general the spirit and the ideas were full of vibrancy and excitement to connect and share ideas, and it was nice to put some names to faces and meet new folks outside of my usual digital media bubble.

The sessions were as diverse as the attendees, but tended to focus on changing the world a bit by changing a bit of the world, and what web tools can do to enable that. I popped into quite a few – some were really useful like Online Video, others a bit unstructured and meandering so I think it pays for session curators to be a bit better prepared to present their ideas to help focus the discussion. There’s probably a learning curve here and some delegate education needed on how to successful do open space or semi-curated events like this so people get the best out of it. We were all told to tweet after each session so there are heaps of tweets you can trawl through here.

On the whole I found it probably a bit too ahead-of-the-curve for my own more commercially focused practice (yes, me is un-cool consultant) – and sometimes I wonder if it’s best to go to ‘what you know’ where you can contribute and learn more or to throw yourself into the least relevant and known subject to see what you can learn. I did a bit of both – maybe at the next one I’ll throw myself into the deep end and go to more of the blogging-will-change-the-world instead of is-home-taping-killing-music sessions I usually choose.

I bumped into Toby then next morning at Tuttle London – many of the Amplified Individuals were somewhat muted after a night of boozing. Whereas I went over to a church hall in Leytonstone to film a pop video dressed as a school mistress (I kid you not – coming soon!) til the wee hours instead. Toby says the next step is to hold regular networks across the country to start to connect the dots – with sessions in the Midlands, South Coast, London, the North and maybe other places too. Hopefully the Amplified network will somehow will feed into my own plans to improve the connectivity and networking of creative thinkers in my hometown of Nottingham.

This is Playful – London Games Week, Conway Hall, Oct 31

“To thine own self be true” read the inscription above the stage of the humanist community venue of Conway Hall in Holborn – an appropriate epitaph for an era where user-generated content and the collaborative nature of web 2.0 is pervading computer game technologies, and new forms of playfulness emerge from the fusion of game play with toys, theatre, web and movement – as explored at this one day event as part of London Games Festival games fringe week.

Organised by my fellow conspirators Pixel-Lab from Derby, This is Playful was a very chilled out laid back event full of interesting talking and stuff followed by a few light ales, and generally a good sense of community. A lot of the technicalities went over my bear-like-brain-when-it-comes-to-games, but a few talks stood out:

Chris Delay from Introversion talked about building high production values in graphics from a micro-indie’s budget using procedural generation – that is using patterns of nature in a generative progam to produce patterns – like tree branches spreading outwards, or even city scapes spawning more and more detailed roads. This can be split into everything – even building floors and windows on buildings, producing exterior textures, or internal building scapes to produce desks, computers and objects. This cuts out the handmade time of game artists, and would seem to be the future of much CGI and games generation in the increasingly expensive era when users demand higher-level graphics.

Kars Alfink from Leapfrog in Utrecht – the Netherlands’ epicentre of game design – talked about playing with form using the example of the Z-Boys from the film Lords of Dogtown, who formed what became now skateboarding technique from experimenting with their surroundings of disused swimming-pools. Now skate parks take the form of extreme hollowed-out bowls that were originally just the functional spaces available.

We consume media but we use tools – so game media is about creating tools for functional uses. Habbo Hotel, the virtual world for children, has very ‘underspecified’ tools – like rooms where children play at ‘horses’ – despite the fact that it’s not a stable and there are no horse-specific objects there – rather like kids will play at anything with a few limited props in the ‘sandbox’ of a garden or playroom.

Tom Armitage from Headshift talked about the Obama 08 campaign manager software for iPhone, and how you could rate your performance as a campaigner against others – a multiplayer game (of sorts). Everything is now a multiplayer environment – enabled by web 2.0 thinking and technologies. We all have ‘rings’ between us, our closest allies, friends of friends then everyone else; social media platforms ape this – e.g. email/SMS/IM for close contact, Facebook next, MySpace for the semi-unwashed and open spaces for everyone else.  Yet social networks are not merely spaces, they consist of people who are connected by a shared object or interest – like World of Warcraft for gamers or Flickr for photo lovers.

Armitage believes multi-player can take the form of differing contexts – not just MMO or simultaneous multi-player forms but a “super context” – shared information and shared fun asyncronously, in close but not necessarily simultaneous timespans – like sending links and sharing comments on Facebook or by email.  This also gives you more to talk about AFTER the event.

Eric Zimmerman from GameLab spoke about games being about rules and maths.  The play is the free movement within rigid structures – be that skateboarders in swimming pools or playing within the mathematical rules of the game. Gamestar Mechanic is his new venture allowing users to create their own user-generated online game to share and play with others, an interesting combination of web 2.0 and game technologies.

Lots of other interesting bits and bobs including a very interesting presentation on realism and expression in high-end games design from Jolyon Webb from Blitz Games using the example of how getting it right with teeth affects how you feel and interactive with the characters, and a very silly Singing Sock Puppet linking up Last.fm with, er, a sock puppet.  A fun end to the week.

Worktech North: Digital cities and the future of work conference, June 29th 2007, Salford

This one day event, Unwired’s Worktech North, brought to the shores of Salford Quays, Manchester c/o the North West Development Agency and MediaCity:UK, explored a futurologists and near futurologists vision of how digital technologies will evolve cities, and specifically our workplaces. Speakers from world-leading digital city projects in Spain, Finland, USA and UK gave us an insight into the workplace technologies of the near-future and new digital design for work and living.

Michael Joroff, a guru among many from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, started off by telling us:

A city is a city.
A ‘second city’ is a city in Second Life.
A ‘third city’ is a connection between the physical and virtual, like a phone call connects the physical using virtual technology. A world of ‘bricks and clicks’ – both are needed, yet some things you can only do in one and some things only in both places.

‘Media city’ becomes not physical but a place in your mind.

Ambient technology, or pervasive technology, is experienced any time, any place. Wifi allows you to respond to your environment – in the future broadband/wifi will become the norm, cities without it will be disadvantaged.

What the media city will look like:

• Digital cities will have experimental street lighting – bright for single women, playful colours when the pubs close.

• Responsive buildings with “skins” will respond to their inhabitants – depending on volume, density, time of day etc.

• Interactive transport – delivery based on demand rather than a rigid timetable.

• Interactive kiosks – build around communities of interest.

• Also permeable walkways, interactive buildings with interactive display screens.

Then let’s all have a ‘flash mob party’ – it happened in Feb 07 when 300o people arrived through a bluetooth message in Paddington to come down to the station, tune in to a channel and dance, silently, listening to the DJ playing on their iPods.

Jose Carlos Arnal told us about the Digital Mile project.

Zaragoza is Spain’s 6th largest city. Spain’s ambition is for 50Mb connectivity – the ‘digital divide’ in the future will be between not the ‘have’s’ and the ‘have not’s’ but between high and low speeds of connectivity – everyone will need to be digitally literate in the 21st century.

The Digital Mile, developed with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, incorporates pervasive media into all parts of the public realm in an experiment to enable technology to make the space more useful, enjoyable, playful, and colour the user’s mood.

Permeated by a central digital walkway, virtual waterfalls and interactive fountains are triggered by commands. Intelligent street lighting adjusts according to time, day and artistic expression. Street furniture pratically displays timetables, menus, parking availability.

Kari Raina then talked about another future city in Arabianranta (Helsinki Virtual Village), a residential area which the Helsinki authorities want to transform into a leading centre for design and industry before the decade end. Then there will be 10,000 residents, 8,000 jobs and 6,000 students there. It is part of a European network of living labs. Raina claims there is a need for political and business leaders to have buy in and believe in the benefits of investing in the digital city.

Each household appoints an eHousemanager prior to moving onto the site and six universities and technical colleges in the city worked together to produce content. Apartments all have 10Mb broadband installed, there is a household of mentally disabled people – it’s a true social experiment in an inclusive, digital community. People are inspired to come here to share the experience.

Philip Vanhoette from Plantronics and Philip Ross from Cordless Group talked about “Technology in the Digital Age”.

Vanhouette argues that broadband is essential – like hot water…or loo roll.

Terrifyingly, email represents 40% of all our communications, taking up a minimum of 2 hours a day (10 years a lifetime!). Of which 1/3 are irrelevant, 1/3 are important, 1/3 are essential.

Microsoft’s Powerpoint is 20 years old – some sectors (like sales) spend 50% of their time reading, preparing and presenting with it.

Hard rules (from Ross’s 2006 book “Space to Work – Space Strategies for Knowledge Workers” – Jeremy Myerson and Phillip Ross):

• Presentations sent to everyone 24 hours before meeting

• Bonuses for short meetings

• Red light messenger – switch off more regularly, don’t be ‘always on’

Comprising of a wheel in 4 quadrants, put simply, spaces to work break down into:

• Academy (colleagues) HIGH VISIBLE Agora (customers)

• Lodge (family) live/work LOW VISIBLE Guild (peers) collaborative

The UK has too many ‘landscape’ open plan offices – too many distractions and too loud.

A nomadic worker’s dream: cheap/free wifi and a quiet lounge.

Philip Ross continued. MySpace has 480 million users, but Murdoch is a digital immigrant not a digital native.

Work is changing:

• 1 in 4 children have a web page

• 1 in 2 people have worked for their company less than 5 years

• A new blog is created every second

• 2.7 billion google searches performed daily

• The number of SMS sent daily exceed population of the planet

• Reading The Times for one week contains more knowledge than a 16th century person learnt in their lifetime

• The speed of knowledge doubles every 72 hours

• Half of what you are taught on your degree is out of date by the end of 1st year

• 33 million in US use mobile to surf web

• By 2011 there will be 4 billion mobile phones

• By 2050, a £500 computer will be more powerful than the entire human species

Not to scare you or anything.

The solution?
The semantic web – FUSE – Find, Use, Share, Expand

You cannot control, only improve. Life and work is a continual Beta (like Google, everything in perpetual Beta). Google is the most valuable brand in the world at $80 billion.

Digital cities are about interconnecting objects – in the future devices will talk to each other.

Pervasive internet/ubiquitous computing/machine-to-machine communications – all terms for “the internet of things”.

• RFID – they now build 1.7 billion units a year, at just 4 cents a piece

• RFID – digital mousetrap in Wembley Stadium

• RFID – food products, log on to web to see what’s in your fridge

• RFID – your washing machine – knows what clothes you’ve put in, the machine does washing automatically

• RFID – Walmart replace the barcode with RFID tags

Clive Wilkinson, one of the world’s leading workplace architects, took the mantle with his talk on “Creative Space at Work”.

Workplace needs to be fit for the IDEA, to advance the PRODUCTION economy.

Small company = extended family
Large company = a community, with complex problems

Planning ideas he helped to deliver:

• WIRED magazine – ‘slinky planning’ – ‘leaking’, creates neighbourhoods

• Chiata – advertising ‘village’ – 500 people on one floor, creatives next to ‘central park’, basketball court, ‘main street’

• Palotta – office made of used shipping containers

• Mother (London) – started as 6 people at the kitchen table, which grew and grew… now UK’s No. 1 ad agency, big planks of kitchen tables. 4 week ‘random rotation’ of desks.
  

Google HQ project
Objectives:

• 1 – Circulation

• 2 – Enclosed meeting space

• 3 – Network learning

• 4 – Work/life balance

• “hot” areas – community, louder, social

• “cold” areas – private, studious

They created permeable spaces/zones:

• Meeting tree – permanent

• Slinky zone – temporary

• Service zone – on demand

• Club house – always there

Frank Duffy from DEGW (author of “The New Office”) chaired the concluding panel discussion on “Creating the Digital Workplace”.

Duffy gave an insightful overview of the history of workplace design. Workplaces are ‘mini cities’.

• 21st century office = security, sustainability, serendipity – the networked office – modular

• 20th century Taylorist Office – destroying guilds and workplace, creating the production line. Control – people in their place. Towerblocks – hierarchical – developer led

• Social Democratic Office (post WWII) – shared spaces

• 19th century, Bank of England – a walled ‘fortress’ but with public places for clients to walk which became an attraction

Business imperatives drive design – potential exceeded by measurables (the easiest things to measure are usually the least important)

In the future, patterns of work and usage of cities/places will become more variable (varying density) and more permeable.

Chris Kane, Head of Workplace at BBC and leading the BBC’s input into MediaCity:UK talked more about the project and showed a rather overblown video about how great it will all be when it’s finished. Kari Raina earlier told us Salford was port of England, MediaCity will be the portal of England.

A Media City needs to holistic and mix A grade with B, C and D office space. It needs to be comfortable, in variance to its inhabitants, from luxury to rugged depending on what/whom.

Buildings should be ‘future proof’, to change in the future, internal more important than external architecture.

In conclusion, many of the ideas and designs discussed today were futuristic, dazzling and almost unbelievable – were it not for the fact that they are already happening. It seems a long way from reality that media cities and advanced workplace technologies will be implemented by anything but the most leading edge companies and most progressive (and wealthy) town planners. Despite a recent trade mission by Arts Council West Midlands, Linz is still a long way from Coventry. And when it comes to civic design on a grand scale, the political buy-in and funds need to be in place – a hard battle for many British cities tackling great needs in housing, education and economic change.