Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Any real life event — be it a pop concert, an unconference like WPP Digital’s Stream, or a breakfast session during Internet Week — creates an automatic community. Most event communities, though, are ephemeral. Once the crowd goes home, that group of interacting people disappears.

I started to think about this when we expanded our Demystifying Digital conference from a single event in 2010 to an ongoing platform. And, as a volunteer director for Stream, I have seen firsthand how an annual event can grow into an always on community. TED, Cannes Lions, Burning Man — these cult happenings connect people all year.  Some of their success is organic; some is due to smart community building by the organizers. Given the much heralded ability of the Internet to build communities online, it seemed a natural topic for a Stream Local Discussion. How do we use the social net to fan the interaction sparked by a real life event into an ongoing, connected society? Join our IWE session on 08 November and share your experience and techniques.

We need some UK shoppers who are in market now for a research project we are doing. Can you help?

Share your journey as you look for your next smartphone.
Receive ≈£130 ($200) towards the purchase

We are looking for people between 18-45 who:
• Are about to purchase a new smartphone, but have no clear brand affiliation or preference
• Use the Internet to conduct product research prior to purchase
• Can document their shopping journey over 2-4 weeks, including post purchase

Is this you? Just email our Caroline Bourdeau right now.

If selected, you’ll need to share your search for the right smartphone on your social spaces of choice (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) Plus, you’ll get access to a secure site where you can post a live diary of your experience in researching information and seeking advice. We’ll provide guidelines, but it is pretty easy to do.

Our staff isn’t eligible, but please share with your friends.

I’m excited to be here at our office in Copenhagen polishing my presentation for tomorrow. This is our third full day D2 conference of 2011 following on the London event in June. We are blessed to once again have top shelf speakers from Facebook, Google Mobile, TNS, Wikipedia and especially welcome a new addition: Google+. In an input survey we are doing with our clients to structure the next conference, we had more clients asking to learn about Google+ than any other platform.

Follow #HKD2 for snippets from the day. We will be posting some of the presentations afterward. My short but sweet talk below to get the ball rolling. It explains what we mean by Demystifying Digital; feel free toping me if you want the voice over.

Just got out of a seminar where John Battelle was the guy on stage saying the smartest things. The rest of our team is over at the Google Sandbox or maybe looking for the Twitter Beach Lounge. Tomorrow, I scored a ticket to the Facebook reception but our client Say Media is putting on a bigger party with the hot electro dance punk band Friendly Fires.

SXSW? No. Welcome to Cannes Lions 2011 where there are as many people attending from the lands known as Silicon Valley (or Tech City) as from some actual countries.

Invasion of the Attention Snatchers

Of course, this has been going on for a while. As consumers have transformed into users, marketers must follow. As the audience’s attention has wandered far from the telly ad and deep into their iPad, agencies have added talent that know what heat mapping and usability testing mean.

Our own H&K seminar tomorrow features a creative powerhouse with an addiction factor all brands would die for. By bringing Peter Vesterbacka, the Mighty Eagle of Rovio Mobile, to the Debussy Theatre, we hope to share a little of the pixel dust that make Angry Birds such a magically success story. Please join us on 21 Tuesday at 5:30pm in Cannes or via Twitter everywhere.

Thursday was one of our big events of the year. Demystifying Digital—affectionately known as D2—is an ongoing, invitation-only H&K EMEA program that brings social platforms and our interactive communication experts together with brands. The content is geared to to live up to our goal of ‘demystifying’ and to offer H&K clients practical, hype free information.In other words, ‘news we can use’.  (I think too often the digital brotherhood falls into the trap of every religion where a layer of mysticism ensures the need for a guru to translate.)

The funny thing about a private event, though, is of course it is also public. We taped, pix and tweeted the day. Tony Wang, the head of Twitter’s new London office, was one of our speakers and in his honor I collected some of the #HKD2 tweets via Storify.

(More presentations and video content to come over the next week.)

@ThomasCrampton and Sir Martin talking about the state of digital at #streamasia [twitpic]
- @jasonoke

Now, I am partial to Ignite, but this is the can’t miss session at Stream. Like his talk last fall, this isn’t a documentation of all Sir Martin had to say, but rather what his audience here found most worth tweeting (that I was able to capture). So it is a tad agency-centric.

Never a bigger audience or more attention for the post lunch graveyard shift. An hour with Sir Martin.
- @jonnylang

Sir Martin Sorrell on stage @ #streamasia. It’s been a bumper year for WPP.
- @JonathanNguyen

Update: Here’s an offstage interview from the event where Sir Martin talks more about social. Check what he says about PR agencies.

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As the river of tweets flood in from Austin, I’ll be part of a more intimate stream. Stream Asia to be exact. Now in it’s fifth year, the invitation only WPP Digital unconference Stream was founded by Sir Martin Sorrell and Yossi Vardi. Today is the kick-off for the first one to be held in Asia.

While the appeal of SXSW is undeniable, I am so privileged to be here that I can’t be at all jealous of friends gathering in Texas. Both locations will have the high energy of a revival meeting, as is common with camps of people who view digital as a religion.

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I am getting excited about our contribution on Protecting Reputation on Tuesday, but am also planning to take advantage of the smörgåsbord of events across London. Which ones are you going to? Tweet me if you’ll be at any of the sessions below.

My dance card starts mid-day Monday with Apps Go Social. This panel discussion will look at the trends in mobile apps, especially the connecting point of social, local and mobile. Timely stuff (and oh, lunch is thrown in — yum).

Wednesday is a big day, kicking off with the ever more mega topic of Facebook. Hosted by agency We Are Social, I’m especially interested in the case study on Tesco Clothing.

That afternoon, a couple of retail sector clients will join me at the Social Sales panel hosted by the wonderful Chinwag. It has a great lineup, with the exploding Groupon as a highlight.

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As the net grew more social, smart companies took ‘humanize the brand’ off the PowerPoint slides and into action. The Community Manager job has become so much a tangible icon of the changes in corporate communication that 24 January has been anointed Community Manager Appreciation Day. They can be high powered famous or everyday people, but as a topic the buzz keeps building (even as command centers become the new new thing).

Like all people on the front lines, CMs do best when supported by a full team behind the scenes. (With experienced backup in case of crisis.) Technology scouts and creative content strategists are added to classic brand managers. Old friend David Jones talked about this here. Ideally, the CMs should have really big ears. I think major brands are just starting to realize what a treasure chest of insight active listening opens up.

The grand tradition of the Agency Christmas Party spreads wanton cheer from Spitalfields to Soho. At H&K, our ritual begins with a celebration we take very seriously — our internal Xcellence Awards. Fiercely contested — with sector heads shamelessly lobbying — we applaud the very best clients campaigns and the very talented people who make them happen.

This year I got to present the two gongs for Best Integrated Campaign and it struck me that the winners represented the full spectrum of the agency quite well. The international ITIDA work is a collaboration between the Energy & Industrials team and Bisqit, our design agency. This B2B success in shifting brand perception also won a WPPed Cream Award from WPP. The top domestic campaign, from the P&G Bold team, showed a different kind of expertise. Unwrapping the consumer insight that a big hug from your child makes a woman feel that she is doing a great job as mum, the multi-channel execution touched our hearts while delivering smashing results. Click for more winners and congratulations everyone.

Click here to see a few photos from our fancy dress ‘Wonderful in White’ festivity.