Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Tomorrow,  H+K Healthcare takes centre stage in Soho Square, with H+K Strategies‘ first-ever sector-specific Demystifying Digital (#HKD2).  With a formidable list of participants and speakers from major platforms as well as industry leaders from the public and private sector, the event is poised to make a real difference to our understanding of what’s possible and where we should be heading with healthcare digital communications this year. Kantar Health and Orital will talk about how patients and physicians really use the internet, Google will help us understand how we can make the most of Google+ and key note speaker, Kai Gait, Former Digital Commerce Marketing Manager, GSK will share specific examples of how to add value to our work with healthcare communities through digital initiatives. If you’re not able to come along tomorrow, don’t forget to follow #HKD2 on Twitter or check out the blog for a post-event summary.

We’ll be back on the blog after the event to let you know how it all went!

Trying to prep my bit for the WPP Stream London IWE event in our bar tomorrow, I got totally side tracked. Google launched brand Pages on Google+. Hurrah.

Have been waiting and watching for this since forever. Well, since G+ itself launched. There are many feature-led business reasons I think this is so important for brands. But, in my gut, I really really want all the people working on the brands we represent to feel the rush. To beat their competitors off the starting blocks. To be an early adopter brand.

Those are my emotional reasons. The top practical ones include:

• Hangouts
  • The much touted live video tool you can use for everything from a user focus group to a press briefing (video)
• Ripples
  • A lovely visualization of how a post is shared (video). Clearly, identifying top contributors and influencers is key for our clients and Google knows how to provide tools to help. And it’s free.
• Direct Connect
  • This is huge. Users can type +BrandName in Google Search and get a direct link to that Brand’s Google+ Page. It’s not just great for users, it is a reminder of the real power of Google overall.

There is nothing better than to learn by doing. And early adopters learn more, faster. Facebook is almost eight years old; Twitter launched in 2006. Neither was built for brands and, to be honest, many brands are still not sure what to do there. That’s ok. Have a play with Google+ and it just may help your company get serious with an overall social strategy. It’s not a zero sum game and I think the future is a multi-platform place.

We have been doing Workshops on Google+ (and other things) so ping us if you want to know more. And please do circle me.

The pretence that this blog is a weekly thing really has to stop. One month since the last one, fact fans. I’ve had THINGS TO DO. Not least going to Brussels and Croatia, where I went on holiday and did NOTHING other than read and swim and be horizontal. It was awesome, and as a result I now look less like this and more like this. No really, I do.

BUT that was then and this is now; I have returned to a world in which the internet spends all its time railing against the evil of corporations and then…er…goes incontinent with grief over the passing of the head of one of the world’s largest corporations; in which Silvio manages to somehow become even more ridiculous and offensive;  and a world in which somehow one of the members of 1980s pop combo Hue & Cry has become a consultant on games, play and ludic theory. We live in interesting times. Here are some totally insignificant bits of online ephemera to help distract you from what appears to be the total meltdown of civilisation which is going on all around us. Christ, I sound like an old man.

Socially responsible graffiti on a Croatian beach hut

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The answer of course, is no, it didn’t, although some mainstream commentators are getting a little excited about it. There’s no doubt that new media and digital channels like Twitter and Facebook certainly played an incredibly influential role in the events in Tunisia and in the downfall of President Mubarak, but a little perspective is probably needed.  

Social media is invaluable as it offers a new spectrum of platforms, or channels, for communication with either local, regional or global networks. Not easily shut down and offering immediacy transparency and exchanges of information, it allows an easy flow of information, both good and bad.

Charlie Beckett, Director of the POLIS think tank at the LSE offers some words of wisdom on the subject here. He argues that when looking at the Middle East, social media could actually now be a really useful indicator, or even predictor, of political change. He also rejects the causal link arguing real important pre-conditions for any revolution will always be socio-economic.  

Mr Twitter himself, Biz Stone, also argues that social media plays a supporting role but not a starring one. “How a revolution comes to be is a mystery to me. It’s important to credit the brave people that take chances to stand up to regimes. They’re the star. What I like to think of services like Twitter and other services is that it’s a kind of supporting role.”

As I write this piece, Colonel Gaddafi is now refusing to stand down in a defiant speech being shown live on Libyan state television (shown in UK thanks to the BBC!).  So let the social networks in Tripoli play their role – but just please don’t call your next born ‘Facebook’.

 I came across this piece of animation recently that I thought was worth sharing. It’s from my WPP cousins over at Ogilvy and is a clever ‘Jack & Jill’ story of the evolution of social media.

I thought some people might find it useful to share with colleagues, clients or friends and family who might still not quite ‘get it’ (*smiles and winks*)

I guess my main observation on this clip is that it focuses purely on advertising and its relationship with the consumer. The same could obviously be said for public relations and its engagement with commercial audiences, although of course the growth and development of social media has actually been more substantive than that, fundamentally adding a new spectrum of channels to how we all engage with each other, not just brands with consumers blah, blah, blah..

Anyway, nice piece of film. Enjoy!

I was away.  Now I am back. Try and contain your joy (I know it’s hard, but for Christ’s sakes show some backbone, will you?).

So when we last spoke I was about to go on holiday here – unfortunately, I ended up somewhere that looks a lot more like here. It all went to tits, webmongs, and frankly it’s still a bit raw and painful. Suffice it to say that I will not be buying the US Department of Homeland Security a Christmas card this year.

But! It wasn’t all bad! The World Cup started! And then finished again yesterday, as far as I’m concerned (my own personal message to the Italian team can be seen here, should you care to look). Deutschland uber alles for Sunday, by the way. Even better, Big Brother started again! Eh? Oh. Look, I’m not ashamed – until they finally do that televised version of the Stanford Prison Experiment here in the UK, it’s the only place i can get my fix of legitimised pychological torture. And this year it features a man with no legs and only one eye, who frankly cannot fail to win. You don’t vote out the mutilated squaddie – put the house on him to come first (NB – Web Curios accepts no responsibility for houses lost as a result of gambling) The weather’s nice, that self-indulgent tool won’t be ruining Glastonbury, and a Brit’s in with a chance at Wimbledon! Calloo, callay, o frabjous day, etc etc.

Oh, who am I trying to kid? I totally failed to go on holiday and spent a week slumped in front of the (really, really mediocre) football, dulling my frontal lobes with drink and drugs in an attempt to numb the pain as big salty tears trickled down my cheeks. England could well jam their way to winning the World Cup, forcing me to emigrate. The weather may be nice, but I’m a wageslave officemonkey who’s chained to his desk for hours at a time so I can’t enjoy it. And I’m obviously not at Glastonbury. Modern Life Is Rubbish, and so is the blog this week. Suck it up.

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It’s hard to know where to start this week. THERE HAS SIMPLY BEEN SO MUCH HAPPENING. Frankly, though, it probably doesn’t matter what I write here (yes, I know that it never matters, but indulge me) given the fact that The Rapture is almost certainly nearly upon us. Look at the evidence – volcanoes, strange lights in the sky, Nick ‘Casanova’ Clegg now a shoo-in at No.10 after proving himself the least robotic and inhuman of our three potential leaders on TV last night…the end times are coming. Frankly it’s only a matter of moments before the skies are filled with smug Christians all laughing and pointing as they are raised up to heaven to watch the rest of us boil in fiery eternal torment (obviously there is NOTHING remotely un-Christian about this image). With that in mind we might as well enjoy our last moments, and what better way to do that than to waste the final precious minutes of life remaining to us by staring catatonically at a computer screen and ‘enjoying’ this week’s roundup of ephemeral rubbish that couldn’t be any less consequential? But before we get started, an amazing photo of a volcano (no, not this one) from the most amazing man on Twitter, @Astro_Soichi:

Two lakes inside a volcano, taken from space. Yes, SPACE.

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I’d thought about trying to compose something pithy and insightful for the opening section this week, but frankly all I can think of is the upcoming 4-day weekend. It’s times like this that I’m particularly grateful to Jesus for riling up the Romans and getting himself nailed to a tree (as with all the good stuff on here, that line’s courtesy of someone better than me – in this case, the late, great Douglas Adams). Freedom, webmongs, sweet freedom (or at least the transitory illusion of freedom, which frankly is pretty much all any of us can hope for, with our useless arts degrees and a future of interminable wage-slavery ahead of us). To celebrate, I give you THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN CATS (one of the finest things ever to appear in Viz):

A plate depicting the life of Christ through the medium of cats. No more, no less.

Anyway, feline frippery aside, here’s this week’s offerings…:

[NB - if you're strapped for time, can I just suggest that you go straight to the last video and watch it. 23 seconds you won't regret. Obviously if you've got time then read everything as it's all...well, pretty mediocre, frankly]

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Do you remember when you were at school and you would come in on a Monday after a haircut dreading the inevitable pisstaking from your classmates? I’ve been reminded of that this week. Anyone would think I had come into work having sprouted horns (not entirely unreasonable; remind me to tell you the story of when I sold my soul to Satan in exchange for good exam results one day), but no, all it is is that I now have short hair. For those of you who don’t know me, I now look like this:

Me, with a friend, yesterday

Whereas before I looked more like this:

Yahoo Serious. Younger readers will have no idea who this is. FIE ON YOU, YOUNGER READERS.

Anyway, enough of this crap. On with the web-related crap instead.

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