Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Afternoon, world (note the hubris – ‘afternoon, handful of bored webmongs’ would almost certainly be more accurate). Once again, Web Curios (no movement on the title situation as yet) comes to you on a Thursday, due to my once more taking solace in the comfort of the 4-day week. I used to have a permanent 4-day week in my old job. It was amazing (the 4-day week, not the job; the job was a bit pony), and I miss it very much. I think that going back to a 4-day week would make me much happier and more productive.

ARE YOU READING THIS, BOSSMAN RICHARD MILLER? Eh? Oh. *sulks*

Ahem. Anyway, without further ado, to business!

A Smart Perspective On BBC Cuts – The big story of the week, at least amongst generic media types in the UK (yes, yes, like me), has been over the BBC Strategy Review, published on Tuesday, which recommended a whole raft of cuts to the Corporation’s output to cut costs – most notably the axing of BBC 6Music and the BBC Asian Network, as well as a scaling back of non-programme related content on the BBC website as a whole. Lots has been written on this already, but the above blog post by Adrian Hon is a thought-provoking summary of why the ’savings’ in terms of BBC Online are a nonsense.

Foursquare Partners with Vodafone UK – not massive news, but interesting as an example of how savvy Foursquare are being in linking up with media partners. This is exactly the sort of deal that (they hope) will take them from being the current darling of the early-adopter set to something that normal people know, like and use on a regular basis.

‘Dr’ Neil ‘Foxy’ Fox IN A PAIR OF GOLDEN PANTS - promoting Prostate UK’s Pants in the Park fundraising run:

A minor celebrity wearing humiliating underwear, yesterday.

The US Air Force’s ‘Rules of Engagement’ for Blogging – You know that people are taking digital seriously when the US Air Force starts publishing guidelines for its employees as to when they should / shouldn’t respond to blogs or forum comments on the organisation. What’s even more surprising is how measured and sensible the recommendations are – all organisations should have something similar if they are engaging with audiences online. FACT.

Probably the Coolest iPhone App To Date – watch for yourself. Turn your iPhone into an audio looping system. Almost inevitably this will end up with you turning into an annoying git who believes themselves to be the saviour of UK beatmaking – but that’s not the technology’s fault, it’s YOU. Or you could turn out to be the next Beardyman, which would be good.

The Best Website Takeover Animation Yet – there have been lots of these over the past year (most notably this one for Nintendo), but the latest (for a US brand of chips and salsa) is particularly good. Wonderful way to add an extra layer of interest to your online videos.

World Bank Launches Alternate Reality Game – I’ve been saying for years that Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) – basically a fancy way of saying big, interactive stories – are going to be huge. I’ve continually been proved wrong, with a few notable exceptions. Nontheless, Evoke – just launched, commissioned by the World Bank Institute and built by legendary game designer Jane McGonigal, the game is designed to “help empower young people all over the world, and especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems”. This is part of a trend that I think we will see more of in the coming years – people, including Governments, increasingly trying to use fun as an agent of educational and behavioural change. Although hopefully not like this

A few videos to finish…

1) Tokyo Glow – just a gorgous film / animation of Tokyo by night

2) Song of the Week – in honour of the gig I am not going to tomorrow, here’s Madvillain (MF Doom & Madlib) with Strange Ways

3) This has been all over the place this week – a gorgeous Olivo Barbieri-inspired video of a day in New York which looks like it’s been recreated in miniature. Just watch it:

4) Finally a plug for the new spoken word show by the amazingly talented Polar Bear – he’s doing a whole film in spoken word. Hard to explain, but check out the below and, if you like it, take a punt on the tickets. You won’t be disappointed.

Today we’re launching the ‘Golden Pants’ campaign for Prostate UK.  Yes, Golden Pants. It’s all about raising awareness of prostate disease and driving registration for the Pants in the Park events… 5k runs that are taking place all over the UK this summer. 

One in two men will suffer from a prostate disease at some point in their life and it’s vital for prostate problems to be caught and treated early. One of our main challenges is that men tend to fit the ‘strong silent’ stereotype on issues like this: they just don’t like talking about it and they definitely don’t like going to the doctor. So we wanted to create something that got people talking… hence the Golden Pants. And so far it’s working – the campaign’s generating a lot of buzz in the media and online which is great and will help with the awareness.

And that’s all good. But the best charity campaigns combine awareness with action. The true success of the campaign will be measured by the number of people we get running in their pants to raise money, the amount of money we raise and most importantly the number of men who get tested for a prostate disease. The Golden Pants are just the beginning…

Gold pants spotted on London landmarks

I should probably try and come up with a better title than this. One thing at a time, though, eh?

This week’s selection of stuff is coming to you a day earlier than normal, as tomorrow I am taking the day off to recover from this charity fundraiser. Given that Haiti is still in an absolute mess, you may want to donate money to an appropriate organisation here or here – go on, you know you want to.

Anyway, this week’s (bumper) selection begins with…

AMAZING FLYING ROBOT LIGHTSHOW – Those amazingly clever people at MIT have put together a prototype video to show what can be done with an army of light-up miniature helicopters. Frankly, after seeing the potential of this stuff even 3d projection starts to look a bit lame…

Vogue iPhone app makes ‘Clueless’ a reality – remember in the film ‘Clueless’ when Alicia Silverstone’s spoilt California teen uses a computer programme to coordinate an outfit from her MASSIVE wardrobe? If you’re under 30 there’s every possibility you won’t, but no matter – Vogue has created an iPhone app that does much the same thing. What’s interesting is that it only allows you to input your clothes into the app if they’re made by one of Vogue’s current advertisers – smart way of keeping your paymasters happy and incentivising other brands to take the plunge and buy ad space with you.

AxeCop - this isn’t strictly speaking new (it’s been knocking about the internet for a month or so), but I want everyone in the world to see it and marvel at its beauty. AxeCop is the stories of 5 year old Malachai Nicolle, as illustrated by his very talented elder brother Ethan. It is basically the insanity of a small boy’s imagination, beautifully illustrated and turned into a comic strip. Read it and weep with laughter. A video taster is below:

Jaron Lanier on people, the internet, the free culture movement…well, everything really – This is a transcript of Dr Aleks Krotoski’s interview with Jaron Lanier as part of the BBC’s recent series of programmes on the internet, ‘The Virtual Revolution’. Lanier, fyi, is one of the great pioneers of internet technology and the author of the recently published ‘You Are Not A Gadget’. I won’t attempt to summarise it here, but if you have any interest whatsoever in the way the web is changing the manner in which we consume information, relate to each other, buy things, sell things, think about things, create things…then you should read this.

Apropos nothing, a rather nicely designed poster for K-Swiss trainers

I like this (via http://bntl.co.uk/)

More Wonderful Scandinavian Creativity – I don’t know what it is with the public sector in Sweden and their ability to use social media incredibly well, but after the brilliant ‘Your Face Here’ viral from Swedish state TV last year they have done it again. The above is a link to a case study of a brilliant campaign by the Swedish Post Office to target the elderly, in part by showing them how easy internet shopping is (because if you shop on the internet, the post office benefits). Watch, marvel, inevitably try and steal.

Newsweek in 1995, telling us all why the internet will never catch on – no explanation necessary.

Noone Knows What The F*ck They’re Doing – a very funny, very true, rant about three types of knowledge. Rumsfeldian in parts, but no worse for it. WARNING – CONTAINS 4-LETTER WORDS.

Video of the Week: ‘Scissor’ by Liars