Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Ah, happy days. Rates of suicide and depression are up but we’re going to have an index that measures just how bad good we feel – that sounds like a plan. Not to worry, we’re all just made of stardust after all. So many things to like this week, it’s hard to choose.

Proceeding to the sand.

#1 like: Avoiding the Royal Wedding. So, a Royal Wedding… that’s nice. Not much more to add (unlike the Mail and the Express - but at least the latter has found a new focus). A bit over it which is slightly unfortunate considering there’s probably seven or eight months to go. Avoiding most of the media coverage – phrases that include headlines such as ‘Cindy Crawford hair’ make me want to stick pins in my eyes. Yes, Kate has good hair and I agree with her fondness for Issa but really, have some pride, people. Classic example of how the news is now the ‘not-news’, just predictions and speculation. Based on the five minutes of the engagement interview I did see,  some media training might come in useful. I’m sure it’s already been covered but judging by her answer to the question about following in Princess Diana’s footsteps, a bit more wouldn’t go amiss. It’s not an easy one but glaringly obvious given the choice of ring (btw, ‘The ring: touching tribute, nod to austerity chic, or just a bit spooky? Discuss.’) and it wasn’t a great answer but William rescued it. Hurrah.

Poetry.

#2 like: First Story. Really awesome programme that puts authors into ‘challenging’ secondary schools to run creative writing workshops. Good piece in the Indy today. It’s not necessarily about creating authors but about the power of writing in building confidence and creativity, both supporting and liberating the writer. What’s not to love about a programme that’s inspired the opening line ‘Life as a banana isn’t great’? (Kudos to Roisin Williams.)

May your pencil be full of lead.

#3 like: The right song at the right time. Sometimes, the Universe provides exactly the right song at exactly the right time. For example, Paolo Nutini at … well, pretty much at any time when you need a bit of perspective and a reminder of how awesome things are.

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

Hello. I’m Matt – I am a Digital Consultant here at Hill & Knowlton. No, I don’t really know what that job title means either – let’s just ignore it for now.

Each week I am going to chuck together a collection of (hopefully) interesting things that I have found online, all neatly collected into one blog post for your amusement and edification. I hope you feel as thrilled about this as you ought to.

I’m always on the lookout for recommendations as to places I can find more of this stuff, so drop me a line and let me know if you have any content motherlodes out there that you think I should be aware of. Anyway, without further ado, onto this week’s selection:

Choosing An Email Subject Line - I know, I know, it doesn’t sound interesting, but I promise that it is (well, if you do online comms, at least). A simple, step by step look at how to choose a subject line for an email that people might actually want to open. Lessons which can be applied to optimising web content in general, frankly.

The Code Organ – Far less filthy than it might initially sound, this is a very cool little tool put together by the folk at advertising agency DLKW (also the home of minor Twitter celebrity (sorry Dan) @adlandsuit). It basically takes the code of any webpage and parses it through an engine that turns that very code into MUSIC. Not only a very nifty bit of coding and a nice creative, but a great piece of PR for the agency – this went EVERYWHERE on Twitter on Thursday. FYI, this blog sounds like this, apparently.

WWF Advert – Just a great creative, simply executed.

Augmented Reality Maps by Microsoft - The ever-amazing TED (Technology Entertainment Design -  they run talks by interesting people on interesting topics, basically) showcasing a presentation by Microsoft’s Blaise Aguera y Arcas on some frankly jaw-dropping augmented reality mapping software. This is the future.

Twitter Users Are Getting Younger – good stats on internet usage trends amongst 18-24 year olds from Brand Republic.

Chatroulette – if you haven’t heard about this yet, you will shortly. Coded by a 17 year-old Russian boy in his bedroom, this site basically allows pairs strangers to videochat with each other. The caveat, of course, being that the selection of who you get paired with is entirely random. It’s worth checking out at least once – just incredibly compelling, if only from a curiosity point of view – but NOT AT WORK. I was on there for 10 minutes on Monday night and saw a lot of penises. Not metaphorical penises, but real ones. That might be your cup of tea, but it’s probably not your boss’s. You can get a flavour for the weirdness here (NSFW due to occasional, slightly grainy nudity).

A REAL LIFE DRAGON!!!!! – courtesy of the fascinating Science Punk Blog

DRAGON!!!!!

And finally, my song of the week – She Said by Plan B