Mark Kelly

I don’t normally talk about client work (ok – I did that in the last post) but the current ‘All babies count’ campaign (which I’ve been working on at @brassagency) falls under ‘non-commercial disclosure’ territory.

Babies are eight times more likely to be killed than any other child. A pretty stark fact.  And the NSPCC are committed to ensuring that the public, all professionals and governments protect babies.

I’m not giving away any trade secrets in saying that the NSPCC is using social media and online marketing in general to really get their message across, to raise awareness of a range of issues and to engender a sense of community amongst supporters. And to gain tangible support (via pledge signups and /or donations) along the way.
They are using a range of ways to engage followers / fans and galvanise people into action (including the multiplier effect of friends of fans in Facebook). They / we are also running a blogger outreach programme to help spread the word.

And as a charity, all of this needs to be done within a finite budget, so all of the above has to be effective and measurable.

Anyway – enough of the marketing talk – this was more a personal post to do my bit to raise awareness of the campaign:
The resources that the NSPCC make available for new parents is great, frankly I wish I’d been aware or had access to them (way) back when I became as Dad.

Being a new parent is fantastic but it can also be a pretty lonely and very stressful place at 1.00 a.m, 3.00 a.m, 3.30 a.m .. etc, when baby is crying incessantly. Having a range of materials available to better understand the cues your baby is giving you, or to explain how to deal with acute tiredness is brilliant.

Have a look at the campaign site for more information. And please take a minute to sign the pledge form! Thanks

Related articles

• Up To 200,000 Brit Babies ‘At Risk Of Abuse’ (news.sky.com)
• Charity warns of babies at risk (bbc.co.uk)

The Life Online gallery at the National Media Museum is taking shape (opening at the end of March) and it is going to be fantastic. The guys at the museum are passionate about their subject matter and about creating a world class gallery – its been a great experience working with them. I’ve been part of the team at @brassagency that has been supporting the museum in planning and launching the Life Online gallery. I’ve been visiting the museum for years so it was great to get involved in this initiative – one of those work / life crossovers that’s really rewarding.

This will be the world’s first gallery to explore the impact of the internet across all areas of culture, politics, our individual lives and from its inception onwards.
It’s a mix of In Real Life exhibits and experiences within newly redesigned museum areas and also online / interactive presences.

Brass are one of the sponsors of the gallery along with Start JudgeGill and Virgin Media and we’ve been supporting the Life Online social media and digital marketing campaigns with a range of work. A couple of us are also on the advisory panel.  The gallery content itself has had input from a variety of web experts e.g Ben Hammersley , (Prime Minister’s Ambassador to TechCity and editor at large of Wired); Google and Microsoft guys (don’t have details sorry) and Rob Wilmot and Ajaz Ahmed who founded Freeserve.

For updates follow @mediamuseum  and get involved as it develops!

Info on the gallery and exhibitions can be found here :

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisit/Exhibitions/LifeOnlineExhibition/PermanentGallery.aspx

If you are in the UK and haven’t been to the museum before – get there : the other exhibitions (photography, film, et al)  are superb and this will be no different.

We generate a lot of stuff on this here planet – more and more every year (or week, or day – being strictly singularity about it) .

In this context I’m talking about digital stuff.. images (still, moving, captured or made) and words. Far too much to ever be able to consume.

Which is fine, I’m not looking for a Matrix download or for Joe90 glasses (although…) but I do like to get a broad update on stuff that interests me. For me that’s digital marketing / tech, ‘Art’ and also Walking and Hiking. I can (and do) use RSS feeds pulled onto my igoogle page (and tabbed by interest area) but its a bit of a ‘flat’ experience and not that social.

Which is why I’ve set up three paper.li ‘newspapers’ (more like magazines in look maybe). They look really nice and  it makes scanning and / or in-depth reading more enjoyable.
They are also social. By that I mean that when the next edition is ready, one or more ‘contributors’ (at that stage unaware they’ve added to my paper.li for that week) will be included in a tweet that’s automatically generated. I’ve found and ‘met’ some great bloggers (for example) by being included myself along with others on someone else’s digital marketing paper.li.

You can also see what paper.li publications others subscribe to and find new stuff that way.

I”m not really that sophisticated with the service – I point one of my twitter lists at a new paper, change some of the settings ( design, frequency of aggregation/publishing..) and that’s it. You can get more picky by screening your twitter list by (say) PeerIndex or Klout scores (e.g. just publish ‘big hitters’). But I have people on my lists because I like them / what I’ve read.. ‘Influence’ score isn’t that paramount in this setting.

You can also bring in specific content you find elsewhere on web as a ‘guest’ article and also change the order of articles. So moving from being an Aggregator to an Editor. Which is a great feature and some nice examples of how people have used paper.li for groups / communities etc can be found on their community site (http://community.paper.li/).

And just because someone is on a twitter list doesn’t mean they just write / tweet about that subject area, so paper.li catergorises the content into areas such as technology, education., leisure .. very useful.

I read my paper/s on my phone and also on the big screen (Mac or laptop). I haven’t as yet got a tablet but I think they would  great read that way, probably better and more newspaper like.

My 3 paper.li newspapers are:
- Digital marketing groups and organisations (so I can see articles and news from people like eConsultancy, The IDM, Mashable etc)
(here : http://paper.li/markkelly333/dgtal-groups-events-assoc-21 )

- Digital marketing bloggers (people I’ve met or come across who write imho a reta marketing blog)
(here : http://paper.li/markkelly333/1325684684 )

- And ‘the feeding station : Art & that‘ : Artists, photographers, makers , galleries etc.. I nice way for me to see whats new exhibition or artistic practice wise
(here: http://paper.li/markkelly333/1323964517# )

I haven’t set one up for my hiking / outdoorsy twitter list as that’s pretty small and manageable to scan and read as is.

Have you used this service or do you prefer RSS .. or another aggregation service ?

Related articles

• Tech & Your Biz: How Paper.li Can Fit Into the Content Mix (smallbiztechnology.com)
• Beta Test the New Paper.li “Nomad” (paper.li)

New year , new blog (platform). Seemed a good time to make the move.

And an excuse to noodle away hours on trying out new themes, new widgets.

Hmm, maybe should have left it well enough alone.

Anyway, I’m in the process of pulling across all my content from a squarespace account into wordpress (markkelly.net was on squarespace for years but I’ve made the move to WP ) ..
hence the current clunky design, the lack of images etc (they all need re-adding which is a bit painful, going back 3 years or more!)

So stick with me as I rebuild my blog, thanks.

Oh, please RSS, fave, +1 , like, tweet, gasp .. as much as you like .
Or just say hello in the comments of this inaugural (kind of) post ..thanks

btw – the featured image is (should be) one of the older photos on my ‘old’ squarespace blog. It features a Pleo, which I left behind when I left McCanns. I miss the Pleo. I like dinosaur-shaped robots.

For those of you who don’t  know what flavors.me is (or indeed rival service about.me) – it started life as a signposting site.. a way for your to have a web based introductions card / signpost to all your disparate online presences.

Handy for things like business cards or email signatures.. People can then choose which of your streams to check out : your tweets, your photos (on flickr) your CV / résumé or biz updates on LinkedIn  etc. Flavors.me has now expanded  that initial service further by allowing you to see what other flavors.me users are updating within their respective ‘native’ services.

I wrote about both the new service itself and where that could go in the future : have a look here over on the Brass Agency blog  (3 stories in , scroll down the page).

I’ve also written about it before here : aggregated online personas on markkelly.net

And as an update to how these type of services are doing..  Google trends seams to suggest that both services have similar numbers of searches now and also site visits (whereas as about.me was ahead on both for the last year or more : http://trends.google.com/websites?q=about.me,+flavors.me&date=all&geo=all&ctab=0&sort=1&sa=N

Personally I prefer flavors.me because of the other users aggregating  tool thing and I’m used to the design options and functionality now. But the about.me url is much better…

Do you use either? if not, why not ? if so – which do you prefer?

Related articles

• 3 Sites to Showcase Your Personal Brand (junta42.com)
• Flavors.me Heads Into Tumblr Territory With “Follow” Buttons & Plans To Support Content Creation (techcrunch.com)
• Flavors.me evolves from personal landing page and shows off its social aspirations (digitaltrends.com)
• The all new Flavors.me: A social network to unite all social networks? (thenextweb.com)

I went to another great panel debate as part of the recent @LDSdigital Festival – this time it was geolocation and what that means to different people (whether marketing practitioners, tech heads or ‘the public’).

I haven’t got time (sadly, as I’d like to) to replicate the session content or conclusions (as such) and I don’t think it was filmed, so this is just a signpost for the Leeds Digital festival website (above) where you can get more info.
And also to say that its clear we’re still collectively figuring out what works (and maybe what doesn’t) to get meaningful (as in, making money or offering brand value) engagement.

And also that the panel was really good (worth following these guys .. I’ve added correct twitter adds I think):

 
Lawrence Alexander (Bezier) – @larrysbrain

Imran Ali (LSx Festival of Technology) - @imran

Ashley Dawes (Zap!) (@zapmenow)

Adrian Inman (Order of Magnitude) (@adrianinman)

Sean Murricane (Welcome to Yorkshire) (https://twitter.com/#!/seaneeboy)

Matt Seward (Kilo75) (https://twitter.com/#!/mattseward)

Tim Waters (GeolQ) (https://twitter.com/#!/tim_waters)

my tweets sort of summarised (badly) what I thought at the time or agreed with:

 
Also here’s a link to a USA panel I looked at a few months back and a post I wrote :

http://markkelly.net/2010/09/23/are-we-nearly-there-yet/

And another post I’ve written on geolocation / location based marketing:

http://markkelly.net/2010/10/18/location-based-services-versus-bluetooth-proximity-marketing/

Related articles

• 70% of Americans Have No Idea What Geolocation Apps Are (readwriteweb.com)
• Adoption of geolocation applications has remained stagnant (venturebeat.com)

So , Google has launched a new music service,  intended to take on Facebook’s Spotify tie-up and bash Apple (Apple juice?), but with music linked to your Google + account. And it should help tie together a range of Google’s services like G+, youtube and search.

Although just launched, there’s been a lot of behind the scenes label negotiations (of course) and it can boast a huge song base already (at c.13 million songs). Which compares against around 15 Million (according to Wikipedia) for Spotify and 18 Million or more at the end of 2010 for iTunes (so 20+million now maybe).

The band (artist) hub feature looks really good, maybe a bit more dynamic than Facebook pages (in design maybe, not reach initially). And an alternative to Facebook is good for fans and prices surely? With Android now having 52% of the global smartphone OS market (Gartner Nov 2011) artists will be making the most of the band hub feature that Google Music will offer, potentially putting some squeeze on Facebook band pages and impacting on ad revenue in that space?

And as android user it should be easier for me to buy and sync tracks for my phone. Not that its such a hassle now but it’s a two stage process and I use an app called Double Twist which links my iTunes purchases and playlists with my Android  smartphone.

Secondly, it may make Google+ more social. I’m still not Google+ ing much but music can be a real conversation starter so it may oil the wheels of adoption in that space.  But I won’t know if that’s the case for a while as Goggle Music is only available in the states at launch.

And there’s an obvious eCommerce tie in with YouTube , letting you purchase a tune straight from a video that fires you up. But will Google music move past the G+ / android space and be a bigger crowd pleaser? I’m not so sure it will.

Related articles

• Google Music launches massive sale (techradar.com)

I went the Leeds Girl Geek dinner (http://lsx.co/girlgeek/what.html) event last night. The second for me but 9^th for the organisers. And from last night I’d say there’ll be a lot more as it was really well attended. Mostly by girls but that’s the point.  Men are allowed but only if invited by a girl.. I’m saying ‘men’ not ‘boys’ as I’m way too old to be a boygeek. Greygeek, chapgeek, baldgeek.. much better descriptors.

As the website said (and I knew from the one male amongst women organisers, @Imran) “so far, we’re expecting 47 girl geeks and 02 guy geeks…” As a fairly shy guy that ratio was a bit intimidating as I headed over to the Mint hotel. And to be really honest as its billed Girl Geeks I didn’t want to intrude in a space where maybe some women felt more comfortable without men around. But the ethos is one of geekdom and digital discussion above all else – and I knew from the last event I’d be welcome. And I was again, it was a great atmosphere, really good food (that’s a biggie on my list) , two great speakers and lots of questions for them from the audience.

As I say, the two speakers were great, both really interesting. First up was Kathryn Grace (@KGBD ) who is a Design Manager at Everything Everywhere. Kathryn talked about Service Design and gave a really good overview of it (I’m not sure if there’ll be a slideshare so here’s some background for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_design). Some of the things Kathryn talked about around having T shaped Designers .. e.g able to think / work across a range of disciplines .. resonated with the recent debate at a Leeds Digital Lunch on design for digital (see my last post).

Second up was a talk from Elizabeth Sanderson (@lizziesanderson ) who is Leeds City Council‘s Web Services Manager. She talked with lots of humour about wrestling an all male team into Agile methodology submission through the use of postcards and wipeboards and the liberal use of Donuts. And probably body slams (ok, (I’m making that bit up) as she’s a Roller Derby player. I don’t know much about Roller Derby but Rollerball is one of my top 20 films ever and based on that, I’d get my part of a coding project delivered on time if Lizzie ran a team I was in. And not forgetting the brave (as was a new approach for the council) but forward thinking approach of using Agile and not getting Prince2′d into IT deadlock.  I don’t live in Leeds so I wasn’t focusing on whether the new website that is being built using the Agile / Scrum approach will get my bins empted (I’m sure it will), it was just a really interesting insight. I’ve worked with anther UK council and I know they were looking at similar challenges of Marketing / design / UX / ‘IT’ build process harmony.

So, the ethos of the evenings is really sound I think and as the Girl Geeks site says : ” It is a learning experience for both the men and the women as men in tech aren’t used to interacting with women in tech on a technical level. Technical women are also not used to being technical with other women either… it’s a learning curve on all sides.”

I know some geeky girls (yes, yes I do) (some of them are cited here for no particular reason other than they’re all nice and geeky: @sarahkplatt, @ally_manock @scarletgeek, @eeegeeH, @robbolina, @monicatailor, @LauraMcbeth), but it was a good and refreshing thing to meet even more last night.

The evening was also under the working umbrella of Leeds Digital Festival , which is shaping up to be a really full and varied schedule and all credit to the guys who organised it.
If you’re in the Leeds region have  a look at the site and see what’s on during November.

Related articles

• Girl Geeks: 30 women under 30 in digital (socialalchemyuk.wordpress.com)

I went to a couple of events last week that reminded me that its good to get out of the office, off twitter (kinda) and blogs and meet up with some humans to hear first hand what they think about a range of things digital marketing related.

Both of the events were under the umbrella of the Leeds Digital Festival 2011 although the second event was actually part of Teeside University‘s business school (http://tees.ac.uk/spark/) but publicised by Leeds Digital Festval.

Anyway, the first thing was a lunch time session panel around design and the web. There was some really interesting areas covered e.g What does it mean to be a digital designer? -  where do you stop in terms of needing a really good UX / IA / mobile / code appreciation if you’re a ‘web designer’ ? And the web.. is it dead? (err, no – but not going to expand on this here – just letting you know some of the areas that were covered.)
Actually on the web versus App debate – I think the article that sparked the question was the one from Wired last year about the Web being dead. I covered that here http://www.markkelly.net/blog/2010/8/23/all-our-apps-must-die.html.

If it wasn’t that article and someone knows which it was, just kick me and I’ll reference the right (newer?) the-web-is-dead article.

See #LDSdigital or #LeedsDigitalLunch on twitter to get a feel for the rest of the discourse it generated. These sessions are proving really popular and the web site details the rest that are coming up in the near future (see link above).

Then in the evening there was a great panel talk around TV and the 2nd screen – and how that has been mostly ‘updates’ on facebook or twitter but is changing into a range of community (and gamification) based stuff (e.g GetGlue, which I use). And even programme evolution, based on the views and interactions happening on the 2nd screen.

The panel comprised of

• Peter Cowley, CEO, Spirit Digital Media
  - a really good chair for the panel.
• Anna Cronin, Commissioning Editor: Convergent Formats, Channel 4
  - there was an interesting update from Anna about the convergent formats commissioning work they’re in the process of talking to the creative and tech industries about.

• Howard Burch, Executive Producer, Kudos Film & Television(exec producer of Spooks – actual Spooks, one of my favourite shows. That alone was enough to forgive Howard’s sef-declared Luddism. Actually, understandable hesitance about the distracting effect of the 2nd Screen in relation to great drama like Spooks.
• David Eccles, Director/Founder, Numiko
  
  Numiko have worked on a range of supporting digital media for TV shows, have  a look at their site for more.
• Tom Gutteridge, Director, Screen Reach Interactive and Visiting Professor, Teesside UniversityTom demo’d ‘Screach‘ – an app that lets your phone interact in a range of real-time ways with TV shows (any digital screen actually I think) .. I downloaded the app as Tom was demo-ing it but I found it a bit hard to keep up with the TV show he was using (Hollyoaks):  I think I was pushing my multi-tasking abilities at that point hence the fail.  Probably me and it would be interesting to try it out in a real / live setting.
• Nick Hall, Director of Operations, Digital Media – EndemolNick talked about the huge interaction between social media  (use of 2nd screens) and shows like Million Pound Drop.
  There were some great stats detailed – which I can’t remember , what kind of a blogger am I. Obviously my small screen distracted me. Maybe the panels’ presentations will appear on slide share at some point

I won’t detail the whole thing (time starved tbh) but despite being a fairly small audience the panel were top notch (you can tell by the names above) and some interesting questions came from the audience ‘IRL’ and via twitter. A really good event that would have been worth paying for, all credit to Teesside Uni for setting it up.

my tweets for the night are here:

Extra Links:

I’ve written a bit about social TV (a la 2nd screen) here before :

http://markkelly.net/2011/06/17/some-things-about-tv-broadcast-content-and-social-behaviour/

and over at the Agency website where I wrote a bit more in detail about Social / TV :
http://www.brassagency.com/blog/have-we-switched-off-from-tv/

Marmite have just released an Augmented Reality app (well, Blippar have).

Interestingly when I searched ‘Marmite Augmented Reality’ on Google the first result I got was about the ‘Marmite issue’ with AR.. you love it or you loathe it.
(the Yeast product : I like it.. The AR approach, I’m a bit mehhh about it).

That Marmite the brand is now part of the ‘Marmite issue’ with AR is self-referentially amusing :

http://www.augmentedplanet.com/2010/04/mobile-augmented-reality-the-marmite-problem/

On the subject of AR and brands : My view hasn’t changed in the last few months – the use is still essentially gimmicky, the actual rendering of the graphics / interactive experience is buggy / jumpy on the whole and the ergonomics of holding a phone or a tablet and trying to read a recipe (in this case) / play a game is awkward.

There’s may be some curiosity effect but with other brands (Cadburys) doing this the novelty factor won’t propel mass adoption.. I think people will find it a bit so what?  There’s no great utility in this and the value to a consumer is maybe a bit transitory and thin. A url to download some recipes or QR code for an app with recipes as video would get more people participating maybe.

I mentioned the Cadbury Blippar AR work before here: http://www.brassagency.com/blog/the-top-five-digital-stories-this-week-incl-beyonce-post-it-wars/ and previous my views on AR in packaging / FMCG promotions are here :  http://www.markkelly.net/blog/2011/9/11/augmented-reality-whats-up.html  and here  http://www.markkelly.net/blog/2010/1/22/sweet-chili-augmented-reality.html

.. I think the engagement and fun factor of the Doritos (early adopter) AR campaign was great.

Disclaimer – I’ve only watched the demo – I’ll try it at home this weekend and see if I change my view but comments I’ve seen suggest the Android version doesn’t work too well?

http://youtu.be/FpczQ7tJ-L8

By the way – there’s a great resource for all things AR and marketing : http://www.scoop.it/t/augmented-reality-news-and-trends/

Related articles

• You’ll either love or hate this: Blippar brings augmented reality to Marmite (thenextweb.com)
• App Of The Day: Marmite (mobile-ent.biz)

I’m heading up Snowdon at the weekend so I thought some snow spikes would be prudent.

I’m not a proper / climb K2 kinda mountaineer, definitely a hiker but the conditions on Snowdon at this time of year can be tough, treacherous even.
Snowdon last year was okay without crampons / spikes but in hindsight I didn’t know that and should have had a pair stowed away in case.
I fell down a mountain once via icy slopes.. don’t want to do it again thanks

So I wanted to be better prepped this year but I didn’t think it was worth getting hard-core crampons that wouldn’t get much use at other times.

I asked around and the Hillsound Trail Crampons (spikes) looked a good solution (and thanks to @JeffreyBowman for the tip).

I did look at some “micro spikes” options (Grivel, Pogu) but I judged that for Snowdon and the possible snowfalls and / or ice, micro spikes could be a bit too, well, micro.

Anyway, we just had some decent snow on the moors around me, so this Sunday was the time to give them a testing. And to try getting them on and off – without being at the top of a mountain

Firstly, they fold away really well, don’t weigh much at all and will go with ease into my rucksack. They don’t come with a stow bag though, which is a shame. The spikes look like they may quickly rip through the (spare) old poncho bag I had to hand.

Getting them on: They’re really easy to fit on, the rubber upper section stretches nicely around your boot with easy to grip tabs (even with gloves on) and the velcro top strap kept them firmly secured.

The paths on the tops were pretty icy in parts but they gave me good grip. And I gave myself  the added ‘stress test’ conditions of going up and down some steep snowy slopes, with the dog pulling ahead in her usual unpredictable fashion.

There’s nothing like 18Kg of excitable sheep-sniffing dog to test the digging-in ability of any boot or spikes! And there were a lot of sheep hidden in the shadows of some of the steep valleys..

My only niggle is that one of my boot soles got partly balled up with hard ice after trudging through some deeper snow for a while. I needed to stop and clear it off a couple of times. It could have been that I hadn’t ensured the rubber upper support was as taught as it should have been but it was a bit disconcerting to have it clog up. Everything else about them was great though. They could make the difference between getting to the summit / trig point on Snowdon or not.

More info on the spikes here : http://hillsound.com/2products/crampons_overview.php

I bought mine from Amazon as it was the easiest option (with my account all set up) and only a couple of £ either way (at £49) on costs compared to other sites.

Related articles

• Sensible Crampons (becomingoutdoorsy.com)

I’ve tried to walk from my house to Black Hill a couple of times but weather has stopped play on both occasions. There isn’t anywhere grimmer (or potentially dodgy) than the moors when the snow is falling or the land is wrapped in fog and heavy rain. And I’ve been a sensible (lone) hiker on those occasions.

But today I slam dunked it. Four and half hour round trip hike. Woot.
Okay, it was a slog but I’m chuffed I persevered through the gale force winds.
I’m going up snowdon soon so needed to get myself a bit more in the zone.

When it wasn’t raining or when I was facing away from the battering wind, the views were great. Most of the time though it was head down, trying to avoid slipping when the dog was pulling down a steep incline, or just about avoiding a fall into the engorged river I had to cross etc. Choose the wrong rock just under the water and those with algae give no grip.. splash.

I don’t know much about Black Hill other than it isn’t that black anymore. Lots of moorland grasses have been seeded so there is less exposed (and eroding) peat.

What I do know was gleaned here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hill_(Peak_District)

The highest point in 3 counties eh? .. kind of .. it felt like it to be honest. Not too tricky but a slog for sure. I’m sure it’s another world on a calm summers day.

Up on the trig point I met a mountain rescue guy out for a ramble. Ramble? I suppose it was to him. I was getting all Bear Grylls and he was taking the elemental battering as a ramble. Couldn’t he have said it was extreme weather training?

Anyway, a great walk. Bit wild but really exhilarating. And the dog really enjoyed it, maybe the rabbits in the peak district smell different to thier cousins a mile or two away in the Wessenden valley. She was pretty giddy most of the walk.

But she’s now crashed out next to me as a type this

I don’t normally write ahead of a walk , if I was planning a trip up K2 I could spin it out with talk of meetings and kit planning. Actually, if I was doing a long distance trail (a true Hike with some over-nighting) then I’d share plans. But all of the hikes I do are a bit shorter than that. They’re still tough (for me anyway) but not really shout-worthy before they happen.
An imminent trip up Snowdon is one I wanted to shout about though, as I decided to do it in memory of my Father in Law, Ian, who just died recently.

This post is therefore a shameless plug for the sponsorship page I’ve set up to raise money for The British Heart Foundation.

Ian had cholesterol issues that weren’t screened until fairly late on and more awareness and earlier screening may well have helped. And the medication that’s being developed is more and more effective but needs lots of research (which the BHF do).

So I’m going to use the walk that was already planned up a possibly snowy Snowdon, on 12^th Feb, as a chance to raise some money for them.

We’re taking the Llanberis path. To quote trip organiser Steve ( http://steventuck.wordpress.com/ .. info from last year’s jaunt) : “Starting in Llanberis the route will ascend and descend the mountain using the Llanberis Path. Approximately 5 miles each way with a height gain of about 2800 feet the route should take about 5 hours. “

It really could be a tricky one – there is less risk of hard snow each year thanks (?) to global warming but the ice and wind will be there and may well be very difficult.

So, you know, sponsor me please  - Thanks

http://www.justgiving.com/Mark-Snowdon12

I knew it was going to be a bright, frosty morning so despite having over-Guinnessed (oh dear) from the night before, I headed off up onto the moors with the dog.
I’m joining some others in february to walk up Snowdon – so any and all exercise at this stage has got to be good

I had a vague plan to head to Black Hill, the apex of a big (well, 12 mile) circular I’ve planned out that, for various reasons, I haven’t done in its entirety yet.
So I headed up along the Wessenden reservoirs with the end target being Black Hill. That’s pretty much up hill and due south from me. But, doh – school boy error, I hadn’t brought my shades and after half an hour of squinting into the low hanging winter sun, I changed my mind.
A really low, really bright directly-in-front-of-me sun was a bit too much for this over-Guinnessed man and it would have been the same for another couple of hours.

So I joined the Pennine Way path that turns west just before the deer farm and walked over to and around Black Moss and Swellands reservoirs. Both constructed back in the late 1700′s I think, to feed the  canal that runs through the Colne valley below.

I had to watch my step .. there was black ice on some of the paving stones that are used to keep the path above the boggiest parts up there. Apart from focussing on the dog not pulling me onto black ice, I was pretty lost in thought for quite a bit of the hike. My lovely father in law, Ian, died last Sunday and that and thoughts going back to when my mum died a few years back,  made for a reflective kind of a morning. But I wasn’t feeling totally glum, the sun and the glinting frost on the coppers, taupe and rusts of the moorland grasses was lovely. And I passed a few others out on hikes. No long conversations but you could tell everyone was glad to be up high under wide blue skies on such a beautiful day.

At one point I could hear some geese flying over, before spotting 2 wide Vs really high up in the blue. I think I’m right in saying that Canada Geese over winter down in the valley (I see a lot in fields alongside the canal most years) but they visit the high reservoirs also.. you have to watch where you tread sometimes .. geese crap everywhere.
I shot a quick bit of phone-camera video but looking at it now you can’t see them at all well and the blustery wind makes it hard to hear them. But if you don’t know the area you’ll get a feel for the moors at this time of year.

Guest appearance from non-plussed, always-wanting-to-move-on dog, Brodie:

The Snowdon trip will be a couple of weeks after Ian’s funeral and  although it was organised a while back and by others , I’m going to make my part of it a sponsored thing and raise some money for the British Heart Foundation. I’ll post about that soon I think.

Thanks for reading and I hope all is good with you wherever and whenever you read this.

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• Mist, fog and mucky dogs across Cut Gate (backpackingbongos.wordpress.com)

I’m a bit of geek (and also the writer of bad blog post titles – as above) and I work in the (relatively) new industry of digital marketing. (social media to my granddad would have been a shared newspaper). Apart from some tweets, Facebook updates, reading some blogs and reading wired.com ; I’ve had a break from new technology over the holiday season.
A couple of recent walks had me focusing on much older industrial / technological endeavours.

Firstly, I got to see ‘behind the scenes’ of one big ‘old tech’ industrial effort this week with a walk along our local canal. The village where I live has a canal running through it which was built around 1794. Not the oldest navigation in England but pretty old! And when you stop to look at the sheer industrial effort and ingenuity that went into making it, its amazing. You can currently see how the locks and pounds were constructed  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canals_of_the_United_Kingdom) because they (I presume British Waterways) are renovating sections of it. So there’s a long stretch between my village (Marsden) and the next (Slaithwaite) that has been drained. I took a walk down to Slaithwaite (pronounced Slawit in these here parts) and took longer than I would normally, as I was having a nosey at the drained sections and dismantled lock gear.

Only one photo taken .. but gives you a feel for the canal area I hope

The canal in Marsden has a claim to fame being the highest canal section in the UK (when it enters a tunnel to cut across the moors and through to the the next county). Marsden’s other canal link is that it is home to England’s only (as far as I know) theatre company , Mikron Theatre Company, that tours (the UK) via canal boat (narrowboat). Check them out here : http://mikron.org.uk/

Anyway – back to walks and the industrial thing.

I wanted another longish walk later in the week and thought about theming that with an industrial angle. Unfortunately you can’t do much exploring in many of the (now derelict) Mills in the area so I went to higher ground this morning and checked out some quarries. Where all the stone for those Mills and canal lock walls came from. And for the houses around here, and the hundreds of miles of field walls and ..

I’m lucky enough to be able to walk out of my back garden and join a public footpath that takes me up to the moors in 30 minutes or so. Where there are quite a few old quarries. So that’s what I did earlier today. One of the biggest has been annexed by a shooting club but some of the smaller ones are good to have a mooch about around. You have to be careful – I think we can go over board on health and safety warnings but you do need to heed the signs that say ‘falling rock’ .. and I didn’t get too close under some of the overhangs.
The effort to carve out those ancient lagoon beds and transport the stone down to the growing industrial villages of yorkshire must have been enormous. No pyramids but lots of temples to industry. Whilst I was up there ‘on the tops’ I had a longer walk with the dog – she was pretty bored at one point , idustrial heritage not being her strongest interest. Rabbits, sheep and Grouse are more her thing and we picked up a few scents : enough to nearly have me fall over an edge when she (again) lurched forward and caught me by surprise. one day…

Here are a few photos of  from up high in and around the quarries.

By the way , my geek blog is over at markkelly.net if you are interested

Related articles

• Canals (intotheorchard.com)
• Huddersfield Narrow Canal locks get a £500,000 repair boost (examiner.co.uk)

I had a walk out this morning with my son Joe as we both wanted to blow away the cobwebs. Him from being stuck indoors a lot finishing his 3rd year dissertation and me from having overstretched myself in the present buying and wrapping stakes (amazing how tiring that can be). And I fancied I should build up some credit in the health bank before I eat my body weight in turkey and chocolate in the next couple of days of course

It wasn’t much of long walk really and certainly didn’t really trip into ‘hike’ mode (e.g no mountains or wilderness and only about three and half hours in all) but it was really nice. Firstly for the company : having a geologist with you makes for interesting conversation (fracking, who knew, obviously not me.) .. and he’s a great conversationalist about anything from music to quantum mechanics. I know I’m biased but if I do a long trek (vague thoughts for Nepal at some stage) or another road trip (like we did in Iceland a couple of years ago), Joe would be on my list for trek buddy. And he should be on yours. Professional trek buddy , is there such a thing ? He’s looking for work from summer onwards, hire him. I’ll pay the outward travel fees, contact me.

By the way , we got talking about the what and the how of ‘a good walk’ and I mentioned a book I read recently that I’m passing to him. If you like your walks and hikes (and guessing you do if you’re here) then get hold of Geoff Nicholson‘s ‘The lost art of walking‘, its a personal and historical essay on what it means to be a walker (remote, rural or city based).
Oh – just googled to get a link whilst typing this and Geoff has a blog about walking in hollywood area .. it looks great, some holiday reading for me I think (http://hollywoodwalker.blogspot.com/)

It was also a nice walk because despite some rain and a lack of blue sky, it took in some great views back down the valley to our village. And also involved some deer spotting (not hard as they are enclosed in a deer farm) and some Ram avoidance (the horns on the biggest were really impressive). And we had a good chat with the ladies in the road side mobile cafe at the top of the valley. (So the health credit thing didn’t really work out – it was a bacon sandwich for me).

The route we took was straight up the Wesenden valley along some reservoirs .. and straight down again, nothing complicated but still really nice to spend time with my son and chew the fat (and the sandwiches).

happy Christmas / holidays to you 

Some photos (bit blurry I know) from the walk

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I set off on a newly planned out a walk a week ago and had to abandon it. And I did the same today – but clocked up about 9 miles of snow fest fun in the attempt.

Along the way we flushed out about 30 Grouse (they didn’t half grumble about it), 1 beautiful winter-coated Hare and lost the route under 3 inches of snow. And scored free sausages for the dog from the very welcome snack van (and very kind lady) on the home straight.
(local people – the snack van is the one on the A635 .. I didn’t really want to use the road but it was the shortest way from White Moss to an exit point and back down from the moors via Wessenden Valley.. and free sausages for the dog.. can’t be bad)

The route I wanted to take was from Marsden across the moors to Black Hill (in neighbouring Peak District. It’s about a 12 mike round trip with some great views (when the cloud doest descend like it did today).
What I actually did was about 9 miles given that the low cloud, sleet, hail and snow mixed flurries made it slow going in places. And I lost the path and had to peat bog scramble  for a bit – but didn’t lose my total bearings (thanks to GPS ).
And Brodie Dog still needs to be given some recuperation time (see last post) so I didn’t want to over do it. It was a great hike though and walking on virgin snow for about 3 hours was great.. I only saw one other set of boot prints the whole time.

Anyway – the weather was challenging ..  I think it stayed quite nice down in the valley but up on ‘the tops’ it was, err, pretty grim.

But the silence you get with snow and no traffic for miles is truly lovely. And whan the Hare broke cover about 5 yards from us and bounded away like a furry firecracker it was a true ‘wow’ moment. My arm has just about recovered from the dog forgetting she was on the retractable lead and wanting to chasing after it. ouch.

Finally , I’ve been growing a winter beard – kind of as part of the ’decembeard’ charity movement (a bit like Movember but with about 5% of the participants I think). Every day I keep hold off it , I donate some money to a regional homeless charity I support. It kind of looks the part up in the snowy wilds .
In my head I was chasing down deer with my wolf companion.. or somesuch.

But Wolfy got sausages not deer and I think even they were pork not even venison.. didn’t have the heart to tell her

Related articles

• I can use my phone / GPS thing in bad weather! The Hiking Geek post (halfwayhike.wordpress.com)
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• Britain hit by snow and sleet (telegraph.co.uk)
• Postcard from a walk not taken (halfwayhike.wordpress.com)

I planned a walk last Saturday that would be part of a 12 mile circular I’ve mapped out, to take in some reservoir side paths then onto the moors around me and across into the neighbouring Peak District.

But I changed my mind not far into the walk .. the dog made it clear she wasn’t having fun. So we called it a day : It isn’t worth pushing things just to tick off a route or walk you’ve started out on.

Basically poor Brodie Dog has been under the weather, she has picked up mites it seems due a local urban fox. I’ve seen it twice, it looks lovely but the vet thinks there’s been a rush of mite transfers this year, it must use our garden as part of its patch. And good luck to it, I like foxes but no thanks to the mites and the medication the dog is on for a while to clear them.

So .. the walk. We left our village with a grey but dry sky and just 20 minutes drive up onto the moors, the weather had become foggy, really windy and really cold at -1 though it felt colder ..
and 15 minutes into the walk it started snowing.
And the dog gave me a look that said get me out of here. When you’re ill and on meds you don’t want that kind of weather and I felt bad about dragging her out. So back we headed.

The newly plotted route will have to wait.

Meanwhile here’s a photo just before it started to snow again.. starring a flock of sheep that weren’t too pleased to see us.

I spent friday night within a nest of Orcs and by the time the saturday morning 6.30 alarm call for breakfast came, all those snores, wheezes and coughs meant I’d had a pretty fitful sleep. A hike up Scafell Pike (Or Misty Mountain, as it turned out to be) seemed a really big undertaking. The Orcs in question were Steve, Chris, Jeff and a couple of other guys in the same bunk room as me in Borrowdale Hostel. And I’m not being overly harsh in calling them Orcs, I too was one of those snoring middle aged men adding to the Tolkien-esque vibe  Which I’d already  started on, when I found out we were staying at the Borrowdale Hostel. If ever there was a Middle Earth sounding venue, it has to be that. (Great place btw, really friendly staff and a great selection of bottled beers – hence all that snoring).

The route we took was from Borrowdale / Seathwaite and actually matched fairly closely the route (below) from Trail magazine which I’d downloaded for my (as always, excellent) Viewranger app. I had it hand for emergency use only as Ali and Steve (hike organisers and all round excellent mountaineers) knew what they were doing. Actually, I did use the app at one point to check we were on the right path for the Corridor Route path. Paper maps and compass are first choice I know but in all that rain and mist the Viewranger App really helped (me , at least).

Actually – we came around Great End for the return leg and didn’t go back down Styhead Gill but Ruddy Gill, then we joined up with Grains Gill near Stockley Bridge. Hence the very swollen waters on the last stretch I guess (more of that later).

Here’s the route and a bit about Scafell Pike from Trail magazines info on the Viewranger website:

We actually did the route the other way round to the map above but it was essentially the same path and started and finished at the same farm in Seathwaite.

The weather also added to the Tolkien vibe – mist, rain, driving (as in, 85 mph in gusts) wind, wind chill of (ish) -2C at the top and after a full day of rain (and on our last 2 hours hiking and descent), swollen waterfalls and raging rivers. Where there had been stepping stones which would look lovely for a summer trek, we had to wade across fast flowing streams up to our ankles. And help each other across on one that was really fast flowing and heading to a big drop down into Ruddy Gill (I think).  The views were non existent, I couldn’t focus on an external landscape, so to an extent I focussed on an internal one as I stared down at slippy rock after slippy rock, picking my way across boulder fields (or hopping, if you will).  And fancied myself one of Frodo’s band , head down, pushing higher and higher up a dark mountain – more dwarf than elf probably – but still a heroic struggle to the top and to claim my prize which wasn’t a golden ring but a pork pie and a Mars Bar. At that point, that was a far better reward

I’d really like to go back again in better weather to see the views from the top of England’s highest mountain (about 3000 feet I believe). But I also had a great time on this trip, not despite the weather but because of it. Seeing all that fast flowing water and feeling the gale force wind (which did actually nearly knock me flat at one point) was awesome. And I had great company – and fellowship (okay, I’ll stop with the middle earth bit now!).

Here are some photos.. Suitably misty and atmospheric. The rest of the photos from the day are over on my Flickr account here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/what_i_see/sets/72157628176286773/

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I planned a walk on Saturday to get vaguely in the zone for a hike up Scafell Pike on 26th Nov (vaguely, as in one walk won’t get me as fit as the other guys doing the walk!).
And it turned out to be the best day of the weekend with blue skies all the way.

My sketch of a route, planned a couple of days before, was one I’ve done before .. up along the old packhorse trail out of the village , up on to the moors and then doing a circular trail which takes in part of the Pennine Way. For part of it I would be walking along ancient lagoon beds (now sandstone cliffs) before turning down through the Standedge cut that divides Yorkshire and Lancashire and then winding my way back down to the village.

But one of the hills in the distance when I got to high ground on the trail caught my eye . I’ve seen it before obviously but never mooched over to it, so this time I did a detour. As seen by the sticky-outy part of my track on the map below.

If you go out an about in the Marsden area , more info on the fuller walk is on my viewranger page :
http://my.viewranger.com/user/details/43714

March Haigh Hill is above March Haigh Reservoir (built to feed the new canal back in the 1790′s I think?) – there was a bit of a boggy route to get to it but the path that was discernible and although dog and I got muddied up, it as worth it for the views at the top.

This stitched together phone photo shows you the sweep .. with the old pub at Buckstones on the left then panning right (Emley Moor mast way off in the distance) and then across to Pule Hill. You can’t really make it out but there’s a hanglider in operation from off those cliffs to the right.

Where I stood to take the photo is a Mesolithic hunter-gatherers hot spot. Obviously not now, they’re long gone. Hangliders scared them away maybe. But yes there was a thriving early-man tool making scene here, from what I’ve read – there have been small stone tools / blades found at the spot over the years. I didn’t go looking as I think you would need to dig and its also something that is probably best done by people who know what they’re looking for. And I also don’t want to disturb stuff that’s maybe of scientific interest for others. And the dog would have been bored.

March Haigh Hill also seems to be a popular geocaching location. I think due to the views and it is close to the A640 with parking nearby for those geocaching folk who head out around the countryside each weekend.

As mentioned, there were a couple of hangliders launching of the Buckstones cliffs as I stood and took in the scenery , it’s a popular spot for that and the acoustics of the cliffs meant it sounded like the small dots of people I could see down on the ground were only feet away.

The walk itself:
This is a 4 to 5 hour walk depending on weather and if you have a camera with you (there are lots of great views along parts of the walk).
It can get a bit boggy underfoot in parts if it has been raining but for a mid range walk its a good one and probably the best views for this part of the world.

Some moody shots (as in I used the black and white mode on my Vignette phone app) of the sandstone cliffs and boulder fields: