mindblob

Image via - Apollo Ideas blog

In other words : things aren't always what they seem to be. Just a thought of the day... on a Sunday evening, after spending a lovely afternoon with my daughter, creating a game out of an old MacBook Pro's extended polystyrene packing.

Yes, it's been a long time indeed and my appologies if your RSS reader just coughed-out-loud hitting, on your mouse click, the dust accumulated on this blog title for about a year. Wondering if I should consider blogging again. How about micro-blogging or else? Naaa... although I believe in simple ideas, "micro" doesn't do it all the way. I kinda miss the thinking, learning, sharing and the light coming out of the shock of ideas. So please let know if you think blogging still has a meaning while I'm collecting my good ol' colour pencils.  ; )

A brilliant documentary on "How Trends and Creativity Become Contagious". Although the video is  embedded here above,  I strongly recommend you to view it on the dedicated website. It's a simple, smart, relevant & absolutely stunning modern documentary experience too.

How do you consider video quality and graphic interfaces in your online viewing experiences?

As mentionned on their VIMEO page :

"INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today's pop culture.

"Influencers" belongs to the new generation of short films, webdocs, which combine the documentary style and the online experience."

facebook.com/​influencersfilm

 

[Original FAB illustration by Sebastien Verliefde]

It's been a while since my last post, indeed, but as some of you might know, I was "up to something". That "something" was the preparation of a new job challenge that I will start next month. I will share with you a little more about it in a next post, but as announced on my Twitter and Linkedin profiles, I might as well relay the nature of this job here. I will be Online Marketing Manager in the interactive department of the RTBF.be (Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française). I'm very pleased about it and really looking forward to the launch of this new adventure.  O )

So, yes... more Alien stories coming soon!

Sharing with you here the keynote presentation I gave on May 6th to the students of the Masters class "Issues in Marketing Communication", at the IHECS (Haute Ecole Galilée). A bit more about the story: I had the honor to be contacted by Jean Pierre Ranschaert, teacher "Chef de Travaux" at the IHECS and blogger at LIVErtising], for this special assignment, last course before the end of the year evaluations.

How is Social Media connected to reality? Is it all about technology, digital and web? What's that big thing about the web? Is it just a must do trend? Are brands listening? Do they simply... care? Should they, really?

The idea was to bring a general overview and a few simple cases to point out a series of important elements in social media dynamics. At the end of the day, technology, digital and web  are "just" tools that facilitate the transport of information or bring extra UTILITY to the CONTEXT people live in. The social media side of the digital evolution (simply said "connected humans"), is probably one of the most important factor to always keep in mind. It is all about sociology, psychology, one-to-one (direct) relations, group behavior. It all happens around or through the places where conversations pop, stay, and spread (or die). But it also, ultimately, relies on the places where great and new EXPERIENCE is lived and shared (yesss, life rocks, remember?). And last but not least... it is all about relevant, expandable, positive, shared VALUE, created within the CONTEXT.

On the day of the live presentation, I must say I was very happy to have such response and feedback. Surprised (in a very positive way) by the direction of some questions coming from the students...

- "When I hear about social media, it seems we always have to be connected... Why should we spend our lives in front of computers or mobiles?"

- "When you share something on Twitter, like a picture, a link or a quote... does it make you feel better or greater?"

As communication experts or just active participant how would you answer these questions? - And of course, please don't hesitate to shoot comments on the presentation. It is and will remain open to change & updates.

SIDE NOTE : I just found an interesting guest post of Marta Majewska on Chris Hall's brilliant Cowbell blog. Marta's question is : "Would you be my... brand?". She refers to brands listening  (or not) and the special type of relationships they may or ma not have with their consumers. Is it or should it be like in a love/friendship story? Check it out.

It's been a while... I never stopped blogging for so long. There are times when your mind is looking for something... else or different. Times when thinking is not enough anymore. You see, observe, listen to the world around you and wish to take part, contribute in a different and more accurate way. As described by Jonah Lehrer in his post on meta thinking, found on Seed Magazine:

"Good judgment is more than a matter of “gut feeling” — it’s the willingness to reflect on the decision-making process itself". 

 

Excellent article about metacognition, that I invite you to read.  Hopefully, most of us know that it's the journey that counts, above the destination. Being human also means keeping faith in what we believe in, up to the limits of our minds and bodies. Explore, be curious, innovate, fly. - [see above "G." stunning human film directed by J. Xavier Velasco touched me with both its form and metaphoric content]

Now, back to the Belgian actuality: Seth Godin's presence at Flanders DC on the so tweeted about "Ahead of Marketing" speech, paraphrased : "Creativity, innovation and how to market those well". I regrouped a few words of wisdom of the respected Marketing God, found on Twitter via the #godinfdc tag. Let's call them the most tweeted :

- "Be personal. Be relevant. Be specific."

- "The old way: average stuff for average people"

- "Scarcity of choice is over! Be remarkable!"

- "The old marketing = interrupt your way to success"

- "The new marketing = Ideas that spread, win"

- "The market for something to believe in is infinite."

- "Albert Einstein ruined the word genius"

- "Being a genius = solving a problem like no one else has ever before"

- "Interchangeable parts lead to interchangeable people"

- "Want to be indispensable ? Make a difference!"

- "The reason they want you to fit in is that once you do, they can ignore you"

- "Public school trained us to shut up & stand still"

- "You can't blame the system anymore. You are responsible"

- "A lizard brain is all about fear. 'Oh my God, I'm going to die' "

- "CREATE YOUR RULES!"

- "Are you afraid or are you curious, the choice is up to you"

- "Leaders only have one thing in common: they're leaders"

- "Teach kids two things: to solve interesting problems and to lead"

Now, my question to you is: how would you describe these quotes? Are they new, unique ideas about the marketing of tomorrow, creativity or innovation? Things you have never heard before? (OK, besides Einstein's big genius bang and the freakin' lizards metaphors maybe) ; )

Maybe Godin created his own rules and applied what he teaches like no one else has ever done before and so, he restored the word genius from Albert Einstein to manage his meta-way through "being Seth Godin" as a diabolic -yet very admirable- money making machine (???) And in this regard, it's a fact, yes: the market seems to be infinite for someone people believe in.

I leave it up to your own judgment, really. What do you think about it? Or should I say "how" are you thinking about it? I was not there but in a way, to be honest with you, I don't have many regrets. Bird's eye view brought it's load of insights and guess what, I'll be thankful to Seth for activating this thinking. Hopefully some smart non-lizard brains already pinned a few things out of the speech. In a way I felt a lot more connected to these Alien thoughts than to the words of wisdom themselves. Also really appreciated the brilliant angle taken by Clo Willaerts in her post on the event. It made me think about a quote I read on the Hopenhaegen site: "WHEN PEOPLE LEAD, LEADERS FOLLOW". Yep, I believe a lot more in the inspired, consciously shared, trusted, engaged, collaborative lead than in the individual performances or "power / force lead".

And if you don't mind -pardon me the expression- I can't resist sharing with you a few key paragraphs from Jonah Lehrer's article. I think they are touching the "HOW to fly":

"The larger point, of course, is that humans aren’t rational calculators. According to Kahneman and Tversky, when people are confronted with an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information, or compute the Bayesian probabilities, or do much thinking at all. Instead, their decisions depend upon a short list of emotions, instincts, and mental shortcuts. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether.
So far, so bleak: The human mind is an imperfect computer, stuffed full of programming bugs. But some researchers now believe that there may be a way of avoiding such innate psychological mistakes. When we flex our metacognitive muscles and think about how we are thinking, we are able to notice when we’re thinking poorly. The end result is that we avoid those avoidable mental blunders.
...
Given the distinct talents of our various cognitive styles, a willingness to think about our own thought processes and to adjust our mode of decision making to the task at hand could transform the way we use the mind. Before we do anything else, we should go meta."

I came across this inspiring presentation today. Don't ask me why, it made a LOT of sense to me. The kind of thoughts that would push you into thinking that the limit between today and tomorrow might just be your will to make it happen.

Is this (still) a futuristic vision of what tomorrow "could be"? Or is it now more likely a very appealing insight of what today already "is" for those who decided to jump and go for it? In other words, would we want tomorrow to be like yesterday when we were thinking about today? Huh... I need to think about it, really! What's your view on this?

PS : Geeez Gavin... I'm on fire again! ; )

He introduces 3 ideas representing THE NEW CURRENCY :

Insightful, to the point, clear, mind challenging, absolute must read if you're related in any way to marketing, communication, advertising or have an open curious mind looking for some clues about the future of the relationship between consumers and "their" brands.

What are your favourite things?

Hunting the Yeti from Billy the Kilt on Vimeo.

Before we can show you the end result, here is the making-of our Yeti hunt in Norway. This film was filmed and edited by art director Cédric Minot (great job, Ced!). And yes, there are some sneak peeks of the Yeti. - Memo : pictures also available here.