Posts Tagged ‘Digital’

Your Emotional Rescue

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

by Eric Goldstein

www.olivestudio.com

It’s 2009 and a few years ago, a few gentlemen (Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen) developed a website, that housed a technology and forum for people around the world to communicate how they were feeling at a given time, given place, with various paremeters/factors such as weather, location, age, sex and more. The beauty of this website is that it allows you to isolate a word/phrase/emotion you might be feeling at a given point and shows you all the other people in the world (online) who are using the same key words (in their blogs, forums, websites, responses).
The result also is not only communicated clearly but creatively. You can view via wild schools of various sized dots, of varying speeds, multiple colors, and hone in on that emotion – i.e. You know the saying, Misery Loves Company – well, in this case, if you were feeling miserable, you could type it in, and you can find out who else is miserable in the world (and it will show you the region from which that emotion was felt. This seemed like the perfect post for this issue, as it reminds you to think of these social networking tools not just for showing grandma your new kitty, or to try and build your corporate network to be bigger than Joe in the cubicle next to you, but to take full advantage of the support, innovations that are being set in motion – to help you FEEL and to BE CONNECTED to your world and the people in this world. Taking this to heart, I believe has resonance and a visceral reaction which can only awaken the “good” in all of us to share and to be open to “receiving”.

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

WeFeelFine

 

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Posted in Uncategorized, social media | No Comments »

Digital Design in Politics

Monday, May 11th, 2009

by Christian Bayley

www.olivestudio.com

This year’s Obama campaign was historic in many ways, but one that is particularly relevant to what we cover here at Branch was its approach to Digital Media. Here is a brief excerpt from a talk given by Scott Thomas, design director of New Media from Obama’s campaign. It gives great insight to how design helped shape every touchpoint. We will cover how design branding and new media are shaping politics (from a non partisan viewpoint) in a dedicated upcoming issue of Branch, but we want to start the dialog early because of its relevance. Enjoy!

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Posted in Marketing, Videos, politics | 2 Comments »

Kindle DX=Digital Disruption

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

by Christian Bayley

www.olivestudio.com

Kindle DX

So this week there was a lot of attention given to the much heralded larger version of the bestselling eBook reader from Amazon the kindle. The Kindle DX is in my opinion a home run in almost everyway. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, the Kindle DX is designed as a larger format product aimed at the textbook marketplace (and rumors have it also targeting newspaper industry via partnerships).

Everything about the Kindle DX is a win for students everywhere. Anyone who has attended a school in the past decade or so can vouch for the enormous sticker shock that comes with buying textbooks. A student might have 5 classes a quarter each with 1-2 books associated with them and countless packets of supplemental material. A textbook now averages well over $100. Digital delivery of this info via a Kindle DX could save students enormous money, not to mention consolidating all those heavy books into one lightweight reader. I am sure at some point the medical cost saving analysis around strain and back injury from carrying backpacks everywhere will be done. Think of the manpower and storage costs that go into ordering stocking and housing textbooks, universities would save millions as well. Also, the Kindle DX eventually has the potential to add rich layers of data to these books as well potentially increasing learning via quizzes and homework, etc, increasing the competitive advantage that our kids will need in an increasingly networked world.

So of course this would be embraced right? Well you only have to look at previous posts about the music industry, the television and film industries, the newspaper industries, DVD industries, and the radio industry to realize that once again the OLD media forces that be, are sticking their heads in the sand because they insist on the OLD way of printing books, killing trees and hurting students in their backs and their wallets. The value of these products is not what it used to be, and you can fight it and watch while you are slowly driven out of business, or you can embrace it and lead the way as a trusted modern brand. If they don’t the market is too lucrative for digital publishers to take the reigns.

My kids are in elementary school right now, and they interact with Smartboards everyday and my 4 year old is as good with a mouse as I am. I look forward to the day they go to college and laugh as I tell them of the days when we had to carry 50lbs of books everywhere with us.

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Posted in Design, Digital | No Comments »

Are you a People Person?

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

by Eric Goldstein

www.olivestudio.com

Who do you communicate with on a daily basis? Are you a “connector” or a “maven”? Heck, you could be shy….it doesn’t really matter anymore. What DOES matter though is how you conduct yourself and with what tools. How do you choose the tools to help you on a daily basis?

For example, Facebook, helps connect me to my personal and professional community, but mostly personal (by choice). LinkedIn – more for business. I use MySpace for a few applications, but am not immersed personally as I/we only have so much time on our hands, so it’s picking the tools which serve us well to our strengths.

Blogging – allows me to have a voice, to respond and be a thought leader in any number of categories while being able to find other professionals/experts who are respected and are proving over and over again, their voice has integrity. Remember, if you aren’t planning on supporting your voice with constant attention and follow-through, you might have to find a more passive vehicle or none at all, as it’s transparent how serious you are about the “building” of your self-brand (and your corporate brand) (see Christian’s article “____________”).

Your newsletter shouldn’t be about YOU per se – but about things of interest. Education, Inspire – take a step away from the traditional school of thought, marketing 101, and understand that BEHAVIOURS HAVE CHANGED. The game has changed, and it’s not more personal. It’s now more personal and time is valued more than it used to be. Use these opportunities to “give” a little, while, sure you can capitalize on responding and connecting an article of yours to that of a question from a post on someone else’s blog, and quite possibly, their followers, fans, customers, friends might follow that post to your site building your own social community – but again, have integrity around your follow-through.

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Posted in Branding, social media | 1 Comment »