Mandy Leontakianakis: Media Culture

Modest Mouse: The World At Large

2009-08-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

I liked this band immediately when I first heard them in 2007.

But our relationship (in my mind) has grown slowly and steadily until now: a critical mass of pleasure at the hands of the mouse has tipped me over from listener to lover.

I'm in. Hook line and sinker.

I appreciate the time it took for me and this repertoire to meet each other, really.

Because now, I've got nothing but love for these indies.

Speedy Before The Line Service Offering

2009-08-04T04:30:00.000-07:00

Democratized Media: How To Engage In The Conversation

2009-07-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

This TED talk by Clay Shirky unpacks what it means to have a media that is inherently social.

What comes to mind, for me, is the democratization of the media: cumulative, collaborative storytelling, a return to the oral tradition in real time through Twitter and Facebook et al.

But now, we get to share our images through the single biggest revolution in popular expression.

We get to be audience and producers all at once, allowing amateur or citizen journalism: information control becomes a thing of the past, threatening governments for whom censorship is critical.

Today, amateur producers outnumber professionals, building their own reputations and intellectual equities.

They are connected to one another and to their interconnected audiences, who, for the first time, can talk back.

Top-down communications are a thing of the past.

Communicators collaborate in the generation of an agreed opinion through 'trending'.

Public figures can opt to respond to negative trends or ignore them.

PR in the public domain becomes much more participative.

Brands that interact in this space with maturity and intelligence will listen and respond, optimizing the opportunity to enhance their attributes and diminish their failings.

This is a conversation to be abandoned at great risk for any business entity.

Marketing Cars: How to Avoid Perfomance Shots and Scenery Shoots

2009-07-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

Volkswagen in the Netherlands are running a super-cool interactive TV Campaign which mixes gaming and the test drive with original results.

No more Top Gear style shots of the Polo in high performance round a track.

Even less perfectly styled country roads.

Check this experiential approach out.

'And Then You Left': A Love Song

2009-07-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

Stand-up comedy represents a very important part of the content, personalities and media that help me feel less alien.
Good stand-up permits my imagination
It allows my eccentricity.
It assures me that I am one of many who interrogate, laugh at, reject and end up self-consciously modified by social norms that are so un-normal.
I am so grateful for this particularly courageous social tale-teller (and musical talent, what a treat!)
Thanks to a new colleague for the recommendation.
This is a beautiful, to me, Love Song:

The Eternal Moonwalk

2009-07-12T01:58:00.000-07:00

The best Michael Jackson tribute around:

http://www.eternalmoonwalk.com

Springsteen Wasn't Born Yesterday

2009-07-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

I have Springsteen's single 'Working On A Dream' off the album by the same name on a loop in my head.

The album itself is very beautiful: grounded, nostalgic and honest in an almost Dylanesque way, apart from its clarity and tunefulness. (Forgive me, Dylan die-hards.)

What's interesting, is that Springsteen 'leant' two singles off this album to two very different causes.

1. He donated the song 'The Wrestler', perhaps the darkest and most lyrically devastating offering to Mickey Rourke's come-back phenomenon. I always remember the line "If you've ever seen a one-trick-pony then you've seen me."

2. He campaigned with the then Senator Obama with the song 'Working On A Dream' as a true peoples' anthem, in contrast to the largely misunderstood 'Born In The U.S.A', which Regan tried to appropriate during his 1984 re-election bid.

The irony of that non-collaboration was that the content of 'Born In The U.S.A' contradicted its broad, rallying melody with an angry indictment on the Vietnam war, its victims both dead and returning and the living conditions of the working-class American at that time.

Laughing With Regina Spektor: All New Single

2009-07-03T13:57:00.001-07:00

My favourite girl and I stumbled on this lovely newness all by accident.
Its off her new album 'Far', and she's already given it a whirl on Letterman.

P.R: Abbreviation for the Verb: to Twitter

2009-07-03T12:08:00.001-07:00

Twitter for PR (Keynote & Youtube version)

View more documents from Corinne Weisgerber.

For Another Fallen Peoples' King

2009-07-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

Curious About The Making of Benjamin Button?

2009-02-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

The Hottest Thing In Social Media: A Community Director

2009-02-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

When I’m talking to companies about the creation of social media strategies and tactics, a key element is making sure they follow through on their commitment. After all, it makes no sense to spend time and money on a social media plan, and then not implement it properly.

While I’m more than happy to carry the social media “ball” after putting together a strategic and tactical plan, it’s crucial to hand off the ball at some point to someone within the company who can then run with it. After all, who better to do social media than someone who is drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, right?

This is where the director of community comes into play. These people are social media savvy, excellent communicators and writers, capable of dealing with a variety of responsibilities, able to multi-task, and have an appreciation for a company’s marketing, communications and sales strategies.

In other words, they need a well-rounded skill set, AND be given enough autonomy by senior management to do things on the fly given how quickly the social media landscape can change.

One of of the challenges is many companies don’t have enough of an appreciation of what’s involved in doing social media well. Rather than hiring someone with experience and a strong sets of skills, many companies think they can hire someone junior at a low cost, especially at a time when hiring a full-time employee is done with reluctance.

That can be a major mistake because a good director of community can be worth their weight in gold.

Of course, the directory of community is a relatively new position so finding someone with experience can be a challenge. As a result, there can be an element of risk, and companies have to accept that directors of community may have to learn on the job. Still, a good director of community needs to have a core set of skills if they’re going to be successful.

The bottom line is companies have to realize that hiring a directory of community is an important strategic decision. It means they need to hire the right person even if it means paying for quality.

For more thoughts on hiring a director of community, check out Hightalk.

More: Check out this Web Worker Daily presentation on what community managers do.

By Mark Evans | February 16, 2009

Bruce Springsteen's Wrestling Ballade

2009-02-23T09:10:00.000-08:00

I waited out the movie to hear this song in surround sound.
Its a Springsteen beauty...

Critics unmoved by Rourke's wrestle back into the limelight

2009-02-23T08:16:00.000-08:00

The Wrestler: Mickey Rourke's Comeback Fight

By Richard Corliss Monday, Dec. 15, 2008

The Wrestler, from left: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, 2008." title="The Wrestler, from left: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, 2008."

Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler

Twentieth Century Fox / Everett

The Wrestler doesn't open till Wednesday, and already Mickey Rourke has won Best Actor from the Boston and Washington, D.C., critics groups and earned a Golden Globe nomination in that category. His performance as a broke, broken-down fighter stoked Wrestler-mania at the Toronto Film Festival and, before that, in Venice, where the film had its world premiere (winning the top prize). That was back in early September, when the Los Angeles Times headlined the question: "Will The Wrestler get hold of an Oscar for Mickey Rourke?"

My guess: maybe, because Hollywood loves a comeback story, and because Rourke gives the kind of performance that members of the Motion Picture Academy think burrows into the very essence of acting. He made himself nearly unrecognizable — put on maybe 40 lb., studded his face and body with the scars of war — to play a has-been fighter hoping for a last shot at the big time. It's the kind of punishment that won kudos for Lon Chaney and Paul Muni in the old days and helped Robert De Niro to an Oscar in Raging Bull playing Jake LaMotta. (He got himself into fighting shape, then he gained a ton of weight! Acting!) One more because: Rourke does strong, sensitive work here, which will cheer his old-time admirers and win him new fans. All praise to him, and to Darren Aronofsky for casting the actor and directing him to turn a standard fiction into quirky, coherent behavior. (See TIME's top 10 movies of 2008.)

But the movie itself is pretty bad.

My own anticipation sank with the opening credits: "Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood." That list spelled out the plot: damaged veteran, middle-age girlfriend, young daughter. The Wrestler never rose above fight-movie bromides, never dispelled my gloom. The character stereotyping makes Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa, by comparison, seem as swathed in moral ambiguity as Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers. The movie's serioso sentimentality is doubly strange since the script is by Robert Siegel, an ex-staffer of The Onion and co-writer of The Onion Movie. His old job was puncturing clichés; here he recycles them.

Story goes like this. Back in the '80s, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (real name: Robin Ramzinsky) was a hero-stud pro wrestler; he fought "the Ayatollah" at the top of the Garden card. But after 20 years on the downalator — his body ballooned with exercise, bloated with steroids and damaged with the death of a thousand cuts — Randy works tank towns for a few hundred bucks. He's been locked out of his Jersey trailer home for laggard payments. And to secure the fans' roving attention, his ring rivals are getting into extreme fighting; one fellow, who looks like an angry Ozark farmer, asks Randy if, during their bout, he can use a staple gun on his chest and back. That episode triggers a heart attack, and Randy is told never to wrestle again.

Anyone who's seen a fight film will be able to predict the rest of The Wrestler. Randy gets one more chance: a 20-year rematch in Wilmington of his Ayatollah fight. Will he pass it up to save his life? (Not if there's gonna be an Act Three.) He also has a stab at mending the hearts of the women in his life. Will Randy manage to connect with his estranged daughter (Wood), who hasn't forgiven him for abandoning her? (That's Act Two, where the only innovation is that the girl's mother is never mentioned.) And will a local stripper, well played by Tomei, respond to his plaintive love and drive down to see what may be Randy's last fight? (Can't have a fight movie without a "Yo, Adrian!" moment.)

Aronofsky has been one of the few American directors whose movies upset the complacency of indie cinema. Pi, Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain were demanding and rewarding in various ways: the first wacko, the second gritty, the third sumptuously romantic, and all marvelously dense with imagery. So the big surprise in The Wrestler is that it's visually inert. Aronofsky's main camera habit is to follow Randy, just his imposing back, as he trudges through corridors toward another fight. (Martin Scorsese virtually patented that shot in Raging Bull and Goodfellas.) The trope does pay off later in the film, when the camera trails the briefly retired Randy down the stairs to his new job, behind a deli counter. But Aronofsky's main contribution was to lion-tame a jolting performance out of a forgotten hero.

What To Make Of Twitter

2009-02-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

You're on Twitter, Now What?

by Valeria Maltoni

Twitter can be a pretty daunting place. Now that it has become somewhat known and a celebrity in its own right, other celebrities want to associate themselves with it. Many companies and brands are now on Twitter as well. Having a Twitter account may be all the rage, however there is something to be said for the power of focus.

Consider this - Twitter is

searchable content
a series of micro impressions
a presence tool
a social network
an information hub
an idea exchange
always "on"
quick, short, and not always on the mark
sound bites where you provide the context
and more... (feel free to add)

Keeping up with it all is not impossible, yet it may be foolish, especially if you are planning a strategy around your participation. Your focus then depends on what you want to accomplish. We've discussed business uses and we asked if it was time for corporations to have a presence on Twitter. We also talked about the role of Twitter in brand management.

While when I asked why you joined Twitter, many people talked about joining the conversation, sharing resources, and meeting others as the top reasons for doing so, I do wonder if there is a measurement associated with that goal. And if it matters.

One of the reasons for my participation is connecting people, so I work on finding ways to make introductions during conversations to help others build a network and find content/ideas.

Companies and organizations generally join for slightly different reasons. Some of which are:

competitors are there
agency said it was a good idea
everyone is talking about it
opened an account to reserve company name
and more...

However, once people sign up as representatives of an organization, especially if that company does not have a clear idea of what they are trying to accomplish, people tend not to participate actively. One of the reasons might be that Twitter does not scale well in commercial terms before your stream becomes a string of commerce.

A company wants to market and is trying not to spam, yet representatives may not have the time to dedicate effort and attention to learning through observation and experimentation. All learning happens through participation. This is especially important for social media - emphasis on social. See for example how media people are using Twitter.

The burning question is about who you should follow. I'd suggest people (and/or organizations):

who produce and share useful content
who fit within your stated interest
you already know in real life or through their blogs
who are interested and curious
and more... (feel free to add)

The other thought is that as you use the tool and discover other ways to engage with people there, your strategy may change. What started as an experiment to observe and learn could become an important part of your integrated marketing communications.

There has been quite an evolution with blogging, why wouldn't there be one with Twitter? One of the important layers online in addition to content and community is commerce. Twitter as a CRM tool would be quite messy, however. It needs to be integrated by respecting its intended role and usefulness.

How do you decide who you continue to follow? I follow people who engage in conversations with me and provide an opportunity to interact.

Because conversations between many parties are really hard to track on Twitter proper, it takes more effort to organize such opportunities. I've worked on many formats so far, and have yet to crack the code. FriendFeed is better for that, but it has not reached critical mass for me.

However you decide what your strategy is, do dive in - there's no better way to figure it out, than to do it for yourself. And do pay extra care to being clear and explicit on Twitter, because the truth is 140 characters.

[image courtesy of Thomas Hawk]

The Loyalty Industry

2009-02-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

Customer Loyalty Comes from Conversation

By Valeria Maltoni

What if instead of focusing on loyalty programs, companies focused on customer rewards? The best reward of all being a loyal company that looks out for its customers, understands their needs, and works in alignment with partners to deliver on them.

How many loyalty cards do you have in your wallet? Do they work for you or are you working to get anything out of them? Often at the (company and personal) cost of the very thing they were created to promote - loyalty.

Conversation leads to brand experience, which in turn may lead to loyalty. Card or no card, a reward for many customers today is often a prompt customer service rep who seeks to listen and understand what is needed and has the ability and company back-up to make it happen.

Some issues with loyalty programs are:

the use of monetary rewards to encourage repeated purchases - are a convenience, not an indicator of long term behavior. Customers will buy brands interchangeably when presented as offer, and revert to their preferences when not. There are other ways to target pricing, an example of which I wrote about in who gets what and why?

Work on understanding what your customers value, instead. IKEA for example, is in a very tough retail business, yet the company manages to be anything but flat when it comes to customer loyalty. The whole store and product experience reward. That's what I call brand equity.

the wait time to realize a gain from being loyal - and then on top of that there are usually penalties and costs associated with using the points. We do live in an instant gratification marketplace. Also, the more distance you create between the product or service reward and the customer, the less likely the program will work.

Work instead on decreasing barriers between what you sell and what customers want to buy by building quality, value and convenience right into the product. QVC does a good job with that. Former president and CEO of QVC Doug Briggs said: "We don't bombard customers with special offers or coupons to build loyalty, because it's easy for them to switch to the other guy's coupon. We focus on customer communication and satisfaction. For us, it's about building trust and developing long-term relationships. If QVC has earned a customer's trust, we believe they will buy—over and over again."

the message that some people are more special than others - will be counter productive especially with the increased peer to peer conversations. What a company gets out of the program is the data on customers use, spend, etc. Yet they do not seem to connect that data to the way they treat those customers. And today there are ways to make everyone, not just a few, feel special on the basis of that data.

Work on executing flawlessly on the basis of what your customers love (and value) about your brand. I wrote about how Anthropologie thrives through product, presentation, and people. Another example is Southwest airlines - they're coming to Minneapolis, BTW. I will fly Southwest for the first time when I go to SxSWi, I will let you know how that goes.

The way to a customer's heart is much more than a loyalty program. Making customer evangelists is about creating experiences worth talking about. Today at Fast Company expert blog we talk about how to upgrade your customers' loyalty.

I used to do a lot of shopping at Benetton stores, so much so that I often received a thank you card from the store manager. They had my address. Yet, when they pulled out of Philadelphia, nobody bothered to tell me. A missed opportunity indeed. That conversation would have further cemented my loyalty - especially since I do travel a lot.

On the success story side, all I have at the moment is Apple. What companies hve earned your loyalty? Does it go beyond a card? I suspect it does. What do you look for in a rewards program?

[loyalty card by Kake Pugh]

Bloggers fight for Hollywood supremacy

2009-02-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles
Published: February 20 2009 19:18 | Last updated: February 20 2009 19:18

With one day to go before the Oscars, some tense races are nearing the home stretch. Will the best-picture winner be the favourite Slumdog Millionaire or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Is 2009 going to be Kate Winslet’s year or will she lose out to Meryl Streep?

Far away from the red carpet in deep cyberspace, a different kind of battle is playing out as bloggers, news organisations and polemicists fight for supremacy in their coverage of the Hollywood goldfish bowl.

Mashable Presents Social Media's Smartest Big Brands

2009-02-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

"As we battle a global recession, corporations are looking for new ways to sell their products and engage their consumers. Many have turned to the Internet, with Social Media in particular, to market their goods. Let’s take a look at 10 companies that have done a phenomenal job of taking advantage of social media platforms..."http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-smartest-brands/

Chris Brown Realises His Career Is Toast

2009-02-21T06:26:00.000-08:00

By Holly Won't

Realizing that his nonapology apology made him look like even more of a prick, Chris Brown has retained the services of a crisis-management public relations firm. Although it’s a little unclear which one.

Some reports say it’s Alan Nierob of Rogers & Cowan, who handled Mel Gibson’s PR debacle when he was revealed to be a raging anti-Semite.

But Radar says it’s Sitrick & Company, whose client list includes such notable has-beens as Rush Limbaugh (for the Oxycontin scandal) and Paris Hilton (for her DUI).

Tough call there. Given the choice between the two, I’d personally pick Sitrick & Company because few people think “hit and run” when they contemplate Halle Berry, so they’ve proven to be at least somewhat competent at making problems go away.

But still, what’s the one thing that all these clients have in common? Guilt. (And money, I guess.)

For those of you keeping score at home, so far that means Chris Brown has supposedly sought help from: 1.) his parents; 2.) his pastor; 3.) the hip-hop community; and 4.) a team of spin doctors. Observant commenters, tell me what is missing from this list…

Source: The Deceiver.Com

Bringing It All Back Home: Bruce Springsteen

2009-02-21T05:37:00.000-08:00

With his third great album this decade, Bruce Springsteen tackles love, loyalty — and the ultimate deadline
BY DAVID FRICKE

Posted Feb 12, 2009 1:59 PM

Cover Story
Rolling Stone

The sound is classic amateur 1966 — chaotic, jangling guitars, impatient drumming and crude raging-hormone vocal harmonies — and Bruce Springsteen knows every note by heart. Hypnotized by joy in front of a small tabletop stereo cranked to top volume, he dances on the balls of his feet, vigorously strums an imaginary guitar with his right fist and howls along during the chorus — "Baby I-I-I-I!" — in a deeper wild-bear version of his old plaintive teenage tenor.

Springsteen, 59, is happily singing and playing air guitar with himself — to "Baby I," a single he made at 16, when he was a guitarist and singer in a New Jersey garage band, the Castiles.

Earlier that afternoon, Springsteen is sitting in the wood-paneled living room of Thrill Hill, a 19th-century farmhouse in central New Jersey that he has converted into a studio. He talks about some of the Sixties echoes — including the Walker Brothers, Jimmy Webb, the Beach Boys on "Heroes and Villains" and the Byrds' Fifth Dimension — ringing throughout his new album with the E Street Band, Working on a Dream. That gets him reminiscing about the Castiles, his first serious band. Suddenly, Springsteen bolts upright in his chair. "I have to dig it out before you go," he says excitedly. "I found the actual two-track tape of our record. I had it put on a CD. It's back at the house. I'll bring it over."

And he does, rushing home — Springsteen, his wife and E Street singer Patti Scialfa and their three teenage children live in an 18th-century house just down the road — and back. Springsteen doesn't even bother taking off his bulky winter coat. He strides into the glassed-in porch where he demos new songs and made his 2005 solo album, Devils & Dust, hits "play" and flies back to May 18th, 1966, when the Castiles recorded "Baby I" and the flip side, "That's What You Get," at Mr. Music Inc., a studio in nearby Bricktown.

"Well, what could have been a studio back then," Springsteen cracks after he plays both tracks. He and singer-guitarist George Theiss wrote the songs, according to legend, while driving to the session. The band cut them in an hour. "I talk to George once in a while," Springsteen says. "He got married very, very young. Had a lovely family. Made music. I used to see him at the Stone Pony all the time. He had a great voice."

But the Castiles' big moment passed that day in '66 — their single was never released — while Springsteen, nearly 43 years later, is at a new peak in his career. Working on a Dream is Springsteen's third great album with the E Street Band in a decade and arguably the best of the three in its classic-pop songwriting and intimate lyric force. They made most of it on days off from their 2007-08 shows — Danny Federici played keyboards on some tracks before his death at 58 last April 17th from melanoma — with Springsteen and producer Brendan O'Brien enriching the E Street Band's natural stampede in "My Lucky Day," "What Love Can Do" and the opening eight-minute horse opera, "Outlaw Pete," with an abundance of strings, guitars, choral vocals and saxophonist Clarence Clemons' leonine blowing. The result is Springsteen's most ornate album since 1975's Born to Run.

He has already started the new year with a Golden Globe for his theme song to The Wrestler and is assured an Academy Award nomination as well. After his January 18th performance in Washington, D.C., at "We Are One," the free Barack Obama inauguration concert, Springsteen will play a hotly anticipated halftime set with the E Street Band at the Super Bowl on February 1st — itself a kickoff for another E Street tour, in the spring in the U.S. and Europe. The last time Springsteen wrote, recorded and hit the road at this velocity was when he was a new Columbia artist. His first two albums, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, were both released in 1973.

"At that time, you signed old-fashioned contracts where you were supposed to make an album every six months," Springsteen says. "But after that, I said, 'Nah.' Without going into the whole story" — he grins — "obviously there was the perfectionism, the self-consciousness and the pursuit of very specific ideas, while you're forming who you are, what you want to write about."

Getting People To Believe in Banking Again

2009-02-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

'Being one of the things I like the most about all of that works was the way in which emotions were expressed through images, it is often said that creativity in Argentina was dramatically fed because of the infamous Corralito situation in 2001, which almost completely froze bank accounts and forbade withdrawals from U.S. dollar-denominated accounts. The tone of TV spots, introspective until then, became more of cheerful, trying to help people to overcome the sadness they were living. As part of this anomalous situation you can even find three minutes length tv ads done by Madre for Banco Hipotecario, being the length of the ad part of the strategy as to try people believing in banking again.' - Adverblog

The Season's Niftiest Festive Advertising

2008-12-31T01:13:00.000-08:00

National Express East Coast train line: Escape, 1

Advertising Agency: Dentsu London, UK
Creative Director: Andy Lockley
Art Director: Andy Preston
Copywriter: Joe Williams
Photographer: FlickrDesigner: Winston ArcherPublished: December 2008

National Express East Coast train line: Escape, 2

Advertising Agency: Dentsu London, UK

Creative Director: Andy Lockley
Art Director: Andy Preston
Copywriter: Joe Williams
Photographer: Flickr
Designer: Winston Archer
Published: December 2008

AKQA London wished everyone a Merry Christmas with this Viral:

Production Company:
AKQA/Bikini, London
Creatives:
Bruce Jackson (DoP)
James Hilton (Executive Creative Director)
Colin Byrne, James Capp (Creative Director)
Ben Campbell (Editor)
Mays Al-Ali (Agency Producer)
Phil Barnes, Sean Atherton, Carl Grinter (Producer)
Kate Elson (Executive Producer)

The Blogless Blues

2008-12-28T03:44:00.000-08:00

I’ve gone through a bit of a blogging crisis.
Not quite existential, but along those lines.
To blog or not to blog?
Especially over the holidays, when there are more demands of me as a member of the non-cyber world.
Its raised all sorts of questions for me like:

1.How important are my rankings to me?
They’ve taken a significant beating over my Silent Night.

2. When is it OK to observe, to process and not to record?
I’ve had all sorts of ideas over this holiday season that I haven’t committed to my blog, and its left me with feeling lazy and unexpressed.

3. What is my level of commitment to my blog?
I experienced a kind of relief, just living and doing and not uploading.

4. What does this relief say about the divide between the doing world and the commenting world, the real and the 2.0?
I’m not sure. Because at the end of it all, I’ve felt the blogless blues, a removal from what I love about being awake to the things in my life that I want to share, to capture and to log in.
I feel like many of them have passed me by.
And I’ve missed reading about what others have logged in this holiday season.
I love to be connected.
I think this is what being a member of the blogosphere gives me.

At the same time, I’ve enjoyed being able to let go and be in the moment with my family and friends. Not that I could entirely silence my inner post-creator.

I have a friend who insists that the creative process requires ‘percolation’ time, and can’t always be done in a hurry, every day and every hour.
If so, I look forward to a productive 2009, filled with the freshly brewed creative products borne of this slow down.

George Bush: "So What If The Guy Threw A Shoe At Me?"

2008-12-15T04:29:00.000-08:00

George the Second, moments after his narrow escape from TWO Iraqi shoe missiles:

"I consider it an important step towards an Iraq that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself!"

Something about this media moment is beyond hilarious for me.

Earnest, breathless journalism like: "I can report that George Bush has not been injured. Both shoes sailed right over his head," is almost more than I can take.

Jesus Twitters. Who Knew?

2008-12-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

I'm often quite pleased by my new Twitter followers.

I get a nice feeling when I get notified that a person I quite admire has opted to follow me on Twitter.

Or, I get a feeling of growing unease if someone murky follows me, and after a few clicks, I usually block their shady selves.

Imagine my surprise, just now, at the automatically generated mail:

Hi, mandy leontakianakis.
Jesus of Nazareth (way_truth_life) is now following your updates on Twitter.
Check out Jesus of Nazareth's profile here:
http://twitter.com/way_truth_life

You may follow Jesus of Nazareth as well by clicking on the "follow" button.

Best,
Twitter

I investigated.

A visit to my new follower's page revealed, that Jesus of Nazareth was not joking.

His primary message to me was that he was

"A lot more like Buddha thank you thought (sic). I

wish more people today understood my message. We are all One."

I'm really glad Jesus twittered me to clear up that he IS in fact, just like the Buddha.

Now, if I choose to follow Jesus, on Twitter,

I'll get his teachings in a neat limited character format along with my news, tech, politics and friend updates.

I hope Buddha comes out with a rival page.

Why I Like Bose

2008-12-13T08:05:00.001-08:00

I appreciate this brand.
'Better sound through research' is something I can work with.
There's nothing wasted, nothing superlative, like 'ultimate or perfect sound' and I know how they do it: the reason-to-believe is right there in the payoff.
Its neat. I like it alot.

It doesn't hurt that Bose stores all look like concept stores and that their products, even those that are now a decade old, have design appeal.

Where sound quality is concerned, aficionado's engage in what Wiki describes as 'rancorous' debate.
Some grant Bose its place as a high-end supplier of audio equipment while others believe it is over-priced and rests on academic laurels like its participation in cold fusion research.

Said Seth Porges at Crunch Gear: "Bose is sort of the Hillary Clinton of tech — you either love them or hate them, and they’ve got lots of cash."

Say Bad Morning To A Sachet of Nescafe

2008-12-13T06:52:00.001-08:00

I don't think I'm fanatical about coffee.
But I like it.
I arrived in Plett on Thursday, and before settling into my guesthouse, stopped for a few provisions at the wonderful Thyme and Again in Keurbooms.
I passed by the ground coffee and bodems and thought I'd shrug off my Gauteng conspicuousness and ease into a bit of coastal surrender, my guesthouse would have coffee covered.
Not so.
See alarming evidence above.

I went with it yesterday morning, having to open two, messy sachets to release the lifeless granules within.

This morning was a different cup of Java.

I woke up feeling that holiday feeling, spoke to a friend, pottered about.
Then I remembered it was coffee time and felt all excited.
I moved over to the kettle area and was presented with the above visual dilemma.
That sachet.
So brown and papery.
Boasting 'improved taste' and 'richer aroma'.
Better than and richer than what?
Perhaps the f airy excrement in yesterday's post?

Space on the offending article is also dedicated to a 'Talk To Us' icon.
What about?
How it feels to have an otherwise promising morning entirely deflated by the smug presence of this infuriating coffee imposter in my B&B teacup?

Found Brand: Panakūk

2008-12-13T05:44:00.001-08:00

After a slightly underwhelming chicken salad at my usual Thesen Island stopover, Ile de Pain, I happened upon this yummy pannekoek haven.
The signage is good enough to eat, all phoenetic and pretty.
Mosaic tables and a menu that ranges from the sweet (Nutella and cream) to the savoury (fresh bolognaise) in pancakes.
I wished I hadn't already eaten, but made off with a very nice cappuccino as bribery for the sneaking of this pic.

Paying For Poop

2008-12-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

In an economic downturn, some retail fantasists may ask you to swap currency for outright, erm, 'poop'?

Or maybe I'm missing something: is fairy excrement cute?

Do kids love it?

What about unicorn poop, is it less offensive than horse s***?

On reflection, there is the fact that this is HAND COLLECTED magical creature crap.

There's nothing worse than that machine harvested stuff.

It is, I suppose, a sustainable approach to the gathering and distribution of poop.

Condoleezza Plays Brahms For The Queen

2008-12-02T04:44:00.000-08:00

Weird. The U.S. Secretary of State sharing something quite personal of herself with the Queen of England in a kind of throw-back 19th Century music salon. Only she's no corsetted model of decorative restraint.
It could only have been Brahms for Ms Rice.

Google Targets Terrorists With Advertising Offers

2008-11-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

The downside of Google's automated advertising targeted system manifested itself on the site IBN Live this week:

Google Ads for online training in terrorism appeared next to stories on the Mumbai Terror Attacks in two separate incidents.

Pete Cashmore writing for Mashable described this electronic faux pas as possibly the worst "slip up in recent memory".

It opens up interesting questions, for me, about the objectivity of technology and the boundaries of responsibility in aggregating content without placing value judgements on it.

Whilst terrorism is an extreme example of a behaviour few people would want to give a platform to: how does Google manage its responsibility to have no favourite cultures, beliefs or clients and yet not give a voice to unpopular or damaging content? This is the other end of the self-censorship problem in China.

This may all be a little too involved: most people just think the ad should have been spotted and removed.

#Mumbai: Twitter Terror Reports

2008-11-27T02:16:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Twitter comes of age:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/web/mumbai-attacks-live-on-twitter-flickr/2008/11/27/1227491713487.html

The Dark Side Of Social Media

2008-11-25T11:44:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

James Surowiecki argues that the blogosphere came of age during coverage of the Tsunami, delivering an unorganised yet participatory "collective portrait" in human terms to a public in need of information. His TED talk goes on to ask three key questions:

1. What motivates bloggers to blog?

The fact that bloggers are not motivated by a concrete reward demands that we expand our equation that value = money.
A vast body of quality content is generated and organised by individuals who do so for intangibles like attention, varying degrees of reputational capital and, more often than not, purely for the love of it.
This, as Surowiecki put it, for the traditional economist, is remarkable.

2. Does the blogosphere connect us to a previously untapped collective intelligence?

This is where the 'Wisdom of Crowds' comes in: Surowiecki's popular book.

The premise of the book is that a group of people is always more intelligent than even

its "smartest" member.

He describes Google as a collective intelligence: individual pieces of content are aggregated into a body of wisdom and perspective far greater than its individual parts.

How this applies to the blogosphere?

It is a distributed intelligence: one blogger or post might not meet a reader's requirements, but when we link, one to another, the cumulative resource is a whole to be reckoned with.

3. What is the dark side of the social media phenomenon?

This is the most interesting part of the discussion for me.

Surowiecki talks about how easy it is to be seduced by the decentralized, bottom-up structure of the internet.

And even, to buy into the Wisdom of Crowds.

But there is a caution: Networks.

Networks are handy, they connect us to each other, help us share information and give us a sense of community.

But they also inhibit our individuality.

They stop us from thinking for ourselves.

A network that links us, or ties us in too tightly to one another will start to generate themes or values that we all focus on, link to and blog about. "Piling onto" cumulative favourites, tarnishing the decentralized beauty of the net.

A crowd is only wise, cautions Surowiecki, when the individuals within that crowd are as independent as possible.

Debating Google's Evilness

2008-11-24T08:18:00.000-08:00

In my previous post I used the binary 'Google is Evil', 'Google is Innocent' structure to represent the findings of Intelligence Squared U.S's Oxford Style Debate.

The statement in question was in fact: "Does Google Violate Its Corporate Motto 'Don't Be Evil'?"

The team tasked with proving that Google DOES violate the motto, dispensed with any real investigation of 'evilness', (thank Google), but rather, explored the term's meaning and held Google up to its values (the seven deadly sins.)

Within this context, Google was found lacking.

What's more, it was proven that Google failed to live up to its less biblical mission of organizing and rendering the world's information more accessible to you and me (and the Chinese?)

Tried and sentenced in a court of its own design.

This has a certain appealing symmetry to it, no?

An ammendement to my previous post: I posted pre-debate results.

The final results affirmed that Google does in fact violate its corporate motto, being a little evil every now and then. On those evil scales.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, the associate professor at the University of Virginia, alerted me to this in a comment posted on my blog yesterday:

"The question in our debate was not whether Google is evil. Of course it is not. The question is whether Google violates its motto.

My approach was to show that it literally violates a canon of evil: the Seven Deadly Sins. As such -- and like every other company in the world -- it cannot take its own motto seriously.

The Seven Deadly sins are silly. The motto is silly. And no company should expect itself to follow such a motto.

Our side offered ample evidence of Google compromising its principles in the course of living up to its real mission statement: To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.

That's all we had to do to win the debate. That's how and why we did win.

The score you listed was the preliminary result -- before the debate happened.

The result after the debate was 47 for the resolution, 47 percent against, and six percent undecided."

Siva Vaidhyanathan.

Is Google Evil?

2008-11-22T21:45:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Evil? That's strong. But its Google's word.

'Don't Be Evil' is the company's informal corporate motto, a competitive, anti-corporate positioning settled on by Gmail creator Paul Buchheit who said "I wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out." That weighs in a little on the indelible side.

'Evil' is about "exploiting users" (Buchheit).

Its also about avoiding conflicts of interest, remaining objective and avoiding bias in managing the responsibility of delivering a vast and powerful commodity of information to a trusting public.

The idea and the promise is that Google doesn't accept money to favour content providers and holds itself to journalistic standards for the discernment of content.

Using a pejorative word like 'evil', not only in internal value

speak, but as an industry benchmark, left Google wide open during their 2006 controversial self- censorship move into China. At this point, the company introduced the "evil scale" system and CEO Eric Schmidt talked the talk of "lesser evils"being for the "greater good". Hmmmm.

One wonders why they had to go and stick such a nasty word in their positioning.

No consumer psychologists on the payroll?

Google's compliance with the Great Firewall of China censorship surveillance project was attacked by Amnesty International and Human Rights' Watch:

"These forms of censorship seem to contradict the very principles that Google — whose unofficial motto is "don’t be evil" — was founded upon. Until January 2006, Google's Support Centre claimed that it "does not censor results for any search term", but removed this claim after reaching its deal with China." Amnesty

Google apologised, but added that access to some of Google's content was surely better for Chinese citizens than no Google at all.

This has given rise to much debate.

There are three positions on "Is Google Evil":

1. Yes

2. No

3. Necessary Evil: Yes, but I can't help loving it.

Intelligence Squared U.S held an Oxford Style debate on the statement: "Google Violates Its Don't Be Evil Motto".

The Results: 20 percent of the audience agreed and 31 percent disagreed with the statement, with nearly half undecided.

Here are the arguments for and against:

Google Is Evil:

"Siva Vaidhyanathan, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, argued that Google is in fact guilty of all of the seven deadly sins (for which he used the Latin names). Here is a condensed version of his argument:

Luxuria (extravagance or lust): The people who work there get massages. That is corporeal lust of the highest order.

Gula (gluttony): They can eat all day, no matter what they want. There is so much food that they never need to say no. That is the very definition of gluttony.
Avaritia (greed): The Google-Yahoo advertising deal is one of many examples of Google overreaching to corner a market, or completely undermine a market, in an effort to maximize its returns.

Acedia (sloth): Its very model of advertising is based on free-riding. Google makes money off of our work. We blog, we put our cats on skateboards and record them for videos. We do all of this work, and then Google harvests our work, runs all of this content through this computers, spits it back out at us, with almost no actual value added.

Ira (wrath): There are hundreds of small companies all around America that have found their Google ranks decline significantly because they tried to optimize their results. They were just doing what a company should do, trying to get more attention for themselves. And Google’s algorithms, its faceless, soulless algorithms, came at them with wrath.

Invidia (envy): . Google has recently tried to push its suite of services that directly compete with Microsoft Office. Of course they have at various times threatened to muscle out eBay, muscle out PayPal, muscle out Amazon, in various ways.

Superbia (pride, or hubris): The actual motto of the company is “To organize the world’s information to make it universally accessible.” What could be more hubristic than that?

Google Is Innocent:

"Defending Google was Jeff Jarvis, the blogger who is writing a book called “What Would Google Do?” He listed eight virtues of Google, sans Latin. Again, here’s the condensed version:

Google has opened up the world’s knowledge to the world: No longer do we end an argument saying, I don’t know. We go to Google. Google will tell us.

Google respects the wisdom of the crowd: Google learns what it learns because it trusts us.

Google takes the wisdom of the crowd and it gives it back to us: Look at the Google Flu Trends search. It lets us know how often we search for a flu, and how the flu trend is

coming. That is our knowledge, not Google’s.

Google connects people: We often are accused online of being anti-social. I think we’ve become hyper-social. I think we’re more connected. Admit it, how many of you have searched Google for an old girlfriend or boyfriend?

Google is a platform that enables us to create: It is an age of creation, and Google creates the platforms, the tools to let us create, the means to let us pay for that.

Google does have ads: [Web publishers] can do what we want with our ads. We can start whole businesses with [Google]. We can create movements with it. We can be found with it. And I believe that Google ads will help support the future even of news.

Google.org is trying to solve (with hubris) the problem of energy and global warming: Politicians are trying to get us on energy with regulation and taxes and prohibitions and slaps on the wrist. Google is giving this investment, and innovation, and invention.

Google has a new model on how to treat employees: We get, they get, massages. [He stops here because his time runs out." New York Times Bits Blog

Bits went on to survey its readers.

Here are some of the comments:

“EVIL!” declared George Burdell. “They are advertising company mining your data and flooding your eyeballs. Everything else is a trail of candy to get you into the store.”

“Try living in a foreign country…. (Thailand)……no libraries, minimum access to publications/books/news. Google is a savior!” wrote John Oles.

“They’re not evil, but we need to keep an eye on them,” commented B. Mull. Dominik Pucek wrote, “Yes, Google is evil. But dammit, I like it!”

And my personal favourite:
“ Yes, Google is nothing but pure evil and must be exorcised, purified, and sanctified. As such, I am sending Father Merrin to Mountain View on the papal jet immediately. May the Force be with You.”
— Pope Magnus XVII

Gucci And Rihanna Collaborate: Hot New Unicef Campaign

2008-11-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini has designed the fourth annual dedicated accessory collection in support of Gucci's Campaign to Benefit Unicef.

This year's accessory is the White Tattoo Heart handbag.

It is showcased by a gorgeous international ad campaign starring award winning singer Rihanna toting pieces from the line.

The campaign is run over the festive season to maximize sales, 25% of which are donated to Unicef.

The fashion house's partnership with Unicef, initiated in 2005 aims to support the relief organisation's work with children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic in country's like Mozambique and Malawi.

The partnership has paid more than glossy lip-service to CSI: a Gucci fundraising event in New York earlier this year raised 2.7 million U.S Dollars for Unicef.

The company is one of Unicef's most substantial corporate benefactors.

The commercial itself is great to watch, Rihanna has a bristling energy that Giannini calls "enthusiasm" and put down to Rihanna being "young and modern". I think its more than that.

Sitting comfortably on an improbable swing in scant white clothing, she commands attention with robust personality so unlike the vacuousness of the common-or-garden model. The art direction and minimal styling lend her and the pieces enough space to deliver. And there's plenty of eye candy on offer in the bag-o-sphere.

Official Clip:

Behind The Scenes:

Rolling Stone Heralds New Soul Diva: Jazmine Sullivan

2008-11-19T21:46:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Rolling Stone's New Music Blog describes 21 year old Jazmine Sullivan's voice as resonant of both Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill. Her album, Fearless, produced by Missy Elliott has won her fans like Stevie Wonder and Kanye West. West says on his blog of single "Bust Your Windows", "This is my favourite song right now!!" That's a pretty hot endorsement for a new artist. This is a cool single: there's an Amy winehouse soulful sassiness in there too.

Check out this video of a live performance of "In Love With Another Man" to staffers at Seventeen Magazine for a sense of the unpackaged singer. Definitely an artist to watch:

Mobile Internet: More Users For The Small Screen

2008-11-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of coverage insisting on the opportunity to marketers and brand represented by mobile.
Blogs I follow reveal that the new buzz is around the fact that more South Africans access the internet via their cellphones than the traditional computer medium.
Vodafone's Rick Joubert wrote a biz-community article aimed at publishers which put the total number of mobile web users at 9.5 millions South Africans. He estimated that 7 million of these don't have access to PC internet.

This is strong support for the relevance, reach and power of the small screen.
Also, for extra care in the estimation of the internet-using market and its behaviour.

Joubert describes the mobile platform as: "the most ubiquitous, interactive and versatile of mediums the world has ever seen with very low barriers to entry and all the low infrastructure cost and distribution cost benefits of the internet."
The belief that TTL strategies need only incorporate a marginal online component to match a limited audience of PC internet users needs dramatic revision.
Integrated multi-media campaigning embracing a truly converged space is the order of today.

The implication is that an online media budget includes, if not emphasizes mobile.
The small screen just got a whole lot bigger.

Style Network's Isaac Mizrahi: Creativity Manifesto

2008-11-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

Far from being an airhead network style 'guru', Mizrahi has real ideas on the process of nurturing and expressing original art.
Watch this TED talk on the process of creativity.

Marlon Parker: Social Media For A Purpose

2008-11-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

On Wednesday, I met with Marlon Parker,

IT lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and the man behind the 'Technology For Community Empowerment' project: a practical investigation of how social media can be leveraged to affect real change in the lives of real people.

I first read about Marlon and his work in a biz-community article covering his use of MXit to connect and empower Western Cape communities affected by drug abuse, unemployment and gangsterism.

In that article, Parker described the impact of isolation in emphasizing the problem of addiction.

His response, was to tap the power of the mobile platform and its relevance as a meeting place for young people:

"The key thing was [that young people] don't know where to go to; even though there [are] numbers of people [to contact], they feel that people judge them. They don't feel they have the security of remaining anonymous. And the thought came about, seeing that we have 9 - 10 million people using MXit, [with] most of them being young people, why can't we use that tool to see if we can't reach an audience where people can actually get guidance... with associatives of drugs and gang activities?"(biz-comm)

The article grabbed me.

As an avid tracker of the social media landscape and as a strategist, I spend a lot of time evangelizing about the potential for dialogue, the cost-effectiveness, the creative versatility and social relevance of 'new' media platforms for delivering my clients' messages.

As a person, seeking more than the quick-fix of problem solving from my work, I am very interested in how the power to engage and connect individuals can be leveraged for something other than the sale of a product or service.

Marlon was already doing this work, and the scope and depth of his effort impressed me.

I decided to connect with Marlon, learn more about his work and see where I could add value.

I had been struck by the incredible take-up for the MXit service, by his other media-savvy plans and by the spirit of service that motivated the undertaking.

Also, that despite obvious need and reception for his offering, he is under-resourced.

We met in a Pretoria News Cafe and chatted for two hours: I had an abundance of questions and he is an abundantly energized and inspired individual.

What I left with was the sense that the Reconstructed project is a very tangible, human space in which peer counselling, mentoring, an authentic experience of community, access to technology for learning and expression (blogging / Mom 2.0), referrals to appropriate healthcare and professional counselling resources are made available. This holding area is really where the meat of the work is done in the lives of the individuals. Social Media are leveraged to deliver and connect individuals to this space.

I had had an upfront concern that online rehabbing was a poor substitute for the real deal, in human terms.

This is not the case: social media tools like MXit, Facebook and Twitter are merely socially relevant tools for connecting young people and keeping them connected. Breaking isolation, encouraging accountability and driving them to a very soundly developed program for sustainable recovery from negative lifestyles.

Parker's commitment to understanding, reaching and engaging his audience is purposeful and contagious. He markets a message in a medium and language that is entirely relevant to a community in crisis and he is getting results. Run entirely on the goodwill of volunteers, he is moving rapidly towards 4000 contacts on the MXit platform and achieving transformation in the lives of the Reconstructed community members.

Socially alienated young people are hooking back in to an experience of community, hosted by this project, it is a prototype for the meaningful use of technology.

Parker requires adequate backing to be able to deliver this service to an increasing subscriber base: I plan to assist. I hope other individual and corporate volunteers will lend him their support.

Barack Obama: The Poet

2008-11-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/07/02/070702on_onlineonly_obama
TWO POEMS
by Barack Obama
JULY 2, 2007

Pop

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I’m sure he’s unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he’s still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He’s so unhappy, to which he replies...
But I don’t care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I’ve been saving; I’m laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ‘cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop’s black-framed glasses
And know he’s laughing too.

Underground

Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.

Miriam Makeba: The Empress of African Song

2008-11-10T07:19:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Miriam Makeba died last night, leaving the stage of her final performance at a concert in Italy.

She was 76 years old.

Her contribution to our national voice included making South African folk music known to an international audience during the sixties, at the time of her enforced exile from this country: "I never understood why I couldn't come home.... I never committed any crime."

Makeba spent more than three decades in exile, singing her songs of the personal landscape of home on unfamiliar stages.

"Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us," Mandela said in a statement.
He said it was "fitting" that her last moments were spent on stage.

At an interview with Britain's Guardian Newspaper earlier this year, Makeba said: "I'm not a political singer, I don't know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us — especially the things that hurt us."

The TimesOnline ran these tributes from Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Letta Mbulu and Thandiswa Mazwai:

Click to Listen

'Mama Afrika Remembered'
http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za/audio/2008/11/mama-africa-remembered/

Obama: Son of Kenyan Soil and The Pride of Ireland

2008-11-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

'There's No One As Irish As Barack Obama'
Song written by Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys

Barack Obama and the coverage of his values are a brand that many global communities and individuals have responded to and sought, over the last week, to align with.

Most recently, Ireland has expressed its stake in the media hero's identity with this YouTube hit: "There's No One As Irish As Barack Obama".

I'm hoping this is an early peak in the international over-identification frenzy.

Maybe a bit of healthy parody will be hot on its heels.

I'll keep a look-out.

President Barack Obama: Signed, Sealed Delivered.

2008-11-04T22:56:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

My bloglist let me know, this morning, that Obama delivered a victory speech that rewarded his supporters for a period of fervent, pro-active and passionate support.

It was a speech rooted in his trademark spiritual inclusivity and attitude of gratitude.

His walk through the history of the American story, the spirit of the American dream and its resurfacing in his election was epic and emotive.

I can't help feeling like this is an American president out of one of those movies that I'm moved by despite myself.

Mainly, I liked how much he said thank you.

Because if the voting had been real, and if he is real, there was an equally real effort to give him the opportunity to resurrect the dream he describes.

I had been facebooking, last night, with friends of mine in Seattle whose genuine investment in the results was tangible, even through our respective electronic devices.

We're talking anxiety, excitement and not wanting to hope before a result was in the bag: understandable, given the creative dimension that polling and its circumstances have taken on in the past.

This election was not at any kind of remove: my friends have spent months rallying, investing money, attending events, garnering online support and mobilizing other people to the cause of getting this man elected.

The Americans that I know deserve leadership that restores their national self esteem after what seems like an interminable dark age of farce.

Obama's election victory was a cumulative victory not only for Democrats, but for those Americans who are seeking a radical break with their past.

And I'm particularly keen on any American president who campaigns with Stevie Wonder.

Will and Grace Creator Relationship Mentoring: Date for a Week then Shack Up

2008-11-03T01:34:00.000-08:00

By Alex Carnevale

When "your place" is Pete Sampras' mansion in Beverly Hills, it doesn't make much sense to dabble around with his and hers apartments in a fledging relationship. In the case of Will & Grace creator Max Mutchnick's relationship with entertainment lawyer Eric Hyman, you move in together after the first week. Whatever the merits of Mutchnick's fly-by-night approach, he and Hyman made it work.

http://gawker.com/5073822/will--grace-creator-recommends-a-week-of-dating-before-cohabitation

Clever Retail Awards Rewards The Shoppers

2008-11-03T00:58:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Avusa awards for retailers
Gauteng's top retailers were recognised, along with its Clever Shoppers, at the inaugural annual Retail Awards ceremony at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg.

Avusa Media's General Manager for advertising revenue and strategic communication, Enver Groenewald said “These awards will follow in the footsteps and are of the same integrity as Avusa's well known Top Brands and Generation Next research initiatives"
Helping to secure consumer buy-in for the strengthening of this proposition, was the lead-up to the awards: the Clever Shopper initiative. A consumer-centric promotion, run in weekly pages in both the Times and the Sowetan, in which shoppers stood to win a shopping spree at their favourite malls.

Avusa's awards ceremony and the recognition of the winners represents one part of a broader affinity-building exercise with consumers. The Times and the Sowetan were leveraged not only to build a database, but develop longer term relationships for the participants.

'Sowetan’s Tebogo Monama is pleased to let all of our readers know that although the Retail Awards have come and gone, readers will be glad to know that this does not mean the end of the Clever Shopper pages.
"Every Thursday, you can still look forward to the exciting and informative the Clever Shopper pages."

"We will continue to give you the best tips on shopping and what is going on the retail world. You will also be treated to updates on new and innovative products on the market with our Hot Product feature."'
Celebrity endorsements and product quality testimonials are also part of the overall strategy.

Biz-Comm Article: http://www.biz-community.com/Article/196/160/29928.html

Sowetan Article: http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=874673

Global Kiddies Mag Gives South Africa the Nod

2008-11-03T00:30:00.000-08:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

Who doesn't remember Noddy and Big Ears?

The Toy Town characters, now sixty years old, continue to entertain and educate in Lunar Dragon's Noddy magazine. The publishers also hold the Teenzone and Barbie titles and will launch Noddy to South African children on 1 December 2008.

For many of us, Noddy is iconic pre-tech childhood nostaligia.

Today's Noddy is a global mega-brand supported by an award-winning website (www.noddy.com), promising today's 2 - 7 year olds a contemporary learning buddy.

http://www.biz-community.com/Article/196/39/29944.html

D-Day For Digital Migration

2008-11-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

Tshepiso Seopa

As of (tomorrow), Saturday 1 November 2008, South Africa will enter a new era of broadcasting, when the country officially converts its television broadcasting signals from analogue to digital. Minister of communications Dr Ivy Matsepe Cassaburi officially launched the digital broadcasting signal at the World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly at Emperor's Palace, Johannesburg, yesterday, Thursday, 30 October 2008.
http://marketing.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/66/29915.html

Jacko Enthusiast Thrills With Scary Tribute

2008-11-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

Mandy Leontakianakis

François Macré broadcast himself in 64 channels of a cappella hommage to Michael Jackson in this Thriller cover. A commendable investment of imagination and evidence of a robust self-image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFAVxaEc9JQ

The New Bond: More Brawn Less Brain

2008-11-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

Alex Carnevale
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
Who Killed James Bond?
The early returns on the new Bond flick Quantum of Solace before its Nov. 14 release date have been mixed, with critics describing, for better or worse, a movie that consists entirely of a never-ending sequence of exciting violence in the air, land and sea. While Daniel Craig's debut as the British agent in Casino Royale was well-regarded, the agent is now more than a musculed projectile hurting forwards through different exotic locales than a crafty secret agent. In the pages of Playboy, Craig speculates on Bond's development into an inhuman automaton.

http://gawker.com/5069593/who-killed-james-bond

Plain Language: Get Real. Get Heard.

2008-11-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

As early as 1945 people started to realise that in order to write effectively and get their message across they needed to write in language that everyone could understand... in Marketing Machine

http://www.marketingmachine.iblog.co.za/2008/11/01/join-the-plain-language-movement/

Blogs: A New 'Sizeable Media Force' for Ads

2008-10-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Media Life
Half of blog readers say they find such sites useful for purchasing information, according to a new JupiterResearch study for BuzzLogic, the advertising network. Says BuzzLogic CEO Rob Crumple: Audiences are simply no longer "hanging out in traditional areas."

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/New_media_23/Rethinking_blogs_as_a_medium_for_ads.asp

Using MXit to Empower Communities

2008-10-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

By: Sindy Peters (Biz-Community article)

Using the mobile instant messaging platform MXit, Marlon Parker, an information technology lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, has over the past seven months initiated a rehabilitation programme for drug addicts in the Cape Flats region that has spread out as far as the Eastern Cape. His aim is to use technology to empower underprivileged communities in an area that is rife with poverty, unemployment, drugs and gangsterism.

http://www.biz-community.com/Article/196/78/29809.html

Myspace: Internet Generation Favours Obama

2008-10-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

AFP
Internet-age users overwhelmingly back Barack Obama for U.S. president, according to a poll by News Corp.'s MySpace. Survey data collected during a year of "unprecedented" online political discourse shows that 60% of the millions of eligible voters on MySpace prefer Obama

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20081031/tc_afp/usvoteitinternetcompanymyspace

Media Must Embrace Change, Murdoch Jr Says

2008-10-31T09:06:00.002-07:00

Rapid TV News
James Murdoch, the son of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. heir apparent, is calling on the media industry not to obstruct changes in the digital world. Companies that want long-term success must accept changing audience demands, he says. "It is dangerous to remain complacent."

http://rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200810302433/james-murdoch-pushes-for-change.html

Mathematician Cracks Mystery Beatles Chord

2008-10-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (2008-10-31) -- It's the most famous chord in rock 'n' roll, an instantly recognizable twang rolling through the open strings on George Harrison's 12-string guitar: the opening chord to the Beatles song "A Hard Day's Night." Now, a researcher has used a mathematical calculation known as Fourier transform to solve the Beatles' riddle. The process allowed him to decompose the sound into its original frequencies using computer software and parse out which notes were on the record.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081030201607.htm