IPA Social: Principle 07 - Perpetual beta

September 29, 2009 | 1 comment | Tweet This

As I mentioned in my previous post here the IPA are running an event to encourage conversation around the role of social media in our industry.  I’ve been working with a great group of people who came together because we agreed that there are many unknowns in this space, so we have been working closely with the IPA to look at were this could be going and what we need to bear in mind when interacting in this space.  We are not claiming to have all the answers, we want to start a conversation.  Here’s a little intro on what we’ve been doing:

Social Media is a conversation. That seems to be one thing that we can all agree on.

But given that Social Media is a rather noisy and opinionated conversation, what value do we think we will have by adding our voices to it?

We are not Social Media gurus. In fact we are rather sceptical of people who claim they are. We are simply 10 people from across a wide range of communications disciplines in the UK and the US who would like to share some thoughts. Thoughts that have either been bugging us or inspiring us, thoughts that we believe could form some of the building blocks for successful Social campaigns. We came together to respond to and add our voices to some work that the IPA had done earlier in the year.

We have each defined a Principle which we feel is important in this Social world. You will find each principle up here but they are also on our individual blogs where we will be curating the conversation which we hope they will generate. Please do get involved, maybe you think these principles don’t apply, are there better ones? Are there changes that you would like to make? Are there examples that you could add to help illustrate them? The only thing that we ask is that as part of the advertising and communications community that you become part of the conversation. After all the more opinions that are being shared and built on, the more interesting and stronger the outcome. At least that’s what we are hoping.

Thank you in advance.

The IPA have created a hub for all ten principles, along with a summary of the big picture written by Mark Earls. Each of us is writing about a single principle and encouraging as much debate through our own blogs, and around the #IPASocial hashtag on twitter, and the event itself:

1. People not consumers – Mark Earls

2. Social agenda not business agenda – Le’Nise Brothers

3. Continuous conversation not campaigning – John V Willshire

4. Long term impacts not quick fixes – Faris Yakob

5. Marketing with people not to people – Katy Lindemann

6. Being authentic not persuasive – Neil Perkin

7. Perpetual beta – Jamie Coomber

8. Technology changes, people don’t – Amelia Torode

9. Change will never be this slow again – Graeme Wood

10. Measurement – Asi Sharabi

These ten principles are just a starting point; provokers of conversation, thoughts, ideas… an invitation to you (yes, YOU) to join in. Why?  Our aim with this project is to move the debate beyond simply the theoretical, and into the practical; examples of approaches that have worked, and which have not.  What does success look like?  What do you need to do first?

We believe that by sharing information and case studies around ’social communications’ we will all, from the largest agency to the nimblest freelancer, from the most traditional client to the youngest start-up, benefit from this open source of knowledge.

So please join the debate by leaving your thoughts here and you can also see all of the principles together on the IPA Social website.

IPA Social Principle 07: Perpetual beta

Striving to be right first time is no longer acceptable. It means you’re not willing to listen. #IPASocial

“We could take beta off all of our products tomorrow, and we wouldn’t actually have accomplished anything…If it’s on there for five years because we think we’re going to make major changes for five years, that’s fine”.
Google co-founder Larry Page

Previously when planning a marketing campaign, vast amounts of time and money were invested in ensuring the final product was as perfect as it possibly could be.  This is because once the campaign was launched, it was out there to be judged for the duration.  When looking at digital, we need to adapt our behavior as the medium allows us fluidity. It is in itself sociable.

We have the ability to listen to what is being said about our campaigns, to ask people how they would like to see it develop and even to involve people in its creation.  This information should help us shape what the outcome should be.  Contingency budget should be kept aside once a campaign has gone live to enable the agency to shape it based on the feedback taken from its audience.

New possibilities open up within digital every week, and so it’s even more possible that brands will be entering into the unknown.  If they want to be seen as ‘being the first’ then they must accept this and open up opportunities within the community to help shape these
possibilities.

People are very forgiving if they feel they are being listened to. Digital isn’t necessarily going to be the most beautiful element within a campaign, but it is going to be the one that people will feel the strongest bond with.

By Jamie Coomber | Blog  | 1 comment | Tweet This

IPA Social

September 20, 2009 | Post a comment | Tweet This

Earlier this year the IPA ran an event to tie in with their Social Media Futures report. It was great that the IPA were looking in this direction however some of us didn’t completely agree with what they were recommending. Brilliantly headed up by Nigel, they listened to what was being said and invited a group of people to discuss how to move on. This turned into a smaller group (including myself) who have written 10 principles (we didn’t start out with a number in mind) clients and agencies should consider when playing in this area:

1. People not consumers - Mark Earls

2. Social agenda not business agenda - Le’Nise Brothers

3. Continuous conversation not campaigning - John V Willshire

4. Long term impacts not quick fixes - Faris Yakob

5. Marketing with people not to people - Katy Lindemann

6. Being authentic not persuasive - Neil Perkin

7. Perpetual beta - Jamie Coomber

8. Technology changes, people don’t - Amelia Torode

9. Change will never be this slow again - Graeme Wood

10. Measurement - Asi Sharabi

We’re not claiming to have all the answers at all but this week we will each be posting our principle and encouraging you to comment both on each members blogs, and also on the IPA Social blog (details to follow).  Our aim is to encourage conversation and gather opinion, and there will also be a seminar on 6th October when every member of the IPA Social group (bar myself as I will be on a beach in Mexico and Faris as he’s based in New York) will talk through these guiding principles and be available for a face to face Q&A.  Tickets are available here.  If you join in with these conversations then please try to use the hashtag #IPASocial so we can collate all your thoughts.  In the meantime the group will continue posting our progress so remember to check back.

By Jamie Coomber | Blog  | Post a comment | Tweet This

The search for the human element of Digital Britain

March 13, 2009 | 1 comment | Tweet This

As we have mentioned to some of you, Amanda and I were a little miffed coming out of the Digital Britain session with Lord Carter last month.  The fact that the government has recognised the benefits of supporting digital developments is awesome don’t get me wrong, however the report focuses predominantly on industry and fails to mention how they are going to help get more of the UK population online and support smaller start ups.  We hosted two seminars at Amplified that afternoon to compile people’s feedback with the intention of submitting a response to the report.

The other day I was having a nice cuppa with Mr Earls when we both realised that responses to the report had to be in this week.  Hauling ass Amanda and I have put together our 5 point proposal of topics we feel need to be included within the report and submitted this to government yesterday.  You can view our response here and Mark’s here.  Will keep you updated.

By Jamie Coomber | Blog  | 1 comment | Tweet This

Wearable Gestural Interface

March 13, 2009 | 1 comment | Tweet This

You gotta love MIT.  Sixthsense is a wearable projector that interacts with your surrounding environment by overlaying interactive content over everyday items that allow the user to find out more information.  Nice.

By Jamie Coomber | Blog, Data Visualisation, Innovation, Technology  | 1 comment | Tweet This

The future of Social Media; how conversation and behaviour is changing

February 13, 2009 | 3 comments | Tweet This

I was asked to give a talk on this at Use8’s recent conference on Social Media. I am not claiming to have all the answers as I don’t believe we ever will have, but a few of you have asked to see it so here you go. Most of my slides are just images, so if you view it through Slideshare, I have inserted notes so the presentation will make more sense.

The future of Social Media; how conversation and behaviour is changing
View more presentations from Jamie Coomber. (tags: socialmedia social)

By Jamie Coomber | Blog, Conference, Social Interaction, Thought pieces, Youth  | 3 comments | Tweet This

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