Filed under: Digital Strategy
Q: Everyone seems to be wired into the blogosphere as a way of exchanging ideas, opinions and industry gossip. As a senior exec at an advertising agency with virtually no blogging experience, either as a reader or author, am I missing out? Is “amateur media” the way of the future?
A: I’m not convinced that advertising and marketing blogs could be called ‘amateur media’. After all there’s quite a difference between the opinion of a professional practitioner and that of a professional observer.
I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now and have found the practise to be invaluable; not only to my professional development, but as an introduction to a global community of people and to places that has made my personal life richer too. My online adventures, into campaigns, applications and technology, have been more than met with real world opportunities that have taken me to New York, Barcelona and Marrakesh and have helped create local experiences like Interesting South.
So what are you missing out on? What’s the ROI?
As with anything that’s going on in social media, it’s all about the Risk of Ignoring:
- As a reader of blogs: Can you afford not to be informed about the latest thinking in your discipline? Can you afford not to learn from some of the brightest minds and most passionate advocates in the industry?
- And as a writer: Can you afford not to keep a notebook of your online reading? Can you afford not to contextualise and have an opinion on what’s going on in advertising?
- And ultimately, as an ad-exec: Can you afford not to have experiences that would help you understand people’s behaviour in the social media space?
Filed under: Great Stuff
Here it is. Awesome.
Heroism is an ideal as old as humanity. Who will be the heroes of the 21st Century? What is heroism in the digital age? These are a few of the questions that a new group of researchers are seeking to understand.
Everyday Heroism is designed to bring together the general public and scholars interested in this topic to explore what heroism is, who performs heroic acts, and why.
Heroism Survey
Asks people to help better understand what heroism is.
The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.
If you are interested in participating, please click here.
Resources:
The Banality of Heroism” Zeno Franco & Dr. Philip Zimbardo (2007). Greater Good Magazine. (2MB pdf).
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Dr. Zimbardo’s new book and website by the same title.
For Goodness’ Sake. Essay for O Magazine, Dr. Zimbardo, April 2007. (.doc)
“Is Lei Feng (雷锋) Still a Modern Hero?: A Consideration of Heroic Action in the Context of Culture” Paper. Franco, Z.E., Pamlin, D., Langdon, M., Blau, K. & Zimbardo, P. For the 4th International Conference on Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology and Psychotherapy, Guangzhou, China
Filed under: Great Stuff
From religious fundamentalism to pseudoscience, it seems that forces are attacking the Enlightenment world view – characterised by rational, scientific thinking – from all sides. The debate seems black and white: you’re either with reason, or you’re against it. But is it so simple? In a series of special essays, New Scientist looks more carefully at some of the most provocative charges against reason. The results suggest that for all the Enlightenment has achieved, we still have a lot of work to do.
How to make reason more reasonable
The 21st-century passion for “Enlightenment values” owes a lot to the 18th century. Philosopher A. C. Grayling discusses where those values come from and what they mean today.
1: Reason stands against values and morals
Shaping a moral and humane world requires more than reason, says Archbishop Rowan Williams.
2: No one actually uses reason
If we had to think logically about everything we did, we’d never do anything at all, says neuroscientist Chris Frith. Watch a related video
3: I hear “reason”, I see lies
Science is routinely co-opted by governments and corporations to subvert people’s ability to make their own decisions, say sociologist David Miller and linguist Noam Chomsky.
Watch a related video.4: Reason excludes creativity and intuition
Reason is lost without art, says Turner prizewinner Keith Tyson. Watch a related video.
Real people don’t live their lives according to cold rationality, says bioethicist Tom Shakespeare. Watch a related video.
Even in formal mathematics, reason breaks its own rules, says mathematician Roger Penrose. Watch a related video.
7: Reason is just another faith
Unconditional reliance on a single authority is never sensible, says philosopher Mary Midgley.
And for Julian, here is the link to The Blog Council and their best practices tool kit.
Filed under: Digital Strategy
Your dossier is made up of all the digital tracks you leave behind – from your photos on Flickr, to the Facebook messages you send, to all the data your credit card company collects about your transactions. On a daily basis, digital natives are consistently leaving information about themselves in secure or non-secure databases.
In this video, created by Kanupriya Tewari, the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society’s Digital Natives Project explores this issue from the perspective of a child born today – Andy – and the timeline of all the digital files he accumulates in a life span.
- The Digital Natives website and Wiki
- Born Digital
Filed under: Digital Strategy
In an effort to help inspire a new generation of inventors, the Ad Council partnered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and The National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation to launch this national Inspiring Invention PSA campaign.
Research conducted for the campaign found that today’s children, although naturally curious and inventive, do not realize the impact of their creativity.
Link found on a new source of goodness the Year of Creativity 2008:
Designed to stimulate something we all have in common:creativity.
It is a starting point from which to explore the amazing potential of small changes and the infinite opportunities they offer.
YOC is an invitation to be more curious and more imaginative.
It is a catalyst that promotes real and virtual opportunities for us all to discuss and compare our own creativity.
It is a space in which the endless personalities inside us can express themselves, as only those who are inwardly creative can also be creative with the world at large.
The first initiative in the YOC project is “Be the Change”, an entertaining and ironic way of expressing our multiple identities through a set of highly original, personalized business cards.
Here’s my first one:
Interview with Sophie Peer , Amnesty International, about human rights in China, with a special focus on the Great Firewall of China. By Stilgherrian.
Other great tips from him:
- Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China | Harvard Law School: An analysis of China’s Great Firewall which concludes that the blocking systems are becoming more refined even as they are likely more labor- and technology-intensive to maintain than cruder predecessors.
- Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents | Reporters sans frontières: Tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation.
- The Great Firewall of China: how it works, how to bypass it
Filed under: Zeitgeist
How internet famous are you? Type in your name and find out.
Go here then scroll down.
Woot! I’m a 57.
Via: The American Copywriter Boys (and Pablo)
