digital art science

If you’re reading this, the enigmatic, hashtagged, web savvy, social title for this post hasn’t put you off, and that’s a good thing. I hope.

I was out for a run this morning, and a few things hit me. Bear with me while I break it down.

I was thinking about this blog post from a few months ago. To summarise, it’s a young woman who still hand writes a lot of letters and explores that idea, or at least hints at something more sinister and scary; that in this day and age, with technology becoming more integrated with everything we do, handwriting, plain old ball point pen handwriting, could become an art form, or worse still, a lost art form.

I can’t remember the last time I hand-wrote something to someone other than myself.

I was also thinking about the anticipation of communication. Remember waiting with baited breath as your old modem dialled, fizzed and buzzed it’s way online and you could check your email? Or rushing down to the letterbox to see if there was anything inside other than a bill? I communicated by letter only with my now-wife for several years and the anticipation of communication is quite dizzying and sweet. I thought about this because whilst jogging I checked my email 3 times, caught up on Twitter replies, DM’s and LinkedIn recommendations… it was all immediate gratification, or in some cases disappointment.

Hardly a replacement for the joy of finding a hand written, hand addressed envelope intended for you and you only.

So I’m going to do something small about it to hopefully give some joy, excitement, maybe even a laugh to some of you.

If I have met you in person in the last week or two, or tweeted back and forth a few times, basically had some kind of online engagement with you recently or in the future, I’m going to hand-write, hand address and post you a #slowtweet. Just a short message from me, and maybe a little picture, because I like drawing pictures.

You probably know who you are, if you’ve read this far, or suspect it anyway. My gifts to you are the anticipation you will feel between reading this blog post and opening a hand addressed envelope dropping on your desk or somewhere sometime soon (time to be determined by Australia Post), and the message therein.

And if you want to send something back, you’re very welcome. Either way, welcome to the #slowtweet.

So, a little over a year ago I sent my second “Good Apple” newsletter, cryptically mentioning a big upcoming project.

I promptly disappeared for 13 months and left my website, newsletter and blog to gather dust.

Truth is I can’t say too much about it, as the project is still ticking along without me. Also, I want to give my work its dues. It wound up being a pretty impressive piece of innovation, strategy and execution, so I’ll address it in more detail when I can in a case study or overview.

For now I want to let you know that the single most important lesson I learnt in the last 13 months is that I NEVER want to stop learning. If I ever imply to you that I know everything about a topic, kick me in the shins. Hard.

A constant desire for knowledge is what makes digital tick. New tools are nice, but slobbering lust and enthusiasm from the rest of us online is what makes or breaks a trend and changes communication, behaviour, even the world. May I always be a slobbering enthusiast… (please read that in the least unpalatable interpretation available).

I’m not ruining any surprises by saying that the past 13 months was a very experimental project in terms of what we did online and where, a true suck it and see approach. Alongside that I was tackling a client from an industry of which I had no experience; Pharmaceutical. Heck, I haven’t studied science for more than 15 years, but the last year has seen me printing scientific research and publications to devour on the train like so much fruit flavoured Mentos (or is that just me, again?)

The other thing I have learnt is that now more than ever before I have a desire to do something good with my skills and experience.

The GFC, hurricanes, tidal waves, gangland criminals, back-stabbing politicians… the world doesn’t need more people out being mercenary, selfish or pursuing aims other than the increasing of niceness… who’s with me? Drop me a line at morgwn@digitalartscience.com.au, hit me up on Twitter (@morgwn) or just generally stalk me, get in touch and together we can find new ways to be good, using this wonderful thing we call the internet.

It’s a rainy and cold Sunday afternoon. I’m at a crossroads. And whether you’re with me or not, I’m out to make a difference. Watch this space.

Hey! See that up there? That’s my new business card. It’s index card sized (3in x 5in) I call it my big-ness card and it’s been doing the round with my clients in it’s previous form. Complete with Sudoku puzzles on the back for when things get a little dull (that would be AFTER meeting with me).

Anyway, onto what I’m writing about this afternoon.

Those of you that know me, may or may not know that I dabble with painting.  Have done for many years.

Well this weekend (Queens’ Birthday weekend), I’ll be setting up my easel in the St Kilda Botanical Gardens and taking part in the ‘Paint these Gardens‘ art competition. Sounds like fun! Even if it rains.

I’ll be tweeting updates of my artwork as I go along, so please follow me on Twitter (@morgwn). And if you’re in the area, pop down on Monday afternoon and vote for MEEEEEEE in the people’s choice awards.

Hope to see you there. I can’t tell you exactly where I’ll be, it depends on the weather, but what better excuse to explore the lovely gardens!

Never has the individual had so much power at their disposal as they do online today. What started as a ‘get back in touch with’ or stalk your old classmates and colleagues phenomena, has evolved into… well, basically millions of individual digital PR agencies, servicing one demanding client, themselves. And it’s being powered further by Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Plurk, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc, etc. It’s called, whether you like it or not, Social Media (pfui).

The amazing thing is, most businesses and brands have yet to break into it with any real or lasting success.

Some would argue that they missed the boat. I advised my clients to jump in at the start and ride the wave while it was going up. Brands were the catalysts for people signing up to services like Twitter, before they were splashed all over every newspaper, every day. The logic being that the users are going to sign up eventually anyway, so why not give them a push and be their first pleasant memory of web 3.0 (sorry).

I haven’t seen anyone really jump in yet, with the exception of Skittles, but that was just weird.

Perhaps it was the pool of clients active at the time, or a general sense of wwworld weariness that surrounds anything online. The fear that it may be just a fad (Hello, Second Life!)

In my book they missed an absolutely stellar opportunity. I hope that some client-side marketing people have learned, and are willing to take a little risk with something different next time. Oh well, that’s my personal beef out of the way. Onto something more meaningful…

Businesses, small, medium but potentially not so much large, can reap some real benefit from the Social Media phenomenon and earn brownie points for partaking in the spirit that it is intended.

I’m talking about personal profile management. Anyone on a social network, or dabbling in social media has a profile of some description. A physical one (for want of a better word) that contains personal information and links, photos, videos, quizzes (gggaaarrrggghhhh, just stop it Facebook friends! If the data and results are not qualitative, quantitative, justifiable or pretty damned funny, I just don’t care!). Then there is the broader definition of ‘profile’, meaning what that persons connections think of them. Or put simply, what kind of recall and memorability their personal brand inspires in their ‘audience’.

Businesses could really benefit by putting in place some soft social media policy, and encouraging their employees to generate, propagate, discuss and engage with content and connections about their place of employment.

So often a company, particularly SME’s, are built around the personality, passion and skill of one, or a small handful (a pinch?) of people, who inevitably become the company’s directors. These guys are the magnets for referrals and new business and often the lonely advocates out there networking and spruiking.

All I am saying is give employees the scope to build their own ‘profile’ by hitching it firmly to the wagon of the company’s profile, and vice versa. Share the responsibility for letting everyone know what a company does and why its the best. I’d certainly be inclined to approach a company if I knew a handful of their heroes through Social Media.

There’s some risk about disgruntled grunts despoiling your brand image (and theirs too), but I always sanity check tweets, status updates and the like by asking myself, ‘Would I stand up on my desk and shout this to the office?’ If the answer is no, don’t post it. If the answer is yes, post it, and if you work in an office where all sorts of off-colour things are screamed from atop the desks…there’s quite often a delete button.

Two things hit me when I watch ABC’s ‘The Gruen Transfer‘.

First of all, it’s a reminder that people outside of the advertising industry don’t think about brands, advertising and marketing in the same way, or as consistently as we (and the guys on the show) do. That may not sound like much, but it’s pretty shocking for me to realise that for the last 12 years or so, I’ve been analysing and dissecting brand and marketing messages much more thoroughly than they are intended to be.  Probably explains how and why I have gravitated to this industry.

The second thing is just how old-guard and traditional they are. With the exception of Todd Sampson, the panelists are caricatures of advertising industry stereotypes.

But all this has been said before by people with more time and insight than me.

Last night was the episode where the ‘The Pitch’ segment challenged two agencies (JWT versus The Foundry) to sell Obesity to the general public. JWT stuck their tongues in their cheeks and called on fatties to up their consumption for the sake of the economy. While The Foundry decided to shock everyone into silence by drawing a parallel between massively, horrendously bigotted insults and a fat joke. Kind of off piste if you ask me.

My fingers are too cold in my breezy Elwood flat to rant coherently about it, so I’ll kick it bullet point style.

• Obesity is NOT comparable in any way shape or form to being black, gay or Jewish
• Discrimination against fat people is virtually non-existent. Was the trade in fat people for cheap/free labour abolished only last century? Were millions of fat people killed in death camps before and during WWII? Do fat people get beaten up and killed by marauding gangs of redneck teenagers? Bugger, I started to rant there.
• Being fat is a choice (with the exception of glandular problems). Being black is not a lifestyle choice, nor is being gay, or Jewish. A fat person can change their situation and actually improve pretty much every aspect of their life, they wouldn’t be giving anything up, or going against their beliefs.

In a word “grrrrrr”.  I could go on.  But that wasn’t even the most offensive and ridiculous thing about last nights programme.

Did anyone else balk at Bridget Taylors little campaign extension idea? Let’s put a fit bird and an ugly bird on the Speight boat to the UK and see if we can get the Kiwi’s mate to knob the ugly one in the ultimate test of mateship?

Now I’m not ugly, or a woman, but I can imagine that ugly women face more discrimination and have fewer avenues to change their situations, especially when they shouldn’t have to. As always, it’s society that needs education and enlightenment, and let’s face it, a little more maturity and humanity. Perhaps ‘The Pitch’ challenge should’ve been to sell ‘Ugly’, but that might’ve dragged the attitudes of the panel, and TV-land in general, a little close to the sweaty and unforgiving spotlight.

I was consulting for the DSE the other day on new digital technologies and it set off a fruitful train of thought.

Much is said about the democratisation and freedom offered by the internet. Freedom of speech and the possibility for real, human voices to tunnel their way out from beneath oppressive regimes of violence, fear and censorship (Hi Stephen Conroy and your blasted internet filter). I’m not questioning the opportunities for expression, growth and freedom. That would be silly.

What I’m wondering about is a little more rooted in technology and levels of understanding and engagement achieved and achievable from various groups and individuals.

In my musings on web 3.0 I often refer to aggregation and personalisation. Tools like Twitter, Yahoo pipes, RSS and the like. They make it easier to filter rubbish, or just the stuff that I’m not interested in, so that it never even reaches my eyeballs. I like it, it saves me time and makes me look and feel smart. But what I realised is that in order for web 3.0 to exist, there has to be hordes of peeps still languishing in web 2.0 creating the content that I am filtering. Does that put us web 3.0 users at the pointy end? Or the ‘early-adopter’ end of a bell-curve? And what of our attitudes to the stragglers?

Like it or not, and much to the chagrin of innovators, there’s still a lot of Web 1.0 content and attitudes around. And what happens when a brand, individual or government body tries to bring itself up to date? More often than not, they’re subjected to a hail of vitriol from innovators who ‘could’ve done it so much better’ (but let’s face it, didn’t).

So I’m going to apply a mental filter of a simple capitalist ‘social class’ system over use of the web today and see what jumps out.

I’d argue that there is a three tiered system in place. Obviously, within each class there are varying degrees of cross-over and grey areas, but hey, this is only a blog, not a sociological study.

The Underclass and Working classes are still wallowing in Web 1.0. How often do you come across a site that was developed in 1997 and still serves as the hub for a business, individual or government/administrative department? Heaps. It’s all still out there, and heck, it’s enough for some people. Why would they need to innovate and bring themselves up to date? A lot of stuff happens in the real world that doesn’t need a widget, iPhone app or blog (although it pains me to admit that). So your common, garden variety luddite could be that way by choice, ignorance of anything different, or by an inability/lack of skills and resources to drag themselves up. Content with their ‘lot’, or unable to struggle out of it… sounds both apt and clear to me…

Which brings us to the Middle classes. The lower echelons still may dip a toe in Web 1.0, while the upper may have a grasp of 3.0, heck, they might even be silently following us on Twitter. These guys get blogs, maybe make them, they understand and use google and search and are prolific creators of content. Thrashing about in the fertile grounds of Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, free WordPress/Blogger/Blogspot accounts and the like, these are the guys at the butt of the Web 3.0 joke (being that 3.0 is filtering the crap out of 2.0). They’re happy and connected. They spend a lot of time on Facebook, today’s suburbian garden party (they might refer to it as a soiree). They aspire to improve themselves and attempt to get ahead of the curve. Again, if they innovate or update, the 3.0 pundits look down their collective noses at them and shun (filter out) 99.9% of the content these little battlers put their hearts and souls into. Comfortable, competent, striving for improvement, but always that little bit behind… I give you, the sprawling middle class that is Web 2.0.

And now on to that envied and enviable group. The Digital Nobility. They take what they want, like and need from the classes below, and leave what they don’t. Lording it over everyone. Headpatting, golf-clapping and hand-shaking occasionally, but more often snickering behind velvet gloved hands at the attempts to be web-savvy and digitally hip. Internet A-listers that are whispered about by the lower classes for their celebrity (real, imagined or digital) activity, visibility and their apparent propensity to not actually do much of anything except sit in ivory towers mocking or applauding the sound and fury taking place ‘down there’ in areas they’re too good to tread. Prime targets as the subject of the question, ‘What are they for, anyway?’.

Sorry, boffins.  That was a little harsh, but in exaggeration you get to the nuts of a theory, and by and large it works.

As for the Hardcore, who actually create the tools, portals and technologies that all classes interact with the web and each other through? They’re , um, like, Wizards or Magicians or something.  They’ll love that, the Dungeons and Dragons playing nerds.

I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life (well, a few weeks),

I could feel it coming into my bank last night.

Kevin Rudd’s handful of sweaty stimulus dollars. Given so that I may go forth and invigorate the Australian economy.

Well, I got straight on the case and went out a-stimulating.

Thanks Kevin! from Morgwn Shaw on Vimeo.

I try not to blog about TV.  I have been known to run around predicting its demise, so admitting that I saw something on TV, not to mention that I am thinking about something I saw? It damages my street cred. I can’t help feeling that something has to be said about the VB/Legacy Australia, Raise a glass campaign. The Raise a glass campaign is dirty and wrong. Word.

Let me clarify. Legacy is good. And beer is good, in moderation. But putting the two together for this campaign irks me.

For those that have not been assailed with this commercial, there are a few of them, but the concept is the same. Veterans of various wars sit and tell stories about a mate they lost. The ads end with the viewer being urged to raise a glass to our fallen heroes. And then you’re driven to the website where VB try to sell you a slab with a specially printed thingo on it, with a view to raising a million bucks for Legacy.

I feel a little dirty for complaining about this, but I think it’s justified.
Do we not have a problem with binge drinking and alcohol abuse in this country?
Do we not have problems with underage drinkers? And ‘at-risk’ demographics turning to alcohol at the expense of their friends, jobs and families?
Do veterans not struggle with alcohol abuse as they come to terms with the aftermath of their involvement in a conflict?
Hasn’t anyone at VB/Legacy’s agency ever listened to Khe Sanh?

Alcohol is wrongly used as a means to dull pain. Whether it’s plain old civilian pain, or the result of mental scarring that armed combat can bring.

And along comes VB and tells us to ‘Raise a glass’ to fallen heroes. They’ve twisted a negative association into a positive action by shoe-horning in some veterans. And they’re hoping that the message is ‘cleaned-up’ by our grateful feelings towards both the fallen and the non-fallen heroes.

Can I tell you something? It didn’t work.

People drink to excess because of exactly the message you’re pushing on us. Loss, hurt, pain? Raise a glass! Raise another one! We’re giving you an excuse to keep going at it as well. And a warm, fuzzy feeling because a couple of bucks went to a charitable and decent organisation. Your carton even has a specially printed thingo on it.

Maybe the pretty printed thingo will jog your memory as to why you got annhialated on VB last night? Why your liver hates you, your mouth tastes like a pub floor and your brain feels like it was squeezed into a skull three sizes too small for it. And the warm fuzzy feeling might get you through the morning ’till the Berocca kicks in.

Hell, that would be a better campaign than Raise a frickin’ glass.

My eyes have been opened. Web 3.0 is upon us and is rapidly becoming the norm for those of us lucky enough to be at the aforementioned pointy end.
Those of you still wallowing in the quagmire of Web 2.0, prick up thine ears. We on the bleeding edge are filtering out the crap and basking in the bright sun of aggregation and personalisation. And conversely, we are ensuring that our utterings are broadcast to the largest possible audience and reaping the webby benefits. Is there any greater achievement in the golden age of digital narcissism?

For me it all started with UnHub. Briefly, Skittles short web 2.0 campaign saw them replace their brand site with links to their web 2.0 portals, twitter feeds and wiki entries, with varying degrees of success. So, a couple of fellas latched onto the idea and built an interface that allows you to import all your blogs, feeds and websites into a simple toolbar, from whence the user can marvel at your eloquency and intelligence. Nice!

And that simple experience sent me on a little aggregation journey. And I found that there are indeed some very useful and incredible tools out there. Some known, some not so much so.

By spending some time setting up ping, I can update all my statuses, micro-blogs, even blogs and LinkedIn statuses at once.  Gone are the days of 17 browser tabs being open at once and losing myself in a complicated world of, well everything really.

And then there was Triond. It purports to be a portal that can get your content read and viewed by the right people, and pay you for the privelege! I uploaded and article that was plagiarised by The Age recently and it’s already kicking back some returns and hitting eyeballs that I woudl never have the time to go after. Nice. And everytime I get published through that, it sends out a tweet about it.

And you can’t go past Twitter, which I believe sits on the cusp of webs 2.0 and 3.0. the harbinger of aggregation. No longer do I hunt around the web for content to keep me up to speed.  There’s literally millions of people out there doing the job for me.  I just need to follow the right people.

It’s all getting quite fascinating and exciting. But I know you guys have short attention spans. So I’ll leave it at that and say, go and check some of this stuff out, find your own wonders and let me know about them.

It’s a good question, I mean, why did I call my business Digital Art Science? I could just trade under my name. Then I would spend time correcting the spelling of my first name and writing blog posts about its Old Welsh heritage. It’s Morgwn, from before the Welsh discovered the letter y, and after they started shunning a‘s…

Anyway, Digital Art Science says a lot more about my approach, and way of thinking and approaching digital strategies for branding and marketing. It also sums up my three passions, my three areas of interest, but there’s my personal blog and rants on atheism to cover that off more thoroughly.

Let’s check off the 3 elements of my business name one by one, starting with the first and easiest.

Digital – what I do, I do on the internet, which is digital. What I do uses technology, systems and software which all manifest themselves digitally. Digital is the channel that brands, consumers and audiences communicate and interact through with increasing levels of frequency and using ever more complicated, engaging and rewarding channels, portals and tools.

Art – Creativity is at the heart of what I do. Basically, art is breaking the rules, or rather thinking without any consideration of the rules. Through this I find new ways to use existing technology and channels, and conceptualise bluesky ideas that extend what’s real into the future, or extend what doesn’t even exist yet. It keeps me awake at night, excited about a new channel or concept, waiting until I can get up, log on and visualise and record it, finding a practical use along the way.

Science – is the rules and technical smarts that I sometimes ignore, sometimes ponder as part of the art process. There’s a lot of technology out there, that’s science. There’s a lot of established fields of research, such as usability and psychology. All of them are useful and can offer an insight that can steer a creative idea into the realms of the real, possible, effective and optimised for success.

And all three rolled into one ensures a considered approach. Bluesky, innovative, ground-breaking thinking paired with practical optimisation, analysis and rationalisation. Makes sense, no?

Either way, it’s how I roll. And it works.