On my way to work each morning, i drive by an artificial geyser installed on the seashore near Oeiras. Just watch the tilt-shift video below to check the sparkling ideia by the folks at Black Milk Media:

The geyser at Paço de Arcos was transformed into an installation in the shape of a bottle of Schweppes. Black Milk Media was the media agency responsible for activating this project that not only will advertise the brand Schweppes but will allow for maintenance and cleanup of the geyser for 12 months, in partnership with Câmara Municipal de Oeiras and Parish of Paço de Arcos. This process took about 10 hours and envolved a transport truck and a helicopter to move the installation of 500 kilos.

Source: Invisible Red

Despite what the profets of doom on the financial markets are saying, i’m proud of my country, Portugal.

The video above is how we present ourselves to the world at Expo 2010 Shangai. Come and meet us.

We’re almost there: the 2010 Do It Yourself SHiFT conference is starting this week. The next 16th and 17h at Teatro Aberto, Lisbon,  we meet again to discuss and share Social and Human Ideas For Technology, after the 2 previous successful editions.

Tinkerers, thinkers, hackers, technologists or curious people by nature can find something of their interest on the several talks and workshops. Here’s a preview:

• 5 PARA A MEIA-NOITE, RTP2: how the first cross-platform show in Portugal made us re-think it all
  Bruno Lima Santos
• about starting a coworking space
  Christoph Fahle
• Branding Today
  Andrea Vascellari
• Deconstructing DIY
  Elmine Wijnia
• Grappling the “Zhou Dynasty” in emerging markets
  Kushtrim Xhakli
• Guerilla Tactics for Developers
  Wolfgang Wopperer
• Hack Your Way to Being a Recognized Expert
  Morgan Brown
• Open Source Hardware – Of Makers and Tinkerers
  Jan Krutisch
• SHiFT to Sustainable Prosperity
  Ken Nunes
• Stop thinking, its bad for ya.
  Fred Oliveira
• The birth of a company-wide wiki
  Joaquim Baptista
• Work like the Network: Six ways organizations are fundamentally reorganizing since the advent of the Internet
  Lane Becker

The 2 day event is more than a tech conference: it’s about how technology can be used to be achieve a positive change in society. The casual setting is a great chance to meet other people and learn about new things. Better yet, not only learn, but Do It Yourself.

Come and meet us in Lisbon next Friday an Saturday, as tickets are still available !

Disclaimer: i’m a  symbolic last minute helper of the fantastic team organizing the event.

For the past 3 years, dozens of leading marketeers, writers and thinkers have collaborated on a book that brings some of the best insights on modern marketing. Led by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, this third book in the Age of Conversation series brings together authors from across the world, with diverse and practical insights for the changing nature of business today.

Chapters include topics like Conversational branding, Influence, Getting to work, Corporate conversations, Measurement, In the boardroom, Innovation and execution, Pitching social media and Identities (the topic I wrote a short essay for).

With cover illustration by Chris Wilson and our new publisher Channel V Books (from co-authors Gretel Going & Kate Fleming), i’m counting on you to order a copy once it’s released, specially considering the sales profits are donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Get to know the rest of the authors or follow the Twitter AOC3 list created by  Steve Ponder:

• Adam Joseph
• Priyanka Sachar
• Mark Earls
• Cory Coley-Christakos
• Stefan Erschwendner
• Paul Hebert
• Jeff De Cagna
• Thomas Clifford
• Phil Gerbyshak
• Jon Burg
• Toby Bloomberg
• Shambhu Neil Vineberg
• Joseph Jaffe
• Uwe Hook
• Steve Roesler
• Michael E. Rubin
• anibal casso
• Steve Woodruff
• Steve Sponder
• Becky Carroll
• Tim Tyler
• Chris Wilson
• Beth Harte
• Tinu Abayomi-Paul
• Dan Schawbel
• Carol Bodensteiner
• Trey Pennington
• David Weinfeld
• Dan Sitter
• Vanessa DiMauro
• Ed Brenegar
• David Zinger
• Brett T. T. Macfarlane
• Efrain Mendicuti
• Deb Brown
• Brian Reich
• Gaurav Mishra
• Dennis Deery
• C.B. Whittemore
• Gordon Whitehead
• Heather Rast
• Cam Beck
• Hajj E. Flemings
• Joan Endicott
• Cathryn Hrudicka
• Jeroen Verkroost
• Karen D. Swim
• Christopher Morris
• Joe Pulizzi
• Leah Otto
• Corentin Monot
• Karalee Evans
• Leigh Durst
• David Berkowitz
• Kevin Jessop
• Lesley Lambert
• Duane Brown
• Peter Korchnak
• Mark Price
• Dustin Jacobsen
• Piet Wulleman
• Mike Maddaloni
• Ernie Mosteller
• Scott Townsend
• Nick Burcher
• Frank Stiefler
• Steve Olenski
• Rich Nadworny
• John Rosen
• Tim Jackson
• Suzanne Hull
• Len Kendall
• Amber Naslund
• Wayne Buckhanan
• Mark McGuinness
• Caroline Melberg
• Andy Drish
• Oleksandr Skorokhod
• Claire Grinton
• Angela Maiers
• Paul Williams
• Gary Cohen
• Armando Alves
• Sam Ismail
• Gautam Ramdurai
• B.J. Smith
• Tamera Kremer
• Eaon Pritchard
• Brendan Tripp
• Adelino de Almeida
• Jacob Morgan
• Casey Hibbard
• Andy Hunter
• Julian Cole
• Debra Helwig
• Anjali Ramachandran
• Jye Smith
• Drew McLellan
• Craig Wilson
• Karin Hermans
• Emily Reed
• David Petherick
• Katie Harris
• Gavin Heaton
• Dennis Price
• Mark Levy
• George Jenkins
• Doug Mitchell
• Mark W. Schaefer
• Helge Tenno
• Douglas Hanna
• Marshall Sponder
• James Stevens
• Ian Lurie
• Ryan Hanser
• Jenny Meade
• Jeff Larche
• Sacha Tueni and Katherine Maher
• David Svet
• Jessica Hagy
• Simon Payn
• Joanne Austin-Olsen
• Mark Avnet
• Stanley Johnson
• Marilyn Pratt
• Mark Hancock
• Steve Kellogg
• Michelle Beckham-Corbin
• Michelle Chmielewski
• Amy Mengel
• Veronique Rabuteau
• Peter Komendowski
• Andrea Vascellari
• Timothy L Johnson
• Phil Osborne
• Beth Wampler
• Amy Jussel
• Rick Liebling
• Eric Brody
• Arun Rajagopal
• Dr Letitia Wright
• Hugh de Winton
• David Koopmans
• Aki Spicer
• Jeff Wallace
• Don Frederiksen
• Charles Sipe
• Katie McIntyre
• James G Lindberg & Sandra Renshaw
• David Reich
• Lynae Johnson
• Jasmin Tragas
• Deborah Chaddock Brown
• Mike O’Toole
• Jeanne Dininni
• Iqbal Mohammed
• Morriss M. Partee
• Katie Chatfield
• Jeff Cutler
• Pete Jones
• Riku Vassinen
• Jeff Garrison
• Kevin Dugan
• Tiphereth Gloria
• Mike Sansone
• Lori Magno
• Valerie Simon
• Nettie Hartsock
• Mark Goren
• Peter Salvitti

Can’t wait to read the great thinking from the “fellowship” !

At DefendeAsAmeixas.com, we get to know the tale of two farms: “Quinta da Ameixa Doce” and “Quinta da Ameixa Fresca” that have been haunted by misterious abductions of plums (or is it prunes, never figured out the difference).

Shameless Disclaimer: I’m really proud of this new project developed by our team at Fullsix for Compal, an iconic beverage company from Portugal.

Abductions of plums? Yes, that’s right: António and Maria defend their properties from theses attacks and keep the plums safe so we now could all have the fresh new juice, Compal Ameixa.

The site features the quirky advertising set in the rural landscape of Alentejo, Portugal but is also a great opportunity to win awards, with the final challenge being awarded a Vespa scooter. From the intro movie to checking which of your Facebook friends are supporting each farm there’s lot to explore (register for the full experience), on this fresh idea for digital inspiration.

the only farm i care about on Facebook

Kudos for the team:
Art Direction: Sonia Frazão
Flash Programming: Manuel Barbosa
Server side: Nuno Costa
Marketing: Inês Marques
Copywriting: Margarida Guerreiro
Strategy: Armando Alves

Film by Y&R Portugal and Krypton Films
Product: Compal Ameixa

Two years ago, the main portuguese brewery Super Bock created the main blog award event in Portugal, with over 2000 blogs competing to be elected Super Blog. In 2009, we have the 2nd edition with a few improvements, and a chance to see how Portugal’s blogosphere survived the pressure of social networks and microblogging.

Disclaimer: I work for Fullsix, the interactive agency responsible for the online campaign.The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer or Super Bock.

Registrations are still open until the next 23rd February for Portuguese blogs, with the voting taking place afterward until March 24th. Popular vote will elect the top 5 for each category, and the jury will select a category winner and a Super Blog (with a €1500 prize). Special categories include Best Microblog, Blog Angola (for blogs about or written by Angolans), Best Design and Best New Blog.

On the Awards website you can find more about the 14 categories, how to submit your blog and discover hundreds of blogs submitted since the competition started 2 months ago. There’s also the Awards blog, with lots of tips and tricks about blogging, the competition and other useful info.

This year’s edition has Maria João Nogueira, Pedro Rolo Duarte, Fernando Alvim and Alberta Marques Fernandes judging the finalists, elected by popular vote.

You still have a few days left to register your blog, with a few more chances for the following categories: Angola, Science, Corporate, Politics & Economy, Social Causes and Microblogging (there’s lot’s of good tweeple and tumblers out there).

As a sizeable chunk of this blog’s audience is from Portugal, thought this might be of interest. If you’re not keen on registering, any feedback is appreciated to improve one of the few initiatives that recognize bloggers in Portugal. Either that, or we can just have a chilled Super Bock the next time we meet.

Enough with technical jargon: at InternetOnlineWebsite.com you can learn all about this wonderful series of tubes.

A resource created by Barbarian Group and Aquent, it addresses a common problem: “I want this thing on my website, but I don’t know how to get it, or even what it’s called!”

Explain your client or even your mom what Search Marketing is, or what you need to get social media right. And though you may find this ironic/funny, the fact remains that a lot of people still need to be educated on the several components and disciplines of interactive marketing.

For those instances when a brand wants to grab the latest gimmick (or UFO), you now you have InternetOnlineWebsite.com !

Adverblog and Bannerblog have already started collecting Christmas cards, and i’m giving them a help with 2 new Christmas themed websites, were yours truly was involved.

First, the disclaimer: LG and CTT are Fullsix Portugal clients. But i really feel you’ll appreciate these projects.

PedeAoBarbas.com

In most countries, Santa Claus is depicted with a beard, which in Portuguese translates to “barba”. LG Electronics and MediaMarket (an electronics store) took the term literally and gave a chance for everyone to ask the bearded man their gifts for this season. But a humourous twist: the bearded men is actually named “Barbas” and is one of the most popular Benfica supporters, the football club with most fans in our country.

At PedeAoBarbas.com (ask barbas), “Barbas” and his sexy assistant are watching the videos consumers recorded at MediaMarkt stores, asking “Barbas” for their Christmas LG presents. The videos will be published online during the next 3 weekends, and all you have to do is gather your friends to convince the new Santa “Barbas” Claus.

This was one of the most fun projects i’ve worked in a while, with a charismatic football figure known by at least 6 million people. Just shows how brands focus too much on celebrity players and forget about the true fans. I’ll be attending the match tomorrow against Académica and perhaps once again have a chat with “O Barbas”.

Meu Postal De Natal 3D

Yep, it’s Augmented Reality. I know, i know, it’s hype and all that, but forget the gimmicks and just appreciate the lovely illustrations. And if you have the time and want to surprise with a different Christmas card (at least for those not on the AR hype), print it and send it by mail to your dear ones, as long as they have an webcam available.

>
No, i won’t post a screenshot of the AR experience. Go try it yourself

What’s so exciting about this? The client is CTT, the national post service in Portugal and one of the oldest public companies in Portugal but that isn’t what stops them to embrace new technologies and experiment.

So, i hope you enjoy these ones early because tradition says that in the next few weeks you will be fed up with Xmas cards.

Just noticed today that ComScore started measuring Internet audience in Portugal, and the numbers do look solid.

The study points to more than 3.8 million people age 15 and older, spending an average 1.9 hours online per person during the month, numbers that will probably be discussed the next 26th November at CAEM i-com National Roundtable (on Twitter @icomglobal).

The last few months i’ve also noticed a renewed interest on giving solid data about Internet behavior, as the market grows bigger with droves of new users consuming more bandwidth (either broadband or mobile).

The data on social networks is finally shedding some public light (disclaimer: Fullsix Portugal has also some panel data on user behavior), with no surprises on the top place for Hi5.com. Facebook numbers show some solid growth, but i’m still a bit far on my prediction that Hi5 would be surpassed by the end of 2009 (even if i seriously suspect that already happened in terms of active users). Twitter is a lot bigger than i expected, and something that most marketeers in my country have been ignoring.

Source: ComScore