A Source Of Inspiration

The Cluetrain Manifesto is turning 9. If you need a concrete example of how it can change companies, then watch and learn.

From the same show, Doc Searls speaks about the origin of Cluetrain.

This is the kind of thing that Pedro will dig, as he’s so interested in creative collaboration.

Adam and Dessi Price, inspired by their trip to the 11 Spring Project, turned a downtown building they owned over to the art community in Utah. They started this project only knowing one local artist and every artist that joined after came from word-of-mouth. In the end, over 144 artists participate in the project. Over 7,500 people toured through the building.

Learn more about this project here.

Source: Wooster Collective

Interesting study by ZenithOptimedia, found at Julio Alonso’s blog, with several questions to proeminent spanish bloggers and more than 2.000 phone interviews.

Favourite insights:

• Most people get to know blogs through friends
• Users read mostly their friends blogs, followed by tech blogs
• 44% of interviewed users admit they might change brand due to comments read on blogs
• LiveSpaces and Blogger are the dominant publishing platforms
• Advertising is well accepted, as long as not too intrusive
• Users see blogs as an independent medium, with participation as the main feature

Link to study (4Mb pdf).

Green is the new black, with the Al Gore manifesto making waves in many fields. Now it’s the turn for designers to take a stand with designcanchange.org.

The site uses great  infographics and smooth photo transitions to present a quick overview about global warming and encourages designers to make a change, through their active role in society. Choosing materials or suppliers that are ecologically sustainable is one of the examples given so in the end a designer does make a difference.

Our professional role does have implications to our society - in a sense,  we do shape the environment with minor design choices that build the long tail of our consumer society. If you feel like taking a active role, take the pledge and join the community.

Turbulent times at GooTube. After Viacom moved out, Turkey is banning the service due to a video showing Greeks criticizing and insulting Turkey and Ataturk. More details at TimesOnline.

Source: Techcrunch

Yesterday i saw this.

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Today Seth wrote about this:

Early in December my Son and I went to Winnipeg for an exhibition lacrosse game of our favorite team, the Minnesota Swarm. Winnipeg is about 8 or 9 hours and an border crossing away from our home, so it was a non-trivial jaunt for a sporting event. For us, it was a novel adventure. I’ll spare you almost all of the details other than it was a wonderful trip and Winnipeg was an awesome place to visit, even in the winter. Everybody we met was really great and especially helpful, which leads me into the actual story. Two other die-hard Swarm fans made the trek up as well. We sat on one side of the MTS Centre and they had seats on the other side. The game was fun, even if we did lose. Once the game was over the other guys stood up from their seats to leave. Someone tapped one of the guys on the shoulder and when he turned around, he asked him “Did you drive up from the Cities just for the game?”. His answer was, of course, “yes”. The man handed him a twenty, said “gas money”, and walked away. To this day I am still astonished by the man’s anonymous generosity and can’t help but reflect on how that simple act affected the perception of folks from Winnipeg and perhaps Canadians in general. Like I said, i’ve told that story to many many people and the universal response is “whoa”. I’m sure the people that I told have told it to others and so on.

How quickly and thoroughly did that simple act trump any efforts that the local tourism board could have done?

With Web 2.0 loosing its momentum (Henriette feels the same) and social networks reaching a saturation point, getting more personal seems to be the obvious choice.

And it isn’t hard as it used to, thanks to the many digital tools now available. But it will surely require a new shift from companies, used to large media plans and broad market segments. Welcome to micro-targeting.

Btw, Torke (the folks from Invisible Red) have definitely a sense of humour with their new homepages.

It’s no wonder that music chains like Tower Records are closing, when the Internet is changing the guts of the music industry. Take for the example a band called The Bastard Fairies, that just got a worldwide recognition thanks to a video on YouTube.

[youtube]k8×14cLGh5o[/youtube]

The Coolest 8 Year Old In The World Talks About O’Reilly
link to YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=k8×14cLGh5o

After the video was released, millions of bloggers and YouTube fans started the buzz and the hits on the band’s website were on record peak. Then it came the “Internet Generation” attitude, offering as a free download the whole album - free as in no questions asked - as a mean of promotion.

This reminds me of the new Web 2.0 motto, as stated by Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google: “Don’t fight the Internet“. Instead of patronizing users with their RIAA endorsement, new bands are understanding the power of the web to create their own long tail.

The sheer amount of myspace profiles for music artists is a living proof that record labels are loosing the battle. When a new mp3.com (or a sort of MusicPedia or YouTunes) comes along and takes their place as the nr1 source of music, establishing a culture of participation and responsible sharing, maybe they get serious about rethinking their business model and start concerning a bit more about the bands and the fans.

* P.S.: it sure helps having great songs and beautiful photos of the lead singer!