Mum's the word, a mediocre idea comes good at last

As a rule of thumb most of my ideas are pretty average.

But even mediocre ideas can change over time. They can develop and grow. They can mesh into other ideas.

Serendipity can work its magic linking two things together that were, until that point, drifting alongside each other.

On 28th January, only two months ago I woke up and realised I knew what we had to do. A moment of clarity at last. A bolt from the blue so to speak.

It was a conundrum I'd been trying to solve for at least five years, although it's fair to say in the last year or so I'd given it a bit more thought. 

Having tried and failed to find a way of making Asda cool on YouTube (saving you money TV was one of the early hopeless attempts), I'd come to the conclusion we needed to curate not create. 

A year ago - armed with this new found perspective - I was still none the wiser what to do next.

Who's content should we curate?

Then in July, following an all day session with YouTube, it started to become clearer.

A very glamorous lady from LA (I forget her name, Stephanie I think), introduced the concept of StyleHaul from the US. A network of independent content creators, amplifying each other's work.

Suddenly I was really interested. Product related content. Created by individuals who had already found an audience, and a big one at that.

According to a report published last month beauty bloggers on YouTube have racked up more than 14.4bn views for their content.

Did you hear that? Fourteen point four billion views.

As a point of reference a typical video posted on YouTube by Asda gets a few hundred views. We have a grand total of 1300 subscribers.

So you can see why it peaked my interest.
It was then that the chaps from YouTube suggested I meet Dom from Gleam.

He was doing in the UK what StyleHaul was doing in the US. That's how I understood it anyway*.

Emails were duly dispatched. Meetings arranged.

In a little side street near Covent Garden in the lower basement of a small office my world was about to change. For the better I hasten to add.

Dom walked us through his talent presentation. Pictures of mainstream celebs on one side. Young people I didn't recognise on the other. Who had more twitter followers? More subscribers on YouTube? More fans on Facebook?

The answer was obvious. But the thing that stood out was the video of Tanya Burr meeting her fans in Covent Garden. Advertised in advance via her Twitter account, and expecting a few to turn up, things quickly got out of hand.

Security stepped in to avoid a crush. The Apple store had to close. Tanya had to be whisked to safety via a restaurant's kitchen fire exit.

This is big. Really big. 

Dom then shared an anecdote of a senior marketing director at a brand who had questioned the value of all this 'social media stuff'.

A call later. And a quick tweet from one of Dom's talent and suddenly Google analytics lit up on the brand's website. A website they were spending millions on via traditional TV but to limited effect suddenly had a surge of traffic thanks to one seemingly innocuous tweet.

Ok I get it Dom. Where do I sign? How do we work together. And quickly before everyone else gets it too!

We decided to pick an event to test the art of the possible. Dom proposed a number of different options.

Let's do them all I said. Much to his bemusement. 

I won't bore you with the details as I blogged about it at the time. But needless to say it was a pivotal moment in my career.

Feels a bit weird saying career. But as I hurtle towards my 40th birthday, my twelve year at Asda and sixteenth in PR, this moment feels like a turning point.

For the first time I feel like I actually know what I'm doing at last. And rather than keeping it to myself I feel the need to share. As Austin Kleon said in Austin it is our duty to teach others what we know. 

On Friday a week and a half ago we launched Mum's Eye View the UK's first dedicated YouTube channel aimed squarely at mums http://www.youtube.com/mumseyeview. 

Hosted by established talent like Pixiwoo the channel will only be as good as the content they choose to create for it. We will merely curate it.

In effect I've handed over control to them as unlike me they literally know best.

And less than 48 hours into our new venture my hunch was proved right. Tens of thousands of views. Thousands of likes and clicks and thousands of usually hard fought subscribers.

Without wishing to over egg it, this is the most exciting thing I've done in 16 years of trying.

*As I've grown to understand what Gleam do I've realised they are not like StyleHaul at all. 

StyleHaul are an ad network; combining channels (not talent) to create reach through impressions rather than engagement and relationships. 

Gleam is a talent management company. They care about the talent and their audience and see the potential in the relationship that they have with them.

They are developing talents individually into brands rather than making them part of a larger commodity.

Whereas StyleHaul are brokering both talent and platform.

The talent StyleHaul mention when they talk about a community of creators is often talent that Gleam manage.  

Business or pleasure Sir? Both. I hope.

I have just returned from attending SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas for the first time

To those following events from afar, SXSW may just look like one big jolly.

But I beg to differ...

It's a melting pot of the kind of people I most identify with. Creative types. Social media bods. Digital innovators. And party goers.

In recent years Austin has gained a reputation for being the coolest City in America.

Home to one of the youngest populations, what was a sleepy Texan town is now bigger than San Francisco.

A combination of Californian promise and stubborn southern independence (Texas is the lone star state, the only US state allowed to fly its flag higher than the national flag).

Keep Austin Weird is the town's motto. Something you see almost as often as the State flag.

Out on its streets there is a heady mix of quirky hippy madness, making the town seem somewhat out of place alongside the oil rich city of Dallas and the aeronautical hot spot of Houston.

I read in the BA in-flight magazine that Austin is the only place in the State, possibly entire US where it is considered acceptable to swim in its central lake in the nude.

SXSW is one part conference, one part festival and one hell of a party by all accounts.

The Interactive conference which proceeds the better known music festival has 800 events crammed into five magical days. I start off with a small session in the Courtyard Marriot called 'Workplace redesign: the big shift from efficiency to collaboration?'

Full of interesting case studies like Toyota turning its entire workforce into problem solvers.

Or Steve Jobs when at Pixar who deliberately didn't employ enough serving staff in the company canteen so people in different teams would be forced to queue up. What do you do in a queue with work colleagues? Talk to each other. Cross pollinating ideas. Smart guy that Jobs was.

Off to the next event. This time Austin Kleon delivering a keynote about the theme from his new book 'Show Your Work'

Austin in Austin no less. He offers up a few gems including: Shut up and listen; Don't be a hoarder; Teach what you know; and the Importance of attribution.

Then it was a quick dash to Mashable House to swing on a big wrecking ball Mylie Cyrus stylee and stroke a grumpy cat.

Ok. At this point I admit the work element of SXSW is slipping towards the pleasure aspect. But all the while inspiration is around you, infecting your being. Brands jostling for attention. Start ups showing off their new app, their new city friendly motorised scooter or their new social network.

My particular favourite brand on display was Samsung who'd cleverly employed a team of battery exchange angels. Simply stop them on the street and they'd swap your flat battery for a fully charged one. Failing that tweet #poweron and they'd come find you. Genius.

As the days and nights passed I grew fonder and fonder of Austin, its people, and its spirit.

Some argue it has grown too big. Lost its uniqueness.

Maybe so for the original old timers. But for a SXSW virgin like me it was everything I'd hoped for and more.

Weird. Wonderful. And truly inspirational.

Roll on next year Austin.

My Top Five Sessions

Austin Kleon's keynote
Bernie Su and Jay Bushman's session on transmedia storytelling
Robert Scoble's and Gary Shapiro's #techtrends session
How to run a badass TEDx
And Yu-kai Chou's session on Gamification

Biggest disappointment

Biz Stone talk. Left half way through. Sorry Biz. No offence.

Biggest surprise

Edward Snowden. Very compelling speaker, even via dodgy Google Hangout connection

Weirdest moment

Swinging on a Mashable branded wrecking ball

Update: On my return I heard the awful news of the car crash that killed two and injured many others. But for the grace of God go I. Thoughts are with everyone cruelly affected.

I'm a bit naive. But I like that about me.

On Friday I was unceremoniously ditched. By email. Not to my face. Not even to my ear. By email.

It came out of the blue. Arriving in my inbox like a hammer to my heart. A tremor of shock rippling through my very being as I stood dumfounded in the midst of a busy bustling pub surrounded by the din and revelry of a colleague's leaving do.

Ironically I'd only just met said colleague who was leaving and we'd hit it off immediately and were having great fun exchanging anecdotes in full knowledge that our paths may not cross again. Investing in each other a degree of friendship and trust.

I'm naive. It is a fact of my life.

I place my faith in people and assume as a result they will be true to their word.

When they're not I feel silly. Very silly.

It is embarrassing. And wallowing in my foolishness it is hard to control my emotions. The temptation to hit back. To send them the email that you've redrafted dozens of times.

But when that initial anger passes, when you allow the deep breaths to regain your composure, you realise that naievity has its benefits too.

Imagine wandering through life as a cynic. Riddled with suspicion. Fueled by mistrust. And driven by deceit.

I choose a different path. 

I will always assume the best. Even if at times that means I'm taken for a ride.

Last night I lost my cap. It blew away in a gust of wind. The calamity that followed is worthy of a separate blog post. Suffice to say it involved four strangers and an umbrella. My hat remains at large. 

This morning I spotted these spectacles (pictured below) lying lonely on the street. They stopped me in my tracks. And got me thinking. They gave me a new perspective.

I slowly realised I recognised them. They looked familiar. 

They were in fact my wife's glasses. Undamaged despite a night alone on the street outside. 

For some reason I find that oddly comforting. As if the tide has turned in my favour once more. 

The business deal I lost on Friday, the cap I dispensed of last night are but two blips on an otherwise wondrous voyage. 

I am a better man as a result. I can raise my head higher. And you can't take that away from me.

Deep thoughts for a Sunday morning. But I feel better for sharing them.

Dom's dirty dozen for 2014

A bit late to the big predictions for 2014 party I grant you. But these twelve were compiled last week by colleagues at my agency IMP Media for a planning day we held.

They are a combination of 23 pages worth of blogs, articles and tweets that they've poured over in recent weeks and we've been collectively mulling since.

So we make no claims to be the originators of any of these trends, they simply stood out and resonated with us.

Some of them overlap, and each one probably deserves a fuller description or explanation. Tough! Make of them what you will. The 23 pages are avaliable on special request.

So, in no particular order Dom's dirty dozen are:

1. The resurgence of the advertorial
2. Employee advocacy is now key
3. Engaging content will still be rewarded
4. The age of advocacy is upon us
5. Pay to play (Facebook etc now charging brands for 'organic' reach)
6. Millennials will fuel even more video sharing
7. The death of the social media manager (slightly worrying that one)
8. Social organisations will be the real winners
9. Customers expect instant responses on social channels
10. Growth of gamification on social - including within the workplace
11. Key influencers / content creators can now monetise their position
12. Stronger interplay between social and TV

So there you have it.

Feel free to put me straight or add your own to the list.

You will have gathered by now the title of this blog is somewhat misleading given they're not really mine and they're not very dirty. There are a dozen though.

Playing around with Jelly

Trying to predict the next big thing is about as easy as pinning jelly to a wall. But the latest addition to the social media landscape Jelly (jelly.co aka @askjelly on twitter) is probably worth a look.

Less than a week old it is already eating up hours of my attention each day.

It is far too early to draw any meaningful conclusions at this stage.

But as someone that spends a lot of time engaging with Asda customers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - using lots of fun images, and often posing questions that are quick and easy to engage with, Jelly is simply an extension of that approach.

So far we've tried five different posts. Most of which have also appeared elsewhere in our social news streams, so it's not a lot of effort for us to be trialling similar content on this new platform.

We've asked the big questions on the nation's mind, such as which is best for a mid-morning tea break - chocolate or plain digestives. We've asked people to choose between three different shampoos, one of which we will stock. And posted a fun spot the snowman competition which enabled Jelly users to annotate the answers on the image itself.

We will obviously continue to experiment with different types of questions and formats.

If and when Jelly becomes more mainstream (the reality at present is that it is mainly full of early adopter social media types, not core Asda shoppers) then it could be a fun, engaging way to interact with customers.

It is really easy to get going. All you need to do is download the app, login via Twitter or Facebook. Upload or take a pic and pose a question.

According @Azeem at Peer Index the posts have a 24 hour shelf life (he posed the question on Jelly, got 124 answers including one from the co-founder of Jelly @Biz himself), and at present you can't delete them or search for Jelly questions.

No doubt the subsequent releases of Jelly will have a very different user experience than the one we're 'wasting' hours of our life on at the moment.

Either way, I will do my best not to be too distracted by it. Fifty per cent of Asda customers (9m people) are on Facebook each day, around ten per cent are on Twitter and YouTube, so that's where most of our effort will continue to go for now.

Btw, did you see Mark Zuckerberg on there yesterday! http://t.co/Uyjkw1vq53

He's got issues with an unidentified spider in his shower don't you know.

In the meantime spare a thought for a chap who is actually called Jelly and has had the twitter name @jelly since 2008. He's getting a lot of misdirected tweets poor chap. Reminds me of @theashes and @johnlewis. I've told him to embrace it. Either that or sell his profile name to @biz. What would you do? 

Perhaps I should ask that on Jelly. Right must dash. Questions to ask. People to see. 

Resolutions 11-20

Three years ago I set off on a journey to devise 37 resolutions with the intention of completing them all in my 37th year.

I made them up as I went along and deliberately had a good mix of fun and serious ones.

This is an update on resolutions 11-20:

Resolution 11: 
Make contact with a friend of the family who was going through a tough time at the time. 

I made a bit of an effort and it paid off in spades. He's been a great help to me too. 

Resolution 12: 
Being more spur of the moment, and talking to people you meet for the first time as if it is the last time you'll ever speak to them. 

I've tried my best to do this and had some interesting conversations as a result.

It's fascinating when you lose your inhibitions a bit and allow yourself to be yourself at every opportunity rather than flexing your personality to try and fit in. It's easy to spend too much time worrying about what people think of you. If you're talking to someone for the first, and quite possibly the last time, why bother caring what they think?

Resolution 13: 
Help get Rich Gillen a job in PR. I had a spurt of activity around two years ago. But to be frank didn't have much impact. Thankfully Rich git himself a job in marketing with no help from anyone. Fair play.

Resolution 14: 
Keep chickens, get a composter and a water butt for the garden etc. In other words try and recreate a bit of the Good Life in Saltaire. 

Still on the list.

Resolution 15: 
Bring my potter's wheel out of retirement. 

I signed up to a pottery class in January 2012 at a local art workshop. But going back to work following my career break got in the way. I also volunteer at BCB Radio every other Friday afternoon so felt like I was taking the piss a bit if I took every Wednesday morning off too. 

Resolution 16: 
Stop being lazy. Put more in and get more out. 

Hard to do in practice all of the time, but a good prompt every now and then. 

That said I do think it is possible to choose your attitude.

You can choose to get up and do something or simply stop saying no all the time particularly when it comes to the kids. I've started to say yes as often as I can and the results have been far more pleasant as a result.

Resolution 17: 
Watch one hour less each day of TV, and read a book instead. Not sure I've cracked this yet. However the introduction of a real fire a year or two ago has made a big difference as it is in a room without a TV. As a result we tune into 6 Music instead and watch and listen to the fire.

I've also got out of the habit of watching X Factor, I'm a Celebrity and Britain's Got Talent.

Resolution 18: 
Appear on a daytime television game show in order to earn a bit of money i.e. Come Dine With Me or Deal Or No Deal. 

Filled in my application and was invited to an audition. Then thought better of it.

Resolution 19: 
Overcome a fear or phobia (this one was suggested via twitter by @broadfordbrewer). 

I jumped off the highest bungee bridge in the world. Didn't cure my fear of edges/heights, but it was A M A Z I N G ! 

Resolution 20: 
Become a bone marrow doner.

Bit of a cheat this one, as I did it, then set it as a resolution. Good cause tho, so forgive me.

17 more resolutions to go...

Dusting off my resolutions

Three years ago I set off on a journey to devise 37 resolutions with the intention of completing them all in my 37th year.

I made them up as I went along and deliberately had a good mix of fun and serious ones.

I planned to document my progress against each one, explaining why I came up with it, what I found out about myself by attempting it, or who I met or what experience it had led to.

I was also keen for people to contribute their ideas for resolutions to consider. Although I made no promises that I would actually do any of theirs!

Anyway I was reminded of Resolution 37 this morning. When I hobbled out of bed, my calf muscles aching from some rather enthusiastic dancing at the office Christmas party on Friday, I resolved to book a massage after next year's party. Note I didn't resolve to dance less.

One day I hope to finish the book that accompanies all my resolutions, but in the meantime here are the first ten with a little update on how I got on.

Resolution 1: 
My first resolution of my 37th year was to stop defining myself by what I'd achieved or what I may achieve in the future. Instead I wanted to define myself based on who I am and what I stand for. The rest would be a consequence of that, not the other way around. 

It is fair to say I've done my best to live by this, but it's not easy. It is one to keep reminding myself of like a motto.

Resolution 2: 
I asked the five people closest to me (my mum, dad, brother, wife and best mate) to write down what they'd like me to achieve in the second half of my life.

Kinda contradicts my first resolution, but hey ho. 

I initially got off to a slow start with this one but eventually had responses from my dad, my best mate and Becky. I still need to chase my bro.

My mum bought me a book called the Little Prince with clear instructions hidden within. And she told me to read Karl Jung.

My dad told me that for every one person like me who was creative and good at coming up with ideas there were ten people who like taking ideas and making them into something. It was a powerful thing to hear from a multi-award winning scientist, who if I'm honest I always assumed thought what I did was fairly meaningless.

My best mate in a roundabout way pointed out how my life from his perspective looked very fulfilled. It made me appreciate what I had.

And my wife told me I was good at making trivial situations fun for the kids. Sounds innocuous enough but at the time was the kind of compliment that would never have come out in normal conversation.

Resolution 3: 
I was going to start a blog called Resolution 37, subject to that name not having some dark hidden double meaning i.e. a dodgy far right group. I checked and the only reference I could find was to a UN Resolution from 1983 - http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/37/a37r037.htm  

I then went on to set up http://resolution37.me - feel free to go take a look. This blog has since taken over as it's mobile friendly.

Resolution 4: 
Bit of an odd one, but I wanted to sing in public while sober. I'm not a particularly great singer, but I figured it didn't really matter. I wanted to either join a choir, or find a reason to do a public performance.I've not done this yet, I have 'swung' in public while dressed as a sh*t Elvis but I was far from sober.

Yesterday I met someone at BCB's AGM who had told me about a choir in Saltaire who meet on Mondays. So who knows maybe this one has some legs in it yet.

Resolution 5: 
I would like to learn French. I knew this was the most unlikely of my resolutions, so I tempered it by saying I would learn enough French so as not to be embarassed speaking what little I know at every opportunity while in France.

Normally I speak English there, with the exception of  a few "mercis" and "s'il vous plaits".

Resolution 6: 
I will go and see Test Match cricket and go to the races. At the time I hadn't been to either before. Easy enough but the resolution prompted me to actually do it.

Resolution 7: 
Going plural shouldn't just be the preserve of captains of industry, so I resolved myself to find out what it takes to be a non exec director or to volunteer my professional services to a charity or good cause (PR/Comms dear, nothing else more racy), or guest lecture at my old uni. 

Quite pleased with this one. I did a guest lecture at my old uni. Volunteered with Age UK, and as of yesterday am a fully fledged trustee of BCB. I'm also a trustee of the Asda Foundation. Bosh.

Resolution 8: 
This one was under wraps at first as it was about taking a career break and going travelling with the kids, but I had to keep it quiet at first until my work colleagues knew.

Definitely been the biggest and best resolution as it has enabled me to do so many others.

Resolution 9: 
I want to get to know someone in their 80s who served in the war. I never really knew any of my grandfathers, my dad's dad died when he (my dad) was only 8, and my mum's dad died when I was young. I want to hear their stories first hand before it's too late. This is linked to Resolution 7 above. I'm volunteering with Age UK in Bradford now.

Resolution 10: 
Resolution number ten was to meet Roland Rat in person. I did it via Twitter instead. But was pleased nonetheless.

Twenty seven left to go.