Weeknote 75 – Austerity bytes

Achievements this week included: - catching up with French & German counterparts to compare notes - investigating the balance between marketing the future and marketing the here and now to technical audiences - briefings on some work to research into how agencies use and consume technology - planning for an upcoming office move - and … Continue reading Weeknote 75 – Austerity bytes

Social as live event

An interesting discussion this afternoon with a colleague who is in the process of organising a marketing campaign aimed at 13-16 year olds using social media. Marketing to children is, quite rightly, subject to much regulation. However, much of that regulation seems driven by the models of old; today's chat pondered whether a campaign organised … Continue reading Social as live event

Auditory illustration

I was listening to the latest episode of the wonderful Radiolab this morning on the drive into work, and there was an article describing the origins of the HIV virus, both in humans, and then back beyond to it's origin in species of chimps which it is believed occured in Cameroon at some point before the early … Continue reading Auditory illustration

A call for volunteers

One of the most valuable sources of help that I had in the work I delivered around collaboration in my time at Imagination was from a student studying for his MSc in Human Computer Interaction from UCL. I should declare an interest - the chap running the module that that student was taking is someone … Continue reading A call for volunteers

The woes of tech marketing

Be warned. There follows a completely unfair rant. The technology industry is uniformly rubbish at marketing. There. Said it. (And Apple aren't a technology company - they make consumer goods and provide consumer services - before you ask). Why are we rubbish? Well, I think it's because we are so logical about things. Logical in … Continue reading The woes of tech marketing

News consumption

I've been thinking about how I can review some of my old blog content in a systematic manner recently, and as a result have been having a trawl through old blog posts (more on all of that later). However, last night I was surprised by the fact that it is now nearly two years since … Continue reading News consumption

The security paradox

The London Conference on Cyberspace and associated commentary , along with seeing "ethical hacker" Jason Hart speak last week has got me thinking about what seems to be the central paradox of information security: The problem with information security isn't the information, nor the system, but the people using them. But the more that you … Continue reading The security paradox

Motivators/demotivators

I was at an event in London on Thursday last week organised by recruiters Mortimer Spinks at which they unveiled the results of a survey of 650 people working in the technology industry in the UK. The results put some interesting new data into the mix around the ongoing debate about what motivates people, and technology people … Continue reading Motivators/demotivators

Vendor mistrust

I've been watching occasional snippets from the CIO Summit event in London today via Twitter and find myself pining for the event (which I was able to attend last year). I applied this year, but because of my new found status as a "vendor", I was refused entry... This perfectly sums up the state of … Continue reading Vendor mistrust