Happy New Year

Wishing everyone, everywhere, all the best for 2012.

Winter Madness

It's all happening in digital. Everyone is super stacked. Yet every day I read about the doom and gloom in the Metro on my way in to work. As I walk along Knightsbridge Green to go home, I make my way through a sea of Harrods bags. I get to the Tube Station and pick up an Evening Standard to read about the retail crisis. To be honest I know it is real, but it just doesn't feel like it most days.

Then I get the Gas, Electric and Telephone Bills or look at the bank balance and see how much we're spending on Groceries (not in an OCD way of course). Then I think to myself, how are we going to survive this? Taxes go up, on everything, all the time, and now the stuff like food or petrol, which, I used to take for granted, is as well. I guess the early part of the 20th century was spent finding cheaper more plentiful sources of natural resource and the 2nd half will be spent on finding innovative ways to get to them, and then better utilise them.

All this contradication and massive change to the world is just a little bit too much when combined with the madness of Chritsmas and Winter in the UK. Back to my little digital bubble I go...

Hacked Again!

No access to Hotmail as I've been hacked again.

Apologies to all who have been affected. I can only say I genuinely have changed the password (twice) and this account has always had a strong password.

Thought for the week

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems”

Mahatma Gandhi

Hacked

I've been hacked - apologies to anyone who might have been affected.

I had a strong password but failed to update it on a few services recently. Lesson (re-)learnt.

The importance of detail

I've had lots of debate today about the detail of various digital initiatives. I find days like this really inspiring. People asking the questions that really matter. For example, finding the right words to use. As things like language changes and evolves, so should the words we use to engage and motivate people. And social media becomes a really powerful source in understanding this. This sort of detail can really bring an interaction to life.

As people's expectations of the services they use online grow and grow the new battle ground between competing companies can often be found in providing users with those little moments of delight. Giving them something that provides a little more utility, or just making it a little easier to complete a task. These little moments are found in the detail.

Often we think of things like channel neutral services or marketing campaigns as big strategic initiatives, which they are, in these tasks the detail actually becomes more important. Even though we find these initiatives second nature in the agency, when thinking about human interaction we still strive to make sure things really come together. This is all in the detail. If you have a slight twist to your brand message, even the slightest shift, on a TV ad and someone 2nd screens it (c.17%), you would be surprised at how let down they will feel if this 2nd interaction doesn't reflect the brand in the same way, or better still identify that they are probably responding to a TV ad in the first place!

Why not spend a little time tomorrow thinking about the detail - I'd be surprised if it doesn't spark a useful thought or two.

Thought for the week

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy like art. It has no survival value;rather it is one thing that gives value to survival."

CS Lewis