Peter Springett

A time for giving and receiving (but certainly not pushing)

2008-12-29T16:45:00Z

Christmas is a great time for reflection. No more so than if you work with your head in an increasingly fluffy cloud of digital content. For those of us lucky to be with our extended families, the Winter holiday forces you to spend time in the company of people who have their technology toes on the ground,and use the internet at their convenience, not every twittering minute of the day.

Which is why this story caught my eye this afternoon. It's a survey that reveals that more people use the internet to keep up with the latest news than ever. As reported by John Paczkowski in All Things Digital, "40 percent identified the Internet as their primary source for national and international news. Thirty-five percent identified newspapers and 70 percent identified television."

Sounds impressive, but this is very much a 'dog bites man' moment. I reckon it's a safe guess that most people still read their internet newspapers in the same way they read traditional print media. That is, they open the pages, read, link out to another story, and that's about it. There's no real behavioural shift and certainly little use of RSS readers and any other push model. The numbers are impressive, it's just that we're still very much in the Web 1.0 (if that's the expression) world, especially when you are home for the holidays.

Again, it's important not to get all smug about the fact that those of us in the media were getting our news this way half-a-dozen years ago or longer. The reason that there's a mass online readership today is that the technology is now cheap, it works, and there's a vast amount of authoratative content out there being updated minute-by-minute. So let's be grateful for this achievement, just for a moment. And here's wishing for a little less hype in 2009. We can but hope.

Can you see what they've done here?

2008-11-25T19:24:00Z

There's more than one way to take advantage of the recent decision by the UK government to cut the standard sales tax (VAT) by 2.5 percent. So hats - and crew neck sweaters - off to West London's finest mail order clothing store Boden:

I'm not a fan of Boden's preppy style, but I love the sheer efficiency of this ad, which arrived in my inbox this morning.

It looks like someone grabbed the idea, and ran with it some time after 15.30 GMT yesterday. What I also like is that it looks like a quick job, maybe by just one creative with his or her eye on the clock. "Here's the copy Toby. Now go find me a stock shot of the Houses of Parliament. And grab me a latte macchiato while you're at it." Brilliant.

Chuffed to bits

2008-11-17T07:19:00Z

Apologies for the quality of the mobile phone photo, but when I read this paragraph in a UK railway station, just south of London, my heart leapt. It's the little things that bring delight to copywriters, especially when the organisation in question has been guilty of countless crimes against the English language.

It doesn't say very much, but that's the point. Back in the day, it would have taken 10 paragraphs of jargonese to get you to a timetable of mindbending complexity before you even realised that there were two trains per hour.

Instead, here are 25 words and apart from the proper nouns, there are only two words of more than one syllable.

It's easy to read, informative and helpful. So why don't we see more copy like this the length and breadth of the railways? Why do we have to 'alight here' when we could simply 'get off the train'? Perhaps the Plain English Campaign has found a friend in deepest Surrey. People of Bookham, be proud.

Annoying phrases and some choice words

2008-11-12T08:45:00Z

Here's another hardy perennial hot off the press at Oxford University. This time a list of annoying phrases used in everyday speech and the workplace. A lot of them probably crop up in marketing conversations too, although expect 'conversations' in this context to make the list by the end of next year.

All your favourites are there: 'At this moment in time', 'Absolutely', and '24/7'. I'd also pick out, 'With all due respect', which translates roughly as, 'You are a complete idiot, and here's why'.

Rest assured there's no preaching in this article and I'm as guilty as anyone. If you ever play catchphrase bingo with me, there are a couple of statements that belong on your scorecard, including the increasingly redundant, 'I know I sound like a broken record'.

But at the end of the day, a good blog requires team players who work hard and play hard. I'd like your most annoying phrases now - no need to park this conversation or take it offline. The door is always open and I'm all ears. Over to you.

Help, I'm being followed by a dead artist

2008-10-28T09:58:00Z

Back in London this weekend I was persuaded to visit the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. It was a good show, but with a bizarre and slightly sinister follow up.

About 24 hours later I acquired another Twitter follower, this time a Mr Mark Rothko. A quick dash to his posts revealed that the artist, who died in 1970, is still hard at work in his studio and posting updates to 30-odd followers.

So what's sinister about all this? Not the presence of deceased celebrities on Twitter for sure. A quick search reveals Dr Benjamin Spock and Anais Nin amongst others haunting the Twittersphere - no doubt sharing cloud computing anecdotes with Francis Bacon and Stirling Moss.

I'm more perturbed by the way in which I'm being haunted just a day after visiting the show. I can't believe that this is coincidence any more than I believe that one of the world's most accomplished abstract-expressionists has chosen to channel his oeuvre from beyond the grave via the world's fastest growing presence awareness application.

So what's the answer? I paid for the exhibition tickets with my credit card and I think my name appeared on the ticket. Did someone eyeball these details? Is this a cunning marketing exercise by Serota and co? No answer so far from Tate Modern press office, which remains curiously silent on the topic. Spooky.

The art of marketing

2008-09-22T07:43:00Z

Germaine Greer, the old devil, wades into the Robert Hughes/Damien Hirst feud in today's Guardian. For fear of oversimplifying, this particular spat trades on the fact that Hughes's artistic sensibilities have been roughed up by an upstart who doesn't even make or paint his own works. And then ships slipshod products to a gullible marketplace.

As Greer says: "His undeniable genius is to get people to buy them. Damien Hirst is a brand, because the art form of the 21st century is marketing. To develop so strong a brand on so conspicuously threadbare a rationale is hugely creative - revolutionary even."

I've always been a bit of a fan of Hirst's work. At times it can be cynical, superficial and shoddy, even. But it's never dull. And I reckon Greer got it right. There's fun to be had watching someone play the market with overvalued, messy, misunderstood products. And certainly a darn sight more harmless than events in the financial system last week.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Life, the universe, etc

2008-09-16T10:27:00Z

It was my birthday last week. I’m well beyond counting but the number was significant in a nice way. Modesty prevents me from stating the truth, but the digits added up to six. I reckon I should let you do the maths.

If you need another hint, how about the Large Hadron Collider? I’ve seen enough black hole gags this past week to take me from here to eternity. But the best ones definitely involve Deep Thought, the supercomputer imagined by Douglas Adams in ‘The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. 42 black holes in Blackburn Lancashire indeed. Actually if you are interested in this stuff, check out the Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It makes things a lot clearer, even to this layman.

The other news is that I've just moved to Germany. Relocation is always an opportunity to reminisce and the journey to Bonn took me back more than 20 years to when I last lived abroad in France. Like now, I was only about 400 miles from the UK, but I might as well have been on the other side of the world when it came to staying in touch with Blighty.

Like many of a certain generation, I’m proud of the fact that I can bore for England on the subject of life before email and the simple pleasures of posting letters and drawing water from a well. Ah, the thrill of booking a five minute international phone call with your folks in Singapore every Christmas. The wonder at paying £1 a minute for the privilege. How we counted our blessings as we counted our pennies.

But that, surely, is the point. If I could whizz back a couple of decades and demonstrate a video call on my laptop there’d certainly be many raised eyebrows. But a few shrugs of the shoulder too. After all, we were promised this sort of thing at the start of the last century:

But if I told them that once you had the computer and a connection, you could see and talk to your pal on the other side of the world – for nothing – then they really would be amazed. You can buy a jet pack today, but it will set you back nearly a quarter of a million dollars if you get my drift.

Still, I’m not all that optimistic about time travel. Although a free Tardis with your phone line probably sounds no more absurd than a free computer to someone living in the 80s. But give me hindsight over time travel any time. Far less stress on the hadrons.

D*mn you Nike

2008-08-14T09:43:00Z

As Benjamin Franklin famously said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and German-manufactured white goods from John Lewis."

Add to that hallowed list ad after great ad from Nike and its agencies. The latest spot fuses The Killers with a Zoo-TV style montage that combines baseball, football, Mary Decker, Steve Prefontaine and gazelles. Lots of gazelles.

It might look simple - which is half the trick - but the execution is everything. And it's also incredibly expensive - all those film, music and photo rights for starters.

Of course I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff as a keen runner. But I abandoned the Portland-based brand for Asics a year or two ago. But d*mn you Nike, if you're not giving me second thoughts already.

Spare me the silly season

2008-08-13T08:06:00Z

In Europe, where everyone leaves for the beaches on August 1 and doesn't return to work until the new term (it says here), the so-called silly season is well upon us.

It's a tough time for the media, having to turn over newspapers and web sites of record to the work experience crew. Usually there's little to report barring the odd Olympics and the first European war in, oh, 15 years.

But still they plough on with an easy-to-follow formula that keeps the pages ticking over until September. Here we go then, with the blaggers guide to churning out content during the holidays.

1. Sharks spotted off the beaches of England. (This year it's poisonous jellyfish but you get the picture).

2. Red wine is good for you. An all year staple, the benefits of booze usually makes it into the op-ed pieces at Christmas too.

3. Wannabe pop pixie hitches unknown US boyfriend. Step forward Peaches Geldof, whose new husband has the scariest father-in-law in history.

4. Boden versus Burton. Since his holiness Cardinal Blair is no longer holidaying with the pop mafia and, um, the mafia, we've had to make do with shots of pasty Cameron in standard issue Fulham shorts and Gordon almighty in Tony's hand-me-down man slacks. Nice.

5. The weather. Oh alright then, if we must.

6. Boys names, girls names. This one rockets into the 2008 top ten thanks to the ingenious devils who came up with the URL www.gurgle.com.

7. A-level results. Due any day now. We care, deeply.

8. The economy. Come on, it's not that bad yet. You want it bad? Try 35 years ago. Twice the unemployment, three-times the inflation and irony-free flared trousers.

9. Trivia, trivia, trivia. An octopus has two legs and six arms. I know because the Telegraph told me.

10. Articles about the silly season. Giles Coren gets all self-referential in The Times. No doubt in pursuit of some good press following his recent rant.

If I've missed any, let me know.

Be my cheer squad

2008-08-12T07:52:00Z

Like most professional writers, the Metia editorial team always enjoys a good neologism. (new word). And international events are always the source of great pleasure when it comes to new terms, usually created by the media or the governments of host nations.

So hats off to the Olympics which has so far given us 'golden footprints', 'rain control rockets' and 'advanced defence' . But on top of the podium, feverishly clutching the gold medal like a British swimming hopeful, is 'cheer squad'.

Yes, the organisers of the Beijing games have been bussing in crowds of fans to pep up the atmosphere at events where ticket sales have been less than overwhelming. These volunteers are invited to cheer enthusiastically for all competitors (that's a give away surely?). Kitted out in standard issue yellow t-shirts, they are easy to spot in the upper tiers at stadia throughout China. A bit like Manchester United fans arriving in droves from Stevenage for an away day in Reading, and blagging tickets in the home seats really.

By the way, a bit of research reveals that cheer squads have been around for a while, especially in US sports. But a good neologism will always cross borders eventually like an unstoppable airborn virus. And nothing's going to stop us enjoying this one.

How (not) to give feedback

2008-07-24T17:14:00Z

As an agency we thrive on feedback. Whether from colleagues or clients it helps us tailor content to the exact needs of the target audience and ensures that we get it right first time round as often as possible.

Having said that, there are times when you hope for a clearer message. I'll list some golden rules in the next post. Until then, here's an example of how not to do it.

Was Jay-Z any good at Glastonbury? Ask Summize.com

2008-06-29T15:43:00Z

With all the controversy around Jay-Z's appearance at Glastonbury this year, I listened briefly to the news this morning to find out how he went down.

The results - at least through the traditional channels - were disappointing. BBC sat on the fence all morning describing a 'mixed response' backed up by a few random vox pops from last night.

So I tried Summize.com, a neat way of searching Twitter. And a good example of how you can survey an audience and get a spontaneous response in near real time.

In just five minutes the picture was clear. Across the entire performance comments were 70:30 in favour. Although this was closer to 50:50 at the start before the naysayers switched off or went back to the campsite to play with their glo-sticks.

This morning most of the views have been on i-Player. Generally comments are positive, with lots of focus on the homage to a certain Beatles tribute band at the very beginning of the set. And plenty of disappointment that the much-rumoured duet with Mrs Z failed to transpire.

P.S. Credit to the beeb. After all they started the whole Jaygate storm with Colin Paterson's infamous interview with Noel Gallagher. Didn't really kick start ticket sales though, did it?

Nasa to Phoenix: stop twittering, start scooping

2008-06-21T09:31:00Z

In a move that reflects the increasingly prickly debate over the role of social media in the workplace, Nasa has ordered the Phoenix Mars lander to cut back on its social media activities and ‘get on with some real work’.

Since Phoenix landed in the northern polar region of Mars, scientists at the mission centre at the University of Arizona have become increasingly perturbed by the remote explorer’s obsessive use of Twitter and other social media tools to keep its followers up to date on arm movements, location and the new Windows 7 UI.

“We tried asking Phoenix about the icy substrate observed last Thursday,” says Alan McEwan, Communications Director, Nasa. “But all it wanted to talk about was the Yahoo reorg and the latest valuation of LinkedIn.”

McEwan is increasingly concerned about the impact of social media on the lander’s productivity. “It’s there to dig deep into the Martian soil and search for evidence of microscopic life. Instead it has posted yet another set of dull snaps of rocks and stuff. And sent 250 updates to Twitter. Viking’s photos were rubbish as well, but at least we knew it wasn’t wasting time obsessing about the number of its followers.”

McEwan has warned Phoenix that it needs to get back to billable work. “Who the heck is interested in entries like ‘I’m looking forward to moving my arm today.’ The wretched machine is posting more fuzzy photos than a whistle-blower in an iPhone factory.”

In response, Phoenix says that it needs to stay abreast of the latest developments in social media as microblogging, RSS and community platforms will play a critical role in future exploration of the solar system. Speaking to TNM Phoenix says: “Interplanetary Exploration 2.0 has a secure business model and a clear roadmap towards the monetisation of content.” Pressed further to describe this activity, Phoenix said, “It’s not possible to say exactly when or how, but Robert Scoble says so, so it must be true."

Would you trust this company with your corporate intranet?

2008-06-19T12:16:00Z

Put your ears to the ground. Hear that rumble, like the sound of galloping hooves rapidly approaching? That, my friends, is the sound of the system catching up.

Here's a good example from the New York Times. LinkedIn, the 'social network for professionals', plans to offer companies a sub-set of services that employees can use to collaborate on internal projects and share information. In other words, a corporate intranet with 2.0 bells and whistles.

You couldn't find a better metaphor for the future of online content and communities.

Because LinkedIn, like its more frivolous social networking cousins, is very much a manifestation of the 'me' web generation. It's where you go to build your personal brand and capture some of that there online real estate.

Now that the very tools we use to promote ourselves are being offered to our employers, it will be interesting to see who opts in and who opts out. Assuming, of course, you are given the choice.

And sorry for the cynicism, but wasn't it always obvious that anyone who was going to make a buck from this social networking lark was going to sell us back to the system?

On a personal note, I reached for the brandy and the service revolver when I read this: "The average age of a LinkedIn user is 41, the point in life where people are less likely to build their digital identities around dates, parties and photos of revelry".

So true, so true.

Visualisation, visualisation, visualisation

2008-05-28T19:32:00Z

One of the biggest challenges facing a technology writer is making the abstract as real and immediate as possible. Bits, bytes, networks, software, data. Scalability, security, availability and usability. The list goes on. Back in the good old days we used to send writers down to the Metia IT room and get them to look at servers occupying measurable space in the physical world. Which was fine until virtualisation technology started taking over the data centre abstracting everything.

So we'll take every opportunity to get a clear view of what we're writing about. If you can't pick it up, you should be able to look at it. Get your clients and their customers to send you physical architecture diagrams, schematics and screen shots. Or use your imagination. See the world through the eyes of a field engineer or a police sergeant as they switch on a 3G mobile device.

One of our writers took this approach one step further when writing an article on a new global logistics customer. In the space of two paragraphs she had to describe the shipping gateway at a major American airport. Using one of the popular mapping applications she was able to zoom down to the docking ports, study the railway link to the airport and get a clear idea of the scale of the operation. Rendering buildings in 3D really put things into focus - the copy was even sharper.

By the way we tried this out with Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth. Google was slightly faster to the address, Microsoft had better images, especially in 3D.