PCM creative in action

A microsite solution for your events - Twoppy

When is an app not an app? When its a mobile optimised dedicated miro-site. Twoppy sits perfectly on most web enabled mobile devises. No multi-platform designing necessary just a few more steps to install than the one click 'install' command app store users are familiar with.

twoppy^® was founded in 2009 and is based in Leusden en Leiden, The Netherlands. With every event you organise the possibility to offer an easy to use and affordable mobile event guide is a reality. twoppy® can be used for festivals, exhibitions, conferences, amusement parks, zoos, sporting events and more... check out the Twoppy "Dream Team"

The New Technologies for New Audiences has a Twoppy event guide. The Audience or attending delegates use the event guides for free, to modify the branding as CultuurNet Flanders has done requires a basic upgrade at a cost of £152.27 for a year. The intention of this post is to get the New Technologies for New Audiences event guide on to your devise for you to get great added value when you attend next week's events. The method my vary from devise to devise. These screenshots are from an iPhone.

This is the event guide once installed.

Program: Lists the programmed sessions scheduled with date and times. When multiple sessions are taking place at one time the event guide enabled you to indicate 'wanna go' and builds a personal itinerary for you. Brilliant!

Speakers: Tells you who is speaking, what session they are presenting and the 'wanna go' button adds the session to your personal itinerary.

Map: Plots on a local map of the event area the venue, hotels and near by establishment the organiser wants to hi-light.

Wanna Go: This is where your personal session schedule is created and stored for a quick glace showing only the sessions you selected to attend.

Information: Everything you need to know about the event itself.

Visitors: Who is attending which sessions and doubles as a checkin service to indicate who was there.

Tweets: All the hash-tagged tweets without having to go to twitter or even have a twitter account.

Partners: Who has made the event possible? Who has supported the project? Local organisation or businesses with special offers to delegates. This is an acknowledgements board.

Here is how.

Open your mobile devise's browser and enter the URL m.twoppy.com but don't follow the instructions immediately.

Scroll down the list without cancelling the pop up box and tap the New Technologies for New Audiences event icon before carrying out the instructions starting by tapping the button indicated and 'Add to Home Screen'

Next you add the text to appear beneath the icon when it appears as the app on your devise. Tap return!

Locate the icon on your devise. Explore the Event Guide enjoy the New Technologies for Audience event. If you are in Ghent find me, tweet. If you are unable to attend join me on the live-stream, there is direct chat on the livestream viewer and there will be a chat room running on the Audiences Europe Network.

QR Code Art Exhibition in Vannes

via 2d-code.co.uk

Quick Response... don't you get the urge to to pick up your phone and look for that QR scanning app you have never used?

Even more awesome watch this video through your scanning app, I recommend RedLaser with the multiple scan option turned on you can pick up some, not all, of the QR codes in the exhibition through the video. How cool is that! With a little considered filming a more reliable scanning experience could be achieved. 

I will be running QR code masterclasses throughout November. Make and Create you own is the objective of the class.

Social Media in practice

As I adventure and explore the web new tools, services and web 2.0 platforms emerge, evolve and disappear. Some platforms become firm favorites while others get superseded. It may be that new services provide better features, new features or more aesthetically pleasing environments to work within. User experience is as important as an audiences. It may be the discovery of a new medium is easier to update or enhances the reach and distribution of content. Take this blog for example. I love the Typepad platform. It is contained and very stable, it is also well established. Since creating my first post back in 2007 it has had a purpose, to document my practice and journey. I want it to be about my practice, a place to share my findings and a place to evaluate my progress. This also means I intend it to be read by a certain audience, those who are interested in what I am doing or want to know what I'm up to as a practitioner. I've never wanted it to be a news feed or a revenue generator. I do however want it to reflect my activity across the entire landscape of social media. I want to aggregate my highs and lows, my challenges and celebrations. This is my showcase. But currently it is rather neglected. This is my reflection.

This blog should

• Report my activities
• Review my progress
• Regale my milestones
• Renew my thinking

This blog should aggregate my activity. As my last post was in August it is at present and resounding failure! Failure is not to be reviled but learnt from and resolved through self discovery. I know I need to formally blog more but I enjoy the adventure, I enjoy the exploration, I love to share.

Where is CJ on the web? The side columns collate some of that activity.

I love AudioBoo. Since getting my iPhone 4 this audio blogging service has released me for my terror of typing text. It has an embeddable widget and can be seen in the column on the right. I can also embed individual 'Boos' in to posts. This is my latest at the time of writing this post.

Audioboo produces excellent quality audio recordings with out having to worry about bad hair days! After recording hit the publish button, take a photo to accompany the post, add a title, some contextual tags even a twitter hashtag before finishing with the save & upload button. AudioBoo autoposts to Twitter so I can share my interviews and personal musings immediately with my Twitter followers. Adding an event hashtag pushes the media to the hashtag stream too. Brilliant. I hope you can see why I love this platform.

AudioBoo also autoposts to Posterous.

I love Posterous. Blogging with nothing more than an email address. It also has a neat iPhone app. The email subject line is the post's title, the body text in the email becomes the blog post content and audio, video and image files can be attached just as you would into an email. Hit send and hey presto you are published. I tend to post event audio and photos there. No great insights just a record of the event for friends who were unable to attend to listen to. Its quick and simple. Posterous content does not feed in to this blog.

Gregg Fraley talks to January's Second Wednesday crowd

The link above is my Posterous post of Photos, Audio captured with LiveScribe and an intoductory sentance to the Second Wednesday event I attended. Posterous has autoposting abilities but I select to cross post manually to Twitter preventing AudioBoo and Posterous making identicle posts. Social Media echos are just so annoying!

Groupofminds.com Review of iPhone Applications for Arts and Culture

via www.youtube.com

There is an app for everything! I want the apps that are interesting to me. I've been looking at iPhone apps in anticipation for the arrival of my new iPhone. I'm particularly interested in apps for the arts. I don't get to see as much theatre as I'd like. I don't see as much art as I'd like. My time, my free time is valuable and I am quite solitary. This collection of apps for the arts I can't wait to explore. Any arts and culture app suggestions for audience experience I'd love you to post links. I'm also on the look out for arts and entertainment industry supporting apps too. Do you develop iPhone apps please let me know.

QR codes - in action. Your turn.

I've recently been including QR codes and their potential use within business to amplify Social Media. To connect offline media with online activity. Thought I'd share this on my blog.

The applications I use and recommend are:

Mobile BarCodes
http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator
(for code generation, I use this one)
http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software
(for code generation, I use this also)

Kaywa
http://qrcode.kaywa.com (for generating codes)
http://reader.kaywa.com (for QR code reader)

The code reader I have installed on my phones is UpCode
http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software/#upcode

A pause for thought... when creating a QR code think about the value of the destination being accessed on a mobile devise. It should be a location directly relevant and information oriented for the user.  An article, a podcast, a video greeting an event or promotion code. For Creative Nottingham I'd suggest a QR code to the RSS feed http://www.creativenottingham.com/feed/atom or to a mobile optimised version of the Creative Nottingham site using Mippin Mobilizer http://www.mippinmaker.com

I've featured QR code potential in my presentation to BAFA (British Arts Festivals Association), E-business Club's Transitional ICT breakfast briefing around the East Midlands and for Creative Nottingham's social media introduction presentation based on the one day workshops I delivered to the FEU training (Federation of Entertainment Unions).

It's my objective to help business understand and leverage social media of all kinds. QR codes seem to has spiked great interest. For example on my business card I have to linking to a publication on ISSUU, Twitter for Beginners. 

Get a code reader for your phone and try it. 

Let me know what you think? Useful?

23 June 2010 - Update... further pointers
This post was originally triggered by a presentation I delivered to Creative Nottingham and subsequently became a topic for discussion in their huddle network. I've blogged my initial pointers as thought they'd make an informative blog post. I added this to the discussion. Creative Nottingham's Susi O'neill created an optimised version of their web site as a result of the discussion.

"When including a QR on printed material I'd also consider the life span of the material. If it's going to be around for a while you might consider creating a QR code to a specific page you can edit containing links with the Mippin optimised version being top. This then becomes a mobile resource which you can update with out invalidating the QR code on the printed material.That would be solution if you add incentives at a later date as you suggested in your post.

Directing a QR code to the Mippin version would be dynamic of course as it would update when you added a post to the main site."

JoikuSpot - WI-FI anywhere with 3G smart phone - JoikuBoost special offer

JoikuSpot are practically giving away Premium licences for a limited time to celebrate the birth of JoikuBoost. This very low price is only for a limited time on a first come first serve basis.The first 100 JoikuSpot Premium licences for only EUR 5. The next 100 units will go with EUR 6. The next for EUR 7 and so forth... On Tuesday (27 Oct) the price will return to normal, so act now and get Yours at Joiku AppStore. The first ones will gain biggest savings.

Joikuspot licenses are tied to the phone the app is installed upon and lasts for the life of your phone. Get a new phone, you have to purchase the app again. A pain but such great value if you consider having USB dongle can be £15 a month.

JoikuSpot Premium (usually 15 EU) supports all internet and email protocols, and VPN.That means you can access your emails. Compared to JoikuSpot Light (which is free).

I have Premium on my media mobile I use for web access, email, IM, live streaming, video and photos, using Joiku Lite on my voice calls mobile which also has web access but I don't need email collection. JoikuBoost enables me to network both my mobile signals to strengthen my bandwidth and combine my signal on from 3 and one being O2.

This discount campaign is to celebrate the birth of JoikuBoost, which connects multiple JoikuSpots together and creates a larger unified and shared 3G internet bit pipe, where internet traffic routes through multiple operator 3G networks. JoikuBoost is accessible over WiFi from laptops, exactly like JoikuSpot.

You can get JoikuBoost Beta for FREE at Joiku site.

It's priceless when in hotels with no wi-fi, costly 24hr access options or 'free in the lounge' access. I can stay cosy in my room and keep upto date with my networks.

I'll be getting a premium app for my mobile calls phone now too. Then I'll be testing out the Joikuboost.