PCM creative in action

SXSW from the UK - digital stalking!

Wow, where do I start? My co-colaborator and epic media maker @PhilCampbell is at SXSW (south by southwest) I am here in the UK going about my day to day at PCM creative. SXSW is the world stage conference for technology and more specifically the interactivity with technology. Twitter made centre stage in 2006 to become a global phenomenon. After listening to SCVNGR's Seth Priebatsch keynote introducing me to his concepts of 'the social layer' and 'the game layer' of the Internet's interactive evolution my SXSW engagement has been valuable even if its been from afar. Pepsico have been live streaming a selection of the keynotes and panel sessions through out the conference.

Not attending has had its plus points believe it or not. You may be aware of my event and online network curation activity. Essentially it is about focusing web activity and filtering relevant and interesting content to a location where it can be engaged with. More importantly it is the potential to provide a point of engagement with others who are accessing the online experience. Media only becomes social when it is sharable and the audience tangible. Gathering around a collection of media so people can reach out and exchange views, opinions and comments in real time is the legacy of web 2.0. Well that's what I think anyway.

SXSW has generated a Tsunami of Twitter activity. I have wrestled with my conscience about using the term Tsunami in the light of recent events in Japan and I intend no detriment to the tragedy that is unfolding which is truly incomprehensible but its the over riding and overwhelming visual cascade of chatter I have witnessed. As a social media practitioner specialising in filtering activity for an online audience being one step removed has meant I can consider the best way to syphon and distill a coherent media stream in order to interact with the event taking place in real time.

Mixed in the unfiltered stream is captured visual and audio media, observations, location announcements from individuals and shout outs for imminent happenings, local facility recommendations, event back-channels where teams or groups communicate and stay in touch with a collective using social mediums. It's a noisy information highway.

So how do you make sense of the stream of consciencness that spews from an event like SXSW? Writing down my processes I find hard. I visualise and filter. I am determined to share my discovering. If I can't blog what I do how can I get people to engage me to do this for future events.

I am compiling a collection point, an active and constantly updating noticeboard. Anyone can access it and consume. The lagacy of web 2.0 is the social, the conversation it is this element I strive to facilitate to provide, an entry point to experience for those who are unable to attend in person.

 

SMIB10 - Session Attention!

As I spend a focused amount of time tweeting I was looking forward to reading the blogs that resulted from the stunning speakers schedule, on which I have not been disappointed. Social Media in Business 2010 was an inspirational day and I met so many people traveling on the social media road of adventure.

Blogs tagged SMIB10 were picked up by Google Alerts.

I mustn't forget the suburb iPadio interviews masterfully carried out by Ben Ellis

Collected Media gathered together using widgetbox

The sessions of most interest to me for amplification to my arts based network came in the final session of the day.

Mitzi Szereto: Author, Blogger & Vlogger - 15 mins

SMIB10 - Mitzi Szereto

Lloyd Davis: Social Artist & Master Community Building - 15mins

SMIB10 - Lloyd Davis

Clare Hudson: CEO In4Merz, Hudson PR - 15 mins

SMIB10 - Clare Hudson

Peter Bouvier: Marketing & Communications NHS Direct - 15mins

SMIB10 - Peter Bouvier

Heather Taylor: Chief Blogger & Social Media Manager PayPal UK - 15 mins

SMIB10 - Heather Taylor

As a notoriously poor coherent note taker I recorded them for playback. Recordings captured are listed above. (Audio files were uploaded on 11 July.)

In all it was a day of knowledge and networking. So, if you attended what was your BFO? Blinding Flash of the Obvious! Your light bulb moment or 'Wow the web can do that!' moment? For me it had to be auto-tweeting from Powerpoint, during a presentation.

Architects Journal - aggregating with ease

Capturing content is one thing. Getting it live another, and in the right place yet another. With web content street ninja, Phil Campbell I've been working on a commission to create an updating web feed to Architect Journal's home page culminating with a 2 day live stream at Earls Court as Nottingham H.O.U.S.E is assembled for exhibition at this years Ecobuild.

Over the past 4 weeks Phil demonstrated with stupendous style the core PCM creative in action objective and that is to make media real. Yes its a little raw (there are no edits, intro idents or outro credits) but the conversations and interviews are relaxed, informal capturing the individuals being interviewed in a good way. Being pushed infront of a camera often has an edge of awkwardness that was absent when chatting off camera. Using mobile media is less intrusive and especially when it comes to AudioBoo the quality is excellent. With mobile connectivity the added bonus is that content can be uploaded immediately to the web.

Using tagging, RSS feeds and embeddable widget code all packaged nicely using WidgetBox I was able to provide Architects Journal with a dynamically updating box of content needing no support from them to maintain. (Featured to the Left of this text) Once the embed code had been added to thier home page any content created by myself or phil could be directly feed to the widget.

Agregated content in the widget

• Posterous blog following the build with content created on site via RSS
• Saint Gobain's own Ecobuld blog via RSS
• Flickr feeds from accounts and using the solardec tag
• Twitter chatter filters the tag #solardec and keyword H.O.U.S.E
• AudioBoo recordings have be tagged and filtered via Delicious using RSS
• There are 11 tabbed feeds in the widget including a Facebook page feed.

This has been a great project. I really hope I get commissioned to do more. I'm looking forward to the live stream. Social Media has to have soul and I hope PCM gives that.

Keeping a balance - Geek Chart - social media pie!

With so many social media tools, services and sites on the web how do you make sure you get a balanced distribution of content for your time and money?

Being so busy with social media clients recently its ironic that my social media activity has been lacking. Not in quantity as I am a prolific Tweeter which cross posts my updates to several other web services, notably Facebook. My social media activity has lacked focus and depth.

Twitter is a fabulous service for letting the world and your network know what you are up to, what you are discovering as life drags you along. Twitter is up datable from my mobile so its quick and easy.

I tag articles, websites, tools and services I discover during my working day using Delicious and these online bookmarks, kept in check on all my PC's by Xmarks means I can effortlessly maintain my online and offline bookmarks (as an added bonus it means they are all backed up) and using the nifty Delicious widget I can filter selected tagged content in to the various online networks I act as custodian for, at the moment predominantly Amb:IT:ion and it's multiple UK regional digital opportunities networks I am building and igniting.

So... Geek Chart. What I think is great about this embeddable widget is it's a way to show where you share online and most importantly how that activity is distributed. Geek Charts show the last 30 days of your activity on the sites you enter usernames for.

Seeing mine on May 1st 2009 (left) I realised I need to even out my activity.

The active embedded PCM Geek Chart should be in column on the right. If not see it on the Geek Chart site. It tracks Twitter (the turquoise) Delicious (the pale blue) a blog (the orange) Flickr (the pink) StumbleUpon (in green) and also at the time of writing this post - YouTube, Digg and Last.FM.

It is a visual gauge to show your followers, readers and friends where you are most active on line but it is also an excellent indicator to help measure your personal effectiveness and to focus attention on areas of your activity that are weakest and hopefully prompt you to ask your self if your communication is effective and assess how to redress any imbalance.

Quite frankly for me it highlighted how poor my blogging has been, coming in at 6% of my activity. Targets are a good thing and by blogging more I hope to alleviate my blogger's guilt and produce the more focused and considered content the medium of blogging facilitates.  

So see for your self have I addressed the imbalance?

If you set up a Geek Chart or already have your very own Geek Chart please post a link to yours here in the comments. How has it made you think about your online activity and has it promoted you keep a different balance?