The JaffeBLEND Blog

Google Zeitgeist 2012

I just returned from attending my third Google Zeitgeist. This event is simply phenomenal on every level: the content, the speakers, the attendees, the entertainment and the food!

For those of you unable to attend, I've attempted to summarise the key points in this blogpost (with maximum fact and minimum personal opinion ;-). Where detail is thin, I do apologise – I was tweeting, working or networking.

The evening before was kicked off by a Welcome Reception with a range of cuisine from Japanese to BBQ offered in various rooms at The Grove Hotel, Hertfordshire. There was a Heston Blumenthal-esque theme to the event with a scientific room of experiments to create drinks and the most creative desserts I've ever witnessed!

• Imagine a 'toothbrush' consisting of a long biscuit with a selection of flavoured pastes (chocolate anyone?) to squeeze on top from toothpaste tube.
• The other highlight was a chocolate bar involving the selection of a type of chocolate and then biscuit, to then be inserted inside the chocolate like sim card!
• Finally, I found the gadget I'm missing from my kitchen. The reverse grill – which is frozen to -44 C and can create instant ice-cream. Now where will I find the space in my kitchen?!

There were other exciting ancillary events such as a cooking workshop and running club by Dean Karnazes (who I embarrassingly assumed was just the 'running instructor' until he was invited up on stage on Day 2).

Day 1

As top business leaders were gathered in one room, the day kicked off with Nikesh Arora (Google SVP) announcing that this was the "Women's Zeitgeist" attended by the top 50 women in Europe. The power of social media immediately kicked in as I tweeted this, and was then retweeted by Nikesh himself to 12,000 followers

Throughout the 2 days there was lots of emotion and humour around Chelsea's win over Bayern Munich – nothing like some good inter-country competitiveness to remind us that even top businesspeople are human too.

Beyond the Euro Crisis

Niall Fergusan (Historian) kicked off the first session of the day with an economic history lesson enlightening us that about 12 European governments gave fallen since the inception of the EU. He compared the current global economic crisis to the last 2 depressions and gave his advice for using the past to learn from the future. He reminded us that the whole point of creating a monetary unit was to get Europeans into a federal economic system.

George Papandreou (ex Prime Minster Greece) then followed off with a pro-Greece PR speech and myth debunking. Check out the video here.

• Myth 1: Debt is a symptom rather than a cause. The cause is a badly managed country that has lost competitiveness.
• Myth 2: Greeks are the problem but it's a European problem. It is a precedent of the European structure, showing some of the missing links in the euro
• Myth 3: Greeks are not lazy!

Regarding the third myth, Niall Fergusan commented that the Germans work the least hours out of every other nation which is why when you go in vacation – the Germans are already there! :-)

Stephanie Flanders (BBC Economics Editor) moderated the discussion and question if Greece should never have joined the Euro.

Next up were Jim O'Neill (senior exec Goldman Sachs) & Diana Farrell (McKinsey). Jim was very optimistic and commented that 'the world isn't falling apart' as he sees lots of improvement and positivity. You will always get volatility when you join 17 countries together who are different. He then quoted various positive stats such as 20% of apple revenues per quarter are from China and Germany having a record low unemployment as a result of large production of cars for China.

Finally, Sir Martin Sorrell (CEO WPP) closed with his views that this is a process of readjustment - it's simply a cycle. Since politicians are in the business of getting re-elected and elections are very frequent, it's no wonder they have such a short term view whereas we in business must take the long term view. Sir Martin felt that the discussion was "depressing, distracting and off strategy" and pointed to China, the 2^nd largest economy in the world, and the changes and impact happening there.

Beyond the Rational - moderated by Jon Snow

This session was moderated by Jon Snow (Channel 4 News Presenter) and the first topic was kicked off by Professor Dan Ariely (Professor Economics and Behavioural Economics, Duke University). He spoke about the many experiments into people cheating. Watch the clip here.

• The best time to cheat is actually on the way to confession as people 'reset' at confession though they generally do continue to cheat. He suggested that confession should be broader than simply religious e.g. banks and politicians should ask forgiveness.
• Since the conference is attended by more women than before, it was interesting when the discussion turned to the big difference between men and women in how they view competition e.g. men enter competitions regardless of skill and women don't enter at all.
• He said that people ingested in technology have to be optimistic as technology is about fixing the things that we do badly

Laurie Santos (Assoc. Director Psychology – Yale) talked about her work with monkeys to better understand human. For example, monkeys can learn to use currency and operate a market with risk, discounts etc. that exactly replicates human markets. I'm left wondering if monkeys are super intelligent or if we human just have the intelligence of monkeys …? Watch the clip here.

Matt Ridley (Author and Economist) also talked about optimism and mentioned that child mortality has fallen in Africa by 5%. He cited lots of other optimistic facts (faster than I could type) but I did pock up that there is less equality, the poor getting richer faster than the rich getting richer. Watch the clip here.

The session ended with a beautiful performance by Imogen Heap (who I had never heard of) who reminded us all to breath (ironically she was rather out of breath from being quite nervous!). Watch the performance here.

Google Product Showcase

David Rowan (Editor Wired Magazine) tweeted (@iRowan) some interesting Google facts, which is always good for a room full of folks who love numbers!

• Google activates 850,000 Android devices a day - more than the number of babies born
• Google has conducted 58,000 search experiments in the last year that have resulted in 520 changes to search
• Every minute 60 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube - 50% up year on year

First up was Google Drive, impressively allowing 2 people on different sides of the world to work on the same document in real time. There was a voice to text demo which unfortunately went completely wrong much to the amusement of the audience. Drive can search for pictures by name and recognise content, e.g. pictures of bridges, which can be very useful for searching through thousands of holiday photos. They've also put translation technology into docs.

Next up was Google Plus (Google's fastest growing product), now with 170 million people, although I wonder if these are registered users or active users. The demonstration covered a joint conference call and how to start a 'hangout' even if one user doesn't have a smartphone.

The biggest Search Enhancements included "the knowledge graph" which shows a panel with a range of information surrounding a potentially broad search term (e.g. London) and highlights of pages (+1) endorsed by Google+ friends.

On the YouTube video front, there was head-to-head Apple combat showing the ability to bookmark videos to "view later" and then watch on your phone. They demonstrated how the phone can seamlessly communicate and sling content between PC-phone-TV.

Some 'really cool' Android features were demonstrated such as:

• Unlocking your phone with face recognition, panorama photos and fun video calling effects.
• Transfer of tabs from Chrome browser between PC and phone allowing a continuous browsing experience.
• The NFC chip (also shown last year) was demonstrated allowing you to send information between phones by placing phones on top of one another

We were also shown some mapping picture technology demonstrating an exact location for where a picture is taken, and the ability to follow to visual path on a map as if 'flying'. This is great for folks who struggle to read maps (or the Google Product Manager who demonstrated whose boyfriend lost his backback on the Swiss Alps and needed to relocate it).

The best was left for last as we were shown Google Glasses. A great idea about glasses with integrated voice controlled commands and screen integrating music, maps, information and communication. Check out g.co/projectglass for more. Despite my love of gadgets, I can't see myself ever wearing one of these.

I unfortunately missed the next session on Beyond the Revolution but the interesting anecdote here I picked up was that non-violent protests are twice more likely to succeed. Here are links to the missed clips:

• Moderator: Paul Mason (Economics Editor BBC Newsnight)
• Bernard Kouchner (Founder Doctors without Borders). Watch the clip here.
• Farah Pandith (Special rep to Muslim Communities, US State dept). Watch the clip here.
• Srdja Popovic (Exec Director, Canvas Serbia). Watch the clip here.
• Bassem Youssef (Surgeon & TV Presenter). Watch the clip here.

Beyond Ourselves

This session was moderated by Becky Anderson (CNN).

Lily Cole (Supermodel and Founder of Impossible.com) and Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) discussed the interesting topic of gifting economies. Here are some key points:

• Gifting economies tap into sociological behaviours and technology makes connections transparent. Wikipedia is the biggest example of this as people donate hours of their time because they find it interesting
• Impossible.com (still in Beta) builds on people's desire to have a sense of community, to meet one another and help one another (as does the social media phenomenon). Lily mentioned how gift parading or the economy of regard (gift economy) is worth more than GDP (UK?)
• Jimmy said how the most successful business don't necessarily set out to make money. He cited Mark Zuckerberg who is apparently obsessed with the product.

This is definitely a very interesting concept (and quite change to champagne and catwalks) proving that Lily Cole is clearly a highly intelligent woman! Watch the clip here.

The unforgettable Dame Viviane Westwood followed, talking unstoppably and passionately about climate change. Calling herself a 'freedom fighter', she talked about the financial problem being the symptom and not the cause of the problem. She criticised our current culture of 'consumerism' and praised art as its' not consumption. Unfortunately government are the last to do anything to save the environment so its up to the corporate world to lead change. It would only cost £114 million to save 3 forests…. While many remarked on her monologue, I felt she had a very valuable message for our current materialistic and superficial society where celebrities are the new religion and appearance is the new currency. Watch the clip here.

David Jones (Global CEO Havas & Founder One Young World) talked about One Young World competition and introduced 3 young entrepreneurial candidates which impressive achievements. Watch the clip here.

• Finalist of the Google Science Fair is 16 year old girl from India, Harine Ravichandiran, who came up with a solution for stable voltage for remote villages as her grandparents had to wake up at 3 a.m. for enough light to water their crops.
• Amr Mohamed, Global Winner YouTube Space Lab, came up with an experiment investigating the effects of microgravity on the way the zebra spider catches its prey and whether it could adapt its behavior in this environment.  
• Joe Mwale, 16 year old Kenyan boy who started a water purification business from his bed, while sick with dysentery. To raise $5k, he structured a 5 year lease for a piece of unused land in his family. He has sold 2,000 bottles to date.

The conference day ended with Nobel prize winning Annie Lennox, who brought people to tears with her passionate plight to help pregnant woman with AIDS/HIV in Africa. Her talk was so moving that there were people crying in the audience.

Here are some key points:

• 14 million orphans affected by aids across the whole continent
• If children are born with the virus they most likely won't reach their 5th birthday – it's heartbreaking
• Currently there are 34 million people living with HIV, 23 million of these are in Africa
• There are not enough doctors and nurses per 1,000 people when compared to more developed countries e.g. UK
• When she visited Africa, coffins of every size were being sold at supermarkets. She saw tents everywhere, which she thought were for celebrations but in fact they were funerals.

Watch the clip here.

I chatted to her at the dinner and she mentioned that Jakob Zuma was a strong supporter of the programme (whereas Thabo Mbeki had made things extremely tough with his denial that HIV leads to AIDS. She is truly a remarkable woman and I praised her for lending her name and time to a cause that simply isn't sensational enough to warrant media attention, and therefore global attention.

Day turned to Night and the Drinks and Dinner commenced in a spectacular white tent in the Grove's Walled Garden. The décor this year was light, bright and contemporary. The food and entertainment were spectacular with tremendous style and attention to detail. There were performances by Maria Aragon (12 year old internet sensation with 55+ million YouTube views), Paloma Faith and Ed Sheeran. The alcohol fuelled a whole different level of conversation and networking.;-)

The picture below shows Annie Lennox taking a video of one of the performances (and shows the proximity I was sitting to her). The second picture shows the starter 'scientific style' with tube of mayonnaise and test tube vial of olive oil.

 

Day 2

Going Beyond

This session was moderated by Clare Balding (BBC Sports Presenter).

Sir Ranulph Fiennes kicked off with a profoundly laugh-out-loud funny and borderline unbelievable presentation of his expeditions and their challenges. I've heard him speak before, and yet this time it was even more insightful, inspiring and funny ranging from surviving temperatures up to -132 C to surviving fires, frostbite and blisters. I highly recommend watching the clip here. I since also read that he has also run 7 marathons in 7 days (although that pales to what Dean Karnazes achieved).

Sir Steve Redgrave, an Olympic gold medallist talked about his experiences and the training process to reduce 1/100^th of a second. He touched on the importance of mental performance for physical performance i.e. mental process is to believe you will win so even if they are leading, they are hurting. Watch the clip here.

He was then followed by John Eales, international rugby quarterback who talked about the challenge of team performance versus individual performance. Watch the clip here.

Finally, Dean Karnazes came on stage. He has run 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states starting from deciding to run 30 miles one night when he was drunk (!). I nearly fell off my chair as I had chatted to him that morning and mistakenly assumed he was just the running club 'instructor' as our paths collided on the morning run. I was impressed by a gadget he mentioned and later chatted to him about it – check out the MotoACTV. It's a watch linked to a Jawbone earpiece measuring biometric body information during the run which is then uploaded via Bluetooth. Watch the clip here.

Beyond the News

Evgeny Lebedev (Owner of The Evening Standard) kicked off his strategy for his titles. He talked about his youth in Russia as a key driver for his business achievements today. He interestingly mentioned that his strategy for The Independent is to 'lose less money' and perhaps the losses to be funded by The Evening Standard's profit. Watch the clip here.

Joris Luyendijk (Middle East correspondent and banking blogger with The Guardian) came on next with an honest and charismatic style. He raised the valid point how can we expect bankers to have a long term view when they can be fired in 5 minutes! I just love the Dutch! Watch the clip here.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (host and producer Huffington Post Streaming Network) discussed how social media is the catalyst for change as elimated the use of parachute journalism by offering a new source of publishing. While reading from his Ipad (!), he told the audience about the new streaming network, which now has more page views than the NY times! The social media change is youth led as 70% of the Arab world is under 30 years (50% rest of world). Google assisted the social media revolution when it launched "speak to tweet" allowing voicemails to be transferred into tweets. Watch the clip here.

Paul Conroy (award-winning photo journalist who was with Marie Colvin when she died) concluded the panel. He recounted the shocking events included his dramatic escape after the bombing that killed Marie. It's phenomenal the strength he has shown and it really brings the reality of the tragic story to life hearing it first hand from Paul. Watch the clip here.

Beyond Today

This session kicked off with futuristic insights giving yet another new and enthralling dimension to the 2-day conference.

First up was Marc Raibert (Boston Robotics) talking about his experiments creating Robots which can run ("Why walk when you can run?"). He showed us clips of Big Dog and Bigger Dog, with humorous demonstrations of house these robot dogs can avoid falling (and sometimes fall miserably). These robotics are already being used for purposes in the military for example with chemical suit testing. Watch the clip here.

Catherine Mohr (Director of Medical Research at Intuitive Surgical) presented to us the usage of robotics in hospitals to reduce recovery time and complications and save costs despite the large upfront cost (as long incisions are eliminated). She demonstrated the cost benefit analysis of high upfront costs versus savings in hospital expansions due to lower bed occupancy (as a result of the significantly shorter recovery times). Amazing how technology in the healthcare sector has such significant financial implications (rather than simply giving patients easier solutions). Watch the clip here.

Mikko Hyponnen (Chief Research Officer for F-Secure) enlightened us on cybercrime. He explained that the criminals are best grouped into 3 categories based on their intent: thieves, activists and governments. He went into detail on each of the categories – especially interesting was Governments as he isolated a clip from a Chinese video showing software which showed they conduct cyber-attacks on the US! Watch the clip here.

Marco Tempests (Cyber illusionist) did a show for us showing showing magic using technology and talking about the art of illusion, turning belief into disbelief. Watch the clip here.

Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO x-Prize foundation, talked about Abundance. He's written a book on the topic, which I looked forward to reading (we all received a copy). He explained how we are heading towards a world of abundance as technology turns scarcity into abundance. Watch the clip here.

Larry Paige, who needs no introduction, came on stage next with his Google Goggles. He talked about how, for many people now, their first phone will be their first computer! Here are some key points from his talk:

• They have made google products much more coherent and visually better (like a little company called Apple?) – "technology should do the hard work for you rare than you doing the hard work"
• People seem confused by Google Plus but it essentially allows people to share things
• You can now take a photo on your android phone and have it shared automatically
• Search has gotten a lot better but you don't always see it though it changes every day. Last week they released knowledge panels
• You can have same tabs open on phone as on desktop providing a seamless experience
• Big bets: their aim to have people use a product as often as they use their toothbrush
• YouTube has been doubling revenue YOY since acquisition for $1.4 billion

Larry has always been motivated by a slogan from a summer university course which said "have a healthy disregard for the impossible" i.e. be very ambitious such as Google's project for self-driving cars. You won't have any competition and you will attract the best people who only want to work on innovative things

He is very excited about the concept of carrying around your health data and data mining based on the data coming out of your body then figuring out why you are getting sick. Watch the clip here.

 

Beyond Philanthropy

The piste de resistance was of course, ex-President Bill Clinton, who came on stage looking old and frail (and in his eighties). I confess to immediately Googling his age which was a mere 65 years. Just proof that being a president ages significantly! Not meaning to appear shallow here, but some folks I chatted to afterwards said the same thing. He unfortunately did not appear to be in good health.

He was interviewed by none other than Eric Schmidt (Chairman, Google) no less.

Here are some of the key points from his talk:

• He chatted briefly about wanting South East Europe to join the EU (especially Turkey) which could be a bridge to Arab Spring. In his opinion, the best way of managing the Arab Spring is not to manage it!
• He went into detail of the EU and Euro problem showing a tremendously sharp brain for economics and still being quite passionate and a strong public speaker in this area
• Then he talked about the Clinton Foundation and his current work (which I was not aware of at all – I just thought he worked the speaker's circuit for a nice retirement fund as I think Tony Blair does (or I could be wrong here). It's quite impressive and you can read more about it here.
• The foundation is:
  • A global initiative
  • Its affiliates look at global networks of cooperation
  • Instrumental in fighting childhood obesity, HIV/AIDS and Malaria
  • Biggest impact has been in healthcare industry, getting HIVAIDS drugs reduced from $900 to $90
  • Got a 88% calorie reduction in drinks at schools
  • Costa Rica's over capital income is 2.5 x its neighbours because it has a green sustainable economy using hydroelectricity
  • Creative cooperative collaboration helped bring down the shoe bomber as all intelligence services between the US and UK collaborated with one another

His appearance went down well (even before he spoke as he achieved a jam-packed room and sell out dinner that evening). In previous years, Zeitgeist had emptied out by the end of the second day, showing clever organisation by the Google Zeitgeist event team. This proves the power of his charisma despite the fact that he's the only US president in history for being impeached for lying under oath (this was conveniently omitted from the session).

Watch the clip here.

With a wrap up by Nikesh, the event concluded. I'm told the Zeitgeist event team now have about a 3 month break before they begin planning again for Zeitgeist 2013. I certainly look forward to next year!

 

House and Home Gadget Extravaganza: The Top 10 Gadgets

After a long blogging hiatus, a complete gadget overload has finally given me the push to put finger to keyboard and churn out another blog post. Hallelujah!

 

Yesterday I visited the Grand Designs Live House and Home show with a friend. For those of you outside of the UK, this is a show connected to a TV program about house construction. Whilst my interest in this topic was originally focussed on wooden floors and cabinets, I absolutely loved loved loved some of the gadgets and technology I saw. I can of course dream about winning the lottery and building a complete house of the future one day, so I consider this to be a complete naïve research expedition on my part.

 

The list below has my Top 10 picks (I've excluded the technology around ecological developments, energy efficiency and security simply because didn't have time to do it all):

 

1. The Horizontal Shower

Is this is ultimate in laziness or hedonism? I. Want. One.

1. The Staircase Cascading Water Feature

Ok, so this is somewhat ridiculous but very cool at the same time. This picture doesn't do it justice, however if you look closer, you can see water cascading down the side of the staircase.

1. The Indoor Lift

Ditch the pedometer and gym membership, and solidify your status as couch potato with this nifty indoor lift. Unfortunately it comes with a cupboard of cables and power supply (which can be put outside in the garden, as pointed out by the kind salesman pointed out). Surprisingly not as expensive as you may think! I see this matched well with the elderly, disabled and mega rich. www.stannah.com

1. The Bath TV

The resolution and screen aren't great, but still you have to marvel at the first steps in integrating the TV into the actual bath. There are many TV's in bathrooms thesedays and this one may likely land up in the Gadget Graveyard (R.I.P). I somehow still felt compelled to mention it and show a picture.

1. The Mega Kitchen TV

Since it now seems almost standard to have a TV in the kitchen, the next step seems to be a MASSIVE one in the kitchen. There was also a lot of innovation around the hiding of TV's showing the true convergence between technology and interiors.

1. Photo Frame Organisation

The Spacer Frame is a nifty set of soft plastic frames that can be easily stuck to the wall (with non-evasive adhesive) and separated with a handy spacing tool (the 'gadget') to create a stunning effect. Note that you need to use a company like PhotoBox to get the exact 5x5" shape or you need to start with cropping. www.superframe.co.uk

1. Photo Memory Collage Service

"Life in Squares" is essentially a giant poster comprised of many individual pictures. I saw one with old family photos in black and white which was beautifully framed. It's a great solution for today's time when we have so many pictures except that they sit on our hard drives or in stuffy shoeboxes and never see the light of day. I will definitely be doing something with this or the previous photo solution listed above. www.lifeinsquares.com

 

1. Sonos Wifi Sound

I actually already have Sonos at home, however it still warrants a place in the top 10 due to their presence at the show (and I assume many of you still don't know of Sonos). Sonos connect all your music in your house to your home stereo system and built in speakers (as well as wireless speakers) controlled through a nifty iPod/iPhone/iPad app or Touchpad Controller. Gone are the days of listening to your mega music library via a little speaker connected to your Ipod. This system allows your music and playlists to function through your proper home stereo system. In addition, there are radio stations and nifty digital stations – I highly recommend trying AUPIO personal radio stations if you have an iPod/iPhone/iPad. You can chose music stations by category and then it builds a profile of your taste as you indicate if you like or dislike what you're hearing. I am impressed by the easy usability and interface (however you do need to push on buttons to see what they do if you are too eager to start and neglect the intro). Of course there's a direct link to purchase music which is a great e-commerce revenue stream. I'm sure they take a cut of the transactions except in my case, I still went to iTunes to buy. www.sonos.com www.aupeo.co.uk

 

1. Gadget to Object Speaker

I saw this briefly but it's a £20 gadget (box + cable) that takes sound from your iPhone or iPod and uses any old object as a speaker. The demonstration at the stand had it attached to a polystyrene box. This idea is fun but can be especially useful for kids (my toddler has thrown the current speaker to the ground too many times). I can also imagine a significant use for this for lower income groups or in less developed countries. Forgive me for not noting the name (it's killing me!). I'll update the post when I track it down. Please let me know if you know what it's called.

 

1. The "Wonderbag" Cooking Bag

This product hails from South Africa and is a bag filled with Polystyrene (I think) that acts as an oven or slow cooker for dishes that require long stewing times, e.g. casseroles. It's a huge energy saver and has obvious significance in the African townships. Many of the English weren't going crazy for it as it's quite a bulky item and we clearly have no storage in our cramped UK homes. For every bag you buy, one gets donated to a needy family in South Africa. www.nb-wonderbag.com

Not quite in the Top 10 but worth a mention are the Samsung TV's. Samsung were still showing their current range of TV's, with the price of the 8 series (their top of the range model) being reduced to around £2,500 (in light of the introduction of the new OLED series in a few months' time. The salesman I spoke to hinted at an introductory price of around £7,000 (but I think he was just trying to scare me). The resolution and design of the current 8 series is indeed stunning. I will wait for OLED though, thankyouverymuch.

Do comment on which "gadgets" you like, you think will succeed and you may actually consider buying. I hope this post was as interesting reading as it was for me to attend this event. If you still have time, you can head down there! www.granddesignslive.com

When a Flash Mob Turns into a Riot

Social media has been in the spotlight especially from a political standpoint ever since Obama mobilised its powers to assist with his election win. Unfortunately, this week in the UK, its demonic powers have been demonstrated with riots and mobs running rampage apparently using digital methods to organise themselves. This is not new and has even already been labelled in digital terminology as A Flash Mob.

For years, Flash Mobs have existed and have been purely for amusement.For example, social media helped 400 total strangers to show up on a certain day and time at Liverpool Street station to perform a dance in Jan 2009, and then leave. Watch the video here.

However in London this week, this is how mobile phones and social media were utilised during the riots for good and bad purposes.

THE THUGS

Thugs used Blackberry Messenger and Twitter to gather quickly in different locations to riot (well, they were hardly going to print posters and organise formally). THE MEDIA Violence was recorded using mobile phones and shared quickly on YouTube and Twitter including a scene of an injured boy getting robbed by so-called "good Samaritans"! This video has already had more than 500,000 views on YouTube.

THE POLICE

The police used text and twitter to quickly contact off-duty and part-time staff to quickly swell the force from 6,000 to 16,000 overnight to crush the uprising. Police also using captured CCTV images to create a rogue gallery to identify culprits on their own website, on Flickr and in the newspapers. More than 1,000 people have been captured to date (1 week since the incidents). 

THE COMMUNITY

Opinions all round have been gathered and shared via Twitter and Facebook. Also, communities have organised to clean up local areas and show a sign of force and strength as a response. Hashtag #riotcleanup has managed to gather more people via Twitter than actual rioters

One of the saddest incidents was the destruction of a furniture business over 100 years old. How crazy that such resilience was ultimately defeated by a) kids, b) without any purpose or cause and c) using meagre weapons like bats and fists ... succeeding where two World Wars could not.

In conclusion, I'd like to leave you with the following thoughts:

• I hope that the forces of good will prevail above evil, despite the fact that the younger generation are more adept at digital media and are at the centre of this terrible behaviour.
• It's a relief to know what the likes of Martha Lane Fox are working with the UK government to ensure that digital media is an powerful force used by ALL sides.  
• The quick response of the police proves this and, while they are highly criticised for their hands-off approach,  they will hopefully show their true power by catching the culprits with the help of social media and the community using tools like their "rogue gallery" and inflicting harsh punishment as a deterrent to this ever happening again.

Sharon

P.S. Since posting this - both NBC and BBC have been covering this topic extensively. There are interesting discussions about the policing of social media and ability to access RIM network information by the police. All very interesting new topics for society since the advent of social media. Another interesting one - should children 'friend' their teachers on Facebook? 

Google+ vs. Facebook: Who will win?

Within 5 minutes of trying Google+, I feel confident to give it my thumbs up. This is because it was obvious from the get-go that it addressed one of my biggest problems with Facebook. Specifically, the separation of our social groups into circles and the control over what we share and with whom. While Facebook does allow the categorisation via checkboxes, I just don't feel that this has been made easy enough in the current user interface. We already know that usability and simplicity separate the winners from the losers – just look at the Ipod vs. the Walkman. So people end up creating separate profiles (business vs. personal), regularly 'culling' friends and generally posting less but basically am imperfect situation currently exists.

What is Google+?

It's Google's social network on invitation only at this stage (and called a 'project' as its development is ongoing – nice touch!). To learn more about the key features of Google+, I recommend you just play around with it. It looks significantly like Facebook once you're at your homepage but appears less cluttered (perhaps due to the absence of advertising … ahem). The features it offers are:

• Circles: a great way of organising (and separating!) your contacts
• Streams: equivalent of Facebook status updates
• Hangouts: like groups but with ability to use your webcam
• Huddle: basically a group chat
• Sparks: a content sharing tool organised around topics using +1 function
• Photos, Chat & Mobile

For more on the functionality, I refer you to this Slideshare deck by Nixon McInnes, "Google+ - What is it and should we take notice?" or this post by Anton Koekemoer, How to get started with Google+.

To learn more about the content sharing capabilities of Google+, I recommend reading

Will it succeed where Facebook hasn't?

This is the $64 billion question with initial critics comparing a snapshot of the numbers and declaring "No!". However Google+ has reached 18 million users in a record time that it took Facebook 2 years to do. Looking at the trend though, while in net numbers Facebook is edging towards 1 billion people, the winner of the social media war will be based on success in the following 3 areas.

• Content Production
• Search
• Revenue

1. Content Production: Content = Time Spent

Facebook's success in raw numbers is also potentially its downfall in the fact that people have too many "friends" and time spent is based on the fine mix between content production (status updates and pictures), participation (likes and comments) and consumption (the reading).

This problem arises when there is:

• Blurring of circles: Your nanny, niece, client, mother and next door neighbour are all your "friends" but you don't want to share the same information in the same way with all these people. Normally, one would control finely what you tell, to whom and when as part of your relationships with people in your networks and the intimacy created when someone shares something with you decide to share back. This is incredibly difficult if not impossible on Facebook causing a hesitance to post.
• Annoyance: I have recently heard of various people annoyed with other people based on their posts e.g. someone told me "I never post pictures of my children as there is a guy who is constantly posting pictures of his baby – does he think we are all interested?" Of course, when I heard the latter comment, I did wonder, 'are other people thinking the same about me when I post a picture of my baby?'. Needless to say, I am much more reluctant to post now. Is this how others feel too?
• Too many contacts: According to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, humans are cognitively capable of connecting with only 150 people at a time. With more than that, it becomes impossible to manage your relationships on Facebook and you end up neglecting contacts and not being able to return an email, comment, wish happy birthday or poke back when perhaps you should have. Here is a great article on Wired.com about the limits of our friendships.
• Less contribution: Facebook taps into our voyeuristic interest in "other people's lives" as well as our inherent laziness to avoid emailing or picking up the phone to get the information. Facebook dishes the information up on a silver platter but it only works if people keep up the dishing. Since social media is reliant on the 90-9-1 principle (90% of people read the content, 9% contribute and only 1% actually produce), the poor ability to share and control what to share with which 'social network' or circle has and will result in less content production and therefore less interesting content for consumption. If you check Facebook 5 x a day and the same people still have the same content, you're just not going to check as often and spend less time on Facebook. This can result in less time spent.

Google+ has its circles organised from the get-go with a clearer system of what to share with whom. This is outlined in greater detail in this excellent post "4 things to know about Google+" by Urs E. Gattiker of ComMetrics.

1. Search: Where Google+ is Great

It's interesting that the battle for social media will boil down to integration with search. The Sparks and Huddles are great features offering a consumer benefit combining social networking with the content on the web on the basis of interest. It clusters people not just around other people they know (Facebook) but around interesting content and relevant topics (Twitter). This is an area where Google are perfectly poised to marry the two and where Facebook has yet to do. The partnership with Microsoft and Bing will be able to combat this if Microsoft is able to further integrate the two technologies and platform to mimic the same utility.

1. Revenue: Facebook Monetising Fast

Audience reach is achieved through the model of Paid-Earned-Owned media. Facebook seems to have become the "one-stop audience shop" as it achieves all 3.

• Paid Media: Facebook pages have contextual display ads and while I feel it clutters the interface) but I'm sure there are enough click-throughs on these ads to justify its existence
• Earned Media: This is traditional PR in social media form and the ever popular 'like' function. There is debate as to the actual value of a like, while some say it's worth 29p in media value, others argue its worthless since its often achieved through the trade of content or a discount rather than being a genuine like. Groups, communities and fan pages strengthen this further by facilitating the sharing of brand related information. Google have this in their +1 feature, so the path is paved for further monetisation.
• Owned Media: When I worked at Microsoft, specifically in the area of custom solutions and branded entertainment, we were always delivered a microsite as well as a traffic strategy. These days brands just host a Facebook page i.e. "fish where the fish are" and don't even need to claim their own URL, entirely keeping traffic in the Facebook ecosystem and eliminating the need for a (micro)site.

PLUS

• E-commerce: The online transaction side of Facebook is also increasing as a distribution channel. Check out this article on F-commerce with interesting facts and brands.

Of course, the commercial success of Facebook does depend on the usage by the audience. For example, Microsoft has a huge audience base on MSN (Windows Live) Messenger, but if less people are logging in and using IM, what value is this to advertisers at the end of the day? The fatigue or decline of Facebook is only just beginning, however it is something to be aware of.

Google+ on the other hand doesn't have ads or fan page equivalents (yet) however one can envisage later down the line 'sparks' and 'huddles' around relevant topics e.g. P&G could sponsor a 'Spark' around toddler tantrums 'brought to you by Pampers' and then arrange a 'Huddle' with Jo Frost - Supernanny.

In conclusion, I predict that:

1. While Facebook has massive global audience, the usage will decline further due to the poor separation of social groups and ability to control over what to share with which group. Google+ has benefitted from social anthropological hindsight gleaned from Facebook's first mover advantage.
2. Combined with the content from search, their technological expertise and their own critical mass as everyone's entry point to the web, they have a strong chance of creating a winning social network for the future provided they pursue the monetisation path and engage with brands for advertising and e-commerce on the paid, earned and owned levels.

Please let me know your thoughts and comments below. Thanks!

Gadget* of the Week**

* This isn't really a gadget but an app, and actually its more than 1 app

** This isn't weekly either but you can't deny the zing of the "...of the Week" headline 

Business Cards on the Fly

My favourite app of the moment is called Camcard. This handy app allows you to create business card contact entries on your phone by taking a picture on your phone. Even handier is the ability to select an email signature which automatically gets imported into Camcard. The fields get mapped to a contact entry which is seamless and extremely useful. 

 

Handwriting Made Easy

Further use is the writing ability of the tablet. Thanks for JaffeJuice for informing me of this. His recommended note apps are: Noteshelf and Penultimate. He describes Noteshelf as "awesome".

You be the judge! 

I just received my first ipad Stylus purchased from Amazon so I'll be able to take notes very soon and will let you know how it goes. Now I'm just missing an ipad cover that can store the pen ...

 

Juice Pack for iPhone 4

This one is an actual gadget! Having purchased a Mophie Juice Pack for my iPhone 3, I was very unexpectedly impressed with the same product for the iPhone 4 (which is just slurping up battery life since I'm using it as a mini-PC thesedays as every app under the sun is available enhancing my otherwise dull life). The product is sleek and stunning, doing the trick impeccably. It simply looks like a cool protective phone cover and battery life is amazing. It brings a host of intelligence to the simply job of extra battery life, like the fact that it depletes itself first before calling on the phone's battery life. I highly recommend this product! 

 

My Next Laptop

What will it be? I've had the same PC (a Sony Vaio) since starting JaffeBlend nearly 4 years ago. What a better gift for my 4 year anniversary than a new gadget.... ? Of course, I also have a MacBook Pro - but that's primarily for family video and photo storage and editing. I'm interested to hear back from you with some suggestions and your personal favourites. Shall I stick with Sony Vaio....? Feel free to comment or email me with your suggestions. 

More on Zeitgeist

Check out this fabulous detailed summary of the event by Babs Rangaiah, Global VP Marcomms at Unilever, in Marketing Week. Try not to miss the picture of me (smile) sitting across Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter. 

 

 

Google Zeitgeist

I've just returned from attending the second Google Zeitgeist conference. It's a surreal experience considering that its an event in which you rub shoulders with key executives, politicians and leaders. Last year I shook hands with Sergey and Larry whereas this year I sipped my coffee while Stephen Hawking passed by. Another personal highlight was having lunch with Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter, and Babs Rangaiah, VP Global Marcomms at Unilever.

The content was top notch with a high level established from the get-go with a keynote by George Osborne. I was extremely impressed by the vision and detail of the UK's strategic initiatives around technology (to be honest, I was expecting a high level talk in which nothing new gets said, so I confess to being blown away). Actually it was *my* mistake expecting to be disappointed, as Osborne is a young man himself, so he is of the "Facebook generation". This touches on another theme at the conference - the fact that 60% of the world's population is under 30 (and what are industry leaders doing about this?).

On the topic of youth, a panel of "kids" was freakishly refreshing and awesome considering 2 out of the 3 kids were from Cape Town (one chap invented the Drybath gel allowing one to clean without water, an essential need in impoverished Africa with limited water supply). He charmingly asked the audience for $100k (and I'm sure he got it tenfold) so he could run a trial needed for a $8 M rollout. He apparently typed his 8,000 word business plan on his mobile!

Many a joke was made about DSK and much entertainment was had in a session run by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, which saw the entire room sing Happy Birthday to a poor guy called Stan, proving the power of possibility.

I was impressed with some of the newest Google products and chuckled frequently to myself at the similarities having attending several of the Microsoft Strategic Account Summits in Redmond, Washington. The similarities between the 2 companies are uncanny. Seems to me that Google is imitating Apple more than Microsoft if any comparisons in product should be made. I'm slowly becoming open to this Android business...

In depth content is available on Twitter: @ZG2011 or @Zeitgeist 2011 and on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/zeitgeistminds

The One Where Microsoft Buys Skype

Firstly, apologies for the blogging hiatus. Having 2 kids in 2 years meant a razor-like focus for every minute of my day and my blog took a back-seat to my family blog which I maintained religiously. 

Secondly, it's time for the more interesting topic of the day, Microsoft buying Skype! Wow! My view is that this looks and smells like a strategic move to stop Skype getting in the hands of Facebook or Google who, let's face it, just haven't cracked the chat market. Facebook chat is really a Mickey Mouse application at the moment.

I find this interesting as you may know, I worked for 5 years for Microsoft and sold the first global instant messaging theme pack (to 20th Century Fox). I also completed a strategic project for Skype however remain bound by confidentiality of course.

Skype certainly bring audience (reach) to the table integrating talk with chat with video. What more could you want? The real challenge which Microsoft will see is the peer-to-peer nature of Skype. Since the application is hosted on local machines, it's my understanding that user date is not stored. This will make the integration of advertising opportunities, serving of advertising and gathering of user data a real challenge. Interestingly enough, Microsoft can bring the answer to the table. PLATFORM. The aQuantive acquisition ties in nicely here.

The reality though will come in the execution. Acquisitions have historically proven very challenging and time-consuming. I do believe that Microsoft will crack this nut, however it will take a very, very, very, very, very, very long time. The promise of the solutions brought about by technology often involve a lot of wishful thinking combined with a migraine. 

From an advertising perspective, there is untapped potential in Skype in figuring out how to incorporate brands into the conversations. The IM advertising opportunity goes beyond display ads to live chat with agents (bots), peer-to-peer games/application (e.g. a movie finder with trailer viewer), text links (call-to-action) or even integrated search results. The opportunities on mobile go even further with integration of a "local" aspect and location-based slant.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this topic (and your views on my comments), so please take the plunge and post below. Thanks. 

 

Ebay & PayPal Sellers Beware!

Caveat Emptor or “Buyer Beware” is known in the retail world, however little is known about the pitfalls of sellers. This blog post and situation is relevant for ALL SELLERS so please read on and forward links to this post to as many as you can.

Here’s the story:  I recently sold 2 handbags on Ebay for £820. The buyer had several positive feedback comments and their account had been open for several years. The story so far:

-    The buyer called to arrange collection from my flat and explained a) his sister would be collecting the bags and b) payment was via PayPal. I expressed disdain as a £28 commission was charged (which could have been avoided with cash on collection, which is the norm). The buyer apologised and offered to reimburse the £28.

-    The buyer’s ‘sister’ arrived and collected the bags. She didn’t have the £28 but called her ‘brother’ who said it was also transferred via PayPal. I checked my account and all the funds were there. She left with the bags.

-    The next morning at 8 a.m. I noticed a positive feedback “Thanks for the nice bags” and I initiated a transfer of the funds from PayPal to my bank account.

Thus far, a fairly normal transaction. Then it went pear-shaped…

-    I received emails saying that the buyer had reversed the transactions. I felt sick to my stomach at the mere thought that this was possible and that I would have been robbed.

-    I tried to contact PayPal and eventually reached someone by phone who explained that in this situation only a “postage receipt” would qualify as proof of receipt and that these people were probably requesting a reversal on the grounds that someone else collected the goods (or hacked into the account to buy the goods).

-    The £28 was soon reversed to the buyer and the remaining funds were held for about 2 weeks. In that time I:

o   Uploaded evidence of proof of receipt i.e. the positive feedback

o   Wrote feedback on the buyer warning other sellers – 2 others immediately approached me. One was a PowerSeller who had been defrauded the same day of £500, the other had almost been defrauded however the buyer became aggressive when they refused the PayPal payment (as they had been victim to a similar fraud already).

o   Reached out to my network who sent my case directly to the head of Customer Service at Paypal

o   Contacted the London Police about the case

-    The PowerSeller alerted Ebay who immediately suspended the buyer’s account

At this point, I actually felt confident that anyone and everyone could see that this was a case of a fraudulent scam involving criminals. Ebay’s suspension of the account and other witnesses were proof enough. However, then the impossible happened:

-    PayPal sent me a standard template email informing that as a result of their “investigation” they had decided to return the funds to this buyer!!

-    Then Eay invoiced me for commission fees for a further £77!

It’s one thing to be robbed by criminals, but its an entirely different matter when a large company does not “plug” a loophole and amend their policy and/or software to protect innocent people and their company image as “safe” and “reliable”.  I had suggested in my email that:

• PayPal released my remaining funds back to me
• Amend their software not allowing PayPal payments where the seller has indicated cash on collection
• Amend their software to warn sellers of the extra precautions needed in these circumstances

 

To my knowledge, none of these changes have been made and this loophole continues to exist.

I am also working with a detective at the London Metropolitan Police to investigate this case further and take possible civil action.

Finally, I am collaborating with the other victim of the same person to alert as many people as possible via PR and social media circles. So please let your friends and colleagues know about this occurrence and most importantly….

CAVEAT VENDITOR!

p.s. I have since found out I am not alone. Check out: www.paypalsucks.com or do a twitter search for PayPal

What We Can Learn From the Super Bowl

While most of us know of the event, we hardly know when it took place, who played or even who won (would you think less of me if I confess that I STILL don't know this at the time of writing this post?). What we do know that Janet Jackson had a famous wardrobe "malfunction" and the fact that the ads shown in the commercial breaks are really really really really REALLY expensive. How expensive, I hear you ask? In 1967 it was $42,500 and today the ad cost $2.6 million reaching nearly 78 million viewers. Note also that this cost does NOT include the production

This price is directly correlated to the original principles of "reach" and "awareness" and takes advertising and media planning back to its original roots – using the least amount of people, to reach the most amount of people in the least amount of time (and somehow using the most amount of money!).

When I was a student at university in Cape Town, I was so desperate to see the top ads at the Cannes Lions, I somehow located a copy of the showreel and managed to get an entire cinema packed with students to watch it with me. The advantage was that I was President of the U.C.T. Marketing Society, so I managed to get my hands on the valuable showreel. The disadvantage was that after I'd ushered everyone in, the only remaining seat was on the cold hard floor!

I found myself catching up on the ads on Rohit Bargava's "Influential Marketing" blog. I really admire him and learn a great deal from his posts. I recommend you read the post but if you're pressed for time, scroll down and check out the ads here.

My personal favourite is the Google ad – costing a mere $5 million and marking the company's first entry into mainstream advertising. I love the irony that such a a) strong brand and b) internet marketing/media company by simply having such an ad has said that it a) believes it needs to build brand and b) reach massive audience with loads of money. Nevertheless, the ad showed the power of original and traditional advertising by building brand awareness and favourability through storytelling. It stuck to Google's core brand and product value of simplicity, yet it delivered an emotive message which I could relate to.

For some reason, the online buzz didn't place it first, and favouring slapstick humour instead for the Dorito's ad. Perhaps this is because of a suspected larger male skew to the audience?

BUT....

This is where my disappointment came in. I searched for the ad on YouTube and instead did NOT find the original in the top 5 hits!! Instead I found a parody of the ad. Was this their intention?? Why-oh-why is there only a sponsored link to DOWNLOAD CHROME instead of a link to the video? When I clicked on the 6^th link, there is an error in the video as it was posted by someone else. What a missed opportunity in extending the long tail of this ad!

My second favourite is the Audi ad, using a lot of humour and simply entertaining in the same way advertising did back when I was a student. Am I going to buy that new Audi though? No?! In fact, after seeing the ad, I can't recall the model number. But more importantly, I'm not in the market for a new car. Targeting's a bitch, ain't it? 
 

So here are the lessons I think we can learn:

1. Brands still think they need to build awareness and favourability (or retain/reinforce brand values) through emotive or entertaining storytelling
2. Brands still think they need to spend a lot of money to do this (do they?)
3. Don't forget to monitor and influence social media channels as brands need acknowledge that these will be active in conversation and content creation (old marketing meets new marketing)
4. Emotive storytelling is brilliant but is that the right relevant emotional hook your audience are looking for?
5. The 30-second spot may be dying but it's not dead yet