Posts Tagged ‘Add new tag’
Creative research into the digital economy
March 23rd, 2009
This is the second of, we hope, many posts from our guest academic, Lorraine Warren. Dr Warren is Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton.
I’ve just participated in the final meeting of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s cluster project, New Research Processes and Business Models for the Creative Industries. The idea behind this cluster, headed up by the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University, was to bring together interdisciplinary teams to work together across boundaries to deal with the opportunities – and of course the challenges – of the digital economy.
As a management researcher with an interest in technology, especially early-stage concept development, it’s been really exciting for me to work alongside artists, designers, performers and computer scientists to establish new links across the boundaries of different disciplines.
I did expect that some people might be suspicious of me at the start, thinking that perhaps I’d be more interested in the bottom line than the creative process, but I think they realised pretty early on that I am more interested in long-term value creation than short-term souvenir selling. For me, this is only possible if the people involved, from whatever discipline, are able to develop their professional identity and maintain their integrity about what they do.
So, over the past six months, I’ve been working closely with colleagues in the cluster on practice-based pilot projects, learning whole new vocabularies about building interactive soundscapes and working with sound in real-time motion capture studios. The question now is - what next? These projects are crossing the boundaries between art and science, bringing new perspectives and producing some amazing work.
Perhaps more importantly, new relationships based on trust and respect for different expertises have been established. Yet while we are looking ahead to potential new business models, a leap to customer revenues is unlikely at this stage! What we have achieved is a new combination of ideas and people that in the medium- to long-term could be developed in many directions as market opportunities arise in a fast-moving environment.
If our ideas are to translate into some part of a robust digital economy, we need to be able to develop a trajectory – whatever our career path or discipline, we all need to demonstrate that once we have successfully carried out a small project, we’re ready for something bigger. It’s not enough to develop horizontally and keep amassing a constellation of small projects that may or may not add up into something that makes sense one day.
We need to deepen and develop our pilot projects, build prototypes, build market relationships, keep working on new ideas. This isn’t just the inevitable cry for more funding – the EPSRC’s Digital Economy initiative is ongoing – but let’s make sure we can maintain momentum on what we have already achieved. We have some great new groups now, but inevitably if we can’t find vehicles to work on together soon, this will erode, as people find other things to do.
Moving mobile social networks beyond MySpace and Facebook
November 12th, 2008
A lively time in Wardour Street last night at the Chinwag event on mobile social networks with feisty (and drink-enabled) characters in the audience providing a testing warm up for the expert panel and chair Bena Roberts (GoMo News).
When things settled (departure of character with the Voice of Reason), it soon became clear at the MoSo Rising gathering that while there are no stellar new performers in the space, with established marques like MySpace and FaceBook leading the charge into always-connected social spaces, there are many positive signs.
Right now though start-up and niche mobile-only social networks are wrestling with the best revenue models, with white-label services a winning play at the moment, as ads and subscriptions largely fail to deliver.
More pressing for many agencies and PRs on the night was the need for clarity on how best to advise companies interested but fearful of mobile/social web. Panellist Alfie Dennen, CEO Moblog, suggested that brands and agencies need to think in more inclusive way, and embrace mobile as part of the communications mix, in much the same way that broadcasters have.
Harry Blunden. Head of digital at ?WhatIf! Digital advised that all agencies
should have at least one mobile savant - the one who could read the current mobile terrain and map out the potential for clients. He and other panel members all felt that many agencies did not understand Mobile but needed to embrace it.
Ron Shelton. CEO Next2Friends also urged agencies to encourage client to experiment with Mobile now, educating them away from the fear of the platform.
The view from the panellists, not necessarily shared by everyone in the Slug and Lettuce, was that digital agencies don’t yet get the mobile space and that a focussed education programme was needed to pull agencies into the new age with clients still very reluctant to put money into mobile.
A positive view on the development of the mobile/social web came from the floor as Conor McKenna, business development manager at mobile search company Taptu who said that growing numbers of people leading quite disconnected working lives used mobile web and social networks to communicate and engage and as a form of escapism.
Bena Roberts added how Polish workers she had met were addicted to social networks on mobile as this was all they had to keep connected with their social groups.
And in Hungary, people in villages who had not heard of broadband were using their mobiles as web/social media access tools.
The key messages I took away from a thoughtful evening were that MoSo is only just starting as is going to be a greater part of the mobile, always connected web with massive opportunities for all the players: operators, service providers, brands and agencies. While “always on” mobile is maybe 5-10 years away, there are great opportunities for brands to engage with their customers and for agencies to build business.
At the moment, brands can harness Mobile by playing to its current strengths, keeping it simple and direct but also thinking creatively about how to use the at present limited functionality. It’s not just about delivering ads and brand messages one way.
And the simple questions for agencies and brands to ask around Mobile: “What do we want users to do? How do we create real value that engages?”
YouTube Pulitzer social media prize
September 25th, 2008
Just wanted to share a great YouTube social media opportunity/competition with you for young and aspiring journalists
A few years ago, perhaps our own Tim Greenhalgh a former Times journalist, or our own Liberate Media director Wendy McAuliffe a former NMA technology editor could have had a shot at this.
The opportunity is a YouTube contest called Project:Report in conjunction with Sony VAIO, Intel and Pulitzer Center, and it’s intended for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be told.
The competition is split over three rounds, with an assignment in each. Winners of each round will receive technology prizes from Sony VAIO & Intel, and the grand prize winner will be granted a $10,000 journalism fellowship with the Pulitzer Centre to report on a story abroad. A great prize!
The site also offers some tips on how to produce the video, with lots of product placement courtesy of Sony - you gotta get something back for offering the prizes!