tweetVOLUME is another great little twitter tool that you can imagine using for, er, something. via Data Mining.
interesting printing
There's clearly something in the air about printing and the post and stuff. Tim Milne is going to be talking about printing at Interesting2007 and he's going to make some nice surprises for us. As part of his talk he'd like to get some people to help out with something, his request is here:
"Ahead of my 'Interesting' talk about printing, I'd like a few people to join in testing how well viral works in an undigital space. To anyone who's interested, I'll send a thing in the mail which will pose a thought "I like printing..." they'd add something (write, draw, print whathaveyou) and send it onto someone else they know (and I don't–and no, they don't all have to be coming to the event) for them to do the same and so on. After half a dozen or so goes around, it'll come back to me in time for the Interesting event on Jun 16th. Full instructions will be on the piece itself and the postage will be paid for."
If you're up for helping out can you please comment below or email me (russell at russelldavies.com) and I'll put you in touch with Tim.
little audio marvels
Two splendid audio moments arrived today. This rendition of Interesting2007 via Curtis. And SpamRadio via Iain. (I know these have both been around a while, but so have lots of good things.)
interesting craft
James 'Lemons' Boardwell is one of the most interesting people I've had the privilege to meet in the last year. He's one of those strategy people who's not content with thinking, he seems to be constantly doing. And one of the things he's doing is creating folksy. You should sign up, I think it's going to be rather special. And you're going to hear more about folksy at Interesting2007.
But, the reason for me telling you all of this is that James is going to be taking charge of a craft stall at Interesting, selling all sorts of marvelous and miscellaneous stuff. And if you're going to come, you can sell your stuff there too. As long as it's stuff you've made yourself and not something you got off the back of a lorry. Anyway, James is in charge so get in touch with him if you've got something you'd like to offer on the craft stall. His email is get at folksy.co.uk.
dawdlr - a twitter for the long now
Inspired by this, this, this, this, this and of course this, I thought it was time we had a really slow twitter. Something less rushed and immediate but still brilliantly rich and daft. So I've set up dawdlr.com. (I say 'set-up', I've registered a domain name, created a tumblr blog, rented a mailbox and written this post, and that's it. But you know.)
I've tried to make dawdlr way slower than twitter. I reckon most people I know twitter about twice a day, so dawdlr is going to update twice a year. To try and get people to say what they're doing, you know, more generally.
To submit a dawdl send a postcard to this address:
dawdlr
77 Beak Street
London
W1F 9DB
I'll scan them in and upload and update them every 6 months. Regular as clockwork. I'm curious to see if something that slow can be 'viral' or will it just dwindle to nothing as everyone forgets last time around. Or if it's not an immediate enough call to action to get people to participate, or if actually getting a postcard and writing on it is too much work. Or whether, maybe, it'll all work and be rather nice.
Dawdlr is a tiny community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing, you know, more generally? Answers on a postcard please.
twitter question (technical)
Since we're going wifi-free for interesting I thought I'd create a twitter account for the thing so we can have some digital back channel for those that want it. (Though we're also working on some less digital back channels which might be more fun.)
Anyway, I can see how we can all add interesting as a friend and get updates that way, but how do we do that thing they did at macworld where anyone could precede their tweet with 'macworld' and everyone subscribed would get that? Is that something twitter need to set up or am I just being dense? That's more than possible. I just spent an hour installing new printer drivers when the damn thing just wasn't plugged in.
interesting miscellania
It's less than a month to go now and some realities are beginning to dawn on us. Logistical and economic. So here are some things you might want to know.
We're not going to have wifi at the conference. It was going to end up costing almost £2k for the day and didn't seem worth it. I also did a quick twoll last night and not many people seemed bothered. There's a Starbucks round the corner if anyone desperately needs to get online.
I do have to say though, huge thanks to Steve and Roy at Policy Unplugged who put a lot of effort into investigating wifi possibilities, who sorted out all sorts of technical stuff and came with us to talk to the venue about it. Very, very decent of them.
Second, if you want an official Interesting2007 t-shirt you're going to have to send one to Ben and The Design Conspiracy. We were looking into getting some that you can buy (and Howies generously offered some of theirs) but it's going to be too much hassle organising it all. Plus, I like the purity and exclusivity of only doing them the Design Conspiracy way. As of now, they've only had 4 t-shirts sent to them, so they might end up being very exclusive indeed.
Third, people are starting to write about what they're going to talk about, which is getting very intriguing. If you can be arsed, could you tag those things interesting2007? that way we can chop everything into a lovely content soup one day and do something clever with it. (Same if you're taking any pictures)
Fourth, various people have emailed me to ask why they haven't received tickets yet. You won't be getting any physical tickets from us. You should have had an email from eventbrite telling you that. You just need to print out that email and bring it along. If you're really sure you've not had that email (and you've checked twice) let me know and we'll see what's gone wrong.
Finally (for now), we're not going to be providing lunch for everyone. I presume you weren't expecting lunch for £20. We'll have tea and coffee etc, and a little surprise in the afternoon but no big lunch. There's a splendid cafe in Red Lion Square you could go to, there's pubs all around and of course, you could bring your own. We might have a prize for the best flask and hamper set.
a little media help
Quite often I get people from really interesting little non-profits or general good causes asking me if I could lend them some advice. And because I want to appear pleasant and my days are generally listless and empty we tend to get together and have coffee. And what they mostly ask me is:
1. We've got this website, it gets quite a lot of traffic, and we know quite a lot about the people using it, how much do you think this would be worth to an advertiser?
2. How could we get in touch with said advertiser and get them involved?
And this is where it becomes clear once again, that account planners are equipped with almost no useful knowledge whatsoever and who these people really need to talk to is a decent media planning/buying brain.
So I was wondering if there were any of you out there who might have time to lend some advice to some really smart, interesting and deserving start-up causes and businesses. Shouldn't take much time or effort but it'd be really valuable to them. I'm not sure how we'll manage it. Maybe have a monthly clinic/salon thing. Or do it via one of the plannersphere iterations. Or email. Or something. But if there's anyone up for it please let me know and we'll work something out. It'll help to save our souls.
(visual artifact above is a spot plan for Elida Gibbs Impulse from August 1983, just so you know)
also crossposted here.
get your fat people here
Went to the York Model Railway at the weekend. Fantastic place. Best model rail place we've been to for ages because you could actually press buttons and make stuff happen. Sometimes it was start a train, but sometimes it was something so small you had to peer really close to see what you were doing; like getting a miniature angler to cast for a fish. It was the tiniest of actions but it didn't matter because there's something magical about pressing a button and making something happen in another world.
The best bit was the shop though - all kinds of stuff for modelers. Including this set of Fat People which I couldn't resist. This is the way to get to know your target audience. I wonder if they do ABC1 Men or Digital Natives.
