Questions for Mr T.

Quick update on the Mr. T mission: I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a short meet & greet with Mr T. He's in London right now for the European leg of his campaign for Snickers. I didn't find that eighties dress. But I asked on Twitter which questions I should ask Mr T (if I get the chance) and this is what came back:

• ask him why he still looks *exactly* the same as 30 years ago (@chrisv)
• ask him if he wants to sing "treat your mother right" for you - check http://tinyurl.com/z63yu i want video proof :) (@appelogen)
• ask him if he knows he's got a lookalike in little Britain? http://tinyurl.com/dgg3zq (@ahigherugliness)
• how did they put him to sleep to get in the plane to london... :-) - referring to his fear of flying as a running gag in the A-team) (@pekesenertjes)
• For more inspiration: see also @getonwithbe

@stenito also pointed out that there's a open social app for snickers featuring Mr. T. on Netlog and http://www.getonwithit.be, too.
Wish me luck!

Who's using social media and why?

A Completely Unscientific (Yet Accurate) Look at Social Sites: "there is a little something for everyone here in cyberspace, and these demographic breakdowns of each social site will help you to choose the right community for you."
Funny demographics/activities pie charts. Funny because they're true.
For a more scientific approach, see: Social Media - 4 Tools to Start Making Sense of the Clutter infographics and Rapleaf Study Reveals Gender and Age Data of Social Network Users press release.
PS Want be part of Leuven University student Liesbet Nys' study? Fill in the questionnaire on microblogging (in Dutch) to help her out. She needs at least 100 filled in forms so spread the word. Thanks!

Meh is the new FAIL

A couple of days ago I asked on Twitter what the most annoying buzzword of the moment was. And I stumbled upon John Hodgman on "meh": "Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word "meh"? Nothing announces "I have missed the point" more than that word."
He is right. Meh is the new FAIL. If you don't believe me: watch the Meh Twitterfall.
Found via NCOTB.

Me and Mr T.

I'm a child of the eighties, so obviously I watched The A Team. My favourite was Mr T. In fact, he's the one I remember.
Mr T. (real name Laurence Tureaud) is 56 now, still wears his hair in a mohawk, and works as an actor, motivational speaker, wrestler, humanitarian, and body guard. Recently he was part of the Get some nuts campaign by Snickers.
So a pretty straightforward guy, who's trying to make the best out of his tv personality fame. But one thing fascinates me: what's going on in the picture at the left? Is that really Nancy Reagan? And what would it take for me to re-enact that picture?
Photo: Mary Anne Fackelman/The White House - via The Sly Oyster
UPDATE: Got an e-mail last night from a guy who works for Edelman PR London. Mr T is in London this weekend for the Snickers campaign (see also Mr T youtube channel and Facebook Group). No promises on the "sitting on Mr T's lap Nancy Reagan style" mission. So two main questions remain:

1. What should I wear? Where do I get an eighties dress like that?
2. What should I ask Mr T? I'm going to take Naomi with me for an interview. You never know.

Smart favicadvertising

Very often creating new advertising formats simply makes you look desperate. Sheepvertising, spankvertising, selling pixels on your cat etc are all signs of a model in distress.
With some exceptions, of course, like this ad for smart fortwo:

I still wonder how they did it. Favicons are usually .gif or .png files so how can they claim it was "playable"?
Found via talent imitates, genius steals.

"Fuck you! I'm outta here."

"In May, lawyer Shinyung Oh was let go from the San Francisco branch of the Paul Hastings law firm six days after losing a baby. 'If this response seems particularly emotional,' she wrote to the partners, 'perhaps an associate 's emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills -- and cowardice -- on your parts.'"
This must be, without any doubt, the worst goodbye e-mail ever sent. More on The Art of The Farewell Email over at Slashdot.
Blog post title refers to one of my favourite motivational posters which involves, coincidentally, a non-cute penguin. Sometimes the simplest statement is the best.

Why are penguins cute?

Because they waddle like babies. Here comes the science: "[Austrian zoologist, animal psychologist, ornithologist and Nobel Prize winner] Konrad Lorenz argued in 1949 that infantile features triggered nurturing responses in adults and that this was an evolutionary adaptation which helped ensure that adults cared for their children, ultimately securing the survival of the species."

If you didn't go "awwwww" when you saw the kittens, puppies, penguins and pandas, have a look at the blog that brought you the John Wayne Gacy of the new milennium: Fuck You, Penguin. Still not convinced? Google "penguin slap" for an interwebs classic.

This blog was brought to you by an ISTJ type of person

Typealyzer: "The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.
The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it."
ISTJ stands for INtuition, Sensing and Thinking. The test proves that the thinking part of my brain is most dominant during writing. Duh :-)
Found via @8x3h.

Kevin Bacon is still the Center of the Universe

In 1994 American actor Kevin Bacon mentioned in an interview that he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them. This inspired the famous trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. This game was in turn the foundation of the small world experiment, often cited when talking about social networks like Friendster, MySpace and now Facebook. (By the way: do watch the Small World episode Zefrank made in March 2004 - it's still funny). One year ago I referred to a Discover magazine article that was a lot more sceptical about this theory: If Osama's Only 6 Degrees Away, Why Can't We Find Him?.
And now there's Connected - the real matrix (YT), a new BBC documentary. The guy in the black shirt is Yahoo's Principal Research Scientist Duncan Watts, who wrote Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. Scientists are now exploring whether the Six Degrees can help fight terrorism, predict pandemics, and perhaps even cure cancer. And guess what: Kevin Bacon is still the Man.

Social media: how do you know?

MarketingSherpa: New Chart: Social Media: Most Effective Tactics Are the Most Difficult to Measure Quantitatively: "“Inability to measure ROI” ranks as the second most significant barrier to social media adoption. But as the chart above shows, the ability to accurately measure ROI has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the tactic in the minds of marketers. “Advertising on blogs or social networks,” the tactic rated as the most accurately measured (32%), was also rated least effective (16%)."
Interesting graph but a bit of a brain burner: how would they know these media were effective, if they haven't measured it?
Or is it just a matter of measuring standards vs gut feeling? Or search engine optimization? What's going on in the minds of marketers?

Keep in touch with total strangers

Ambient Intimacy "is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible. Flickr lets me see what friends are eating for lunch, how they’ve redecorated their bedroom, their latest haircut. Twitter tells me when they’re hungry, what technology is currently frustrating them, who they’re having drinks with tonight."
I can only speak for myself, but I find great value in the Twitter/Friendfeed/Facebook/Blogger noise. It makes me feel closer to people I find interesting, but can't meet in real life. That, too is intimacy. And it sure makes it easier to pick up a conversation when you do meet in real life.

iBoot Camp Call for candidate team members

The Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT) is looking for iBootcamp team members: "You would be joining an idea owner from IBBT with a great idea and an entrepreneurial mindset. Our teams will be coached by industrial coaches, board members and business school professors in order to establish a business opportunity." For more information about iBootcamp team please download BootcampNote_2009_candidate_team_members.pdf.
Sounds like something for you? Then don’t hesitate to send in your candidacy before February 18th.

Flirting and dating in the digital age

Kris Hoet just published 21st Century Love Revolution, a powerpoint he made based on some of the findings of a survey conducted by Microsoft’s Windows Live Group across 16 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa. The survey explores the experiences and attitudes of over 78,000 people and highlights some of the online dating and flirting techniques of the 21st Century. Found via Crossthebreeze.com.

21st Century Love Revolution

View more presentations from crossthebreeze. (tags: digital research)

Social networks: not just for young ones

Two highlights from the Pew Internet Project Data Memo Jan 14, 2009

1. The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years [...] Back in February of 2005, just 8% of adult internet users had used a social network site. That percentage had risen to 16% by August of 2006, and as of December 2008 stands at 35% of online adults.
2. adults still make up the bulk of the users of these websites: [...]The median age of a MySpace user is 27 years old. [...] The median age of a Facebook user is 26 years old. [...] The median age of a LinkedIn user is 40 years old.

These are, of course, US data. But interesting nonetheless.
See also audio interview with Tom Klaasen and Gil Plaquet on Twitter user age: Twunchen: samen eten via internet.

People Change

Slides for my presentation tomorrow at the Denk en discussiedag Bibnet in Les Ateliers des Tanneurs in Brussels. Slide 2 includes a picture of me in a red bikini.

People Change

View more presentations from bnox. (tags: online communities)

Teambuildery and successitude

Beware of people who use motivational quotes. Unless of course they are of the ironic kind. You can even Make your own.
Image on left hand side was inspired by The Inspiratomatic.

Cougars are taking over Facebook

Fastest Growing Demographic on Facebook: Women Over 55: "While the fastest growing age group by total users is still 26-34, the number of women over 55 on Facebook grew by an astounding 175.3% since the end of September. Their male counterparts, however, weren’t able to keep up - growing by only 137.8%. The number of women over 55 on Facebook almost double the number of men over 55 on Facebook today."
A cougar is "an older woman, usually 35+, who sexually pursues men at least 10 years their junior."
Hold your May-December jokes: I've cross checked with the demographics for the Belgian cougar population on Facebook and this was the result:

Ikea's neverending designer stories

"Designerberättelser utan slut" is Swedish for Design stories without ending (thank you Bente!). My relationship status with Ikea could best be described as "complicated" but Ikeas ideas microsite completely stole my heart. Simply beautiful and mesmerising. I like the way they put their designers in the spotlight.

The Seven Dwarfs of Internet

Latitude: Google’s Trojan Horse (or, Why Who’s Nearby Is Not A Business) | Mobile Industry Review: "in the near future (3-5years?) no one will talk of the “mobile” internet but simply, the internet. You will have an iphonesque device (in size & looks if not in O/S ;-) which you take home and plug into your 24″ screen and keyboard"
I totally agree with Ewan MacLeod in his observations about (mobile) internet and “Who’s nearby” as a commodity in the nearby future. I especially liked his comparison of Internet as Snowy White, with these as her seven dwarfs:

1. the web browser as user interface
2. freedom to publish without government or minority corporate control (something I would rather call self-publishing, or in some contexts: embedded publishing)
3. always-on fixed cost access (not quite there yet for mobile internet in Belgium)
4. broadband bandwidth
5. location (as in: “Who’s nearby”)
6. portability (e.g. of your friend lists and their statuses)
7. the need for personalisation (a mobile being such a small, personal device)

How's the Web been?

Matthew Inman ("26 year old web designer from Seattle") has just updated his State of the Web - Summer 2008: The State of the Web - Winter 2009.
See also Know what you did last summer.

Theomeny

I've just adopted the word theomeny through Save The Words. To save theomeny from extinction, I will use it as much as I can. Theomeny means "the fury of God", as in Tempting theomeny, Barry the bee lied about his bee ancestors: Bee Gandhi, Bee Attilia, Beejesus.

Let's go surfing!

But careful: you will need an IBM pc with at least 400 mb Hard drive and 4 mb RAM.

Two guys and a laptop: Cockroach Media

Saturday Post: The Inevitable Rise Of Cockroach Media . . .: "As long as we can keep the lights on, and maintain an Internet connection, we can still keep publishing during bad times, and worsening times. [...] We joked that we represent a new type of media: cockroach media. [In]New York [...] cockroaches can be formidable in their ability to survive the harshest environments. [...] Cockroach media will survive this economic downturn a lot better than old and new media companies."
Even better: the proverbial "two guys and a laptop" could theoretically become more successful at making money with web-based concepts than corporate initiatives. The cockroaches have far less overhead costs. But on the downside, their financial comfort zone a lot smaller or even non-existent: even cockroaches would perish if they haven't been able to pay their bills during more than six months.

Everything tastes better with Coke

If you exclude generic terms and person's names, the most popular brand names on Facebook are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Nutella
3. Kinder Surprise
4. Converse All Star
5. Ferrero Rocher

According to Vitrue, the most popular Social Brands are:

1. iPhone
2. CNN
3. Apple
4. Disney
5. Xbox

If you exclude the web service companies' corporate blogs, the most popular brand blogs are

1. Adobe
2. Dell
3. General Motors
4. Delta
5. Kodak

But if you look at the Top 200 Lovemarks the same way, the top 5 is different:

1. Apple
2. Moleskine
3. Guinness
4. iPod
5. Coca-Cola

Which made me think: what would happen if Coca-cola would embrace social media the way Adobe and Dell have? Coca-Cola makes these awesome creative ads, but they tend to translate them into entirely unbloggable websites. Or am I wrong?

4 people 1 rope: it's a Swedish thing

During last weekend's blogbecue, blogger Bart Van Loon was challenged by stand-up comedian Seppe Toremans to talk about the most kinky experience he ever had. Bart was only able to mumble something about "Four people. And only one bit of rope" before the comedian took away the microphone. Leaving us baffled and confused. What on earth happened there? Bart only added that the "kinky" adventure involved one girl and three men (including him) and then went silent.
It kept me up at night. And over the last few days I came up with 3 possible scenarios.

1. It all started with the girl confessing "My secret fantasy is to be the center piece in a bukkake session." But why the rope? Bukkake is humiliating enough as it is. Plus the circle jerk part would make most straight men a bit uncomfortable for being "a bit gay".
2. It all started with the girl claiming to be some sort of a female Houdini. But everybody being a bit drunk at the time, and the girl being a beautiful sporty Brazilian girl, she would want to be naked and slightly oiled, "because that would make escaping easier". If you Google Image shibari (verb) or kinbaku (noun) you'll understand that to the three male onlookers, the result was quite arousing. Although this theory sounds plausible, it's literally too good to be true. Japanese bondage is a noble art, but not many people are skilled at it. Don't forget this was originally a torture technique, so it's harder to do than you think. Still, bonus points for "interesting use of rope".
3. Which leaves the Swedish theory. If you ever met young Swedish, you know that they tend to be very open about their sex life. Which makes it very plausible that one of the guys, probably Swedish, talks about this passage rite I once read about. It involves some spice (I think cinnamon?) and a young guy getting a lap dance by a professional while his peers are standing by and take pictures. I've been googling like crazy but can't find the word for it. Anyways... the Swedish guy talks about this gem of Swedish youth culture and claims he is able to withstand the charms of any lap dancer. At which point the hot Brazilian girl picks up a rope and says "We'll see about that!"