The McGuffin: perfect for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands

MacGuffin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Hitchcock explained the term 'McGuffin' in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: '[We] have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin'. It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers'"

McGuffin by Hitchcock from isaac niemand on Vimeo.

The walker puppy

AT-AT day afternoon on Vimeo: "When I was a kid, there are two things I wanted badly and never got... A real dog and a Kenner AT-AT Walker."

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

How to unwarp panoramic Bloggie videos

Car Interior Bloggie Panorama (Unwarped) from Golan Levin on Vimeo.

American new media artist, composer, performer and engineer Golan Levin wrote an Open-Source Panoramic Video tool to convert the donut shaped 360° videos you can make with the Bloggie video camera into wide, panoramic ones.

On a side note, the panoramic lens attachment is what makes the Sony Bloggie camera really worth its while - I got a bright pink one and had a lot of fun making A trippy little movie of walking around in Amsterdam - I can hardly wait to try out this tool.

Found via Make:Online.

A President of the United States in Mechelen

A New York Times correspondent in a November 25, 1918 news article (.pdf) describes Belgian Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier as "one of the most prominent figures of the war in Belgium", "tall and dignified", "garbed in a purple soutane" and more than happy to chat with the press. That sounds, indeed, like the same guy who poses for photographers with no less than American President Woodrow Wilson on 14 June 1919 in Mechelen. Criticalpast.com has a 1 minute video of this event. Below is one of the very last frames, with children waving their handkerchiefs while a car with President Woodrow inside drives through the streets of Mechelen. According to the wikipedia entry, Mercier is noted for his staunch resistance to the German occupation of 1914, his stomach problems, and his dislike of the Flemish movement. (To give you an idea: he is quoted as having said to a Flemish priest "Moi je suis d'une race destinée à dominer et vous d'une race destinée a servir". Whoaa.)

Let's Zeppelin: and the winner is Kashmir, as suggested by @DirtyJos

I didn't want to influence anyone participating in my Let's Zeppelin contest, but according to me Since I've Been Loving you is the best Led Zeppelin song- even though Page now regrets the "awfully squeaky bass drum pedal". But I'm a sucker for electric blues guitar solos.

But! My dear blog, twitter and facebook minions taught me a lot about Led Zeppelin's music history. Did you know, for example, that "Stairway to heaven" sounds an awful lot like "Taurus", recorded two years earlier by the group Spirit? And that Achilles' Last Stand carries a hurried pace suggestive of the awesome – and entirely too short – middle part of Deep Purple’s Child in Time?

But there can be only one winner... and it's Davy Buntinx aka @DirtyJos with Kashmir, "because it took them three years to write and record it. It might me the single most awesome riff ever recorded in history, as Eminem would agree."

Attending Mashable Social Media Day 30 June in Antwerp

June 30 2010 is Social Media Day - a day to celebrate the revolution of media becoming a social dialogue. I'll be celebrating it by attending the Antwerp meetup, on Wednesday night 30 June, in a cool place that will be unveiled tomorrow.

• RSVP on the Meetup page
• Join the Antwerp Mashable posse on Facebook/li>
• Follow @smarketingmeets on Twitter
• Follow the latest developments on http:www.socialmarketingmeetup.com

My new job: Business Unit Manager at Conversity.be

Venn Diagram - Happiness in Business, originally uploaded by budcaddell.

For the past few months, I've been trying to ignore/eliminate what I can't be paid to do, what I don't want to do, and what other are a lot better at than me. The result is a brand new little business unit in Sanoma Magazines Belgium's Sales department, right in the middle of the "Hooray!" spot in Bud Caddell's Venn diagram above. As a consequence, my job title is no longer Marketing Manager, but Business Unit Manager. I no longer work for the Publishing department, but for the Sales department. And I will be specialising in tracing and influencing the impact of digital channels on consumers' brand preferences and buying decisions.

Just like I did before with the Target Women blog, I've moved the conversation about Social Media for Business from the Conversity tag on this blog to a brand new blog under its own domain: http://www.conversity.be. I'm still playing with the bubble wrap, but it's a good place for me to keep thinking aloud about social media can help businesses to reach their business goals, and at the same time collect your feedback. Please subscribe to the rss feed or e-mail updates.

And wish me good luck with the next Seth Godin style shipping date: September, when I plan to publish a book on the same topic.

• PERSBERICHT: Clo Willaerts leidt Conversity.be, de nieuwe social media afdeling van Sanoma Magazines Belgium
• 
  COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE: Clo Willaerts nommée à la tête de Conversity.be, le nouveau département Média sociaux de Sanoma Magazines Belgium

Let's Zeppelin, on 26 June over Belgium

Goodyear will be organising a photo contest from June 24 till July 7. The main prize is a trip with the Zeppelin, a visit to the Zeppelin museum and overnight stay at Friederichshafen. (Why there? Construction of the first Zeppelin began in 1899 in a floating assembly hall on Lake Constance in the Bay of Manzell, Friedrichshafen.) The idea is to upload pictures of the famous GoodYear Zeppelin while it flies over Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg. More at www.goodyearzeppelin.com/.

But I have something way better for you: you (and a friend) can take a ride in the Goodyear Zeppelin while it's flying over Belgium on Saturday 26 June. Take-off from Grimbergen Airfield.

How can you win a ticket on board of a real Zeppelin? Simple: let me know in the blog/facebook comments or Twitter reply what you think the best Led Zeppelin song is (and why). I will pick the winner on Wednesday night 23 June.

La fille d'O business manifest for dummies /cc @noforbreakfast

La fille d'O is the lingerie brand of Belgian fashion designer, dj, writer, entrepreneur and movie maker Murielle Scherre. She wrote her business manifest not as a Powerpoint uploaded in Slideshare, but as a collage of Smurf images on her blog. This one image brilliantly sums up what her lingerie collection is all about.

For the explanation and full business manifest: about the crisis and other homegrown troubles. - blog - La fille d'O

Information Pioneers: Alan Turing is winning

From Alan Turing at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT's Pioneer contest

Cambridge, 1936. While the world was being shaped by events in Europe - the Spanish Civil War, the Nazis retaking the Rhineland - Alan Turing, a young mathematician, completes a new theory in his rooms in Cambridge.
This theory was originally described as an imaginary machine, to crunch imaginary numbers, but it went on to be the origin of Artificial Intelligence as we now know it. Turing was the first to understand that computers could learn and adapt to new stimuli, just as we humans can, it was just a matter of giving them the right tools in the first place.
Much like teaching a child to cross the road, Turing set about creating Artificial Intelligence in his machines. Today, self-parking cars, self-flying planes, even the Mars rover are all descendants of Turing's Machine.

Information Pioneers: Alan Turing from Information Pioneers on Vimeo.

Supermario and Pacman: it's different for girls

Girls suck at video games / Les filles sont nulles aux jeux vidéo from Stéphanie Mercier on Vimeo.

Looking forward to LeWeb10

Earlier this week Loic Le Meur and his wife Geraldine announced the speakers for the 2010 edition of LeWeb (a conference focused on blogging and web world). The theme this year is platforms, "since everything is turning into a platform: social networks, mobile with iPhone and its 200,000 apps, Android, Blackberry and Nokia, of course."

Want to book early? Buy Your Ticket for LeWeb'10 - Paris Dec 8 & 9 2010. Don't wait too long: there's a limited number of tickets with special rates for students, startups and freelance developers.

Timekiller of the day: Loved

http://www.alexanderocias.com/loved.php.

Brand humanism is the new black

Creatives at advertising agencies must have felt that social media and ad campaigns are far from a perfect match. For them, too, the paradigm has shifted. From slide 17 of just effin' do it:

• behavior not blather
• conversation not shouting
• momentum not one-off
• dynamic not static
• intuitive not regimented
• portable not permanent
• innovation not iteration
• useful not self-serving
• and for chrissakes the answer isnʼt always a facebook app

Vcu 2

View more presentations from hackemer.

Zimmo and Kayak Explore: dream about a better place

If you thought mashups (or: web application hybrids are dead or so web 2.0, think again.
I just found and bought a house in Mechelen using zimmo.be. Definitely beats subscribing to four or five e-mail alerts and googling. Another great mashup got me dreaming. Travel search engine Kayak.com just launched Kayak Explore. Imagine I'd want to fly away in June to a sunny beach, and not spend more than 500 dollars on a flight. Then my options are: Faro, Malaga, Ibiza, Barcelona, Marseille, Nice, Athens, and, weirly enough, Southampton and London.

Speaking at Social Media Forum 25 June, Brussels

Social Media Forum: "Join us on the 25th of June for the second edition of the Social Media Forum. The Social Media Forum is a unique all day event offering a hands-on guide on setting up the perfect Social Media Campaign.
You will learn about the basics of a successful strategy, some commonly made mistakes and some highly successful case studies from leading companies.
All this to improve the ROI on your social media campaigns. Become an expert in Social Media Marketing in one day, with keynotes and workshops by the most interesting Belgian and European speakers.
Take the opportunity to meet Social Media professionals at an exclusive five star location in Brussels, the Hotel Le Meridien."

I'll speak about How to track and map consumer buying intentions using social media sharing what I've learnt so far in my conversity.be project. By the way: 3 male speakers and 5 female ones. Yay!

Think I might start photoblogging again

I originally started out as a moblogger, back in 2003, at http://babynox.mobile.be (a domain that sadly enough, doesn't host a moblogging service any more - but some of it is preserved in the Wayback Machine). I used one of the first smartphones with a decent camera, the awesome but fragile SonyEricsson p800 and P910i. Ever since the demise of mobile.be as a moblogging hosting service, I've been looking for ways to pick up where I left. And maybe, maybe I've finally found it:

• I've connected my Flickr account to my blogger blog so I can post directly from any Flickr photo page
• I've connected my Flickr and my Facebook accounts so Flickr automatically sends an update to my Facebook feed every time I upload a public photo.
• I've decided on my blogging camera: it's definitely the Sony Bloggie. I 've been trying it out for quite a while now and simply love it! Especially the wacky 360° fisheye lens.

Internet trends: strong innovators

Looking for young companies with a high level of innovation? Make sure to look beyond the Facebooks and Twitters of today's online world and check out the very last bullet points in this list:

• Facebook – Real-time Communication / Social Graph / Credits (payment platform)
• Skype – VoIP (Voice-over-IP) / Video Calling
• Zynga – Virtual Goods / Offers (Reward-Driven Marketing)
• Twitter – One-to-Many Real-Time Broadcast
• OpenTable / Yelp – Location-Aware Mobile Services
• Hulu – Streaming Content
• Gilt / One Kings Lane / Rue La La – Time-based ‘Flash’ Sales
• Groupon – Social Group Buying
• Tapulous / Digital Chocolate / Ngmoco:) – Social / Mobile Gaming

Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research

View more presentations from CM Summit: Marketing in Real Time.

Locals vs Tourists in Brussels

Locals and Tourists #61 (GTWA #36): Brussels, originally uploaded by Eric Fischer.

"Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more).
Red points are pictures taken by tourists (people who seem to be a local of a different city and who took pictures in this city for less than a month).
Yellow points are pictures where it can't be determined whether or not the photographer was a tourist (because they haven't taken pictures anywhere for over a month). They are probably tourists but might just not post many pictures at all."

Pindoria: Carrefour's dream world

Paninis, Flippos, Pogs, Woopees, GoGos... they're the kind of little collectible giveaways othat have it in them to make whole generations of school children go crazy. And their parents with them, because nothing can break the parent-child bond especially if the child is tugging the parent along to a store.

(By the way, if you still have GoGos somewhere, please contact me. My 11 year old would like a word with you.)

I'm writing this blog post because Carrefour sent me a bag with some Pindoria pins and a View-Master. Ah the memories... I used to have a red View-Master, back in the seventies, with Disney images on them. I got totally lost in the beautiful imagery of the Carrefour Pindoria world. Very nicely done.
I don't understand the Facebook integration, because pins are for children and Facebook is for grown-ups, but I'm pretty sure these pins will become a big hit on eBay (especially the Pinocchio one, which I've been told is very rare). I don't think the pins will get the ultimate "kids fad of the year" honour of being banned in schools, and I'm also not sure how the people who work for Carrefour will react. To be honest, in the Carrefour I buy my stuff at, there's a lifesize voodoo doll at the entrance with their former ceo's picture pinned on its head and some nasty stuff written next to it. It scares and confuses my 11 year old every time. Let's hope the disgruntled soon-to-be ex Carrefour employees don't use these beautiful Disney pins on the doll.

Must-haves for your social media policy and training

From the excellent Social Media: Business Benefits and Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives whitepaper (.pdf) - Any strategy to address the risks of social media usage should first focus on user behavior through the development of policies and supporting training and awareness programs that cover: Personal use in the workplace:

• Whether it is allowed
• The nondisclosure/posting of business-related content
• The discussion of workplace-related topics
• Inappropriate sites, content or conversations

Personal use outside the workplace:

• The nondisclosure/posting of business-related content
• Standard disclaimers if identifying the employer
• The dangers of posting too much personal information

Business use:

• Whether it is allowed
• The process to gain approval for use
• The scope of topics or information permitted to flow through this channel
• Disallowed activities (installation of applications, playing games, etc.)
• The escalation process for customer issues

Additional information on Social Media:

• A Corporate Guide For Social Media @ forbes.com
• Best Practices for Developing a Social Media Policy @ socialmedia.biz
• Should Companies Lock Down Social Media Tools? @ LinkedIn Answers
• Online as Soon as It Happens (EN) @ enisa.europa.eu
• A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 @ web-strategist.com
• Online Database of Social Media Policies @ socialmediagovernance.com

Sell on Facebook

All this time I was looking for ways to turn conversations into conversions but the most obvious solution was right under my nose: an e-commerce Facebook app. Payvment :: Social Network eCommerce 's goal is "to develop the very best social shopping technology. To do this we require your help through the form of feedback. Payvment will not charge any fees or take any cut of your sales revenue to use our Facebook solution. In exchange, all we ask for is your feedback so we can continue to develop the very best social shopping technology available. In exchange for helping us with your feedback, your Facebook store will remain free even after our public beta ends."
I wonder how Pavyment will convert the free bèta testers once they go out of bèta. But other than that: I really like the features (pay with paypal or visa, offer instant discount to people who "like" your page, etc). Have a look at this Italian example: ☆ My Vanity Shoes ☆ Moda & Calzature.

Is there life on Mars?

MARS! from Joe Bichard on Vimeo.

Belgium Facebook Statistics /cc @bvlg

Number of users on Facebook in Belgium: 3 500 540
• Number of male users on Facebook in Belgium: 1 725 940
• Number of female users on Facebook in Belgium: 1 706 780
• Penetration in Belgium: 33.61 %
• Online penetration in Belgium: 48 %

Belgium Facebook Statistics | Facebakers.com: "these numbers are updated on a daily basis that the Facebook Statistics (Advertising) platform gives us for Belgium on the given day."

The 3 eras of marketing

From A useful guide to the brand utility:

1. The era of craftsmanship: marketing was natural. E.g. a baker had a personal relationship and a daily dialogue with his customers. It wasn’t just about the product, it was about the experience - the smell of bread and seeing the baker prepare his products. There was a shared context between the producer and the customer, because they all lived in the same village and went to the same church.
2. The era of industrialization: marketing became unnatural. The bakery turned into a factory, the village became a town. The factory didn’t have a relationship with its clients. There was no dialogue between them. It was just about the product, two choices of bread on anonymous shelves. There was no shared context between the producer and the customer because they lived in a different part of town and did not connect in any way.
3. The marketing era: brands try to maintain personal relationships with their clients. They are slowly getting used to consumer dialogues. Marketeers try to create experiences by not just offering products, they also try to create a shared context with consumers. They want the product to be a part of the ‘online villages’ that social media created.

I personally wouldn't call this the "marketing era", but rather something in the lines of "consumer era" (as opposed to the "producers' eras" before that. But nonetheless, very interesting presentation:

A useful guide to the brand utility

View more presentations from Ingmar de Lange.

Josh Ritter's latest album on Preview.fm

Preview.fm is "an experiment by Marco Arment for fast browsing of full albums. Works best in Safari or Chrome [not Firefox, unfortunately] with a fast internet connection. Brought to you by [that other brilliantly simple web service] Instapaper".

How I used it: I heard about Josh Ritter's music video for "The Curse" and decided to check out his new album without having to open the iTunes application: Josh Ritter - So Runs the World Away on preview.fm allows me to listen to the album before buying it. And what's more: the simple preview.fm link acts as a social object, something I can pass along easily on Twitter, Facebook etc when I want to talk about this album.

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com: "Listen to politicians now with their comprehensive 12-point plans. They're not inspiring anybody. Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority. But those who lead inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with 'why' that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them."

Targeted advertising on Facebook: my 3 favourite ones

Facebook Advertising: 10 Laws Every Marketer Needs To Know: "Often times on Google, advertisers will create an ad which targets every person in a single country and then split test two ad versions against each other. On Facebook this model will do nothing but cost you money. Placing a generic ad that’s targeted at an entire country, without any additional targeting, will do nothing but get you a lot of clicks and waste a lot of money for the most part"

The article sums up the current 11 targeting factors for Facebook advertisers. Some are classic, like targeting based on static data like location, age, sex, education. But some of them are connected to a phase in life. Changes in your phase in life, like getting married, getting older, or getting pregnant are particularly interesting for advertisers - especially if you combine it with a special offer or temporary discount. My favourite 3:

1. Birthday - This is one of Facebook’s latest advertising targeting filters. It should be pretty obvious what types of ads should be presented to people who’s birthday it is. Try wishin the user a happy birthday and offer them a gift for higher conversion rates.
2. Relationship - Want to target people that are about to get married? This is a great tool for that. If you are a bar or club, you most likely want to go after those people that are single.
3. Connections - The connections fields were launched yesterday by Facebook and they enable you to include and exclude users based on pages, events, and applications that the users have joined and you happen to be the administrator of. If you’ve created a Page and don’t want the ads to display to people who have already joined, this is a great way to avoid duplicate clicks.

Does my bum look fat in this?

Found in PSFK's Future of Retail Report:

GotryIton is "an online community that allows users to upload digital photos of themselves wearing outfits they are considering purchasing. Users have the option to share the images with the entire community, or just their friends. once an image is shared, community members can vote on the outfit by saying “wear it” or “change it.

The only thing I wonder about is: how do you get instant feedback if you use a regular online community (which is sometimes slow to react) to give you feedback while you're still in your bedroom or the fitting booth?

PSFK presents Future of Retail report

View more presentations from PSFK.

B2B communication: content that works

Create great contenti: easier said than done. I found a few interesting guidelines for b2b content that works in Google's YouTube: Best Practices for the B2B Marketer (.pdf). According to this document, particularly relevant in B2B communication are:

• Product showcases & Demos - Build momentum for a product by keeping potential customers updated on new and upcoming releases.
• How-to & Expert advice - Build trust with your users by sharing best practices. [...]
• Case studies & Editorial support - Promote your work and success stories, showcase your services with results and testimonials. [...]
• Conferences / Events - Whether you are hosting, sponsoring or attending an event, raise the profile of your business or sponsorship values via presence or commentary.
• Thought leadership - Demonstrate your industry leadership and put your brand out there as a leader with a strong message to deliver.

The item about "thought leadership" is a bit vague. How would you rephrase that?

Measuring the role of online in the consumer journey from research to purchase

Consumer Commerce Barometer "is a global effort by the IAB Europe, TNS Infratest and Google to quantify the role of online in the consumer journey from research to purchase. To better understand this journey, the CCB provides insight into past purchase behaviours and online experiences, as well as perspective into how consumers interact with the internet as a source of information. As much of this interaction varies by industry, data within the CCB is available on a product level.
Background research for the CCB was conducted via an online survey completed by 2000 nationally representative respondents in each market. This Barometer will become part of a growing annual effort to profile the changing use and perception of the internet over time."

A great (and free) tool, that also allows you to export the results in a .csv file. Google Adplanner does not allow queries based on demographics for the Belgium market.

The chart above shows the impact of user generated content on Belgian women's buying decisions for travel (hotel bookings, etc). As one might expect, consumer review website rank #1, with social networking sites and forums as a close second.

Casual gaming turns social networks into entertainment hubs

Study Reveals Shift as Social Networks become “Social Entertainment”: "Seventy-three percent of 18-24 year olds in the US and 61 percent in the UK see social networks as a form of entertainment. Fifty percent (US) and 56 percent (UK) of respondents aged 35-49 also consider social networking sites as a form of entertainment. Despite the growth of social entertainment, consumers do not currently identify Internet brands as entertainment companies.
While social networking sites may not yet be recognized as entertainment companies, they are leading the way in terms of adding value to the consumer experience of entertainment. The majority of respondents in both the US and UK felt that social networking sites provide better value than music, gaming and television companies."
More here:
Social Networks Become Social Entertainment @ psfk.com
The Internet: That's Entertainment @ adweek.com

This is your excuse to dust off your Holga

Creative Calendar for June (and only 1 day late!). Your inspiration for today is:

Blue. Ice. Water. Sky. Sadness. Winter. Royalty. Trueness. The spectrum for blue is like and emotional roller coaster, bold to cold, denim to cops to cheese to air.

This was launched in May 2010 by folks in the Minneapolis creative community.
Follow#30daysofcreativity on Twitter. Make your pledge to create by contacting @createstuff. More about 30 Days of Creativity in the movie below:

#30daysofcreativity - A How To Guide from 30 Days of Creativity on Vimeo.

A new, more social media savvy kind of CMO

PR Daily: Think you’re a social media VIP?: "Adam Vincenzini thinks the most important person in social media has yet to emerge — the hero who can really run the show. This, he says, is because social media demands someone with a strange and unique combination of rare talents. This person will know about customer service, PR/comms, advertising, branding, and the Web."

This kind of profile is hard to find, but personally I think it should be the CMO - but an entirely new breed of CMO. And as Adam Vincenzini puts it: "It's not just a PR person. It's not just a digital person. And it's not just a marketing person. It's a hybrid of lots of things.
It is someone who doesn't fully exist yet...but they will be INVALUABLE when they eventually show up."

TweetReach: great tool to discover your advocates

TweetReach "gives you detailed reach analysis for any search term on how tweets about that term have spread on Twitter — all in one simple report. See how many different users received tweets about your topic. "
The free version allows you to run a report and see stats for the most recent 50 tweets. Most of my impressions were contributed by @paulbradshaw, @Joke, @amedee, @andredeabreu, @atog, @swerink, @houbi, @nodesktophero, @gilloux, and @lamazone. Thanks guys!

Feel the wind in your hair

Judging from the video still: what kind of product do you think this is an ad for?

• cars
• beauty / body care product, like shampoo or shaving cream
• bank product, like insurance or loan
• travel, like citytrips

Hair Conditioner from Jonathan Gurvit on Vimeo.

Job titles I don't like

Of all possible social media related job titles, "social media marketer" repels me the most. Nevertheless, it is still the most popular job title in B.L. Ochman's semi-annual count of self-proclaimed social media gurus, ninjas, stars and specialists.

Here's the top 5:

1. social media marketer - as if marketer alone wasn't ugly enough as a word. God forbid if this job title implies that social media is a marketing channel or tool.
2. social media consultant - well at least it's more honest: as a consultant, you only point out trends and advise, without sticking around long enough to actually set it up and measure its success.
3. digital agency - weird as a job title, but at least it doesn't use the horrible new media.
4. social media strategist - does strategist imply that you don't have real deliverables? If yes, this job title will turn you into a sitting duck when the next audit arrives.
5. social media expert - expertise takes around 10,000 hours or about ten years of practice. You do the math.

Full list at Self-proclaimed social media guru count growth slows: new titles emerge.

By the way: are we connected on Linkedin yet? I've just changed my job title from marketing manager to business unit manager. Use c dot willaerts at sanoma dash magazines dot be to add me to your network.