Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I read a great post on TechCrunch and thought it was worth sharing here. In short, old media people say that to succeed on the Web, they should stop trying to control the message or the audience. People who get this, don’t talk about it - it’s already assumed. I agree 100%.

Read the full post.

The BIMA Awards (BIMAs™) now rightly take their place on the top shelf of prestigious Awards, alongside the BAFTAs, the Brits and the Oscars.

To win a BIMA, therefore, is truly the highest accolade in a very competitive world.

BIMA has never shrunk from its responsibility to reflect the very highest standards of creativity and innovation and caused controversy some years ago when it considered that the measure of work in one particular category was not of sufficient merit to be awarded a winner’s trophy. More recently, the industry applauded BIMA’s decision when it announced that the judge’s favourite – the BIMA Grand Prix – was the winning entry in the student category.

The Association is run by 12 strong Executive team with me at the helm as Chair. I know I know, I don’t look old enough

Until now, the Awards Committee has included only members of the Executive. For the first time ever, the Committee for 2008 is made up of Executives and non-Executives. This demonstrates how the Association is more engaging and transparent.

The bold move is already proving to be the right thing to do. The enthusiasm amongst the team is electric. Watch out for a new format. If you thought it was difficult to win a BIMA before, wait for 2008. It will be easier to identify where your work fits in, but we’ve halved the number of trophies. Why sit through 21 announcements when you could be enjoying a fantastic gala followed by a cool after-party.

So, here it is, the committee…

BIMA Awards Committee

Clare McDonald

Committee Chair
Creative Director, Interactive Media Agency, Bskyb

Having started life as a print designer of unwearable computeraided fashion, Clare realised that her passion for the pixel needed to be directed into a relevant world. No one ever was going to wear her LCD coats!!! While studying at the RCA Clare worked on the very first RCA CDRom for the end of year show and helped push forward the concept of digital design and its marketing potential within the fashion department and beyond. This left Clare with both a huge passion for collecting shoes, wearing odd outfits, dodgy CDRoms and also a desire to help people achieve their ambitions. It also allowed her to truly develop her cross platform approach to the design process and solution building. She also fell in love with “the web”. Over the next 15 years a series of interesting positions in the UK and the US in fashion, interactive and entrepreneurial businesses landed Clare finally as Creative Director of the Interactive Media Design Agency in Bskyb.

Responsible for the creative direction of interactive properties, Clare helps build visual strategies and creative solutions with her award winning team to develop online, mobile, interactive tv, blue sky thinking and brand solutions for Bskyb. This is a highly directional and strategic position, that is forging a new creative force within Bskyb and the European entertainment market. Utilising earlier experience with early online video and projects for the likes of Microsoft, Office Shoes, IT Network, Open TV and the likes Clare and her team are truly pioneering online entertainment design. The future is looking incredibly interesting for Sky and a future that marries Clare’s cross media approach, mixed with a bit of pizzazz will have great results.

Paul Walsh (me)

You can read my biog here if you’re really bored.

Matthew Gorzkowski

Managing Director, Play

Matthew Bagwell is Conchango’s Creative Director and founder of creative agency, SignalOrange. Matthew has been called digital evangelist, offering insight into how people want to interact with organisations through multiple channels. He is capable of bridging the gap between inventing experiences made possible by web 2.0 phenomena and delivering them in reality.

Matthew Bagwell

Creative Director, Conchango

Matt began his Marketing career working for Saatchi & Saatchi in Europe and Shafter Advertising in the US where he helped to launch new products for major brands including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Fujitsu and Nokia.

Recognising the potential of digital media, Matt joined Itraffic in San Francisco as Account Director. Here Matt led key accounts such as Disney and Buena Vista Entertainment before returning the Europe to join Itraffic London as Client Services Director where he oversaw the interactive marketing activity of brands such as British Airways and Hilton. In 2005, Matt co-founded Pay in conjunction with M&C Saatchi and former Itraffic colleagues Jon Sharpe and Ethan Segal.

Dr. Scott Gallacher

Director of Online & Partner Marketing, BskyB

Scott is responsible for Sky’s online sales & marketing across their full product portfolio including digital TV, Broadband, Telephony, HD, Mobile TV & Sky +. Sky, according to Nielsen, are the largest online spender in the UK underlining a commitment to digital, with their pioneering work in Behavioural Targeting winning the 2007 award for best use of research in media.

Scott is well regarded industry commentator & speaker, Chairing last year’s Revolution conference on Brand Advocacy and speaking at the Economist Marketing Director summit in March on the challenges facing marketing in the next 5 years as well as addressing Cranfield business school on the maturing of digital marketing.

Previous to BSkyB, Scott worked at OgilvyOne as Client Services Director for the American Express International Online account covering 38 countries. Prior to this he served as a Vice President for Digitas. Scott holds a PhD in Multimedia innovation & social learning from Edinburgh, M.Sc. in Human Computer Interaction from Heriot Watt and a BCom in Business Studies from Edinburgh.

Chris Clarke

Executive Creative Director and President, Digitas London

Chris has been at the forefront of the digital industry since the late 90s. In 2000 as a UK founder of pioneering digital agency Abel & Baker, Chris brought a new level of creative excellence to the nascent digital industry and won a number of awards including Campaign Direct, Revolution, Clio and Cannes Cyberlions for clients such as Virgin Mobile, The AA and MTV.

In 2002 Abel & Baker was bought by leading web agency Wheel. While at Wheel, first as Creative Director of Abel & Baker then Executive Creative Director of Wheel, Chris helped turn the creative reputation of the agency around, delivering award winning work and driving an extensive change management process to make Wheel an ideas led creative business. Key client achievements at Wheel include winning BT, the global roll out of Brahma beer, and bringing prestigious clients such as ABSOLUT Vodka and Sony PlayStation Europe on board. Chris also oversaw numerous corporate website projects for clients such as Allied Domecq, United Biscuits and Unilever for whom Wheel managed the global rollout of Unilever.com in 26 languages.

Since joining Digitas London in April 2006, Chris has re-invigorated the creative product, winning new business with Vauxhall, Shell and HP, rolling out a network of offices in Europe and winning a Campaign Digital Award.

Chris is a multi-award winning creative with Cyberlions, LIAA, Clio, Revolution, Campaign Direct, Campaign Digital and D&AD awards to his name. As a founder in the UK of digital pioneers Abel & Baker, Chris was responsible for some of the first Rich Media and viral work done in this market.

Daniel Birch

Creative Director, Freestyle Interactive

As a Creative Director who has worked at a number of top London agencies LBi (then Oyster), AKQA and twentysix Daniel now leads the creative and delivery teams at the midlands largest digital agency Freestyle Interactive. This gives him genuine perspective across all aspects of digital channels.

As a Creative Director of Freestyle it is his role to lead and define the user experience on their clients. With wide ranging experience in leading multidiscipline teams of designers, developers, writers and architects he is able to bring the right solutions to a wide range of online of projects.

As the board level role responsible for project delivery through the project management team Daniel has a clear understanding of the delivery challenges faced by project managers and can appreciate what it takes to deliver an awarding winning creative solution.

Daniel’s belief in balancing the desire to win awards with developing the right user experience for client’s customer puts him in a unique position. As a Creative Director Daniel has found the opportunity to have an opinion on all this creative but will be frequently found client side asking awkward questions or bothering project manager’s to try and understand how Isle Interactive can be more efficient – all with the goal of giving the creative a better chance to design better and with more insight.

A genuine understanding of all aspects of the digital build process and experience across kiosk, mobile web and iTV means Daniel is able to combine a wealth of experience to developing a framework for creative teams to work in. A desire to work on projects that are created in a less that ideal situation, short time frames, limiting timeframes or conservative outlook means he has an affinity for recognising others who have succeed in this conditions.

The client list is long and varied, as you’d expect from nearly 12 years of working in the industry. From mobile guidelines for Orange to ground up redesigns for Natwest and Abbey and campaign work for Volvo and Drambuie the experience is there.

Janice Cable

Principal Administrator, BIMA

When she joined BIMA, Janice brought with her the experience of a lifetime working with trade associations, mainly in the music industry where she considered herself extremely privileged to be able to work with some of the most influential industry doyens and talented composers, artists and broadcasters in the UK. She has considerable experience in arranging and coordinating exhibitions, seminars and conferences, both in the UK and abroad, and was responsible for organising industry social events, both lunches and black tie. Her previous involvement has been extremely valuable for the administration of the BIMA Awards as, amongst many other tasks, she prepared and managed the selection of the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. She hasn’t done this for ten years which, incidentally, was the last time the UK won!

About BIMA

Established in 1985, the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) is the industry’s longest established association to represent the diverse interests of the UK interactive industry.

In short, it’s BIMA’s mission to ensure the UK remains the centre of excellence worldwide for creativity within the interactive industry.

To finish the blog title, should the CEO get involved in an online debate about their brand?

Yes, yes, yes, YES!

In October 2006, Irish blogger Tom Raftery published a short blog post to highlight the inadequacy of one of his suppliers.

A few people left some comments at the time, but it wasn’t until the CEO of the supplier responded did it all kick off. Some said they didn’t think it was appropriate for the CEO to respond online.

Without getting into the debate about who’s right and who’s wrong (because it’s none of my business), I’d like to state that I believe the CEO was absolutely right to leave a comment. From what I can see, a new comment left in January 2008 stimulated the CEO to provide his side of the story.

I’m writing this post as I believe all CEOs should have the balls to get involved in an online discussion, especially when their brand is under attack.

As a CEO I would have done exactly the same.

I haven’t quoted the blog post or the CEO as I don’t think the debate itself is important. It’s the response of CEO’s that I’m interested in.

So, if you’re a CEO, my advice to you is get involved no matter what. You can not influence the conversation if you’re not taking part in it.

I’ve promised Thayer that I’d help promote her Twitter survey. It will take you less than 2 minutes.

The survey is missing one very important thing though and I hope Thayer will add it. It should ask ‘have you ever unfollowed someone for not replying to your tweet?’

So, why not take the survey now. It took me less than a minute as your first answer is always the right one.

Regardless of the outcome, the Microsoft $44.6b bid for Yahoo! is likely to hog the entire media stage this week. So don’t even think about launching a new product or service as it’s not likely to get noticed.

I’m motivated to write this post because I don’t think the main message behind my previous Facebook post was understood by a few people. This is probably because my marketing oriented posts are sometimes being read by techies who assume I’m talking about technology. It’s very possible that I’m not great at expressing my opinion well enough for people to understand my madness. I’m certainly not saying that everyone with a different opinion to me didn’t get the point!
Whilst I referred to technology, I was in fact (in this instance anyway), talking about a discrete form of marketing using technology called Facebook.

One size doesn’t fit all

I’ll be more direct this time. Facebook can be used effectively as part of an integrated digital marketing campaign. That is, you can use it to talk about (promote) products, services or events alongside other more traditional tools such as email, newsletters, print, radio, TV, Web site and blogs. You may even use twitter if you’re an early adopter of new tools and techniques. This of course will only work when it’s contextual, done discretely and it’s un-intrusive. In fact, I’d say Facebook usage requires an even more delicate touch than blogs. In this context, Hugh MacLeod’s reference to people as ‘human social objects‘ is nothing short of brilliant. [Hugh has kindly accepted my invitation to speak at a future BIMA event, so watch this space.]

When running an integrated marketing campaign you tend to use more than one tool, hence the word ‘integrated’. So, it’s not a question of whether you use Facebook or the other more traditional marketing tools. For me, it’s not even a case of ‘what’s the next best thing’. Robert Scoble amongst others have the time to review and commentate on this and they have the ability to do a better job than me anyway. My conversations are more about the evolution of the Web and how it’s used, not the short-term revolution of specific fads.

Building connections with people who trust you and your opinion, enables you to have conversations surrounding your interests (aka products, services and events). Notice I didn’t say community, as you can build multiple communities with the same people.

Walled garden or fenced meadow?

I noticed on twitter over the weekend that a number of people are only now, talking about Facebook as if it’s a ‘walled garden’. How did it take them so long?!

So, what do I mean by a walled garden? Well, Jemima Kiss wrote a neat post which explains it well. In short, but not as articulate, when using Facebook, you can set your preferences to automatically import information from sources such as flickr, blogs and twitter. These are also Web sites where you may already have one or more community. However, it’s not possible to enable Web sites or social networks to automatically import any of your stuff from Facebook (today). That is, everything is held within the confines of Facebook’s ‘walled garden’.

I’d like Facebook to enable users to export information such as contacts, to their email client or other Web sites. This is something that LinkedIn does well. That said, I’ve sent messages via Facebook recently due to not having contacts added to my new email client. I didn’t feel restricted and I didn’t feel obliged to kick my blog gimp in frustration. I was thankful for having their details on Facebook with the ability to send them a message seamlessly with what I deem, a personal touch.

It’s a fenced meadow

Personally, I wouldn’t call Facebook a walled garden. I’d call it a ‘fenced meadow‘ with a stream of people with whom I like to connect. If they’re not in there, I’m constantly opening the gate and inviting them in. If they don’t come in, I’ll continue to talk with them via blog, email, twitter, phone and smoke signals. I will never have one method of communication that replaces all others. Facebook not only allows you to create content, it aggregates most of the aforementioned in a friendly environment.

It doesn’t bother me that I can’t export RSS feeds. You’ll be amazed by the number of people who don’t use that technology. If I want to solicited opinion, ask for help, promote events, or communicate what I’m thinking or doing, I’ll use Facebook, either directly or indirectly via other tools.

I ended up having a conversation with a few people via Facebook status today. Mike Butcher noticed this and asked ‘Sad or sophisticated?’ via his own status. The fact that Mike picked up on the conversation and got involved answered the question. My answer is, ‘it depends’. It depends on who I’m talking to and what comes out of the conversation.

Is Facebook a black hole?

Robert Scoble and others think it is. The answer is ‘yes’ if you ‘replace’ everything with Facebook, in which case you’re just following the next fad. Scoble actually stated that he no longer uses his email client in favour of Facebook messages. So, it’s hardly surprising that he thinks it’s a black hole. I’ve previously stated that I checked Facebook messages before opening my email client but that’s not the same thing.

For the same reasons mentioned above, I will continue to blog and twitter. They reach a wider and sometimes different audience anyway. I’ve previously written blog posts and received many responses via Facebook with few to no comments on the blog. Is this a bad thing? Some will say yes. Personally, I don’t care ‘how’ I have a conversation with people/companies, as long as it’s happening. I’m quite happy to twitter the fact that I’ve written this blog post, attract your attention and for you to respond by writing on my Facebook wall. The fact that it has happened demonstrates my point. We’re having a conversation and building a better understanding and appreciation for one another.

I’m amazed by the number of Facebook invites I received after one of my previous posts. I was flattered, but it did make me feel guilty because I only connect with people I know, or people who are known to people I know/trust.

Naturally I’ll connect with BIMA members because if I don’t know them, I should. I go out of my way to better understand what benefits members look for and if talking about it on Facebook instead of email works, then so what. There’s another plug for something I believe in (BIMA), all in a post about Facebook! As far as I’m concerned that’s perfectly fine because I did say that I use Facebook to discuss stuff that I’m interested in as well as parade myself in an informal environment where people can see that the Chair of the longest established association (est 1985) for the UK interactive industry doesn’t have to be an old git that doesn’t get Web 2.0.

If you’re a BIMA member and would like to connect, please let me know you’re a member in your message, thanks.

Use cases to demonstrate my point

I’ve promoted events on Facebook, Upcoming, email, my blog and twitter. The winner for registrations was Facebook with people signing up within minutes. However, I used my email, blog and twitter to generate the conversation, which is where many of my registrations originated. I linked from one to the other. Do I care that most signed up on Facebook where I’m unable to extract their email addresses? In short, no. If they prefer to communicate on Facebook and more likely to attend and event if invited by that means, who am I to start emailing them anyway?!

How about we call Facebook the new “widget for integrated marketing campaigns“, used to converse with “human social objects” (people)? It’s no longer just about direct marketing with dead in the water statements such as ‘use our product because we’re a leader in our field’. It’s about the conversation that will take place anyway and making sure you’re taking part.

The Sunday Tribune dedicated a full page to the “Irish who’ve made it into London’s marketing elite”. I was one of 5 people featured alongside Lorraine Twohill, Head of Google EMEA and 3 others.

Last week I learned that Revolution Magazine mentioned me (in August 2006) as one of 4 people to watch in 2007.

The clincher

Last week I received my personal copy of Digital Marketing for DUMMIES from one of its editors, Gregory Brooks. Thanks Gregory, what exactly are you trying to tell me? Should I study more carefully, the section on blogs?

Perhaps this is why New Media Age (NMA) rarely asks me to comment on subjects that I’m particularly qualified in and which they write a lot about regularly – namely Web accessibility, mobile web and Web 2.0 (because they think I’m a dummy). However, I look forward to their piece on the Semantic Web, as Greg did ask me to comment on it last week (for tomorrow’s publication).

So, am I amongst the elite, or am I just a dummy? Ahem, feel free not to comment

Greg, seriously, congratulations on the book and thank you very much for sending me a copy. I’ve been told a number of times by journalists that I should write a book, but I wouldn’t know where to start, wouldn’t have the time and certainly wouldn’t have the skill to write properly. Suggestions welcome!