Individual stats like Facebook passing the 400 million usermark or generating 6 million views per minute, Twitter hitting 50 million tweets per day, and YouTube viewers watching 1 billion videos per day are impressive on their own, but what if we looked at Internet-related stats collectively? Jesse Thomas did just that in his video State of the Internet.
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo. (via Mashable)
London is one of the biggest cities in the world; it is a massive player in the worlds finance, fashion, business, party, retail and social media industries. It’s a place where dreams can be made and literally anything can happen! But even though London has an unlistable amount of good points and amazing opportunities, it’s not perfect.
Co-Create London is a new website aiming to address London’s main issues and annoyances by listening to the people who know the city best – the general public.
Whether you have lived in London for your whole life or just passed through Co-Create London would like you to answer a very simple question ‘What Would You Do To Make London a Better Place?’ By gathering ideas, solutions and fresh thinking about the city the site hopes to address issues that are important to people of London and give citizens the platform to make positive changes.
Over the next few weeks the site will be collecting ideas and encouraging users to vote on their favourites. The ideas that receive the most votes will be taken forward into a co-creation workshop. The workshop will see Londoners who contributed to the cocreatelondon.com website come together with London experts to turn the ideas into positive and real solutions.
These solutions will then be marched to Town Hall and presented in front of London Mayor Boris Johnson. The hope is that Bojo will listen to Co-Create London and the ideas taken from the website will become a reality, making London a better place to visit and live.
To let Boris know exactly what you would do to make London a better place – or just read & vote on some great ideas, head over to www.cocreatelondon.com
Check out the Co-Create London video below!
It’s with great pride that the Face team would like to announce that Axe’s latest deodorant, Twist, is an entirely co-created product! Using our online communities and co-creation process, Axe worked alongside consumers at every step of the marketing journey.
The Twist project began in early 2008, the initial steps of the process involved around 50 members of Headbox taking part in an online community. A smaller crack team of Headboxers from the US, the UK and South America were then selected to take part in a co-creation workshop. The agenda for the workshop, which took place in the Summer of 2008 in a very sunny New York City, was to co-create a new Axe variant that had ‘freshness’ as the key characteristic. The Headbox consumers worked for alongside members of the Axe team, the fragrance house, perfumers, Axe’s creative agencies and Face on various different concepts.
At the end of the 2 days the outcome was Twist – a fragrance that changes throughout the day.
Consumers Co-Creating in NYC
David Cousino, Unilever Consumer Marketing Insight (CMI) director, explains, “The Twist concept was born from the insight provided by our consumers that girls get bored easily and the real challenge is to keep them interested, or ‘hooked’. Using co-creation at such an early stage enabled us to engage with our target audience in a meaningful way, and deliver a new product suited to their needs and wishes.”
“In addition to invaluable consumer insight, this methodology gave us the added benefit of a much more efficient development process. By engaging key functions all at once, we were able to develop within only ten weeks a concept that had collaborative input from the fragrance experts, marketing team and creative agency,” adds Cousino
The Twist concept was then taken back online and fed into Headbox for testing and refinement. The completely collaborative approach meant that Unilever knew it would be well-received by consumers – something borne out by exceptional test scores and good initial response in its first launch market. The product has been launched in the UK and is being rolled out to the US, other European countries and Latin America.
Twist in the press:
More information on Axe Twist:
Video Case Study:
Client View – Why Co-Creation Delivers Better Results from Face Group on Vimeo.
To celebrate the launch of the Co-Creation Hub London, Face, alongside the other members of The Hub, will be hosting the inaugural members open evening.
The Co-Creation Hub – London is the first place to bring the principles of co-creation to all stages of the marketing process, and is founded on three key tenets:
1. Constant consumer involvement throughout the entire marketing planning and brand communications process – maintaining a continuous dialogue with consumers; harnessing their ideas and opinions to develop better products and communications and adapting to their changing needs and tastes in real-time.
2. A continuous process, with no end points as the communication is constantly building and evolving. A fluid way of working with a tightly knit team of agency specialists, seamlessly pulsing in and out of the process, as and when required.
3. Creating communities and fan-bases, and constantly communicating with them, online and offline.
Taking place on the 18th March at the Design Council in Convent Garden the event is your chance to find out more about The Hub and meet us all in person.
As it is an open invite anyone can attend, there is a maximum capacity though, so if you would like to reserve your place on the guest-list please Click Here
It promises to be a great night and we look forward to seeing you there!!
To find out more about The Co-Creation Hub London, Click Here
The Co-creation Hub is a collective of organisations, academics and individuals who believe in doing things ‘with’ people rather than ‘at’ people.
We currently work in the research, branding and communications industry, but we think our approach can be applied to any number of industries and organisations in order to solve almost any problem.
We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. And that means there is a huge untapped resource of creativity out there that co-creation can allow to flourish.
We have already co-created new products for Unilever, advertising campaigns for Nestle and communications strategies for Carphone Warehouse and seen startling results.
Consumers now control brands. They play with them, re-shape them and even imbue them with new meaning. And the successful brands and businesses of the future will put co-creation at the heart of everything they do and treat people as active equals rather than passive respondents.
At its core, the Co-creation Hub is about collaboration. We believe in involving people at every stage of everything we do. We find out what people think, what they like to talk about, what products they actually want to buy and how they would like to be spoken to. And then we co-create our work with them rather than ‘target’ them. That way, the work we produce engages more people, resonates more deeply and actively encourages people to play with our ideas.
Whether manufacturers, artists, writers, designers or government organisations, The Co-Creation Hub – London is looking to collaborate with people from around the world involved in co-creation, whatever their discipline, to stimulate the co-creation approach.
Myriam Davidovici-Nora is a researcher at Telecom Paristech engineer school in Paris. She studies online consumption, production and new business models to supply digital contents. In her latest paper The Dynamics of Co-Creation in the Video Game Industry: The Case of World of Warcraft she explores the dynamics of co-creation in the construction of video games, using World of Warcraft as a case study.
For the neophytes, World of Warcraft is a Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMPORG) created by Blizzard in 2004. Currently it has 11.5 million subscribers, and owns 62% of the MMORPG market. The great innovation Blizzard introduced when releasing World of Warcraft (WoW) was the ability for its users to improve the game.
WoW In a nutshell: When players subscribe (and agree to pay a monthly fee) they create a character and join an entirely online world. They then evolve in this environment by either, completing quests and killing computer-controlled monsters (Player versus Environment or PvE), or they can fight against each other (Player versus Player or PvP). They gain experience, money and objects (looted from the kills’ drops) and they can improve their character, trading and gearing up. Players can also join groups; these groups are composed of a very precise set of players with different skills and roles (tank, healer or Damage per seconds).
Christmas is Celebrated in the Game
WoW’s main point of difference and strength is the large after-game life with the community on and offline, the adaptability of the game allows players to constantly adapt the interface with third-party built add-ons.
Blizzard’s strategy involved players from the very beginning of the WoW adventure, inviting users to test the game on closed Beta. They also outsourced specific design and innovation tasks to consumers: they provide players with toolkits to build and test their add-ons directly in the game, thus enhancing user experience and loyalty to the game.
This innovation process has a dual benefit: it helps WoW to ascertain a great understanding of its consumers and plan the right upgrades, as well as offering a very segmented gaming experience that meets every gamers’ need, from casual to hardcore.
To facilitate the innovation process, WoW is built on a double-layered organisation mixing private and collective incentives. The first layer is a community of add-on developers, under an open source software (OSS) development model, and the second layer is the private firm, Blizzard, that privately develops the gameplay under copyright terms.
Why do player develop add-ons for WoW?
The motivation is collective-centred: killing the final boss (that ugly big monster at the end of a mission) requires in-game information management (life, mana, aggressiveness or aggro, hit rate etc..) both at individual and group level, and the use of adequate and common tools, provided by add-ons… developed by the users themselves.
Two major communities are sharing the add-on market: Curse and WowAce. These communities help developers and users to share add-ons, information, feedback and screenshot in a virtuous circle of innovation. To increase the network, the two sites are sharing a common library of commands. These add-ons are downloaded for free from the community website, thus by peer-to-peer (P2P) which considerably increase both downloading efficiency and awareness of the brand (word of mouth).
Some Potential Co-Creators at Blizzcon
Blizzard’s model is based on a constant innovation of gameplay to maintain the attractiveness for WoW’s high-level players. Across the last upgrades and patches, Blizzard deployed several bug fixes, added new festivities (special days such as Halloween or Christmas are celebrated in WoW), or new features like the Achievement System (“horizontal” rewarding system across all the “vertical” activities such as missons). Another important leverage tool to keep high-level players engaged is the opening of new realms. These types of changes are implemented according to the players’ feedback, either through the online community directly linked to the Blizzard offices or during the Blizzcon – a massive annual convention for the fans.
However, Blizzard actively controls actions and monitors the site with Game Moderators and employees involved in the game. The company focuses on any artificial increase in the economy of the game, server instability and access of a third party player to one’s account. Add-ons like bots (automated programs) or script like one-click actions are forbidden. The transaction of WoW content for real money via eBay or a personal website is prohibited (even though common practice unfortunately) and Blizzard reserves the rights to close account of unscrupulous players with no warning.
In her paper, Myriam Davidovici-Nora gives an incredible insight into this new hybrid innovation model that developed the world most famous video game. It’s not only a great read for any WoW lover who wants to understand the conception of the game, but also an amazing case-study of the innovation and co-creation process.
cardboard heads simulating a packed room at Minibar, London
Over the next few weeks Face Wired , Face social media planning sister agency, will be speaking at a couple of workshops and seminars in London and Milan. If you are around and want to catch up, here’s the low-down.
The first one is a two-day workshop at Multimedia Management series hosted by Mediaset and IULM University in Milan, where we will be talking about Social Media Monitoring, Data Visualization and Social Media Planning. Access to this series is unfortunately closed but if you are in Milan and want to talk to us give us a shout or DM me on twitter @abc3d
The second one is Open Business “Web Business Toolbox” in London, where the focus will be more on Social Media Strategy for web companies and startups in general. This series is open but the organizers told me it’s already sold out. However there’s time (apr 14) and someone might drop out so if you are interested do sign up to the waiting list.
Also, this coming Friday is Minibar time again, the monthly face to face for internet professionals in Shoreditch. The coming one is all about Augmented Reality. We will be there enjoying presentations from Micazook, Worksnug, Augmented Planet, Ambient Industries. And having a few friday beers. If you are planning to make it, make sure you RSVP on meetup. See you there.
End of Face wanders bullettin.
Every Friday the Face team are going to share their favourite link from the the last 7 days. It could be a video, an image, an article, a game… or just something completely abstract! So, every week make sure you check back for some internet gems.
Nick: Damon Lindelof’s 70 minute Phantom Menace review
This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and also one of the most epic. A well-edited, well-constructed piece of geek film criticism. A must see! (***Strong Language***)
Danny: Crying Wife
What would you do if your wife cried inconsolably after every film you watched? Film it and publish it on the internet of course. Genius.
Lucy: Upside Down Celebrities
I love having a good laugh at celebs and everyone needs a laugh on a Friday!
Marion: Naive
I love the band Naïve’s website because it’s simple, beautiful and the animation is very relaxing… and their music is great!
Katherine: Beautiful Mouse Tracking
You go about your business while the movements of your mouse are tracked all day and then you can end up with a lovely piece of art work!
Esther: Nick Gentry
Gentry uses old Floppy discs etc to create portraits – It’s a really nice way to reuse something that is obsolete and turn it into something beautiful.
Philip: American Apparel Crowdsource World’s Best Bum
Glorious and a great example of the errr…. power of crowdsourcing?!
Saul: Omegle
Omegle sets up randomised anonymous IM chats between strangers. It’s quite an odd idea, but also fascinating in its potential.
Sharmila: Monkey Bashing with Noel Edmonds
Noel Edmonds devises quiz format involving a monkey picking the questions…say no more.
Francesco: Future Boy
I bet no one here is more future than this kid (***Strong Language***)
I have been working amongst the busy bodies at Face for around six months now and am still enjoying it just as much as my first week! Working at Face for one year is part of my Business Studies with Marketing degree, in September I will be going back to student life at Brighton University to complete my fourth and final year. Whilst looking after the logistics at Face co-creation workshops and helping with the recruitment of co-creators for new projects, I will also be busy working on my dissertation!
The aim of my dissertation is to investigate how a key issue/problem of the market research industry is influencing Face.
Face performed extremely well in 2009 and their client base, range of products offered and team are all still growing rapidly! This growth has been largely due to new clients and brands that require international as well as UK based co-creation communities and workshops. Evidently, as Face grows they are being requested to work on a larger variety of briefs, including projects across a range of countries with varied cultures. I will be exploring this topic in my dissertation as it would be beneficial for Face to know how different cultures influence the outputs of co-creation. Therefore, the title that of my dissertation is, wait for it…. ‘How Do Diverse Cultures Influence The Outputs Of Co-Creation?’
Whilst carrying out my initial research, I found plenty of information on how the market research industry is affected by different cultures but I found virtually nothing about how cultural diversity affects co-creation. Initially, I will analyse the principles behind market research in countries across the globe and then apply these theories to co-creation using Face case studies. I will then identify ways to measure the success of online communities and co-creation workshops, using a specific set of KPI. This will then lead to recommendations that seek to improve the international co-creation process further – these may be small practical factors or larger ideas that concentrate on taking cultural differences into account when co-creating abroad.
It will be interesting, from a student and a company perspective, to see how people of different cultures react to being open,(and) being innovative with brands and co-creating. All of these factors play a key role in contributing to the success of a project. My report will explore how Face can keep co-creators engaged and how they can adapt their process further to better fit the culture of the country in which co-creation is taking place. This will ensure that Face’s future international projects are just as successful as of all their previous ‘First Class’ projects!
I am currently finding some interesting information about market research and cultural differences but I’m saving this up to share with you in my next blog!
Katherine
Tomorrow we will be speaking at the ‘Rethinking Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media’ seminar in Milton Keynes. The ERSC funded event is the forth of the series and will see us give our views on how to engage young people in market research through co-creation, mobile, social media and gaming mechanics.
In it’s own words the seminar series:
‘Focuses on young people’s consumption, use and production of media and popular cultural forms (including audio-visual, digital and online media, popular music and fashion) in the context of cultural and economic globalisation. Through sharing ongoing research and debating key theoretical and empirical issues in the field, the series aims to develop an international network that will particularly support postgraduate students and early career researchers. It also seeks to promote a dialogue between researchers and practitioners in relevant fields such as education, youth work, media regulation, and the cultural industries. The series brings together established and newer scholars from different disciplines with research users and practitioners from education, youth work, policy making and campaigning.’
We will be taking the stage alongside speakers from the Facility of Education and Language Studies, the Open University, Media Snackers and kidsandyouth.com. There will be more seminars throughout the year before the series concludes in December, to find out more, Click Here
The globally-recognized social media and online communities expert, Robert Kozinets, is giving away his book ‘Netnography – Doing Ethnographic Research Online’ for free!
This is a must for those who want to know what netnography (also known as online ethnography) is, what the best practices are, and what concepts & theories have been uncovered so far.
Make sure you are quick though as this amazing offer is only available until the end of the month.
To check out Robert Kozinets and his book ‘Netnography – Doing Ethnographic Research Online’ – Click Here
You may remember a while ago I blogged about a new initiative we have set up at Face, “Winter Wanders”; designed to spark creativity and imagination by getting the team out of the office and doing interesting extra curricular stuff. Our first Winter Wander was a couple of weeks ago now and was, I think, a roaring success. So I thought I’d share a review of our inaugural outing.
On a chilly Friday afternoon, the hardworking people of Face downed tools and wrapped up to take a trip to the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill.
The Museum of Everything is a temporary exhibition of, well, pretty much everything you could want in an Art exhibition (I’m going to stick with exhibition, Museum sounds so old and dusty). With works spanning everything from finger painting to collage to knitting, curated by everyone from Grayson Perry to relative unknowns (well to me at least) and all set in a slightly ramshackle house cum warehouse, it really captured all that is great about the art scene here in London.
We spent a lovely hour wandering through the tiny corridors, peering through doorways, and gazing up into the roof to see all it had to offer. So what did we think was particularly interesting?
After doing a canvas of opinion it’s emerged that Face’s favourite pieces were as follows:
Henry Dargers Disney-esque coda of childhood scenes, built up from individual drawings on flimsy A4 office paper and completed in coloured pencils to convey a greater sense of innocence and simplicity. So far, so wholesome but it was only when you looked closer that you spotted the darker details woven into the idyllic scenes (the cute little, pigtailed girls had extra equipment, if you know what I mean). Nice.
Darger
Alexandre P. Lobanov’s marvelously intricate and lurid paintings of guns & key political figures like Saddam Hussein was also much admired. Apparently he was a deaf mute. Not that that should affect his ability with a paintbrush of course, but we thought it was an interesting fact!
Lobanov
And Guo Fengyi’s 12 foot high symmetrical monsters which reminded me a little bit of the double headed monsters that guarded the path to the castle in Labyrinth. Friendly and ominous in equal measures which is no mean feat
Fengyi
But those were just three bits from an exhibition where really there was just too much to choose from and we could have easily spent 3 hours instead of the hour we had. In fact it was so good that I believe both myself, Fran and Matt all went back over the weekend to take another look.
Sadly the Museum of Everything’s first exhibition is over now and they are taking their wares abroad to tour. However, I have a feeling they’ll be back… we definitely hope so!
Over the course of January & Feburary Headbox listed their Top 10 Things To Look Forward To In 2010. Some of them were big things, some of them were small things and some of them are just… well, things. Check out all 10 below!
(Note, this is in chronological order of how they were posted, not an actual ranking!)
What excites you more: Getting a notification telling you that you have reached your 86th follower on Twitter or, being told that your, supposed, best friend has tagged some very embarrassing photos of you on Facebook?
Before I start it’s important to say, I am no social media expert, I probably know as much as the average social network user but, like a lot things, I have an opinion on it & would like to share my thoughts!
Like the majority of professional social networkers I have the usual accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Flickr however since joining Face I’ve learnt a lot more and hear a lot of educated opinions and conversations (arguments) about the world of social media. When I joined Face I set up a Twitter account, initially with a lot of scepticism, but now I love tweeting and find Twitter a great source for really interesting information. However, when I talk to my friends about it, whether it is to brag about finding the latest fashions or hearing the news before everyone else (I was the first to find out about Michael Jackson’s death and had to inform my friends via text, how very old skool), they don’t see what all the fuss is about.
I’ve tried to encourage them to sign up to Twitter but they don’t see it as any different to Facebook status updates? So, to finally draw a line between the two, here is a comparison of the world’s most popular social networking sites:
Facebook: Joe Smith has lost his phone, if you need me you can contact me on my temporary number 07********
Twitter: @BitchBuzz: Bliss and Shelter Encourage Brits to Bake for Charity http://bit.ly/b0KCN8
In conclusion I think both have their own good points but Facebook is tiring on me. Social media is driven by content and because Twitter has such a wealth of users discussing so many different topics I think it will be the winner in the long run.
Focussing on the latest youth news, trends and movements, Face Youth Lab delivers regular content to aid marketers and researchers understand and interact with youth. Here’s whats been going on at FYL recently:
A quick search on Google News reveals that the recent earthquake in Haiti has caused, amongst many other horrific problems, thousands of orphans. As we explored last week, young people are terrifically and passionately motivated to help their fellows when they can, with social media beginning to act as a primary means of directing people to how they can help…[Read More]
The on-demand console gaming service, OnLive recently released pictures and videos demoing its product and peripheries through Facebook in an attempt to create some hype surrounding its upcoming release into public beta mode. The projected release of this cloud gaming service has brought much attention in the press with headlines such as “Is It Game Over for Consoles?” in The Independent… [Read More]
There has been a lot of hype about 3DTV recently. Yet despite the 3D film Avatar having become the second biggest grossing film in history, 3DTV seems more an extension of High-Definition TV and possibly a step towards returning TV to a more unidirectional focus for young people again where the internet has made it multidirectional and periphery…[Read More]
Tech Tribe 2009 revealed how young people, despite their relatively meager financial situations, are still heavily attentive to philanthropic activities surrounding their environments. Last year was a big year for youth participation and making their voices heard within their communities. Young people in particular have shown an apparent increase in participation in both off and online political protest…[Read More]
Upon hearing the discussions about whether Mums would buy Modern Warfare 2 for their young children, I thought about my Mum’s impact upon my early life as a gamer. Unable to conceive of getting into video games without her financial backing as a child, and baring in mind that the world of gaming had changed significantly since I was a child in the early 1990s, I decided to ask her a few questions about her interactions with games via my obsession with them as a child…[Read More]
Today the San Francisco bay area is known as the geeky internet startup capital of the world a far cry from its counter culture 1970s cool that my dad remembers. The Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco was famously the spiritual home of Deadheads the cult followers of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead were famous for their epic performances and in true hippy spirit the band created a special section for fans who wished to record the show for free on audio tape and share it with friends.
In 1985 the Deadheads passion for the band and desire to share tapes of the concerts moved on line when they formed their own forum on The Well, one of the original internet bulletin boards. The Deadheads enthusiasm to talk about the band and share music is seen as unwittingly establishing the first virtual community and the blueprint for platforms like Facebook.
The Deadheads on the Well also prompted the meeting of John Perry Barlow (who wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead) John Gilmore, and Mitch Kapor, who went on to launch the hugely influential Electronic Frontier Foundation which is now celebrating 20 years of fighting for bloggers rights and the promotion of free software. John Perry Barlow and the Founders of the Well talk more about the influence of the Deadheads and the counter culture movement on the development of the social web in a recent BBC documentary The Virtual Revolution.
At Face we don’t like standing still; partly because we are always looking to improve and do things better, and partly because as the world changes we need to change with it. 2010 will be no different, and we are bursting with new ideas for products, communities & projects. Here are our predictions about the research & innovation business in 2010, and a sneak preview of some of the things Face will be up to.
1. 2010 the year when research goes truly mobile as smart phones become commonplace and research on the go starts to catch up
Face will be developing a smart phone application that allows us to conduct research more effectively on the go and in real time
2. The year when the research industry embraces & empowers consumers as researchers, to truly reach the parts that researchers cannot reach – peer2peer research shows what the industry looks like turned inside out.
Through our communities Headbox & Mindbubble we are training consumers to act as researchers within their own peer groups going undercover and asking the questions we didn’t even know we needed to ask.
3. The year when Tech Research & Innovation begins to learn from FMCG research in terms of innovation and product development. Why? Because the consumer is now the subject & not the object of technology.
Face is launching our own tech community in 2010, aimed at engaging tech leaders in insight and innovation work
4. The year that social media & the web as a source of insight is finally taken seriously. Everyone wakes up to the fact that the greatest source of data is around us all the time – it’s just a case of harnessing it. No more excuses.
Face launches 2 new real time research products – Pulsar Snapshot & Pulsar Tracker – designed to monitor and analyse conversations and interactions around brands & categories in real time.
5. Co-creation & communities go east – increased confidence in the methodologies takes them firmly out of the west and into Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia & South Pacific
Face is launching community platforms & co-creation projects in India & Australia, building on existing platforms in China, Russia, Thailand, Philippines & Indonesia.
6. Death by Powerpoint becomes death of Powerpoint, slowly, slowly. One day soon. We won’t be crying.
Face will be emphasizing visual clarity & simplicity in terms of outputs and making more and more of our debriefs / output material available online as an ongoing treasure trove for clients
7. The year that the industry embraces communities in their ongoing insight, innovation & planning cycles, enabling them to work in the real world as their brands become as social as the people consuming them are!
Face has developed an adaptive brand planning process that helps Insight, Planners & Marketing people to keep their brand planning dynamic, organic and always on!
8. The year of the rebirth of insight. Researchers realise that processes like Co-Creation, Communities & Crowd-sourcing are not just there to play with, but are serious methods of getting better result, especially in the day in day out job of getting clients closer to their customers.
Face is doubling the size of its insight teams and putting actionable insight at the heart of everything we do
So, 2010, some big challenges & quite a journey ahead but a truly exciting time for us and the industry as a whole. Look forward to going on that journey with you.
