Du har säkert sett att jag själv och Göran Adlén har kommit på den fantastiska idéen att prata om kommunikation, trender, teknologi, reklam, design och massor av andra aktuella ämnen oavbrutet i 24 timmar i sträck på Clarion Sign Hotel nu på fredag den 6:e maj. Och som om det inte var nog – Robin Danehav, med stöd av Petter Karlsson, sitter också vaken 24 timmar i sträck och ser till att du som inte kan komma och hälsa på oss istället kan följa spektaklet LIVE på nätet.

Besök oss gärna på plats

Nu har du tre val. Vi hoppas att du väljer ett eller alla av följande alternativ:
1. Kom ner till Clarion Sign Hotel och hälsa på någon gång under de 24 timmarna.
2. Följ du livesändningen på nätet.
3. Följ konversationen kring eventet genom att bevaka #24live. Vi kommer göra vårt bästa för att svara på frågor och kommentarer.

Oavsett vilket val du gör tänkte vi ge dig några hållpunkter som kanske gör din planering enklare.

24 Hours Live 6:e – 7:e Maj / hållpunkter:

12:00-13:00 – Genialitet eller galenskap?
Introduktion till 24 hours. Vad är det här egentligen? Ett inledande samtal om framtidens möte och hur möteskulturen kommer att förändras.

13:00-15:00 – Vi intar lunch och slaktar sanningar.
Varför måste vi glömma bort alla de gamla teorierna. En hederlig slakt av många gamla sanningar. En historisk tillbakablick där inga modeller eller teorier är heliga.

15:00-16:00 – Ge fingret till etablissemanget!
Varför och hur kan vi trotsa de gamla spelreglerna. Vad kommer att hända med skivbolagen bokförlag etc i framtiden?

16:00-17:00 – Måste man lära sig Hallands floder fram och baklänges.
Tankar om framtidens skola

18:00-19:00 – Personliga varumärken.
Om man ska bli ett personligt varumärke måste man bli bra på något först – tankar om hur man bygger upp sitt personliga varumärke och varför så många kommer att älska ihjäl sig själv.

19:00-20:00 – Flopp och diss-timmen.
Historiska felbeslut. Varför har så många tagit fel beslut genom åren och varför bygger företagen lådbilar istället för att vara kreativa på riktigt?

20:00-23:00 – Middag med samtal om framtiden.
Samtal om teknologi, sociala media, 3D printing. Miljö, CSR och varför framtiden handlar om de små aktörerna

23:00-24:00 – Sammanfattning av de första 12 timmarna.
Lagom trötta ägnar vi en timme åt att sammanfatta vad som sagts och upplevts så här långt.

24:00-01:00 – Discografi
Vi plockar låtar, Googlar årtalet och reflekterar över hur marknadsföringsstrategier och reklam såg ut då.

01:00-03:00 – Shopping sphree.
Prata prylar och gadgets och skarp test av e-handeln. Vi hoppas inte plånboken sinar helt.

03:00-05:00 – Passion, drömmar och så mycket mer.
Samtal om livet. Göran och Johan berättar om sina liv.

06:00-07:00 – Morgonsamtal.
Reflekterar över natten

07:00-09:00 – Långfrukost med diskussion om yrket som marknadsförare, kommunikatör, designers osv.

09:00-10:00 – Framtidens thincasting.
Vad innebär video för framtiden. Hur har det funkat att sända 22 timmar så här långt i sträck. Robin Danehav ger sin syn på eventet och tankar om framtidens produktioner

10:00-11:30 – Sammanfattning av dygnet så här långt.
Johan och Göran presenterar sina respektive framtidsscenario. Det här tror vi!

11:30-11:45 – Vad händer nu.
Var hittar man filmerna. Vad kommer hända i framtiden. Johan och Göran berättar mer om 24 live konceptet.

11:45-12:00 – Alla 3 får 5 minuter att reflektera.
Kommer vi göra det här igen? Blev det bra?

12:00 – Nu ska vi hem och SOVA!

We are born. Even before we’re born our life is being shaped day by day. Every day, every hour and every second life passes by.

Sometimes tons of things happens at once and suddenly we notice a shape, we call these shapes memories. But most of the time life is made up by small things that never form shapes. The truth however is that these small things is what life is all about. The more of em’ you notice, the more you’ll notice life. And the more you notice life, the more you’ll enjoy it!

This all came to me when I looked at this video below found over at Mario Vellandi’s Melodies in Marketing, which by the way is a great blog on Ethical communication.

Thanks Mario, but above all, thanks Everynone for putting images to life!

This post is probably most stupid post one can write since CEO’s and board members seems to have decided to stay behind with the dinosaurs while the rest of us look for new ground where we can thrive and prosper. Basically on average they read three local newspapers of their own choice, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and watch a couple of TV channels. They haven’t got a clue about blogs, feed readers and social networks. But I’ll give it a go anyway.

Dear CEO and board member. In most cases you’re probably +40 years old. You have a wife, two kids and live in a house that cost above average. Two cars in the garage and a country-side home. You spend weekends together with other CEO’s and board members in order to secure your position in the hierarchical ladder of success (or at least what you define as a success). Vacations are chosen based on where you’re supposed to be rather than where you would like to go.

Or as Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and chief executive officer (obviously an exception) of WPP puts it 13 minutes into this very insightful video below:

“Clients, mediaowners and agencies tend to be run by older people. They’ve got to the top of companies. Change is the last thing they’re really interested in. You want a quiet life, travel around the world and making sure everything’s ok”

It’s your life we’re talking about and I understand you don’t want to rock the boat. That could of course lead to you having to sell your boat, spend your vacation in another place and replace some of those expensive wine bottles of yours with cheaper ones. So sitting tight along with the rest and not challenge the establishment is probably the right thing to do. After all, in 10-20 years there’s another generation coming along – let them change things.

No! Nee! ????! Ne! Ei! ?! Nein! ??! Nei! Nej!

There is no time for that! You have to start changing things now before your company gets run over by a couple of teenagers sitting in a coffee shop disrupting your business. (Not that I don’t love that idea). The world is in a state of change. Companies and brands all over the world are falling behind due to slow leadership.

Since I’m trying to not to be one of those persons who’s all about yelling I’d also like to provide you with a couple of guidelines you may wanna follow:

Every company can and should become an e-Business.

Make everyone in your company think, eat, shit the E. That’s how the military would have said it. And it suits this post pretty good. The digital world turn things upside down in a way we’ve never seen before so you’ve gotta make sure everyone is on the boat.

A common problem is that a few people in the marketing department might have a clue about what goes on. But, without support from you – the board of directors, the CEO, CTO and CFO they’re screwed. Far too many companies sees the internet as yet another business area. But the internet does in fact change every little bit of your company.

The internet cuts horizontally through every part of your business so your future marketing and communication strategy has to do the same.

Communication of tomorrow is not about new formats or channels it’s about a whole new way of thinking about your business.

This new digital order calls for a totally new way of thinking and I don’t believe many traditional advertising agencies know shit about it. The fault is not really theirs, it’s yours. You have to integrate marketing into your product development. On top of that you have to make sure that marketing competence knows all about digital and traditional marketing cause the problem is more complex that dividing things into digital and traditional advertising.

Today we have categorized consultants into categories – Advertising, Internet consultants, PR, Event, Mobile, Direct Marketing, Guerrilla and so on. Tomorrow you will have to get all of those brains into a single one. Of course, your Advertising agency might suggest you put together some sort of workshop with people from each category – THIS IS WRONG.

The problem with such a setup is that it’s a compromise. You can never reach a satisfactory result by having a lead agency that knows traditional communication and then a group of other consultants. You simply have to get it all into one brain cause that single advertising idea has to take every category into account when you develop and launch ideas.

Look at Garmin for example. They develop among other things GPS running watches. The watch syncs my runs via Bluetooth with an online community that shows me where I’ve been running on a Google map. My information is then automatically uploaded to Facebook so that I can share my training data with friends.

Is this social advertising, a product, service or crm?

Ask yourselves – What is marketing, what is product and what is business development.

I say It’s all tied together in a way we’ve never seen before and most of you CEO’s, board members and top management don’t get the full picture.

Of course Garmin advertise their products today, but tomorrow they might rely on viral traffic from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks that is more or less injected into their entire business.

The future mix of communication and advertising is so tied together with business and product development so in order for us communication consultants to deliver a work well done and on brief we have to get new kind of briefs with new kind of objectives. Communication and advertising has to move up the ladder and we have to look beyond advertising. Instead we have to rethink how companies develop and launch products, how companies are organized in order to sell, how the people in a company can be more involved on every level and how a CEO can learn what the digital world can do for his company.

So, integrate advertising, marketing and communication straight into your business development. And if you as a CEO don’t understand these different formats you’ve got nothing there to do!

I call for a new category – let’s call it entrepreneurial advertising. An entrepreneur would never go on with any kind of communication that didn’t deliver. It’s time for you to care about your company in that way too!

You might wanna head back and read one of my older posts: ‘Seduce us or excuse us – 11 ways to bring your brand up to date‘ that broadens my point of view even further.

What’s your business doing there when it should be here

We are out there waiting but we’re not only in front of the TV anymore.

Think about your business. You’ve probably got tons of content waiting to be spread. Catalogues, photos, movies, texts, ads, business systems and so on. Well, what are you waiting for? Put it out there. And out there doesn’t mean you should publish it on your own platforms or one that matches your own ideals. Let it loose.

A common mistake is choosing between different social platforms. People ask me – “If I am to publish video online, should I choose YouTube or Vimeo?” I answer every time – “Choose them all!” There is no cost involved. People spend time on different sites. And the more content you have out there, the more traffic you’ll get in return. If you spread content on outside platforms you will in the end receive traffic back to your brand in one way or another. If it’s done by the book it will do wonders for your SEO work.

In order to get the best possible performance from your products and services. Think about what you can do best and work your ass off in order to make your brand the nr 1 source for people enjoying your product category. If you’re in the business of building cars, think, do you build cars for transportation, for fun or for some other purpose. If you think it’s about transportation. Let’s say families. Then do everything in your power to become the brand that makes transportation more efficient, more safe and more fun.

The conversation prism by Brian Solis

So, think about how you can distribute your brand all over the digital world the same way you distribute it in the offline world. The only difference is that distribution online is for free once you’ve turned your content production and communication process around.

Connect not collect

People don’t want to connect to your products or services. They wanna connect to values, beliefs, emotions, passion and personality. Like when I wrote about Telco’s earlier this year: “We are in the entertainment business – let’s act as such”.

The brands that invite people to a conversation, listen to them, show them respect and show that they value people for being people and not potential money – those brands will be the winners.

Creative excellence

I’m not gonna write about this one again since I’ve outline it a post before. But I suggest you read that one once you’re done reading this post.

Get your own fan club

In order for your business to be virally spread. Get fans and let them break the rule.
A problem today is that most things spreading like wildfire on the net tend to break a couple of rules. As a legal business you have a disadvantage against the everyday consumer. However, if you get the everyday consumer on board, let him or her do the dirty work. If they like you they’ll be more than happy to stand on the barricades.

Have a look at Zappos for example. Their CEO has got 1,356,038 followers on Twitter! How many have you got?

Get all your employees on board or actually off board. Seriously, if your employees are reachable with land lines or email. Then why shouldn’t I be able to follow them on twitter or become friends with them on Facebook?

The media 180° turn

Yesterday – we all got communicated to when we were in front of the TV or reading a magazine at a certain time on a certain day. This meant brands had to spend quite a lot of time and money to hit a consumer with their message.

Tomorrow – your message must be on 24/7 standby so that when your potential target searches for whatever you’re selling you hit that consumer one time – and that time you’ve gotta hit on your first shot. Everything that stands in your way will lead to a misfire.

Read all the news not only the filtered stuff

I opened up this post with critique pointed towards the fact that most people read only a few sources of information on a daily basis. That was all ok when leading media companies still had monopoly on information. However today most news you read in for example Wall Street Journal has already been out there for a couple of days and the diversity is not broad enough. That’s what you’ve gotta create your own customized news desk based on what you need to know in order to run your company. I would say you have to move from reading 5-10 sources to 50-100 a day.

Last year I tipped about my own source of information – tons of RSS feeds read through Netvibes that I also use to track my brand. Why not start by following some of the channels I personally follow and then slowly remodel that interface to fit your own needs. Read the post I wrote about it for more information.

To sum things up!

As always there’s tons of more things to do. But that would require me to write a book and there’s just not enough time to do that this weekend. Sooner or later I’ll publish that one as well and then I promise I’ll give each and every board member of a Swedish listed company a copy for free!

Finally before I end this post I’d also recommend you to browse through this presentation that I held last week about 10 trends on future communication. It might light up the path for you even more.

See you on the other side!

The Japanese group Sour was about to create a new music video for their latest song ‘Hibi no Neiro’. What to do?

Get some fans together from around the world, put them in front of a web-cam and let them co-create the video for you. Once you’re done – put it on YouTube and another 7 days later you have quarter of a million people lovin’ your music.

I don’t think it will be the same hype as the Ok Go video but it will sure spread like wildfire.

Updated: Jonathan Sulo linked to this post and in his comments I found another great example of crowdsourcing. Erik Torsner suggested we should feast our eyes on the Eternalmoonwalk, a tribute to the late Michael Jackson. I of course went over there and submitted a video myself. Another great example, not as controlled as the Sour video but still a great idea.

För lite mer än en månad sedan bloggade jag om BerghsLive. Idag tog jag Screenflow och filmade av mitt lilla ‘uppträdande’ hos studenterna som också varit med och satt Berghs på kartan i samband med att Berghs School of Communication blev vald till världens främsta reklamskola i Cannes den här veckan.

I have a Samsung TV at home. I’ve been thinking of selling it. After seeing this viral that I picked up over at AdAge that’s not possible.

While we’re at it.

Yesterday I spent the morning at an MSN Innovate seminar arranged by Microsoft Advertising in Sweden. There I had the pleasure of listening to Naoki Ito, awarded creative director from GT Tokyo. A great presentation where he talked more about cultural differences and what made creative people creative rather than showing to many cases. However, one of the things he did show us was this TVC, a part of a concept called Love Distance.

Beautiful and probably one of the better ideas I’ve seen in a long time!

This morning I found this video of a 15 year old girl who’s petty pissed about the fact that YouTube and Warner Brothers deleted a much appreciated video of her singing the 1934 song Winter Wonderland. This is EXACTLY what brands should NOT do. Warner Brothers – you are idiots!

I personally had a video stripped of all sound a couple of weeks ago. In that video I did a report on Mackmyra Whisky. There’s a section in the video where I’m in my car. In the background you could hear radio playing a song…so YouTube and who ever own that right deleted all the sound to that video. How stupid can people be.

YouTube are made up by the masses uploading spoofs, home made movies, comedy shows etc etc. And lots of it has some sort of music in it…where will this end?

Freakcasting, a trend that was very common in Swedish advertising a couple of years back is something I personally dislike. Having people in a TVC just based on the fact that you think people will laugh at their real personality is the closest thing to bullying there is. We have a responsibility to be more intelligent than that.

But when these guys, the original employees and not any hired freak, perform a old school rap song I’m sold. It feels so honest and real so I can’t resist thinking this place is the shit!

Found it on Changethought, one of my new favorites when looking for visual inspiration.

Pepsi are on top of their game. With the help of R/GA they’ve created a campaign site welcoming Barack Obama to his presidency. They’ve tied the entire campaign site message to their tag line – Refreshing Everything.

The idea is very smart – piggy back mr President with your own brand message. On the site visitors are urged to contribute and upload their own ideas on how Barack Obama should refresh America.

These kind of ideas are nice if well executed. I think the conceptual idea and the way they’re using the refresh tag is on the spot. However, I don’t see why I have to wait for the damn thing to load. There is nothing in that site that requires flash based on the design and the functionality (except for the video streams of course). But, all in all, a great initiative.

The Pepsi campaign is off course not the first. By now you must have seen the IKEA piggy back a couple of days ago. That’s another great example of piggy back advertising.

I’ve been part of executing the same idea during the presidential campaign when we created the Apathy Party together with Strawberry Frog.

Earlier this morning I got an mail from Eva Hamilton, CEO of the Swedish Television letting me know that the SVT Play Beta was live. Obviously this must have been produced by some PR agency that decided my blog was a relevant target when spreading the news. But hey, aren’t we all suckers for spreading gossip.

The new site from SVT is big step in the right direction. It seems inspired by HULU.com and from both a brand and usability point view the new site is a big step forward. The only thing I miss right now is an ajax based search functionality. Something like Booli’s search would have made the site complete from a usability point of view.

The social interaction is missing, and it’s the key to getting paid.
I think SVT is missing out on a great opportunity here. Sites like YouTube, Ustream, Vimeo and Hulu got something that SVT has yet not implemented – a personal profile for the viewer.

The opportunity to save favorites, create your own playlists, tag content, write reviews, comment, get personal recommendations, get friends, subscribe to content, create your own channels etc are functionalities that could very well be the foundation to a long term solution to the licensing problem online. (SVT is free to watch in Sweden but you have to pay a license fee for having a TV set). I’m sure if I could log in to my profile during the day to prepare a schedule for the evening, maybe put together my own children’s show, check on recommendations, watch trailers etc I would be happy to continue to pay my license fee.

Of course this is probably something that we’ll see coming in the future. At least the design has room for more buttons and functionalities. However if it had been implemented in the beta launch today my headline would have been “Swedish Television launches the worlds best online television site”. Now I’ll have to go with the headline above instead.

A great site but still a beta
I’ve obviously been spoiled with Google having 45% of their services in beta mode. Years ago beta meant you could expect a lot of things to come, but today I want a beta to kick ass! To sum things up the new site is a huge step forward but I would have loved to see more social networking functionalities. So, what do you think. Head over to the new SVT Play Beta and judge for yourselves.

Finally, Eva said in her mail that she and her colleagues were looking forward to my post and would follow my comments on the new site with great interest. So, Eva, I expect you to join the debate here on my blog in the comments field – that, if something would prove that you and the Swedish Television are on top of your game.

There’s a lot of talk about viral marketing through video. But given that you have produced something worth seeing, how do you actually get it on the run?

Well, it’s not necessarily that easy and the biggest single mistake brands do is they believe a good little piece will take off by it self. Is that the case? Of course not. You gotta give that moving beast of yours more than a push, you’ve gotta strap some rockets to each and every frame and hope for a safe launch into outer space.

Spreading video online is not about putting it on YouTube. You’ve gotta see the whole web and each and every site’s own potential.

Björn Falkevik, professional new media producer is one of the most competent consultants there is when it comes to new media publishing. He is sharing this great process map of video spread on Flickr and his blog. Unfortunately it’s in Swedish but I think you’ll get the picture anyway.

Björn Falkeviks social video publishing (Swedish)

Apart from spreading it SEO is important. Scott WilloughbyRand Fishkin and SEOmoz.org clears more questions in this short video.

Finally. Use tools like Tube Mogul to administrate the spreading of the content. And you might wanna consider using agencies like Unruly Media to spread it. If you end up pushing something out there Viralvideoshart compiled by Unruly brings some intelligence to why and where you’re getting spread.

Nothing comes for free but learning the tricks of the trade keeps you ahead of the competition!

As I was reading my stats in my Mint account a site that I hadn’t seen before. Viralvideochart.com stood out. Its a sniffy little thing where you can keep track of the virality of online videos.

The cool thing is that these guys measure virality, not videos shown. So the faster something is being spread, the higher rating. Basically a dashboard for the viral video producer.

Right now, the most viral video is this one:

Bam boom pjoink and that RSS goes straight into my feedreader.