X Media Lab – Global Media Ideas @ Vivid (Opera House)

Why should you attend this event?

The ‘Global Media Ideas‘ event is an annual international summit at the Sydney Opera House that ‘caps off’ Vivid Sydney – a festival of light, music and ideas.

I don’t claim to know what the ‘X’ in X Media Lab stands for, however if I had to guess then I would say it stands for a ‘high quality experience’. Personally, I think the ‘X’ is all about ‘crossing’ everything possible – crossing skills, crossing the T’s, crossing your comfort zones, crossing people and mediums, crossing your learnings potential, crossing ideas and global locations, crossing time and challenges etc. Some people describe it as an ‘X’ factor!

The Lab is what this is all about. At all times the focus is on you and your ideas. You may be challenged and steered into new ways of thinking – but the sole aim is to actively help you define and achieve your goals to accelerate your commercial success. You can nominate your project for the lab here: http://www.xmedialab.com/project-application
There is a good chance that I will put myself out of business by saying this, however if you are unable to afford the services of a strategy type person (like myself) to help you with your business, then you must participate.

“..Being part of X|Media|Lab is like winning the startup lottery. Having one to one sessions with some of the biggest minds in the industry gave us invaluable strategic insights that have helped shape our business thinking both now and in the future. Since X|Media|Lab our online creative community, The Loop has grown beyond our wildest expectations..”
– Pip Jamieson (@theloopoz), Director at The Loop, Sydney

“..The XMedia crew always source an incredible array of speakers from all around the world – diverse, inspiring and, even better, surprising.  The format of the event – very short speeches – culls any dross, so the speakers are always ‘too the point’ and impactful.  Its a great way to meet and source talented folks you want to work with in the future (from a range of disciplines) and we’ve certainly made use of the opportunity on several occasions“.
– Marshall Heald (@marshallheald), Head of Online & Content Distribution at SBS, Sydney

The emphasis of this upcoming event is on practical world-class solutions: what works, what doesn’t, and what you should be planning for this year and beyond. It is not a one-way flow of information – the program is designed to enable you to connect personally with thought leaders, mentors and potential business partners, handpicked from around the world – including Silicon Valley, Shanghai, London, Hollywood, New York, Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore.

It is an intense information download and relationship building event for communicators in the digital age. There is no filler, no pitching and no panel – just solid, actionable content that you can take away and apply to your business or organisation immediately.

If you go, you will learn how to take your business to international markets. You will learn how to apply learning from cutting-edge case studies of what’s happening now in creative ideas and innovation in media and technologies – including: mobile, social, gamication, location based services, branding and immersive environments, augmented and virtual realities.

If your role is any of the following, you should place it on your to do list muy rapido: Games Designers and Developers, Mobile Services, Web and Social Media Professionals, Creatives, Brand Specialists, Marketers, Technology Wizards, Investors, Media Analysts and Strategists.

View an Executive Summary video of last year’s ‘Global Media Ideas’ event here: http://vimeo.com/14931406

Levi’s Innovation Intercepts Cycle Culture

How to cycle in your favourite denim?

G’damn it I’m so impressed with Levi’s that I would consider breaking up with the trashy Swede (Dr Denin) or at the very least have an affair with Levi’s.

The weird thing about this is not that I consider my relationships with brands as though I am dating them (or having an affair), it is more weird that I am not in the Levi’s bulls eye target (a cycle-freak) for this type of innovation and yet I am compelled to want Levi’s new commuter range.

Dating analogy aside, I confess I am attracted to Levi’s now because they recognised their problem and dug deep to find and work with experts who helped with this innovation. Moreover (and overall) I truly love how this innovation promotes the sustainable-and-culturally-rich-lifestyle of cycling, which I believe should be adopted en masse globally.

Levi’s developed a proprietary nanopsphere treatment for their denim in the Commuter Line. This keeps them stain-free and you’ll have to work extra hard to make them smell. What this means is more wears and less washes. They also chose a lighter-weight fabric with a special weave to give it a little stretch.

A Prolly roundtable discussion with Levi’s on their cycling line: “The jeans also include a zipper stash pocket, an integrated U-lock holster, 3M lining on the cuff, a gusseted crotch and a higher-cut back. The jacket has back vents, 3 jersey pockets, a scooped tail, and reinforced accordion sleeves. Let’s just say they covered all the bases and while denim might not be a traditional material for cycling-related apparel, these jackets are a huge improvement over riding in the standard jackets.”

My SourceTrain: My Twitter Stream via @HighSnobiety and images and content ProllyIsNotProbably.

The lowdown on apps [infographic]

Online MBA created an interesting infographic that explores how these millions of tiny programs filter our world, and why there are so many of them being developed.

Of interest to me:

APPLE DENIED: 37,466 apps are no longer available for download by Apple.

PUBLISHERS: 42,403 publishers of apps (averaging 4 apps per publisher).

Facebook Privacy and Bucks for Bytes – The Under 13’s Guide

Nephews, nieces and cousins under 13 years of age who want to be your facebook friend!

ATT: Everyone

The above image is courtesy of Matt McKeon. If you visit the blog you can see Matt’s cool visual interactive interpretation of the evolution of privacy on facebook (2005 to 2010).

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THE PROBLEM – Private or public information?

This is a hot topic at the moment. It reaches a vast array of common social and business issues. And it also carries a heavy undercurrent of personal and universal themes.

The content on my facebook page is populated by hundreds of facebook friends which means I cannot monitor everything that is posted (unless I sit there and monitor it 24/7).

What do you do when a 13-year-old nephew sends a facebook friend request? It can be anyone you classify as under-age in your selective world (a relative under 13, a colleague’s child) whom sends you a facebook friend request.

There are good reasons be exclusive and say no – or ignore the friend request. And there are as many reasons to be inclusive and say yes – accept the friend request. The problem is both options do not offer a satisfying solution.

Have a think about it for a second. Imagine saying no and then imagine how you would deal with it down the line. Then imagine saying yes and dealing with it down the line.

At the crux of this issue are several things for example: internet censorship and taking responsibility for the content, taking responsibility for the audience and taking responsibility for the messages in your personal digital space.

Digital Content. Audience. Messages.

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THE SOLUTION – Change the settings

I confronted this problem a few years ago and decided to say yes to the friend request from my 13 year old nephew. And then very quickly interrogated my facebook privacy settings and figured out how to select who can and can’t access areas of my facebook profile.

Once the new settings were activated I tested it out.

First, I advised my nephew’s mother that I had accepted her son’s friend request and granted very limited access to the content on my facebook page. She was relieved and thanked me profusely.

From there it has been much easier to understand where my digital borders start and end. It has also been possible to move them as and when needed. From this point I decided to play and tweak every facebook privacy  – on, off, up, down. I followed this up with testing the result with different friends and associates.

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THE LEARNING – Control your space

Before this happened I had an ignorant viewpoint on internet censorship, and now I firmly believe parents are responsible for what their kids do on computers in their own home. And uncles and aunts (or adult relatives) also share this responsibility to a degree.

This article is not about internet censorship, or family values, nor is it an instruction booklet on how you should raise your kids. And I am not going to engage in any conversation about these things online.

This article is about giving consideration toward facebook as a the common denominator amongst the majority of people online. And acknowledging facebook has opened its ‘walled garden’ and made almost everything that was once private, public. Whether this is good or bad is not the issue. What you can do about it is the point.

Take control of your digital space.

Analogically imagine your photo album and personal items available on your front lawn for everyone to see. Conceptually, fifteen minutes of fame will soon be ‘fifteen minutes of privacy’.

You don’t have to take notice of this if you don’t want, however most people will need to learn how to manage their own personal digital space. You will need to start thinking about how to manage your unprotected data, how to lock and unlock things online. And you will need to figure out where are your digital borders and how much does it cost to manage your bytes.

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THE BUSINESS – “Bucks for bytes” – IDC Analyze the Future

Courtesy of IDC (via Sean Kelly) you can take a look into the future of the digital universe.

“..In 2009 the world spent nearly $4 trillion on stuff to manage our digital universe. As this spending grows from now to 2020, the cost of managing each byte will drop steadily too, which is an incentive to create more information…”.

Here are a couple of graphs to help visualise all this stuff – Figure 8 and 9.

According to IDC, some tools we will see more of include:

• Migration to cloud services
• End user self service
• Sophisticated data centres
• Bottle necks in real time processing
• Manage-more-with-less stress

Manage this stress better than competitors and you will have the advantage.

Written by Mitesh Solanki