"Over the next twelve weeks we're turning the West End into a giant gallery by lining the streets of Soho, Piccadilly, and Covent Garden with some of the world's most famous paintings.
Use the interactive map to find out which paintings are hanging where, and then why not check out one of our walking tours. Just pick the tour you want, print out the map, and if you've got an MP3 player, download the audio guide for the inside information on the paintings. "
Of course- participants of the tour are being encouraged to upload their pictures on flickr. Very cleaver to increase visibility for the Arts and of course for HP.
Wish i was traveling to London in the next twelve weeks!
From Chris Anderson's Long Tail blog a pointer to a new report from Bear Stearns that focuses on the 'long tail' of the entertainment industry, how technology is democratizing content creation, distribution and consumption and how media producers are addressing.
From the report some interesting stats on User Generated Content first: "User-Generated Content (UGC) Is Not a Fad . . . Some investors remain skeptical that UGC is more than a passing fad. However, in our recent online video survey, UGC is the No. 1 and No. 2 most popular content category among men aged 18-34 (M18-34) and among all respondents, respectively. Moreover, if we define UGC as page views only from sites such as Myspace.com, Facebook.com, Youtube.com, Wikipedia.org, Blogger.com, and Digg.com (which is quite conservative), we estimate that UGC now accounts for 13% of total U.S. Internet traffic, up from 0%-1% in 2004. Based on these statistics, we submit that UGC is here to stay."
Throughout the report there is a lot of information on the media producers themselves and how they are dealing with the explosion of video. The report has a focus on entertainment but with more and more 'news' outlets producing video some of the same issues and opportunities occur with business content which may include relevant video and audio information from business news sources, CEO interviews, executive speeches, shareholders meetings, and product reviews to name a few that would be of interest to corporate users.
From the report "apparent to us that as supply of video content rises, value will shift from content producers to aggregators and packagers of content that can best aid users in finding content that fits their specific interests".
Earlier this month when Dow Jones announced a partnership with PodZinger (now called EveryZing)to integrate audio and video content into Factiva products i was really excited exactly for that reason- adding metadata to that content set, providing context around video, audio and print is part of the value aggregators like Factiva provide.
I don't have ads on my blog-yet- but i was an early supporter of Ad placement on blog sites. Perhaps with a bit of my convincing our marketing department was even brave enough to join up with Federated Media (FM) to place ads on some sites that would hopefully drive business my way.
When i first heard about Federated Media, i was immediately impressed with the model- the blog authors (many that i already read) would have some sort of guidelines to follow and the hope would be that FM would monitor and make the recommendation on which blogs to place ads on based on the best fit- of content and audience. On the topic of Disclosure- i just had faith that the authors would disclose (once again most of the bloggers i read already do) and that the audience would know an Ad- is used to advertise products and services.
Of course in the last few days there has been a flurry of talk about FM's Microsoft People Ready campaign so wouldn't you believe it but today was the day i logged onto TechCrunch and saw the "Inform Collaborate and be Competitive with Dow Jones Solutions" Ad. Fun. i actually thought that TechCrunch was 'sold-out' for the next few months (at least that is what i was told) but maybe a slot opened up suddenly.....
Our campaign is fairly new (only started couple weeks ago) and i haven't gotten any leads yet. But I spoke to my excellent marketing contact back in Princeton last week and we are testing the copy and reworking it (i of course have some ideas- but it is all a matter of finding time to give them)
Oh yeah- DISCLOSURE- i currently work for Dow Jones Client Solutions and this post is to: 1) try to get me more business by having you click through on an Ad so you can contact me because 2) if you read those blogs that our Ads are appearing on and you are interested in information delivery in the enterprise or financial B2C sites i might enjoy talking to you ;-)
Of course- you can always just leave me a comment here if you want to talk-
Last night i signed up (had to use corporate e-mail address) and it seems that there are currently three active communities; Carbon Market, Oil Market and Midnight Trader- US Equities some with thousands of members already. They have a short flash movie that takes you through the site.
The introduction material states that this is a place for users to interact with the market and enables those users to get questions answered by the market and get market opinion. There are many other media players that are trying to build communities with their readers- but i really like what Reuters is doing here- it is NOT just about Reuters content, they are providing a place for people to participate add their own content above and beyond comments and tags that you typically see in media communities.
Of course distributing their own content is important and in addition to building these communities - it is yet another way for Reuters to spread and bring value to their brand name, for example, it even has easy access to subscribe to Reuters Newsletters on specific subjects built in.
All this behind a login that allows them to know the user base and target the service as it matures to the communities' needs. I would suspect that as large amounts of people from specific companies become members, premium services could be eventually activated through Reuters Interactive in some way (read the fees section in the terms of use).
The targeting of the communities-come on only if you are really really interested in the Carbon Market are you going to join- will hopefully lead to a very engaged community that produces high value to all its members. Well done-
As a member of a community (you need to be accepted as a member) you can create posts, add comments (also allows for anonymous comments), upload information like spreadsheets (but only spreadsheets) and create your own site that you can can manage and invite others to see.
On the top left of this post is an example of the resources available to each community- including of course Reuters branded content, industry information like key facts, and web content that includes top Internet blogs.
The big thing that really bugged me was that i could not easily find who the Community Managers are- it seems like they are Reuters Editors and market experts? but i would like that prominently displayed prior to making a decision if i wanted to be in that community. You can easily find the other members of the community- but understanding who is the Community Manager could be important.
Communities around markets and such have been around for a long time- think of all the forums, blogs etc that trade industries have but this is something a bit different- if it works it is a very specialized social networking community that allows all participants to create and collaborate on content.
Over all good stuff and i look forward to keeping an eye on the process they make.
ADDED POST PUBLISH- the other thing that kinda baffled me was one item in their terms of use statement, "by posting material you warrant that such material...was not produced by you in the course of your employment"- employment with the company whose e-mail i had to use as part of my subscription? not sure.
Oh yeah- if you are new reader to my blog please don't forget that : " The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my past,future or present employer".
Just came across this site tweetVOLUME that allows you to quickly create a comparison chart graph of word/phrase occurrences in Twitter. The sample i have included in this post present a graph of the amount of times some major newspapers are mentioned in Twitter. I am guessing that 'new york times' is popular because there are various new york times twitters, which although i believe were not created by NYTs are a great branding exercised.
Back in April, i blogged about another 'monitoring' service Twitterment that i thought was interesting and as services like Twitter among other continue to get traction companies/individuals are going to definitely be more interested in tracking what people are twittering about.
tweetVOLUME is quite simple and lacks some key features for real usability; like for example being able to drill down on the charts to see the underlying data, being able to join multiple terms (e.g. Wall Street Journal or WSJ) and it doesn't tell me what the time frames of the data is that i am looking at (last day, last month, forever?)- but overall a fun little tool.
Aside from just being fun, i do like the fact that it is a destination site that doesn't require logins or plugins and you can easily share your chart with a simple e-mail this chart feature which send out a contextual URL link.
Over the last few weeks i have started and stopped a handful of blog posts on user adoption of Web 2.0 in the enterprise. One is titled "Change Management 2.0" which is a term i have been using (yeah i know) and is focused on the new business processes that Web 2.0 technologies may bring into the enterprise. Over the years, i have worked with many large enterprise customers to implement, roll out and ensure adoption of information creation, distribution and consumption tools and of course now many different Web 2.0 tools are weaving themselves in.
I haven't finalized any of the Change Management 2.0 posts mostly because i constantly get distracted by all the other bloggers out there that are writing on similar subjects. So instead i thought it would be fun to create an Office 2.0 Comic Strip, that pokes a bit of fun on both sides of the Change Management process- management and employees.
So i present to you the first episode of the Office 2.0 comic strip (view full size from below and be patient my pages are large and take a while to load). In the episode the office manager is asking his head IT person for help to bring the office into a Web 2.0 world. Hope you enjoy it- come back for episode two if you do.
I am using a great new tool called Scrapblog that is built on Adobe Flex. i have been playing around with Scrapblog over the last few weeks (for example including being a good promoting band wife-i switch the dates and venues with a couple clicks and it updates in all the places the scrapblog is embedded).
I love the power it gives users to create a high quality digital content experience- Any tool that empowers the end user to create content is a good tool. If it also frees them to become creative beyond their technical means it becomes a great tool.
The Mashable site has posted a great overview of RSS tools. I figured i would post it here so i can refer to it myself as needed.
The only thing that i think is missing (well at least based on my current interests) is a listing of RSS Enterprise server solutions that vendors like Attensa, KnowNow and Newsgator have.
For the last few weeks people have been talking about Google PowerPoint Viewer in Gmail and this morning it seems to have gone live. Many times when i am on the road, i send my slide decks to my Gmail account for easy access at the client site (i used to use my memory stick for that purpose). Sometimes, for example if you are on a loaner client laptop or in the training room (or your client doesn't use Microsoft products!) it can be a hassle to have to install software or transfer the PPT to another format. Well thanks to Google this is no longer an issue.
I will definitely use the Slideshow view to take a client through a slide deck but after testing it this morning i still think they need to enhance it, for example transitions within slides are lost and sometimes in the slide decks i use (well the exciting ones!) that is essential. I would also like to see some of the functionality i posted about with Google's acquisition of GapMinder into their Slideshow/presentation tools in order to create dynamic and compelling slidedecks quickly.
Nathan Gilliatt author of The Net-Savy Executive Blog, a business blog focusing on social media, online reputation management, and market intelligence for business leaders just posted a good packaged OPMLof Bloggers associated with social media analysis companies. I along with a couple of my Factiva/Dow Jones colleagues managed to make the list due to one of the Dow Jones products that does media analysis. i also post often on Social Media topics.
Thanks Nathan- this is very useful for those of us that like to keep an eye on what all the media analysis companies are discussing and the OPML saves us all from multiple subscriptions and searches to find them all.
Nathan also recently published a Guide to Social Media Analysis after 5 months of gathering information on companies who monitor, measure and analyze social media for businesses worldwide. I haven't had the chance to read it myself but it includes information on over 31 vendors.
At last week's SLA conference, Dow Jones sponsored and conducted a couple of Tech Zone sessions covering topics like Podcasting, the use of Captivate to create eLearning tools and sold-out sessions on Blogs, Wikis, RSS, and Other Cool Stuff Within SharePoint 2007.
One of the sessions i attended was the SharePoint 2007 session that Mike Fry and Thomas Dopko from Dow Jones conducted. After the session, Christy Conley from Sedna services was kind enough to talk to me about her company's current use of SharePoint for collaboration and new product development. One of the new features of SharePoint 07 that she was the most excited about was the KPI functionality (Key Performance Indicators).
Tech Zone session SharePoint 2007- Slide Deck is also available at SlideShare:
here are some of my notes from the session:
During the session i attended, half the room was already using SP03 and the other half of the room didn't have any version of SP in production at their companies- but most attendees were already 'playing' with SP 2007 .
With SP 2007 Microsoft is now describing SP as an ECM (Enterprise Content Management) system – which includes: Document Management Services (DMS) Record Management Services (RMS) Forms Management (FM) Web Content Management (WCM) – example: Ford.com is managed through SharePoint- that is how they do their web content posting
What’s new – Highlights for SP 2007 **Wikis- **Blogs ***Mobile Access (with the correct rights to go through)-Example - meeting take aways from their meeting can be submitted to their site via mobile and then if others on the team are assigned that will get alerted. Translation Management Library Report Library – Slide Library Survey- with conditional survey (if this then go to that) Project Task- gnat views of charts **KPI Lists- Key Performance Indicators a lot of out-of-the box web parts that will make visual graphs out of the data. Excel Services Records Management Forms Server Knowledge/Networking – finding SMEs- expert locator Audiences- can create a group and then publish content to the group- so the web part get pushed to anyone that has that profile. Previous version was more one user assignment at a time. Audiences simply that for not only administrators but for site owners
Workflows – help 2007 be a CMS systems- can be applied to docs, libraries etc.. Can use SharePoint Designer to create custom ones. ***RSS- every list or library is RSS enabled- also a RSS reader that is built into SP 2007 ***E-mail integration- tied to email distribution lists and you can post from e-mail. Business Intelligence- Recycle Bin- can recover docs, sites, etc. Navigation can now be fixed through web interface where before it had to be created via Front Page.
Permissions can be managed even at the document level. Assign workflows at the document level as well.
anything that gets away from a secondary click to open a document is good and SP 07 seems to encourage the use the web interface as much as possible.
There were a couple of these SharePoint sessions and some i hear went better then others (technology issues with keeping the class together etc.) but overall everyone i spoke to that attended any of the Tech Zones not only enjoyed themselves but also learned a bit about how to leverage technology in the library/information center. Good job to Mike and Thomas!
In my attempt to make new friends at SLA i have setup a couple of blog alerts (google, technorati and have a bookmarked a search (they don't seem to have alerts yet) on Zuula thanks to Debbie Weil's pointer.
One of the posts i just read that i thought was interesting was a press release posted on Noticias tech on a new survey report from LexisNexis on "Information Professionals Use of Web 2.0 and Knowledge Management to Add Value to Their Organizations". Since they put the press release out advertising the survey, I will go visit the LexisNexis booth to see if they are distributing copies of this report. Survey Methodology is explained in the press release but out of 1,500 LN customers they pinged- 107 responded- so we are not talking about a huge response rate. Only Information Professionals as defined by the Special Libraries Association were asked to participate and those are defined as "someone who strategically uses information in his/her job to advance the mission of the organization".
Although i giggled when the survey described it as Weblogs (do we still use that term?)- according to their survey, nearly four in ten access Weblogs at least weekly (39%).
A quick search (i couldn't find any 2007 data) tells me that the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that in January 2006 Internet users read someone else’s online journal, web log or blog - 39%. An Internet user is defined as anyone who has “ever done” an online activity.
Maybe this is daniela sitting in the Silicon valley echo chamber speaking- but if information professional are tasked to "advance the mission of the organization"- shouldn't they be more engaged in the blogsphere then the typical Internet user?
I am heading out to Denver first thing Sunday morning for the annual SLA (Special Library Association) Conference . Dow Jones/Factiva is a huge sponsor of the conference and i always enjoy attending because a lot of the clients i work with have librarians that attend. I am also looking forward to seeing some of my east coast clients that i miss!
I have a MLIS (Master of Library & Information Science) and although i do not consider myself a 'librarian' i do align my professional self with the profession especially in the corporate space since much of the work i have done in the last 8 years revolves around information delivery in the enterprise.
I monitor a good handful of librarian blogs (see list below) and have always thought that librarians make great bloggers. I posted the Hugh MacLeod**** drawing above because i thinks that librarians do have the passion and authority to be great bloggers!
For the last few years the conference has been very well covered by attending bloggers. I will do what i can to help the situation this year.
****If you a Hugh MacLeod fan and a blogging librarian and you happen to read this post, i have an extra signed calendar from when i recently met Hugh at a Blogging Dinner. Be the first to find me in the booth and it is yours to frame. Here is when i am scheduled to be at the Dow Jones Booth: Sunday 11am-1pm, Monday 3-5pm, Tuesday 10-12:30pm and this is what i look like.
Some other 'library' blogs i monitor include (feel free to add more in the comments):
Via Eric Kintz's blog a pointer to the London National Gallery's very cool The Grand Tour that is going on for the next twelve weeks. HP(did the reproductions) and many others are making this possible. I am not sure if this is something the National Gallery has done before?
