Make your messages stick

Clunk click every trip! You've been Tangoed... A quick Google will throw out many more memorable phrases, mostly, but not all used in advertising.If you're pitching or presenting, trying to galvanise an audience to support you or at least sit up and listen then a cool strap line or message is a must. When I pitched the startup weekend I chose 'one big beautiful map' as my line and I got the audience to repeat it back to me. It worked, I got chosen to form a team for the weekend and a great bunch of people got on board.

So how to create a great message?

I love the idea put forward by Martin Turner Chart (Communications micro-strategies, chartered Handbook, CIPR 2015. Chapter 11) he suggests you use the acronym:ICE COLD 
Based on Advertising Standards Authority research 2002 Messages Should be:

• Informative - people like to hear and act on things that make them more informed
• Clever - people act and like messages that are clever in an entertaining sense
• Enter popular culture -  messages that enter daily use multiply their effectiveness (daily use – clunk click)

Chart adds to this:

• Crisp -  eye takes in 18 letters in one go, the ear is attuned to rhythmic phrases
• Obviously true -  the message should not need explanation or defence
• Linger in the mind -  memorable
• Decisive -  they lead the audience to complete the outcome

Three clear messages in the pitch are the max that people can take in.
I like this because it encourages creativity and allows me to create something memorable and easily repeated. Don't forget clunk click every trip, the future is orange and you can Google it!

Where are the future creatives? And what are we doing about it?

Only 1% of people on the internet are creators!

Creative tools past

Its an odd paradox that in an age where we have the most powerful creative tools in our hands most of us use them to do passive tasks. At best we might take a selfie, add a filter and post it in the ether. That is the endless stream of social media. yes we might well look back nostalgically at our efforts. But I suggest there are less and less people able and willing to make a living out of creating. Why is this?

First of all I guess the notion of jobs like photographer, artist, poet, writer, musician. Considered the creative roles appear diluted by digital technology and means of distribution. When I was a teenager if you wanted to take a photograph (my obsession back then), you had to and first save up for a decent camera. Mine was a Zenit E, followed by Canon AE and many more. Also the accessories as you gradually learned the trade of using different lenses for different reasons and flash in the dark etc. If you were a fanatic like me, you but a darkroom with a Durst enlarger. Struggled to create a space of total blackout where you could develop and enlarge your masterpieces. I was told that good print could last a 100 years or more. I wonder what digital archives will be around in 100 years?

Ingrained in that crazy slow learning curve was a desire to capture images that endured and pleased others. And master the techniques of presenting them. To exhibit was to bare your soul. The great and good came from far and wide to see, and if you were lucky purchase your efforts. You would number them to make them even more desirable. Oddly I've noticed a resurgence of people using film recently that might one day return to this situation. But I doubt it.

Like music and writing, the art of photography died with the digital camera. Music struggles on but the means of distribution have rendered earning a living as a musician almost impossible. Art is the last bastion. Struggling in its own way to stand out in the crowded space where social sharing and advertising increasingly co-exist. One in 11 jobs or 8.8 per cent of all UK jobs now falls within the creative economy, and one in six of all UK graduate jobs are also creative economy positions. This is seen as good, but as work opportunities decline and the traditional notion of work disappears with the coming AI revolution. The percentage is going to have to be a lot bigger! 

http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/media/286867/cic_jobs_update2015.pdf 

Part of developing and autonomous, think on your feet, adaptable workforce is going to be all about stimulating and encouraging creative skills beyond the odd selfie. 

My self with Prisma - 5 mins of effort!

But how? 

At the moment our education system and every other facet of society pushes people towards the traditional view of 9-5 treadmill jobs. The new breed of hamsters, apart from a small minority, seem happy to follow. Disruption is happening in many aspects of society, bitcoin, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, AI, autonomous vehicles. But not in traditional education. According to many commentators it kills creativity. This is something we need to tackle quickly. Or we will hive our future creatives to mindless silos nose to the grind wheel.

The solution is opening things up, yes even schools and colleges. Oh the risks I hear you scream. But as long as we keep closed systems, closed institutions and closed thinking, we will not stimulate the 'autonomy economy' of future creatives. 

My vision is that the best things happen when strange worlds meet. Co working hubs around the world are demonstrating this almost daily. what we need is to do this earlier, faster and cheaper to enable worlds to collide more often. Creative hubs, freely available to all are the answer. When I was a kid the library was my education, but they are no where  near cool enough anymore. We need spaces that are the epitome of wow. Designed to attract and throw together the cleverest minds of all ages and social strata. No government will support this as this kind of autonomy terrifies them. It is for our generation, those who know how to make stuff, to provide them for the future. 

Some light is starting to appear, we have hubs coming out of our ears in Exeter and conferences too. The problem is they are disparate and not in the centre. There is no one centrally placed Loci, I propose a quiet takeover and I have a target place! Watch this space...

Cool Brittania - not anymore it isn't

Everyone's going to Brexit! 

Everywhere I go since Brexit I hear people discussing their desire to leave Britain. this is particularly evident among young people. I was in my favourite coffee shop and as always earwigging conversation. The young and interested who would have or voted remain are discussing Brexit. Not in the way you might imagine. Far from the infighting, xenophobia of politics.  They are discussing the exciting opportunities and sense of cool offered by big European cities. 

The primary target of this discussion is Berlin, itself the target of unrest lately due to gentrification. The young and the interested are rebelling. Cool Britannia, a tardy phrase coined by Blair and his cronies. When they'd finally, all too late woken up to the value of our creative industries, is dead in the water. Despite the best efforts of our film, music and creative arts industries worth £10 million an hour to the UK.  Britain is about to leech it's best creative minds. Selfish class ridden UK will become a desert wasteland of disaffected youth. Because those with the skills and abilities will realise that Shoreditch isn't it. Just take a tour of any major European city and you will sense the confidence of youth. Not for them the hang ups of class barriers for start ups. Not for them the labels of immigrant if you attempt to put yourself forward. Its a badge of honour to be well read, well dressed and entrepreneurial in the most happening cities in Europe. 

Check out wired magazine's hottest 100 startups and you will see the diversity of ideas and experience. It may be the baby boomers that built stuff, but it is generation Z who are using the tools to greatest effect. 

 It will be generation K who will be the test of Britain's ability to retain a skilled   society. Able to compete as independent individuals against the best in Europe. Douglas McWilliams 'Flat White Economy' describes how skilled immigrants saved London from going under in the last recession. Now Brexit has done it's worst, who will save London and the UK in the next one? The talented immigrants will leave, chased out by xenophobia and hatred. The skilled and independent generation K's from the UK will flee in their droves. I for one will mourn the loss of both. The creative youth that make our society so special. And the brilliant migrants I've met who've enriched my life and the life of our cities so much. Cool is elsewhere, just take a look at football, clothing, bikes, music, clubs, film, science, design and art if you don't agree! 

Digital Exeter made me think! Laura Rose Guest Blog

Digital Exeter Makes you think!

Last Thursday week  the brilliant Laura Rose and I went along to the fledgling Digital Exeter meeting. The meeting was well attended and all the speakers were fun and thought provoking. Laura views such events as a sand pit for learning and applying tactics and she has kindly shared her thoughts below.

My focus is always on the development and social science aspects of meet ups and what will happen next – there’s a separate blog coming on that one.

Laura Rose - What I learnt at Digital Exeter

From the RAMM museum presentation I learnt that you've got to really segment your audiences and have clear objectives about what you want to achieve with them from the very start. It was unclear whether encouraging footfall to see the physical museum collection or getting people to engage with the museum about their archive collection were RAMM's primary objectives. You could see the danger of trying to target too many audiences with the same homepage and structure.

From copy dojo

 I'd learnt about clever things you can do when copywriting to engage your audience from using calls to active language. But I questioned the notion of 'social proof' and the evidence behind it. I think there is a real difference between a company saying "I have millions of users" and somebody who I socially identify with, like a friend, recommending a company or brand as an intermediary or brand advocate.

From Jasper at Borders

 I learnt about the changing world of in digital app development and just how many are dead to users after the initial download. We discussed the difference between generating content for an app, or any other digital platform, and using apps and digital platforms for distributing messages about that content, and the clash of that this can create between editorial and advertising teams within companies that have an app of their own.

What I will do

I'll consider tailored landing pages on WordPress websites to target a specific audience and repurposed content on the website for that audience and focus on their user needs.           

I will also think carefully about the role that apps and other digital platforms play within whole digital strategy to keep users re-engaging with our app or organisation.

I'll also be keeping an eye out for developments in push notifications to see whether we can make them smarter to target our audiences at the times they want information from us not when we want to give it out! 

Thanks Laura! 

Next time I'll be talking about forming communities, what the recipe is and why you can't force form one. Cheers,Joe