Illustrating the inter-web

It's no secret,  like most people I prefer information to data.  In turn that means I appreciate clever manipulation of data into visually attractive and easily digestible information. One of my big forecasts for 2011 is seeing more and more effort made to turn the abundant information being constantly generated all around us into useful, engaging content.

So here's a nice visualisation of the interconnectivity of  the blogosphere I found last week whilst poking around some data mining sites having found this nice round up of 50 examples of interesting data visualisation.

The BBC regularly update this nice representation of the top 100 websites (based on Nielsen data).  I could have posted a big spreadsheet screen grab, but this makes it clear just at a glance.  It's easy to get too obsessed with the detail, but it's not always helpful.

Super-share me

A Yin and Yang post.

The first because it made me laugh, (and cringe), because I do still see far too many "I want a viral" type requests, and anyone that knows me passably well, knows that   "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A VIRAL" is a soap box I will shout off ad infinitum. "A viral": Noun. No no no no no.  Interesting, relevant content can be transmitted virally (adverb) but that's it.  So bear this image in mind from a very from a fab collection of ad industry insightful mickey-takes.

 But, granted, given that the un-enlightened masses with limited knowledge of the parts of speech still insist on using "viral" as a term for good content that has resonated and found broad reach, here's a grab (find the interactive version here) from Unruly Media's Viral Spiral charting the increase in sharing and reach of the big, popular pieces of video content 2006 to 2010.

Having seen such rapid rise in broadband penetration over the last 4 years, and with it the pain removed from video streaming; and, the rise of social sharing platforms like Facebook and Twitter the growth in numbers is hardly surprising.  You can compare and contrast someone else's view of the big hitters of 2010 from a brand perspective here.  It's always useful to have these stakes in the ground to refer back to in what I was amused to see referred to as internet archaeology last week. Err, did you mean history?

So for my own internet / digital time capsule purposes alone, here's a look at the web in 2010 in numbers. No doubt I'll be tickling that one with a mouse, or gingerly touching a screen in a year or so, whilst digging for stats.

Facebook stats to start 2011

With my Facebook email address all signed up, rumours of IPO this spring, and global members approaching the 600m mark all being balanced out  with"social media reaching maturity" type posts springing up all over the place, it felt appropriate to share this infographic from online schools that makes all that connection & sharing etc slightly more human. Or if multi-media is more your thing and you can spare a minute or so to get a grasp of scale based on what happens on Facebook in a minute check out the video below.

Socially speaking...

It's hard to go to a meeting these days without someone spouting on about social media, and frequently much to my despair, without much understanding of the difference between understanding behaviour and motivations for socially oriented behaviour as opposed to just treating it as a channel.

Get with the programme people.

Question your own behaviour and apply the principles to sense check stuff before you come out with the dull ideas with no purpose or reason to interact with them!  I read a good post earlier entitled using v being social.  Worth a read.

In many ways social media is like a new baby - no instruction manual  included (albeit I am a huge fan of the Haynes baby manual as a gift) .

That said, there are organisations out there that are beginning to get the hang of behaving appropriately in the space or at least make attempts to set some guidelines as to how to do it, which is a good starting point. I found an interesting collection for thought starters here.

Enjoy.

Lessons to be learned

I'm seeing a lot of attempts to formulate processes and frameworks for approaching the socially networked, constantly connected world, which is quite entertaining given the increasing personalisation of our "news" channels, where we all define what we consider to be important.  Putting structures around the organic seems counter-intuitive but adopting a pattern based planning approach can help facilitate sharing of best practice and create a means of achieving relevance and scale, which like it or not, will continue to be important to big organisations even if their definitions of scale inevitably have to shift.

That said, it could also end up in horribly formulaic and predictable, innovation and creativity-killing disasters.

Beware.

With that sentiment in mind, here's a great parody video of an ad agency industry award entry video made by a Canadian agency with a great sense of humour and acute insight.  Made all the more hilarious for me because I re-launched My Little Pony when I was working for Hasbro in the late 90s. Had we lived in a constantly connected world, so much of this could so easily have been reality.  Enjoy.

It's life Jim, but not as we knew it: The world as we start 2011...

I liked this clear, simple articulation of the bigger context we all live in.  Well worth 2 minutes of your time to flick through and then 5 minutes to ponder upon where you personally fit it to it and the consequences for your brand or business in the bigger picture.

The 11 themes of the Zeitgeist for 2011

View more presentations from rossdawson.

LEGO: Open ended creativity

I used to work with The LEGO Company, I still have friends that do. Somehow I'll never be able to write LEGO in anything but capital letters (as it should be) ever again. They were fun times on so many levels and only those who have experienced night after night on business trips to LEGO HQ in the Hotel LEGOLAND bar in Billund, Denmark (complete with full sized LEGO man "playing" one of those magic electric grand pianos) will ever really understand quite how far the definition of fun can be stretched.  You know who you are ;-)

Quirky but endlessly creative company that they are, there is no denying that their products inspire young minds across the world to go on and use the product in a myriad of creative ways. Doing the rounds on Twitter this week has been a meme of the "12 coolest LEGO music videos", which shows you some uses for LEGO that I bet you didn't see on Christmas Day as boxes were ripped apart scattering small bricks everywhere for you to stand on later :-)

 There's a rich selection to cater for a wide range of music tastes if you follow the link above , but I'll offer you one here and now: