A month ago TV producers and digital creative agency types gathered in Bristol for Channel 4's #Fuel4 UXxSW event, along with a handful of invited audience members, one from each of C4's viewer segments…  Facebook fatigued indie DJ 'Gadget Crowd' archetype, Karlie Pea, was planted with some of Channel 4's mutiplatform production partners as each table in the room and their respective audience persona was tasked with coming with a new concept for Channel 4.  I was on Karlie's table.  As we got to know her by quizzing her likes and dislikes it emerged that in between second screening activities during Hollyoaks, as an industrious creative herself, Karlie knits iPhone cases.  Someone jokingly said, 'Keep warm this winter with Channel 4' and this smartphone winter warmer was born. 

Where will it go from here?  Perhaps a seasonal C4 ident, maybe a cult fashion accessory for connected TV types or could it even spark a trend in knitwear for robots?  Whilst not the groundbreaking TV concept that our table collectively came up with (that would be telling), it's a lovely unexpected output of the #Fuel4 mission and an example of organic creativity that smartphones can wear with pride! (let me know if you'd like the knitting pattern)

Thanks Karlie, thanks Channel 4 Online.

Work recently asked to write a price for the monthly newsletter, which happend to coincide with the launch work we were doing for the new Jag F-Type.  A great excuse to wax lyrical and bedazzle folk with my techno-hack dexterity I thought!  I'm now regularly asked, "So what will you be doing to give us all a smoother ride today huh, Chris?"  Here's why...

Cogent View: Digital Insider – Chris Thompson

We have all become digital animals. Our personalities extend in microwaves and fibre-optics. As a race we are networked together more profoundly, more synchronously and arguably more harmoniously than any of us could have imagined prior to the digital age. Over two billion people are online, that’s the majority of the developed world. The result is mass hyper-consciousness. Our collective emotional state ebbs and flows as the value of our newfound globalised social media currency washes over broken economies with the gluttonous immediacy of ‘digital’, moderated only by our willingness to partake and the burgeoning socio-economic gap that is the digital divide.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, British Telecom former Chief Technical Officer, Peter Cochrane, recently prophesied that if the UK did not significantly increase investment in the infrastructure to support cloud based computing, our economy will fall much further behind. Like Peter, I firmly believe that that gap between rich and poor will be defined by connectivity (or lack of it). This is why I get up in the morning. This is why I come to work. And this is why I work in advertising as a Creative Technologist, a native digital animal, slave to technology and the idea that driven by creativity it can engage everyone, embrace new markets and develop new opportunity.

I guess the reasons many of us do what we do date back to our childhood. For me, my calling…

Consumer empowerment for Facebookers (if you are one you have to try this!).

http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/08/wolframalpha-personal-analytics-for-facebook/

As we mature, get over our privacy issues and realise we can trade with our personal data, consumer empowerment will grow to become the next big thing.  Its a matter of time before a brand produces something like this in order to 'protect' its customers. I'd hedge my bets on Experian being first to market with it in the UK… or perhaps Barclays!

What are they playing at?  A cyber pundit on Radio 4 this morning claimed that virus based cyber-weapons don't kill anyone.  Well perhaps not in cold blood but if the Stuxnet virus, targeted at Microsoft and Siemens enterprise software platforms (allegedly used by Iran in uranium production facilities), inadvertently spread and took down any part of Irans presumably already shambolic state infrastructure what is the end effect?  It would surly manifest in local economic instability, potentially disrupting any efforts at controlled welfare distribution, perhaps preventing regular workers getting paid and almost certainly staggering the regions growth.  All of that has a direct effect on innocent civilians, drives poverty and inevitably causes death.  And that's terrorism. 

Siemens systems are used the world over.  Are we expected to believe that Stuxnet was restricted in its viral capacity, to software developed by Siemens for specific Iranian uranium producing companies?  If so then perhaps the Obama Oil Company might be better speaking directly to the board and key shareholders of Siemens... or are they perhaps one in the same?   This affair stinks.  The US administrations' release of Stuxnet is at best an irresponsible and naive approach to covertly applying economic sanctions and at worst a weapon of mass destruction. 

http://textsfromhillary.tumblr.com/

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/47009939/ns/today-today_tech/t/clinton-embraces-texts-hillary-web-parody/

http://www.sadanduseless.com/2012/04/texts-from-my-dog/

Samsung are offering bloggers from all over the world a once in a lifetime opportunity to be an ambassador blogger in London during the Olympic Games. Bloggers will be able to share their personal experience of the London 2012 Olympic Games and the different cultures that make up the city; capture the 'taste of London' uncovering the best the city has to offer; and to broadcast their experiences to the world on the specially created Samsung blog www.samsungglobalblogger.com.

If you would like to take part, you’ll need to record a 30 second video stating why you should be picked to come to London and submit it online at www.samsungglobalblogger.com. Entries will be accepted from March 30^ththrough to the 22nd April.

British chef, Jamie Oliver, is part of the Samsung Global Blogger campaign. As a lover of food and flavours he has recorded a video which will explain why he feels London is the greatest city in the world and why you should apply to take part and experience the unique ‘taste of London’ for yourself. You can watch the video on the Samsung Global Blogger website here.

Perhaps with an upgrade and my Google account will just plug into them...

Beware Marketeers, US Citizens Want Liberty Online:

Demographically targeted, location based, contextually relevant direct marketing surly hits the campaign budget to conversion ratio target smack bang in the middle, creating a super-satisfied brand ambassador of a consumer t'boot. Whilst that may be the aim of many a marketing initiative new research from Washington DC's Pew Internet & American Life project suggests the opposite.

"Even though online Americans are more satisfied than ever with the performance of search engines, strong majorities have negative views of personalised search results and targeted ads", says Pew's Search Engine Use 2012 report.

It seems nobody wants to be pigeon holed or have their desires second guessed, everybody wants serendipity back. Discovery is the consumers right, a human right. So, think again marketeers, before you target and re-target or you could find yourselves on the hook, not only damaging your brands value when your were supposed to be building it but for indirectly infringing human rights - and folk have be hung for less!!