Calm Mediacentre

Here are a few sayings we have seen or heard recently:

“Learning is not compulsory…neither is survival.” – W. Edwards Deming

“Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity.” – Michael Porter

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton

“My Memory Lane is full of potholes” – Bill Austin

“It is like trying to lasso a wave” – Declan Metcalfe

GOOD BRIEF = BETTER WORK

A brief is the most important piece of information issued by a client to an agency. It’s from the brief that everything else flows. Therefore it’s essential that every effort be taken to prepare the best possible documentation of what is required.

It’s in the nature of creative thinkers that giving them the tightest of parameters will often stimulate the most inventive of responses – and 79% of clients and agencies agreed that: “It is difficult to produce good creative work without a good brief”. Im sure the Calm creative team wholeheartedly agree!

The client brief can be considered the platform for a communications campaign. The better a company’s corporate or brand position is defined and the more thoughtfully its key business issues are described, the more likely it is that strategic and creative thinkers in agencies will be able to apply their specialist skills to produce great solutions.

“The whole idea is to stimulate the creative imagination, not to restrict it. Ultimately you are buying creative ideas. Procurement people can sometimes write briefs as though they were buying copper piping or paperclips. But selling is an art. It’s more like briefing an architect. We need agencies to feel inspired so they can do their best work.”

© IP for this article is fully reserved by ISBAthe IPA, MCCA and PRCA, who have co-authored and produced the above.

I found this on David Meerman Scott’s blog and thought hurrah! its about time too…

“The Local Government Association (LGA), an association of English and Welsh local authorities representing over 50 million people, has told local government officials to ditch meaningless jargon. According to an article in The Telegraph , the LGA has sent a list to Town Halls of 100 words and phrases that should be avoided. The list includes “empowerment,” “synergies,” “revenue stream,” “sustainable communities,” and “stakeholders”.”

Pehaps this means they will stop “next generation communications with flexible, robust terminologies, around  world-class, scalable, cutting-edge, mission-critical, market-leading, industry-standard, turnkey, and groundbreaking offering” to their stakeholders and service-users?

I was at a digital conference recently when a conversation broke out between a presenter and a member of the audience about accessing content from the websites they are interested in keeping up to date with.

The guy in question mentioned that he hadn’t physically visited some websites in over 18 months as he accesses the content he wants when he wants it through his RSS reader. It made me ask myself the question “is there a fundamental shift in the way people are accessing web content”…I guess I already know the answer to this just by looking at my own reading habits. It did however reinforce to me just how important really content is.

In my experience, from talking about websites in both a personal and a business context, many of the conversations (certainly with clients) are weighted towards the ‘look and feel’ – colours, navigation, and image style etc…basically the form, not the function. If the answer to my question is what I think it is, such a focus on form is becoming a dangerous game to play. Of course a website must be presented in a way that is relevant for its audience but looking good just isn’t enough anymore.

Don’t get me wrong I love using the web, experiencing all the good, bad and sometimes very indifferent ways some site authors present their information and allow users to interact with their websites. However, due to an increasing number of sites and decreasing available time, website owners should be aware that I, and many others, have been drawn in recent months to begin picking and choosing the sites that I actually physically visit.

In the same vein, this also applies to the barrage of content from email newsletters that I get sent each day promoting all manner of things, some of which I have chosen to receive, some of which I haven’t (I don’t have the money to invest in a Nigerian Mine, and I already have a watch so don’t need a new Ralex or Rolax). When I subscribe or sign up to something I am happy, and expect to, receive content from that source, but not from a raft of other content sources targeting me with ‘once in a lifetime opportunities’ or ‘extra special offers’…the stuff I didn’t sign up for!

So, although the conversation at the event initially seemed strange I asked myself how long it would be before I am just like ‘that guy’ accessing ALL my favourite content through selected, targeted, and incorruptible RSS feeds.  They provide me not only with text content, but now with accompanying links to other rich media such as related images and multimedia content. Just what I need….the content I want, when I want it.

The answer for me is not soon enough. Although, there are some sites that I like to visit that have not embraced RSS to allow its regular users to be updated when fresh content is available…come on guys catch up because chances are your users will be way ahead of you!…

Hilarious - The Calm Asylum’s favourite man on the net…

Known as The Poetic Prophet AKA the SEO Rapper AKA M0Serious, he’s created raps covering conversion closing, search, links, design code and more.