w00t

How technology is influencing the English language is evident in Merriam-Webster's 2007 world of the year; 'w00t'. Coined by gamers and used similarly to the expression 'yay'. link to article
What is your nomination for 2007's word of the year?

A pool of interestingness

2012: Stories From the Near Future, The New Yorker Conference took place in May this year a lot of topics were discussed; mobile technology, design, music intelligence, morality, gaming and so much more.

All were very interesting but Malcolm Gladwell's talk on Genius struck a cord. He talked about the importance of stubbornness and collaboration in the problem-solving process. Different types of genius and how long it takes to master any challenge.

Gladwell made a suggestion, that the complex problems of the modern world are more likely to be solved by collaborative intelligence than the lone genius.

It made me think about the changing canvas we in the creative industry are working with nowadays, social networking platforms, brand experience design and the changing cultural conscious.

The challenge of producing genius work requires more analysis, tenacity and collaboration than the lone genius of yesterday.

We need less specialist and more generalists, who embrace complexity, collaboration and change in their work style.

Check it out, it is a pool of interestingness archive of videos from the event.

Deeper Luxury

WWF have put together an interesting report titled Deeper Luxury (click to dowload the report) that helps brands understand the environmental and social impact of the luxury market.
It discusses the concept of sustainable luxury, who the new luxury consumer is, myths of the luxury market and the role/impact of celebrities endorsments.

Very interesting read.

Have blogs affected the way you communicate?

Via November issue of Glamour

H&M Virtual Dressing Room

H&M has created this dressing room for users to try their outfits online. The interesting thing about this is that you can make the model look like yourself before you try on the clothes.

Check it out at http://hm4.mvm.com/pages/hm/layout.html

Link via FutureLab.

Vocus on "Optimizing your Public Relations with Social Media"

Vocus has recently released a white paper on the need for embracing social media to enhance PR strategies.


Optimizing Your Public Relations with Social Media
A Guide to Blogs, Wikis, and Social Networks for PR Professionals

Introduction— The Emergence of Social Media

In September 2006, Hitwise, an online marketing research firm, reported that the majority of traffic to online music retailer, HMV.co.uk, was referred from MySpace, a social networking Web site. This traffic surpassed searches from two of the most popular search engines, MSN UK and Yahoo! UK. While connecting users with information and content was once defined by complicated search algorithms, MySpace’s impact indicated a profound shift in the structure of the Internet was on the horizon.

Today’s communication’s environment increasingly relies on content generated and distributed by users like you and me. This is the world of social media.

Evidence of the growth of social media is everywhere:

- In 2006, the Blogosphere had grown 100 times in three years, and accounted for 50 million blogs (Technorati, 2006).
- 57% of teens who use the Internet can be considered content producers in some way or another (Fox & Lenhart, 2006).
- More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use social networking sites (Lenhart & Madden, 2007).
- In April 2006, 35,000 new videos were being posted daily to YouTube and in February 2006, YouTube attracted 9 million visitors who viewed 176 million pages (Liedtke, 2006).
- Wikipedia consistently places in the top-10 results for Google searches on fortune-500 brand names (Fadner, 2006).


Download the complete report here. Enjoy the read.

With the increasing influence of social media, we should make a conscious effort to further integrate our brands' communications and PR strategies in the virtual world which has few boundaries.

Rents Eating into our salaries!

Bayt.com survey reveals that housing costs account for a third of personal expenses in the UAE and Qatar.

Over 8,500 respondents from across the region participated in the online survey, which was conducted by market research leader YouGovSiraj in association with Bayt.com, throughout September. The survey also examined the financial implications of utilities, car financing and company benefits. Across the region the research findings consistently show that housing expenses continue to make the largest dent in regional salaries.

If you would like to read the entire report, download it here.