The Next HOT Digital Trend

The next HOT Digital Trend will be “WEARABLE”. From the reading I have lately, they all identify that Wearables of some kind will be the next HOT Trend.  Let me not disagree with so many experts but add two more wearables to their list (their list being Google Glass and Apple Watch): Nymi and Cicret bracelet. Most of us have heard of Nymi, Nymi is a secure, wearable authenticator that increases both convenience and security through continuous, biometrically authenticated, proximity-based access control. The Cicret Bracelet have not reach that critical noise in the market, it’s still crowd funding but check it out on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J7GpVQCfms). You won’t be surprise why I am so excited about “WEARABL”, especially when you combine the Nymi, Cicret and incorporate Apple Pay with it, you’ll have the ultimate wearable and that just the tip of the iceberg.

SMD101 - 2 - Infographic

WEARABLE include such things as headset, gloves, earplug and so on. Given all this excitement how will a marketer take advantage and get ahead of the curve and how would Wearables influence the way we do business. Well for one thing, they are wearable meaning their real estate in turn of display and/or broadcast will be limited (to maintain a level of privacy). The other thing you don’t want to carry a twelve volts car battery wherever you go, or better still wear a solar blanket so you can keep all your “WEARABLE” fully charge. In short (and I mean that ferociously) we need our content to be brief, be quick and concise.  Content that do not take up real estate or consume large amount of power but offer precise sight, sound and feel (what Amy Webb refer to as Haptics) to our audience. Content that are three dimensional and hit all or most of our senses and surround us all at once. Think about being in a bakery and smell the fragrant of the butter croissant in the oven feel the warm, crisp and flakiness of the croissant and taste the buttery in your mouth. It’s a complete experience that envelope you and engage all your senses.

SMD101- InfographicIn order to keep track of such technology, you can spend the four hundred dollar US for an Apple Watch and two hundred and fifty for a Cicret Bracelet. But that is hardly a realistic way to keep track of all the technology and latest and greatest. A far more practical way is through “content curation”, yes you can use content curation to find interesting article to retweet. But the same technology can use to filter out and let you look at what are the emerging technology and what is trending at the time. Of course most free version allow a very narrow choice of subject to curate but some allow more than one and you just need to fine tune those keywords and filter down on what you need.

Content Curation site such as scoop.it are a very good choice, not only do they offer a better range of topics to curate they also offer a daily/weekly summary of the result. So in fact you can have a daily report of what is trending in digital technology. In order to leverage such tool time management become key. You just need to set aside a certain amount of time to go through the filter content to classified and organize them as to “read now”, “read later” and “nice to know”. Yes we all have limited of a twenty-four day no more no less and there is why allotting a set amount of time and made it a ritual become an important part of the strategy. You can allot those time segment on a daily bases or on a weekly bases, it is a personal choice. For me I allot them on a weekly bases simply because why technology are evolving faster than ever before, it still take time to build the trend. It is far more advantage to not only watch the breakthrough but also on the uptake and fall out. So if you step back a little and let the pundit have their say and then decide if this is something you really need to focus on or simply file it under junk.

Bibliography:

Web. 2 Dec. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/advertising/digital-media-trends-2015-trends>.

“5 Cool Digital Trends in 2015 for All Social Media Marketers.” Experience Management Blog 5 Cool Digital Trends for 2015 That All Social Media Marketers Should Know About Comments. 9 Jan. 2015. Web. 5 Dec. 2015. <https://www.sprinklr.com/social-scale-blog/digital-trends-2015/>.

“Nymi – Your Everyday Simplified.” Nymi Home Comments. Web. 4 Dec. 2015. <https://www.nymi.com/>.

“The Cicret Bracelet: Like a Tablet…but on Your Skin. (www.cicret.com).” YouTube. YouTube. Web. 4 Dec. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J7GpVQCfms>.

“SXSW 2015 Digital Trends Session by Amy Webb.” SXSW 2015 Digital Trends Session by Amy Webb. Web. 2 Dec. 2015. <http://www.slideshare.net/webbmedia/sxsw-2015-digital-trends-session-by-amy-webb>.

 

Privacy versus Transparency an Oxymoron

It is kind of an oxymoron to talk about privacy and transparency in the same breathe, but for non-profit and government this is exactly the dilemma they faces.  On the one hand they have to be transparent in what they do, in order to solicit support or contribution. On the other hand they need to be sensitive to the privacy of their stakeholders.  A balance act that is constantly changing as technology become more intrusive and cost of privacy keep going up. At the same time it is without a doubt a great time to be transparent there is no shortage of way to communicate, broadcast, advertise your message and internet and social media had just made it all the simpler.

Let examine each thought one at a time, and let take a look at transparency first. For non-profit and government it is not a matter of how but more a matter of what. Let me elaborate, one way to be transparent is to communicate with your stakeholders, and to do so you can achieve the result through the internet by your website.  You can also communicate your message through social media and with social media there is no shortage of tools/method to choose from, from Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more to choose from. So it is often not how you communicate but what you communicate. This is where an organization like government especially need to be judicial on contents. To be transparent they need to communicate their vision, their process, their business are fair and about reproach. This is where procedures and processes should be publish and accessible to the public. Such information should stand up to public scrutiny so any future dealing will have a clear and concise process to follow and stand up to challenge from the public.

A lot of time both non-profit and government face a lot of heat from their stakeholder around their financial dealing. It is paramount such dealing should be clear and concise, especially for non-profit organization. Some years back before social media, I recall a newspaper article exposed most of the charity organization spend up to 80% and more of their funding on fund raising effort and the amount actual end up for their causes is less than 20%. Guess what that will do to your fundraising effort!

venn1
Fig 1 Framework for assessing Transparency

Now a day, information are more pervasive and stakeholder and public can easily get those information via the internet, charity need to be much more forthright in putting the funding towards their causes. While I am not advocating for folks that work for charity should be volunteer but those salary should not be the dominant portion of your budget.

Now what about privacy, being transparency does not necessary undermine privacy. Again with internet nowadays one could snoop out information easily. A lot of time information that are not secure can be hack in (ethical or not).  Whereas government and non-profit needs to be transparent in their dealing and operation the need to protect privacy had never been greater.  Where you need to be open about where non-profit funding go, the contribution and individual contributor must remain a secret (unless of course the donor seek that recognition). Otherwise donor list and their personal information must be guarded and protected at all cost.

For government it needed to guard the personal information of it citizen and protect them from unscrupulous people. Who can use the person information to impersonate your citizen and commit atrocity somewhere else, or rob your citizen blind of their hard earn procession?

To do this both organization needs to place in check and balance against accessing such individual data. However, being transparent can allow the access of an aggregated persona, such persona are extremely important in crafting policy and create media campaign for funding.

It’s also wise such aggregated information can be and should be kept separately. With advance of technology it’s easy to partition your database and secure the personal side with encryption and a careful controlled list of access personal and procedures in place.

For non-profit mining contributors and donors information is a potential gold mine, but mining these data should be done in a very control process so the actual donor information will not be exposed. But carefully group into distinct donor list so the organization can tailor and target their campaign at a later date.  Such donor list and access to them should be tightly control  and should always leverage existing technology and lessen the number of people directly involve in handling such list.

Healthspending
Fig 2. Transparency Vs Privacy

Well Transparency and Privacy need not be an oxymoron or have one outweigh the other. The important things is to develop a well publish easy to understand steps to handle the process and procedures. So to allow maximum amount of transparency in day to day operation, while maintaining the privacy of all stakeholder involve.

 

 

Sources

Fig1

Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Web. 23 Nov. 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2011/07/12/transparency-social-media-is-forcing-you-to-tell-the-truth/>.

Fig2

“Boydneil.com – Blog.” Boydneil.com – Blog. Web. 23 Nov. 2015. <http://www.boydneil.com/blog/tag/privacy?currentPage=7>.

“Research.” Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Web. 23 Nov. 2015. <https://www.priv.gc.ca/information/por-rop/2013/por_2013_01_e.asp>.

 

Some (Free) Social Media Tools

There are a lot of social media tools out there, a lot of those are professional paid tools such as Hootsuite and Salesforce, but in a crunch there are a few “free” tools that can help provide a quick snap shot in the social media arena. A few of them like SocialBakers, Iconosquare and Topsy can provide a quick insight to how a brand is trending and allow marketer to do finite adjustment or react to the current situation.

Just to illustrate the point we have pick Tim Hortons, Starbucks and McDonald as our guinea pig and see what we can find if we our client is Tim Hortons.  Just remember this are free tools so the data are so what limited in range and capabilities.

In SocialBakers we compare the Facebook activities between our three subjects and the result is rather unremarkable. So in the world of Facebook “All quiet on the western front”. For that no action needed at this time.

socialbaker

 

Then we look at Iconosquare and again look at the result, we can see Starbuck is way out in front. Then again there is no surprise here, Starbuck have 900 media far exceed McDonald and Tim Hortons and from that sense our advise will be up the number of media posts to close the gap.

 

Finally, we look at the tweets with Topsy we can see a spike on November 9 and if we examine the event closer the spike related to the roll out of Starbuck’s generic looking Christmas cup. The spike are short lived and will have limited impact in overall sales in the long run. But for short terms it did generate a lot of buzz for Starbucks, but for Tim Hortons no action will be needed at this time.

 

 

 

SMD102 Infographics

SMD102 Infographic

 

 

Bibliography

“12 Must-Know Stats About Social Media, Fundraising, and Cause Awareness.” Nonprofit Tech for Good. 22 Apr. 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

“15 Must-Know Fundraising and Social Media Stats.” Nonprofit Tech for Good. 25 Jan. 2015. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

“15 Powerful Nonprofit Statistics for 2015.” Capterra Blog 15 Powerful Nonprofit Statistics for 2015 Comments. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

Ali, Syed Norman. “The Best Social Media Campaigns by Brands [VIDEOS].” Social Media Today. 1 Aug. 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

“Create Easy Infographics, Reports, Presentations | Piktochart.” Piktochart Infographics. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

MacLaughlin, Steve. “Your Search Results For: 50 Fascinating Non-profit Statistics.” 50 Fascinating Non-profit Statistics.  NpENGAGE. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

Mickoleit, Arthur. “Social Media Use by Governments.” OECD Working Papers on Public Governance No. 26. OECD Publishing. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

“The Best and Worst Brands on Social Media in 2014 – Digiday.” Digiday. 11 Dec. 2014. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

“Topic: Social Networks.” Www.statista.com. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.

SMD105 Meme

Meme is so easily define but yet so hard to achieve, otherwise we all be genius and marketing guru. The following is my attempt at it.

 

meme3-Frankenwiennie 3

 

To support my position, it have kid and dog that usually peak some interest. It’s to some extend humorous or satirical.  It’s easy to relate, it does have appeal and it got a ring of truth to it. So will this be the next meme?

 

 

 

 

meme2-Garden CatHow about this one? It’s certainly have a cat in it, and lord’s know there is enough cat people to made it viral. But did it have the universal appeal? Is it disruptive enough? Does it have the satirical humor that carry it through? All this and just in time for Halloween, if only I have a Black Cat!!

However, one more interesting fact, the kid was shot in China and the cat n Ireland. So it does have an international favor to it. Uh!

As for why meme like grumpy cat are popular? There is a symbiotic relationship exist between pets and human and it come down to two camps the dog people and the cat people. Dog usually are view as part of the family who stay loyal and true to their master. Whereas cat always have that aloofness that goes the other way around, that human are subservient to cat. It’s that attitude that somehow grumpy cat project.

ae94a854a699f029e05e93ffc6ced203
pics from: www.dragonmount.com

For all intense purpose grumpy cat could be a very nice friendly cat, but the picture project that aloofness that better then human attitude that is so easily identify by the masses. Grumpy Cat is a meme because it’s universal, it had a certain accepted truth to it, it appeal to the cat people, it also appeal to the dog people (because of that aloofness). Grumpy Cat had that distinct look to be difference, yet it project that familiar tone that human associate or attribute to cat. But ultimately the true test is the uptake by ordinary folks out there. There are no shortage of cat photos out there making it meme still remain a mystery.

 

SMD105 Online image editing

There are many online photo editor and most of them are quite good with extensive amount of tools, but when it come to adding text to photos especially on android you can only edit or add text there really isn’t a tool that will do both. So here are some of the finding:

Start with mobile (android) Paper Artist the result as follow:

Paper Artist using Epic on and added a frame and text

PaperArtist_2015-10-21_16-02-48
Paper Artist: turn Epic on and added a frame and text

 

For normal online editor there are Flickr

Flickr 22254875595_c28b1b5a5c_z
Flickr: added contrast, sharpness and text

with Flickr – added contrast, sharpness and text

 

 

 

 

 

 

InfanView:

with InfanView added frame, 3D effect and rain drop + text

DSC02455-IrfanView
InfanView: add frame, 3D effect and rain drop and text

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picasa:

with Picasa added Lomo-ish, highlight and text

DSC02702-Picasa3
Picasa : Lomo-ish, highlight and text

 

 

SMD101 Is Meerkat par se

 

Is live streaming in Meerkat dead, did Twitter torpedo video streaming with Meerkat. Is there life after Periscope for Meerkat? Can user still use Meerkat to watch and share video with their friends? I will attempt to summarize my brief impression into the future of Meerkat with the following slide show. Hope you enjoy it

http://ow.ly/Tymg7

 

 

SMD105 Composition

Composition: use of cell phone photo editor for the following

Normally you would not use photo editor on your phone to edit picture, you lose the nuance on the photo a larger screen could provide. It also hard to do a side by side before and after comparison. But for all it’s worth I find the best software and easier to use was Snapseed follow by Google’s photos. The adjustment below just demonstrate you can do it whether the photos need them are debatable.

Google Photoshop

Before

 

After:

 

 

 

 

Snapseed:

Before:

After:

 

VSCO:

Before:

 

After:

 

SMD104 WordPress theme and CSS

Original:

pic1
Change Theme to: Twenty Fifteen

 

 

 

New Theme with css changes

Change Theme to: Clearsky
Added the following:

pic2

h2 style=”color: blue; margin-left: 30px; text-decoration: underline; font: italic bold;”>Test Post /h2
ul
li>this is a list /li>
li>toaster /li>
li>bread /li>
li>jam /li>
li>peanut butter /li>
li>bagel /li>
ul
Edit the following:
strong>Social Media /strong>
mark> u>I am not surprise /u> /mark>

 

Change Theme to: Hueman

pic3

Added the following:
h3 style=”background-color: yellow; font-size: 50px; font-family: Courier New;”>Test Post /h3>
ol style=”list-style-type: lower-alpha;”>
li>this is a list /li>
li>toaster /li>
li>bread /li>
li>jam /li>
li>peanut butter /li>
< li>bagel /li>
/ol>
span style=”background: orange; font: underline; color: red;”>With the amount of information may be the message /span>

span style=”font-size: 60px;”>Does that means we should stop twitting or use Facebook? Not a chance there are those among us who are more proficient with the tools for /span>

 

 

Change Theme to: techblogger

pic4

Added the following:

add class
div class=”bigChange”>I am not surprise …. /div>
css change:

/*
.bigChange {
background:orange;
font:underline;
color:red;
font-size:30px;
} */

SMD105 Terms of Use

  1. Find three stock image resources, review their terms of use, and tell me how to apply these terms in the following scenarios:
  • Use of images in commercial setting
  • Use of images in concepts Use of images for personal use

 

There is an article publish by Centennial College that cover the images and usage and summarize it very nicely. Updated on Sep 8, 2015 so it’s both up to date and relevant to Canadian Law.

 

http://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/copyrightandimages

http://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/content.php?pid=406649&sid=3329109

 

The following come from the website mention above:

  • Creative Commons2
    • “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.” (Publisher website)2
  • Creative Commons Canada2
  • Wikimedia Commons2
  • Flickr Commons2
    • Photographic images from public archives such as the Smithsonian Institution, National Archives UK, US National Archives, Cornell U Library, Center for Jewish History NYC, Jewish Women’s Association, Brooklyn Museum, Library of Congress, etc.
    • “To review the explicit rights statement for any image, click on the relevant link under ‘Participating Institutions’ or on the ‘No known copyright restrictions’ link associated with the image in the Commons. ” (Publisher website) 2
  • Yale Digital Content2
    • “Provides images and other content to Yale collections in art, natural history, books, and maps, as well as photos, audio, and video… Some images are public domain, others are copyright protected. Any content that needs log-in/authentication is not considered openly available…Users are responsible for determining copyright status of materials they wish to use.” (Publisher website) 2
  • OnOntario.ca2
  • Google Advanced Image Search2
  • Getty Images2
    • Images used must be licensed and paid for (Each image costs approx. $25 – $600+ depending on image size/resolution). “Our extensive image and stock illustration offering spans everything from conceptual rights-managed and royalty-free creative images to up-to-the-minute editorial coverage – including news, sport and celebrity photos – and timeless vintage photography.” (Publisher website) 2

 

Just to name a few

All information above come from website: http://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/content.php?pid=406649&sid=3329109

 

 

 

  1. Find information about image use in Canada and tell me what you would recommend for a client that wants to:
  • Use a rights managed image on their website or social media
  • Repost or use something found on social media (i.e. Instagram)

 

New Copyright Act came into force on November 7, 2012, according to http://capic.org/copyright-laws/

In which by default the “first owners” are the folks who produce the photography or the art work. In another word by default the ownership is automatically granted to the photographer. There can be licencing arrangement and agreement in terms of use and so on.1

 

Of course institution retain the right to us those imaginary for educational purpose. However, in Quebec that right does not exist and educational institute still require to negotiate or pay for use.

 

Photographer/Artist who want to protect their work from even the institution use can apply a protective digital lock (TPM* system) on their work1

 

*TPM: “Technical Protection Measures”
 Protection measures restricting access to work published on a website or digital media. For instance, the website or support owner may require that the user log in using an access code or a username and password combination, or click on an “I agree” button following the terms and conditions clearly describing the content use restrictions. These types of protection measures are frequent for software sold on DVD or online.1 (http://capic.org/copyright-laws/)

 

In Canada it’s illegal to use other people works even in the context of social media.

 

 

  1. Tell me three “don’t dos” when developing a marketing program on:

Facebook

Do read and understand the “Terms of Use”

Do read and understand the Privacy setting

Do think before you post

 

Don’t post anything you will regret later

Don’t ignore content and copyright

Don’t ignore FB Data Policy

 

Twitter

Do have a secure password

Do have a gatekeeper on what you posted

Do respect others right to privacy

 

Don’t ignore your rights

Don’t ignore content right and use of service

Don’t ignore copyright laws

 

Instagram:

Do apply common sense

Do own or have licence to use the materials you posted.

Do take responsibility for anything you posted

 

Don’t download material that does not belong to you or have the owner’s consent

Don’t post stuff that are not in good taste.

Don’t post stuff that are inappropriate, such as nudity or sexually suggestive photos.

 

Citations:

1 “Copyright Law.” Copyright Law. The Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <The Canadian Association of professional image creators>.

2“WEBSITE SOURCES FOR IMAGES.” Copyright & Educational Use of Images (photos, Charts, Etc.). Centennial College, 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <http://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/content.php?pid=406649&sid=3329109>.

 

“Data Policy.” Data Policy. Facebook. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy>.

 

“Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.” Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/update>.

 

“Terms of Use.” Terms of Use. Instagram, 19 Jan. 2013. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <https://instagram.com/about/legal/terms/before-january-19-2013/>.

 

“Twitter Terms of Service.” Twitter Terms of Service. Twitter. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <https://twitter.com/tos?lang=en>.