Monthly Archives: January 2011

Trend spotting 2011

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Mickey Rogers| Leave a comment

I came across a slide presentation from JWT Intelligence, an advertising and marketing company (see it at the end of this post).

I love hearing about trends for the future as I always see business opportunities for us in the media.

The emphasis on mobile is huge.

JWT is predicting that mhealth – the mobile health apps business – will be valued at $60 billion by 2015. The company also says mobile blogging will take off making it easier to be an amateur journalist.

As newspapers begin to disappear, entrepreneurial journalism will take its place.

There’s the Tow-Knight Centre for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York. JWT sees the Oprah Winfrey Network as one to watch, and highlights the fact that the Producers’ Guild of America officially recognized the category of transmedia producers last year.

JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011

View more presentations from JWTIntelligence.

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Surrender and control

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Mickey Rogers| Leave a comment

I went to see Brian Eno speak the other night. You remember him from Roxy Music, U2 and Cold Play. He has a show 77 Million Paintings at the Glenbow Museum.

Brian spoke about his evolution from an art school grad to a musician.

What attracted him initially was the work of Terry Riley who composed a piece in C with 53 bars. The artist establishes the parameters and musicians played numerous instruments according to their whims or wishes. So each time the piece was heard it was a totally different experience.

Eno spoke about how we’ve gone from a society where control is the dominant trait of our culture to one where many can contribute and exchange ideas.

With his show of 77 Million Paintings, an immersive installation that mixes sight and sound, he says that people come to the show in a bit of a hurry to see the piece. However, the light projecting the various bits and pieces moves very slowly. After a while, people begin to relax and some stay in the rooms watching the paintings slowly change and move for hours. He maintains that people surrender to the art and its slowness, something that we don’t often get a chance to do. For most of us, surrender occurs during sex, drugs, religion and art.

He suggests we are on a continuum between control and surrender and that surrendering is something we need to learn – much like a surfer – riding the wave one minute, and controlling your movements the next.

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See your goals and aim higher

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Mickey Rogers| 2 Comments

How are those resolutions working for you?

This is about the time that all those good intentions begin to fall by the wayside. The resolve to clean my desk everyday gets buried, along with all the papers, reports and files.

But we do have a reprieve.

It’s Ukrainian New Year’s Day today so you get a second chance. (And of course you get another chance at Chinese New Year). So I’m looking for ways to help us keep firm on our resolves for the New Year.

As part of another resolution, I’m starting my own self-study on the brain.

Mark Murphy, author of Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be, maintains there is neurologic research that suggests our goals may not be challenging enough. He says “Tough goals force us to pay attention.”

John Medina, a brain researcher at University of Washington and author of Brain Rules, says, “The more the brain pays attention to a given stimulus the more elaborately the information will be encoded.”

In other words, by having harder goal where we have to learn, our brain gets stretched and the neurons start amping up.

Our brains pay close attention with images or visuals of what we want. We’ve known for years that a picture is worth a thousand words. It even has its own name – Pictorial Superiority Effect or PSE. Images trump words every time.

Tests performed years ago showed that people could remember more than 2,500 pictures with at least 90 percent accuracy several days post-exposure, even though subjects saw each picture for about 10 seconds.

So post that picture or image where you could see it everyday to help you towards your goal.

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What’s your word for the New Year?

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Mickey Rogers| 11 Comments

What’s your word for the New Year?

Have you thought of one word that will be your guide for 2011?

In my discussions with people so far, there seems to be some popular ones that have caught people’s imaginations.

Ship, Festive, Joy, Authenticity

“Ship” is a big one. These people say the word “ship” with a keen sense of determination in their eyes. They’re getting their products out of their imaginations and into the hands of their customers. Marketing guru Seth Godin says ‘You need to ship constantly. Ship lousy stuff but ship.”

“Authenticity” is another one that made its way onto people’s favourites – the quality or condition of being trustworthy, or genuine. How honest and true to yourself will you be this year? Can you afford not to be?

“Joy” is also many people’s watch-word – of making sure that you feel totally engaged in the work you are doing.

“Festive” is the word that came to me for this year – perhaps it was the champagne and the dancing around the bonfire!

When I looked up the etymology for festive, it has the same root as feast, a wonderful image for the New Year. The year is laid out for a feast with all the elements of a great meal – rich and substantial; risky and traditional.

I’m going to take part in the feast of all the opportunities this year is presenting – the new ways of reaching audiences, the innovations in technology and celebrate it.

What’s your word for the New Year?

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Posted in Inspirational