Exploring the emotions again

(WORLD) We’re pleased to announce our little insights pro-bono project for 2009 investigating the emotional response to the web from young people aged 13-19 (The Web Makes Me Feel) is back.

This year we have a couple of partners who will be making it bigger and better (this year the aim is to get responses from 2,000 young people) :

• Core Education—NZ-based not-for-profit educational research and development based organisation with an international reputation for support and promotion of the use of new technologies for learning across all education and training sectors.
• BCSE—UK-based leading charity in education, design and construction. As an independent body, acts as a forum for exchange, dialogue and advocacy for anyone interested in learning environments.
• Cardiff Business School—ranked 4th in the UK for the quality of its research, placing it amongst the elite of business and management schools (will be writing the report).

If you would like to get involved and help distribute the postcards in the coming months to groups of young people then please contact (if you’re based in the UK) @ianfordham and (if you’re based in NZ) @coreeducation.

Related page : TWMMF Project page

Free-launched

(WORLD) Remember that little publication we wrote and published at the beginning of the year? You know, the one which was free for the first three months and then available to purchase as a pdf or real book…

Well it's now free again.

All 26 juicy chapters.

Start with the index or jump straight into the intro if you like.

So why are we making it free again? Well, a couple of reasons:

• we’re referencing the chapter headings and themes in the book more and more in our work and blog posts—makes sense to be able to link directly to them
• we want other people to use and link to the knowledge for their own use—obviously
• we sold more copies when it was free—who knew?!?!?

If you like it feel free to buy a pdf / hard copy.

Look out America

(WORLD) This September I’ll be embarking on a month-long tour of North America with good friends and esteemed practitioners Christian Long and Ewan McIntosh.

The Be Curious Tour 2010 aims to explore digital and social media use with a cross sector group of (curiousity-driven) clients, fields and projects.

Our current location stops are NYC, Boston, Montreal, Chicago, Denver/Boulder, Bozeman, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego (see below):

Not only will I get to revisit and visit some amazing cities across North America, develop and deliver some social/digital media-related goodness but also work with two fantastic gentlemen who simply impress me every time I speak to them.

Life’s too short not to do stuff like this.

Hop on over to the Be Curious Tour 2010 website and sign up for our updates—in doing so you’ll get a free PDF copy of Zen and the Heart of Social Media.

And finally, if you’re interested in having us visit to deliver some speaking, masterclasses, training, consulting, meet-ups etc then please check out our services page for more information.

Ewan’s blog post announcment

Newbie post

(World) As a new addition to the MediaSnackers family, I thought it’s time I keep you updated and let you know what i’ve been up to…

My first challenge as a Social Media Ninja in training was making time to play (‘learning by stealth’ #zathosm) which has meant exploring the application of many new (to me at least) platforms and networks both for personal and professional use.

My second quest was to spread the good word about the MediaSnackers projects and gigs, and actively encourage new and past clients to take up our delicious menu of social media solutions.

I start the day by plugging into the social media matrix, agregating all my updates and insights via my Reader, to browse different industry (and random) blogs; collaborate on docs; maintain several twitter accounts with juicy links (and random stuff); document activity with cloud CRM Highrise; whilst always expanding the professional network via Linkedin.

My days have mainly involved talking to a number of different and interesting people and organisations. There is definitely a timely understanding that upskilling professionals to effectively use and utilise new media is certainly an important area for all businesses.

Working with the MediaSnackers team has already been an awesome education and experience. Launching the new sister company Social Media For Suits has been exciting and I’m definately looking forward to doing more kick-ass gigs in the future!

I will keep you posted….

The youth olympics

(WORLD) The MediaSnackers podcast focusses on individuals, organisations or companies who are simply impressing us and which are crying out for more discussion.

Julian Lim is the Head of New Media for the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games (the first ever youth olympic games).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

0.00—0.40 intro
0.33—1.42 the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games and the Cultural Education Programme
1.43—2.19 what role does social media play in the preparations
2.20—5.03 what have they been doing : Facebook fan page, Twitter, YouTube channel, Flickr and WhyOhGee plus the Million Deeds Challenge
5.04—6.07 specific uses of the platforms
6.08—7.33 user generated content from the attendees and participants
7.34—8.08 opportunities vs challenges
8.09—11.29 future and legacy creation
11.30—11.43 outro

Subscribe directly through iTunes by clicking on this icon (download iTunes for free here).

Not using iTunes? Then just copy / paste this feed and drop it into your aggregating software.

Want to suggest someone or put your virtual hand-up to be interviewed? Then get in touch here.

Devour our other podcasts.

(more…)

A little observation

(WORLD) Think about the busiest places you know…

I bet there are all intersections of some description : train stations, town centres, concert halls, motorways etc.

Same for social media : iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, Skype etc

If you're looking to create traffic then think about creating intersections not destinations.

Which is why Google wins and Yahoo won't with its new $85 million ad campaign :

Starting the journey

(ENG) Yesterday MediaSnackers started our eleven day consulting tenure with Thurrock Youth and Connexions Service.

Our first task was a mammoth day of information gathering to orientate ourself with current operations, strategy and policy considerations plus levels of digital literacies with the staff (amongst many other things)—all with the view of developing a package of social media training and project ideas.

Check out the photos from the day below:

Related post : Thurrock Youth Service

MediaSnackers Consulting