Earlier this year, we caught up for a social with the charming Andy Ellwood, Director of Business Development for Gowalla, a location-based social media group. For more info about Andy, click here. In this clip, we asked Andy what trait he thought linked all successful people. His response covered drive, persistence, and finding ways to inspire other people to come on your journey with you. The first step in achieving success is setting the bar. By deciding upon what your goals are, you have something concrete to aim for, and a direction in which to work. Once your goals are set, the perseverance and persistence to keep working to that goal in spite of any setbacks is enormously important. Andy discusses his tactic of working on people who say no. He suggests that, rather than being discouraged and giving up, you should simply find a way to rephrase the request. Maybe you haven’t hit upon your audience’s specific motivations. Perhaps you weren’t able to adequately describe ‘what’s in it for them’. And always be clear about your own motivations when dealing with others, as it will make you seem more open and trustworthy. As well as persistence, you have to be willing to put in the hard yards. In our instant-celebrity society, we are often sold the myth that we can get what we want without working for it. But there are no such things as “Get rich quick” schemes. Being willing to work hard towards a goal is the difference between someone with a good idea, and someone who is successful. Again, persistence is key here, as the hard yards are called ‘hard’ for a reason. Finally, while professional life coaches can be a useful tool, it is just as important to coach and mentor yourself. When caught up in your goals and dreams, it is easy to overlook the fact that maybe you could be working more efficiently. By being your own biggest critic, and looking upon your work from an outsider’s perspective, you may be able to find ways to improve. Being able to self-assess and correct will see you progress and grow much faster than if you wait for that feedback from others. The pursuit and drive for success is something that is in all of us. Even if your goals are relatively small, by applying the same processes that the big boys use will see you achieve those goals in record time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IAOBosHprc
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Rubel, executive VP for Global Strategy and Insights with Edelman. Edelman is a global public relations firm, well known for being on the forefront of technological change. Click here for more info on Steve and Edelman. In these two clips, Steve talks about how the leading public relations firms will adapt to the new media environment, and gives us an example of a successful campaign. As discussed in Steve’s previous videos, the democratisation of media voices has meant that PR firms can no longer rely on traditional media to reach a majority of people. Digital media and social media are reaching increasing numbers of eyes and ears. These new media are inherently more targeted, meaning more precision in that message delivery, with the flipside being a smaller audience share. In order to flourish in this more diverse and noisy environment, PR companies have to coordinate their efforts on multiple fronts. This means that a traditional media advertisement could be reinforced by small, targeted social media programs, which in turn are covered and linked to by articles in the new digital media. This lattice of supporting media efforts leaves the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. Steve refers to this broad based PR effort as “public engagement”, as it aims to come at people from several different angles, and because through its use of social media it invites user feedback. An example of a successful public engagement campaign was GE’s Eco Imagination. This was not a traditional advertising campaign, in that it didn’t particularly feature GE’s products or services. Rather, the campaign sought to position GE’s brand as a green company, more in line with public sentiment. It achieved this through a combination of traditional media advertising, such as billboards and television spots, through digital media promotion such as environment and business blogs, and prolific social media programs across facebook, twitter, tumblr, flickr and YouTube. The varied approaches used in the Eco Imagination campaign reinforced one another, building a fully fleshed out branding where none had existed before. And, of course, at the end of the day this campaign has produced indirect marketing for GE through exposure to the brand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG8BncuUFEg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92_ilPz0kxM
If you have time on the evening of wednesday the 14th, come over to the HWP Headquarters for an evening with four great speakers, free drinks and networking! We’re doing a pilot for our presenter showreel, and we’ve got four amazing speakers lined up:
Mo Fox
Mo Fox is a true hybrid thinker; an accomplished artist with a corporate background in advertising and strategy who consults, speaks, writes and trains in the area of applied creative thinking Mo is talking about the importance of ambivalence in thinking.
Kim Seeling Smith
With over 25 years of business experience in both large corporates and small to medium sized companies (including 3 of my own), I bring a combination of practical / commercial experience to the myriad of tools and certifications I’ve gained having trained as a speaker, trainer and coach. Kim will be speaking about five ways to get better at hiring people.
Nigel Collin
As founder and CEO of ‘Thinkativity’ Nigel has spent most of his working life helping organizations find ideas that drive growth, outpace competition and ultimately boost profits. Nigel’s presentation is about creativity in business.
Adette Rosenbach
KnowledgeCore is led by Adette Rosenbach, marketing and business development specialist with over 2 decades experience. Adette implements business development, customer relationship and marketing strategies for services and professional services businesses. Adette’s presentations is about Crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is the biggest paradigm shift in innovation since the industrial revolution, and so will look at how firms are using the crowd to redefine their business models. Whether it’s in R&D, HR (managing the talent), Marketing and Promotions, Inventory management or Design. The key is that crowds don’t solve problems people do, and businesses are made-up of people, how do we harness this when technology has stepped in and become such a game changer.
It’s going to be a cracker!
So pop by tonight for what promises to be a pretty amazing evening with top class speakers, free drinks and great networking. We’d love to see you there!
Earlier this year, Hunting With Pixels caught up with Shay David from Kaltura on the New York leg of our epic interviewing spree. Kaltura are a leading open-source video platform, helping business and educational clients deliver top quality video solutions. In part five of this interview series, Shay talks about open source as a social phenomenon among participants, and how this impacts upon businesses that employ it. Within a traditional software company, such as Microsoft, most employees view their work as a job, a business interest. Shay compares this to an open source company such as Linux, and suggests that people who participate in creating open products are far more motivated by their passion than fiscal reward. By asking the question “What do people do in the absence of money”, we can see a clear distinction between these two business models. When a business is able to align financial interests with the passion of its participants, we can see the truly stand-out open source successes begin to emerge. Shay provides the example of Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade products, which has been financially successful, is responsible for a great product, and has built up a vibrant online community. The same is true for Twitter: a simple idea, an easy business model, and some smart and passionate people at the helm. This is not to say that volunteers and passionate people are a new phenomenon. However, with the increasing interconnectedness offered by the internet, and the expanded reach it offers to small businesses, we are seeing more and more of this new wave, companies that are reaching new heights through the combination of passionate people and great business practices. http://www.vimeo.com/26091393
Wow has 2011 been a great year for Hunting With Pixels! We’ve seen some of our wild plans actually come to fruition, we moved into an amazing new studio, built a team of clever people, and, best of all, got to meet and work with some fantastic new clients and collaborators, so plenty of reason to celebrate!
Not another branded pen…
So as a thank you we are throwing a Christmas/End of Year party on the 15th December, and we are offering, as a gift to our clients, a free shoot and Christmas greeting video. So instead of sending a Christmas card or email, why not have a more personal touch by using a video greeting this year?
Free Season’s Greetings video!
Come to our Christmas party on the 15th and, in between the drinks, nibbles and socialising, shoot a FREE 30 second Season’s Greeting video. It’s just our way of saying thank you to our supporters, collaborators and clients for making 2011 such a great year for HWP. 
But wait, there’s more!
There will be free drinks. There will be music. There will be bloopers clips. There is always meeting other wonderful people AND the option to get yo boogie on people! Or alternatively stand in a circle and talk shop, go crazy! 
The Catch: You need to register!
We need to plan our drinks, sock stuffage items and xmas food purchases, so click on the link here and sign up.
Click on the icon below to register:
Or if that doesn’t work, follow this link: http://www.stickytickets.com.au/7190/Pixel_Hunting_Xmas_Party.aspx
One of our clients, Michael Giannak of Group Security Systems, came to Hunting With Pixels with an interesting challenge. He has a great product, the market is ready for it but potential clients have a hard time understanding how the product works. We recommended a simple, cost effective animation to explain the concept of the product; a great way to complement the written content and sales efforts of Group. http://vimeo.com/29127362 The resulting video is a great sales tool that’s beneficial to clients because they can make an informed decision without having to do extensive research, and beneficial to Group because it makes a great case for a great product.
Earlier this year, we caught up for a social with the charming Andy Ellwood, Director of Business Development for Gowalla, a location-based social media group. For more info about Andy, click here. In these three clips, Andy talks about being comfortable, and how it is the antithesis of excellence. Generally, when we talk about being comfortable, it is meant as a good thing. After all, a good deal of the 20th Century’s best inventions have been aimed at achieving just that. However, if you’ve ever tried getting out of a warm bed at 6am, you’ll know how hard it is to change once you are comfortable, even if that change is necessary or for the best. Striving for your goals requires discomfort. It means that you have to view where you want to be, where you are now, and realistically assess the distance between the two. Andy relates how many of his business peers would start their careers expecting their goals to be handed to them, like a ‘participation prize’ in a children’s running race. Those who didn’t strive, who turned up and took the comfortable route, did not succeed. Once we are comfortable, there is no motivation for anything to change. We become stagnant. It is not even that we are no longer striving for our goals, but we aren’t setting any goals at all. And without goals, nothing will be achieved. For those who can put in the work, and do achieve their goals, there is then the option of resting on their laurels or raising the bar. In the final clip, Andy talks about all of his mentors and the leaders he has known, and suggests that the one common characteristic of all was that they never became comfortable. Every time they achieved their objectives, they immediately set about planning the next big thing, and so set about striving for that. Not everybody has the kind of drive and desire for excellence that is necessary to be perpetually striving. For some, comfort is the ultimate goal. But for others, like Andy Ellwood, the desire to be the best is the be all and end all, and if that means never being comfortable, that will be worth it in the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsxUOd4EMzo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMdvgNQ_u-U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1YUptzd4nc
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Rubel, executive VP for Global Strategy and Insights with Edelman. Edelman is a global public relations firm, well known for being on the forefront of technological change. Click here for more info on Steve and Edelman. In this clip, Steve talks about the concept of over-friending, and shares his predictions for the next era of social media. Very broadly speaking, the internet has gone through several distinct phases, or eras. First, in its infancy, we had the era of commercialisation. The baby steps of the web were taken by large companies and organisations, and while other voices did exist, they were not nearly as dominant. Secondly, in what is referred to by marketing types as “Web 2.0”, we had the era of social media, started by the blogging craze, picked up by MySpace and finally dominated by facebook. Social media has changed the web entirely, so that now you don’t need to be a large organisation to have a web presence. Every 16 year old and their grandma can now tell the world just what’s on their mind. Steve Rubel refers to this as a “democratisation” of the internet. We are now if not in a third era, then in a transitory phase between them, where social media has reached saturation point and is causing information overload. The idea of a ‘friend’ online has been devalued to the point of meaninglessness, and trying to find a true expert in the cacophony of voices is increasingly difficult. Steve suggests that, in this third online era, we will see people become more selective in who they listen to, in an attempt to make more sense from the noise. This means that online marketers will need to work harder to stand out, to appeal to individuals rather than demographics, and build a meaningful relationship with their target market. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8x3-HD9suU
Boy are we stoked with the new Concept Amenities video! What a great brand to work with, check it out: http://vimeo.com/31939915/ We’d love to hear what you think!
Boy are we looking forward to the Creative Innovation conference this week! Here’s the promo we created for them: [vimeo http://vimeo.com/25111950 width=”100%”] http://vimeo.com/25111950
