Notes by Curious

Flash mobs!

19 November 2009 · Leave a Comment

No – It’s not a mob of people who show you what’s behind their trench coat!

You might have heard of them before, they have been around since 2003 – The ‘official’ (Wikipedia) definition of a flash mob is:

“a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.”

Here are some of my favourite flash mobs:

DANCES:

My Favourite – Bondi Beach

More:

MUSICALS & MORE FUNNY STUFF

Pillow Fight, San Francisco

More:

FREEZES:

Central Station in New York

More:

Are you in the loop on up coming flashmobs? Have you been in one before? Let me know, drop a comment

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10 best places online to buy the MOST ORIGINAL xmas presents

18 November 2009 · 1 Comment

Have you thought about Christmas yet?

Don’t sigh – If you haven’t then NOW is the time and I have some ideas & places for you to look which will hopefully ease the pain…

Some of you might say it’s too early, but if you are going to give yourself the option of buying presents online then you need to do it this week so that you get it in the post in time for Xmas day!!!

I thought I’d share with you some cool sites I’ve found for buying unconventional presents that don’t cost a fortune:

1.GHILLIE GEAR

http://www.ghilliegear.com/index.php

This one is in for kicks – (unless you know someone who LOVES paintball and takes it pretty seriously?) They call themselves the ‘invisibility experts’ – I think you need to see the site for yourself!!

 

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2.PERPETUAL KID

http://www.perpetualkid.com/

Their motto is: “Entertain your inner child” – need I say more? These guys only post to US but allow you to use a service called BongoUS which gives you a US shipping address and then reroutes it to your international address – I haven’t used it before, clever idea: http://bongous.com/

 

 

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3. WHAT IS BLIK

http://www.whatisblik.com/

This site has fantastic (and reasonably priced) wall art that sticks on like a sticker (and in some cases can be peeled off and restuck) – Before you get too excited though, they only ship to Canada and US so this is only suitable if you have friends or family abroad… worth a mention though, I hope they start shipping to Australia

 

 

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4. THREADLESS

www.threadless.com

Cool and unique T-shirts, hoodsies, hoodies, onesies (for kiddies) and wall art – these are printed on American Apparel – I have heaps of them and they’re a good fit & quality

 

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5. OXFAM UNWRAPPED

http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/

Be REALLY original and give someone some manure, a goat or sewing training – there are so many more original things that you can buy on this site! The unwrapped gifts send you a nice card with a picture of your goat (etc.) to give to your gift recipient and at the same time you’re both giving to those less fortunate around the world.

TIP: Get your Christmas cards from these guys

 

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6. ASHIDASHI

http://shop.ashidashi.com/

Why buy dad boring old navy or black socks when you can get some like these? My personal favourites are the ‘meat socks’, followed closely by ‘kick the habit’ and ‘pencil’ – They post to Australia!

Help someone kick their habit with these cigg socks?

 

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7. COOL MATERIAL

http://coolmaterial.com/

Fantastic site for buying those hard to buy ‘man-presents’ – could spend hours looking through this site!

TIP: Check out the Elite Marshmallow Blaster! (A must have for everyone!!)

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8. EBAY

www.ebay.com.au

Its obvious, but it has to be said because its one of the best sites on the internet!!

TIP: enable “search worldwide” to get a far better range of cool stuff to choose from

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9. PHOTO JOJO

http://photojojo.com/store

With everyone these days claiming to be a semi-professional photographer there is bound to be something on here to please!

TIP: Check out the bottle top camera tripod – and only $10!

 

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10. URBAN OUTFITTERS

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/

There is a whole bunch of interesting, and reasonably priced present ideas on this site – I like the apartment section of the site best, but they sell a whole range of things

 

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Good luck, don’t forget, if you’re buying something from o/s start shopping now so it arrives in time for Christmas!

Let me know if you come up with any other awesome places online for out-of-the-box presents! Share!! Post them below :)

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5 steps: How to mount an online advocacy campaign!

31 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

1 LISTEN TO ONLINE CONVERSATIONS

  • Conduct a conversation audit – Analyse who is talking about you, your competitor, your issues and find out what is ‘hot’ now and likely to remain popular for a reasonable amount of time

2 DETERMINE KEY CHANNELS

  • Find out where your audience is talking online and which of these places are most important to your campaign
  • Develop a presence in these digital environments – you don’t have to invest huge amounts of money into web design I the content/purpose of the site is strong enough (content and purpose should be first priority, design: second)
  • Choose tools to use in these environments that are appropriate to your campaign

3 CREATE AN EDITORIAL CONTENT STRATEGY

  • Develop a forward focussed editorial strategy – this needs to be relatively fluid to account for the interest and issues you receive throughout your digital campaign but it should include the key messages and specific activities of interest to maintain consistently interesting and purposeful content.
  • Tools can be used to schedule the publishing/tweeting of content (such as peoplebrowsr) but these tools should be used with caution
  • Aggregated information from quality sources can also be used to bolster the content but should not be solely relied upon
  • Content should be driven by the brand where possible

4 DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!

  • You need to provide readers with something – whether it be you taking them on a journey, giving away prizes, recognition, a laugh etc
  • Make sure that you have integrated tools into your content that will allow the user to easily virally spread your content
  • Invest time to make sure the offering is a genuinely attractive, interesting and (relatively) sustainable one for the reader
  • The content needs to feel unscripted, fresh, organic, instant and creative – not ‘suit language’ or marketing mubo-jumbo (bloggers and social networkers will not read this let alone spread it virally & it could be used against your brand by networkers who are keen to shoot down ‘corporates behaving badly’!)

5 DELIVER ON EXPECTATIONS

  • If you set up expectations that you are there to listen, then you need to continue listening and responding in a timely matter
  • Quite a large amount of time is required to build strong relationships
  • Try to make it clear if the campaign is only a short term campaign… don’t let it die unexpectedly
  • Maintain consistent updates across all channels to give readers a reason to come back to your site

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