Hey everyone, Thea here again, working away on April Fools Day…but at a much lighter pace. More years ago than I care to admit, I was fortunate to have an internship in San Francisco (that I loved) for one of the biggest record labels in the world. It was amazing! Internships, or work placements, are a fantastic opportunity for students to come in and learn practical, on-the-job-skills. I think every university student  should have that opportunity to do so. It was an experience that has remained with me – some two decades later!

Fast forward to present date, and we now have an intern working as part of the NSDesign team. She’s called Melissa and, for reasons I just mentioned, I suggested that she write a blog about her experience to date. So everyone, meet Melissa and enjoy her first blog.

Hi, my name is Melissa and I am the current Intern at NSDesign! I’m in my second year at the University of the West of Scotland working towards my BSc in Business Technology. I’ve been at NSDesign now for three weeks and I’m loving it!

To sum up my course at university, it delivers both technical and business knowledge needed to cater to small to medium sized enterprises. The knowledge I have gained from my course has aided me with the work I have done on placement. Being on placement has also opened my eyes to areas I haven’t previously thought about. This is one of the reasons why I wished to undertake a placement, as it will help my in the future, with university and work.

So far, I’ve mainly focused on the social media side of things here at NSDesign. I have found this particularly interesting. I quickly realised how important social media can be and how little I knew about it, with regards to business and marketing.

The, may I say excellent, social media master class ran by Gary and Colin really helped me in my understanding of social media and how to use it effectively. This one-day masterclass covered all the ‘need to knows’ with regards to getting your business out there on social media platforms!

It’s not as simple as just setting up an account and posting away, it’s about how to use it effectively and get your objectives across in the most successful way. The class was really ‘hands on’ – with lots of interaction and teamwork exercises, which made the day fun and exciting. I left wishing I had my own business to go and try all the approaches discussed!

On my time here, so far, I’ve gotten to use and learn about some of the useful tools of the trade such as Hootsuite, which is a social media management tool. It allows for multiple social networks and accounts to be updated, monitored and managed all from the one interface. Hootsuite is a real time-saver. It allows Tweets to be scheduled and allows potential clients and find audiences to be targeted with ease.

It also has an excellent interface making the user experience as enjoyable as possible. Spundge is another useful tool used to curate and collect information and articles, relevant to what you’re looking for, all in one place. And when you have a ‘notebook’ based on an idea or topic you can share it whenever and to whoever you like. This allows for ‘notebooks’ to be shared with your team mates and allows for easy collaboration all from the same place.   Allowing the old saying “two minds are better than one” to be put into action easily!

The whole team here at NSDesign are a lovely bunch! From my initial meeting with the team, I knew I had picked the right placement. The office is a friendly, relaxed and enjoyable place to work. And the kettle is never long off the boil, which is always a plus!

On my time here at NSDesign I’m hoping to continue to gain insight into the environment where I could be working in the future, and to experience it first hand, rather than learning what it’s like from the classroom. I’ll give another update on my time here at NSDesign at the end of my time here, if I make it out alive!

So there you have it, Melissa’s first blog after three (or so) weeks of shadowing the NS team. Have you ever been an intern? Have you had interns working in your business? It’s a great way to “pay it forward”…

We’re thrilled to bits about our 7 RAR* nominations, announced last week. 

Fingers crossed we bring home some silverware** on April 18th and in particular we would love to hang on to our ‘Best Value For Money UK Agency (under 30 staff)’ title.

If we do, it’ll be the 4th year in a row we’ve won it.

The Harry Potter books say 7 is the most powerfully magic number so rather than bigging ourselves up in a press release, we thought we’d have a bit of fun with the number 7 instead.

*Recommended Agency Registrar.
**Actually it’s a nice plaque

7 Things You Didn’t Know About NSDesign

1 Our designer Paul Elliot can run a 10K in under 38 minutes. Our team also includes a golfer that plays off a 1 handicap, a magician and juggler, someone who’s been inside Google’s ‘Googleplex’ headquarters, an accomplished guitarist and songwriter, and a former journalist who once stood in between George Clooney and Bono. And was too nervous to speak to them.

2 In our 15th year in business we’ve now worked with more than 20,000 clients across all our divisions.

3 Our Embrace The Space social media training started as a half hour talk to the local Chamber of Commerce and has now been delivered to more than 3 thousand businesses through a mix of free taster sessions, one to one consultancy and our famous ‘masterclass’ series at Hillington Park Innovation Centre.

4 We’ve been based at Hillington Park Innovation Centre for 7 years, with the exception of a 3 month break following ‘The Great Flood of 2009’. The building suffered serious damage but we managed to relocate to an office in Clydebank. Incredibly, because of our backup systems and use of cloud technology, none of our work was affected and clients didn’t notice any difference.

5 Our current office and our previous 2 office locations occupied were situated on preciely the same line of Latitude. (Weird).

6 Our very first client was Simon Howarth, from Preston, and he’s still with us today! www.theinformationedge.co.uk is his site and at our 10th birthday party he made a speech saying he remembers sending an email with a problem after midnight one night and getting a reply from Gary 2 minutes later. Simon reckons that’s really rare in business these days but it’s a level of service we strive to give every client, all the time.

7 We love sport and have worked with Greenock Morton FC, Braehead Clan ice hockey team and Glasgow Rocks basketball. We took part in their annual sponsor’s tournament last year and lost every single game.

7 Tips For Business Success on Social Media

1 Assume everything you say is 100% public.

2 Keep a folder of images on your computer which you can use to liven up your posts.

3 Read every message out loud to yourself or a colleague before sending it.

4 Do more listening than talking.

5 Practice explaining what your business does and what makes it special using as few words as possible.

6 Don’t let it overwhelm you. Find out which networks your potential customers use and concentrate on these.

7 Consider training. Particularly if you have staff.

Hey everyone, it’s Thea here again wondering, do you stream films on your computer, tablet or smartphone? Or maybe you hook your computer up to your TV and stream things that way? Well, I do, sometimes (as I wrote about my Slingbox experience exactly a year ago)…

So I was somewhat-excited to see the arrival of Netflix to the UK today. We’ve had a Netflix account for many years in the US, (dad watches something on Netflix every day). Though it’s my account, I can only view it when I am in the US!

So for years I’ve had a LOVE FILM account. I use both the DVD-by-mail and stream services almost equally, I guess.

As of today though, there’s a dilemma, do I keep LoveFilm? Do I use both? Do I use Netflix only?

Netflix offers a Free Trial for a month – so I’ve just signed up and I’ll run them both side-by-side to see how they go. As I don’t have much time, there really is only a need to keep one of them.

LoveFilm is a name you’ll likely all be aware of, as the UK-based company got their start (in one incarnation) a nearly decade ago now. Since then it gone through many different guises and mergers – right up until Amazon bought them a year ago. Their core business was DVDs by post, but as times are changing, since around 2007, they’ve begun offering streaming to a variety of platforms.

Netflix, the newcomer to the UK market, was launched in my hometown of Los Gatos California way back in 1997. They, too, got their start by doing DVDs by mail, but since 2007 have shifted their core to streaming, and do so across more platforms (seemingly) than LoveFilm does. Netflix streams to – PS3, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, Apple TV, Smart Phones, Tablets, …

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix was on the Breakfast show in BBC1 this morning, not really viewing Lovefilm as a threat, but more B-SkyB  (Sky Movies, Sky Atlantic) is the company to beat as it’s, “the big dog”.

To be honest, over the past year or two my own habits are radically changing. I seem to be doing less and less in terms of CDs, DVDs and physical books – opting to move everything over to digital (which clutters up my flat less).

I’ve even opted to not bother getting a Blue Ray player (so far). I’d only want one to stream stuff anyway so it seems pointless to me at present when I could use one of the services discussed here today!

So on that note, I’ll try to compare the two services side by side here in the UK and decide at the end of the month.

As I say I am already a user of both services (here and in the US) so it will be interesting to see if the content I am interested in is there for the UK version of Netflix.

It is, without a doubt, in the US, but on first glance the TV shows I’d want to stream here in the UK aren’t on the UK version of Netflix (much to my chagrin,…)

So it’s a case of “we’ll see”. It will be interesting to watch these two firms go head-to-head over the coming year.

What do you do? Do you use LoveFilm? Will you take Netflix up on their free one month offer like I just did? Let us know.

Happy viewing!

Well it’s Christmas Eve and we’ve come to the end of another Twelve Days of  Twitmas. It’s been amazing response all the way through to our Christmas Crescendo times two.

FINAL FRIDAY:

So we had an Amazing final day of Twitmas yesterday where we had not just one but two over night stays in two of Glasgow’s finest hotels to give away.

One of our featured hotels was ABode Hotel in the other The Grand Central Hotel. Both offered one lucky Twitmas winner the chance of a free double or twin room on a “Bed and Breakfast” basis for an agreed date in 2012.

So congrats go to @Daviegardner for picking up the over night stay in the Grand Hotel and to  @seasider007. We really hope you have a wonderful, memorable (for all the right reasons) time in two of Glasgow’s best hotels!

CHRISTMAS EVE FINALE

So here we are on Christmas Eve 2011, and we’re delighted to be giving away a two-night break on the island of Arran at the Douglas Hotel.

This is just an amazing prize, because not only is it two nights at the hotel, but they’ve kindly thrown in breakfast and some free Bubbly on arrival too!

So for lucky winner @AlexBoyd you can take your partner, a friend or a family member and enjoy this amazing break.

Congratulations Alex, you’re the last winner on Twitmas12 for 2011!

Once again we’d like to thank all the people who supplied us with festive goodies to give away over the past twelve days. We’d also like to thank all of you who tweeted and re-tweeted for the past two weeks.

Please follow @Alan_Tennant  the Regional Director of hotels.tv!

Plus our lovely hotels for the final giveaways @douglashotel @abodehotelsgrp @bairdstravel – thank you so very much!

So that’s a WRAP kids! Look out for #Twitmas12 in 2012!

Happy Holidays one and all from all of us at NSDesign!

Hey y’all it’s Thea here again talking money today! Over the last five or six weeks, both here in Scotland and in Cannes, I must have been to around four or five talks about Crowdfunding or Crowdsourcing.

Each time I go, I get slightly more inspired to give a go to a campaign of my own to complete the film I started making in 2006, but continue to have one or two reservations about it…more for the effort required to do a good campaign than the lack of belief that it will work!

Yesterday morning was a Comms Breakfast talk hosted by Michelle Rodger the co-founder of a new Scotland-based, Crowdfunding platform Bloom.

Before we go on talking about that, let us start with the definition of each term because though they are often used interchangably they are  slightly different in definition and aim.

Wikipedia describes Crowdfunding as “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations”.

Whereas Crowdsourcing is “the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to an group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.”

Crowdsourcing, (a term first coined just a few years back (in 2006) by Jeff Howe in a Wired Magazine piece called “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”) is more geared toward user generated solutions or content. Funding as it sounds deals more with the monetary aspect.

GO GO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

In Cannes @ MIPCOM, I had the chance to attend a small talk by CEO of what is arguably the second most well known Crowd Funding site – Indiegogo. Slava Rubin presented a lightning fast talk – starting with a great video of an example of what could be funded on Indiegogo (see video here Satarii) – which is practically anything (even IVF treatment or funerals!)

Ruben defined Crowd Funding as “a lot of people getting together who have a passion to make one idea happen”. (He ads that often you’re getting something in return, a “perk” or reward or something).

Slava says there are “four reasons anyone funds anything in life”:

1) …they care about the person, the cause or the campaign

2) …they want the perks – the products,  the service, the experience, the limited edition item, the ‘behind the scenes’,…

3)…they want to be part of a group, or something bigger than themselves

4) profit

The last one was not considered in this occasion, because it’s so hard to fund through the crowd anything for profit (“practically illegal” he says).

Slava Cites Factors in a Successful GoGo Campaign:

1) An Honest Pitch – be sure that yours is personal and engaging

2) A Video – Campaigns perform 122% better if they have a video on it. Note: not a trailer but a personal message (stating what’s in # 1)

3) The Right Deadline – Choose the time from 1-120 days. Choose a goal that’s fit for purpose, optimise for as short as possible while still being relevant and working. The average is 30-70 days.

4) Have Unique Perks – Make the perks unique, creative, low, high and medium. Make sure they’re not something someone can pick up too easily (if at all) elsewhere!

5) (like #1) Honest and Engaging copy in the campaign that is inline with your video and pitch. “This is who I am”…state your aim because, first and foremost, people want to know WHO they’re funding more than the film/project/product etc.

Slava’s Other Suggestions:

- be proactive – if you have four more people on your team, you’ll raise 70% more money then if you try to go it alone.

- do many updates, more than thirteen constitutes 65% more money raised than if you do five or less updates

- your number one tool for promotion is email, then Facbeook, then Twitter. Effectively “email destroys FaceBook and Facebook destroys Twitter” in terms of engagement and calls to action.

- be consistent – you need to keep asking, at least seven times or you won’t get it (the support). Be super direct. State clearly in the subject line “31 Days to 100,000 Euros for this Movie”.

He closes talking about “Social Proof” in the first 30% or 40% of monies donated is likely to be your family and friends (and presumably their spheres of influence) but as you get passed that you start getting what he calls “stranger dollars”. People who don’t know you who will start to contribute to your campaign.

The whole idea of Crowdfunding as I said at the start of this is intriguing. I’ve seen incredibly successful campaigns, and some much less so. I don’t know about you but seems every week I am contributing to someone’s film, or album or project of some description.

Though there are a few hundred of these types of sites, it’s exciting to see one launching right here soon, in Scotland, called BLOOM – Venture Catalyst (I love that last bit!)

If you have some money to spare, why not find some projects to be a part of?

Incidentally here are my Three favourites:

PledgeMusic – I’ve contributed to at least six albums on here this past year.
KickStarter – I have contributed to around four films this year on KickStarter.
Indiegogo – I’ve contributed to one (or possibly two) film on this platform this past year.

Special Mention has to go to:
Bloom – the one I’ll keep an eye out this coming year!

Maybe early in the New Year I’ll create a campaign of my own to complete my film and we’ll put the theory to the test…Watch this space!

So a while back I wrote a wee blog about QR Codes. Well, I thought I’d follow that one up a bit, as last week I attended the October New Media Breakfast about them.

The speaker of the day was Jim Divine from Cyberlogo.

Citing the rise of handsets, Jim urged the use of QR Codes, specifically ones containing logos, to connect with clients.

Some great examples were shown -  such as Jim’s own Twitter-inspired cyberlogo (Pic right), one for T3 Magazine, and one for Cake Decor (Pic left: a chocolate chip looking logo) and a make-up company too.

Possibilities are endless.

BEST IN SCAN

If you’re looking for a good scanner (of the many out there) – Jim recommends i-nigma. (I immediately downloaded it and began scanning on my Blackberry. Worked a treat).

Or if you’re an iPhone person Optiscan might be the one for you. (From iTunes: “Optiscan lets you create, scan and share QR codes straight from your device”.)

Like the sound of that.

One of the great advantages of these QR codes is their versatility. You don’t have to link to just a site, you can link to your V-card details, a calendar event, an SMS or a direct dialer to a phone number.

Another advantage is you can, through many QR code creators, update the link as time goes to keep it fresh. There will often be a charge of this, so get your initial code from a place that will allow changes if it’s one you’re going to be updating.

Personally speaking, I find QR Codes challenging. They don’t always work for me and that can be frustrating. In fact on this page on Jim’s site I couldn’t even get them to load! That said, with Gary’s iPhone they often worked better. (So more fool me for having a Blackberry I guess).

Finally if you are considering using QR Codes yourself, take a look at this piece in the Drum recently to make sure you’re not ‘doing it wrong’.

Hey y’all it’s Thea here again with my third, and dare I say “final”, Cannes Diary from my first visit to MIPCOM earlier this month (Incidentally here are blogs # 1 and # 2 – if you missed them…)

Today I thought I’d talk to you about the YouTube presentation at MIPCOM – called “The Next Generation”.

Most of us, particularly those who are on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, watch at least one video on a daily basis. Well if the stats (below) in Patrick Walker’s talk are anything to go by anyway…

Since we at NSDesign love our “stats” – both reading them and sharing them, I thought this would be a good time and place to share some staggering ones with you:

ON YOUTUBE THERE ARE:

• 3 billion views per day. (a 50% increase from the year before). BTW That constitutes to about half of the world’s population watching a video a day.
• 600 million unique world wide views per month (from 31 countries and 40+languages)
• 400 million youtube views daily on mobile (doubled in the past year)
• 350 million devices that youtube is enabled for (smart phones, smart televisions, game consoles – “that’s increasing dramatically”)
• 100 million times a week – “youtube is social” – getting shared (an example is…)
• 300 years worth of embedded video is consumed on Facebook every day
• 600 tweets per minute contain a youtube video link
• 20,000 partners, specifically revenue-generating partners on youtube
• 48 hours of video is uploaded every single minute of every single day

 Youtube’s aim at MIPCOM seemed to be to align themselves with more revenue-generating partners, and possibly to promote their True View (skip-able) advertising and Playbook (which I’ve had for months and months, but like so many e-books I download, still sits on my desktop gathering the proverbial cyber dust).

Video is where it’s at and anyone who is a content creator of any type should be utilising YouTube. Businesses, musicians, video/tv/film makers – to name but a few – should all have a presence on there and be adding content to it regularly. But like everything in life, it’s a matter of finding the time to go from idea, to filming, to editing, to uploading, and only then promoting it.

Do you have a video channel? How often do you update it? How many subscribers do you have? If you subscribe to our channel, we’ll subscribe to yours! [Well if it's original content you're creating. I'm not gonna subscribe to people who only post babies singing or dancing, or cats being cute...]

Hey everyone it’s Thea here again! Apologies for the delay in following up last week’s Cannes Diary # 1 about the entertainment conference called MIPCOM.

While all those big, important individuals and companies spent time shmoozing, wheeling and dealing with each other, I spent much of my MIPCOM time in countless talks.

In many ways, apart from a few key contacts I made, and the weather, the talks were my favorite part of MIP. There was no pressure to “sell” myself or indeed my “content” – but rather the role was one of spectator or even sponge.

It was an amazing privilege to be in big and small rooms, gaining insights from visionaries and leaders of some of the biggest brands in the world, oh, and the odd celebrities too!

Below are some keynote and general talk highlights for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the talk when Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos of (the rather controversial of late) Netflix took the stage with Mike Lang from Miramax.

Sarandos’ stand out quote for the talk for me personally was “If you want to see what people really want, look at what they’re stealing,” Then, the theory, I guess, is to give the legitimate, affordable and accessible (across different devices) content to them and they’ll opt for it rather than piracy.

In a slightly new direction, Netflix (most comparable thing to it in the UK is Lovefilm), is to create their own content. At this point Sarandos gives a friendly nod to his good friend Stevie Van Zandt (Soprano Actor and member of Springsteen’s E-Street band) – who’s starring in their newly announced show Lilyhammer. The trailer looks great and the show will be premiering on Netflix itself (and hopefully they’ll find a UK outlet to let us folks outside the US, Canada and Latin America view it too!)

Miramaxi’s Lang specifically discussed the company’s bold, revised future with its movie library of 700 motion pictures, has received 284 Academy Award nominations and 68 Oscars, including four Best Picture Awards.

What both men emphasised are the changes that are constantly taking place in terms of how, when, where content is being viewed, and the need to continually innovate and adapt. This actually was the theme for most talks at MIP. This, and personalization/customization, and collaboration.

Viacom’s Robert Bakish, gave an interesting talk about his company Viacom and its new channels like the female-oriented Blink, and its core channels like Comedy Central and of course not forgetting the erroneously named MTV (when was the last time you saw a music video on MTV? Sheesh don’t get me started…That’s a rant of mine best saved for a different time and place).

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the insights of Bakish and his take on the new demographics, new distribution models and new metrics stating his channel’s mission is to continually re-invent itself or risks facing irrelevancy.

It was his talk I first learned the term “millennials” (just another term for Generation Y), their key demographic at MTV. Millennials are ambitious, team-oriented, more self assured and my personal favorite – “pathologically social”. They crave “authentic reality” – hence their recently-launched UK hit TV show Geordie Shore. Check out the stats it boasts in the image above! Staggering.

Another fantastic talk was Fox network’s President of Entertainment, Kevin Reilly, who gave an interesting talk about things like creativity (citing a 2010 IBM poll of 1500 CEOs say “creativity” was the #1 “leadership competency to successfully navigate an increasingly complex world.”) as well as seeing failures as success (a favourite topic of mine)

“Success is often built on the shoulders of failure – from which new configurations emerge. There was an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal about some American companies rewarding employees for bold failures in an effort to spur innovation. It cites a study that shows the most successful people also tend to be those with the most failures. The rewards are meant to reinforce what was learned from the failure, rather than sending the message: ‘You screwed up’.”

He goes on to discuss how “social” (meaning tv, media et al) is changing our viewing habits (again a major theme throughout the entire week at MIPCOM).

“There is a reason that Facebook just kicked social TV into high gear. As one blogger said: ‘When people start consuming content through Facebook, it enables a new world of friend-to-friend discovery that is potentially worth more than any promo campaign on the planet.’ In other words, better than any network today can provide.”

Halfway through the session, Reilly brought out 24-star Kiefer Sutherland and Heroes creator Tim Kring to discuss the new Fox show Touch.

As geekish as this is to admit, that half hour (or whatever it was) being a mere yard or two from Sutherland was a definite highlight of my week in Cannes. His show Touch (trailer here) does  look amazing, but sadly we’ll not get to see it until next Spring!

A definite one to watch out for!

One of the few woman speakers I saw at MIP, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Disney’s CEO Anne Sweeney talk. Dubbed “the most powerful woman in entertainment”, Sweeney cited some amazing stats about social media – especially Twitter usage.

“According to a recent study by Deloitte, TV shows are the most common conversation topics around the world – and the subject of more than a billion tweets this year alone.“

(In fact of all my tweets at MIPCOM, my quoting that stat was probably my most retweeted tweet!)

Sweeney went on to describe television as the most powerful medium in the world predictingthat “Tomorrow it will also be the most personal. There is no one future for television. It will be defined differently for everyone.”

We’re starting to see that happen already, of course and that’s a good thing, I think.

A final highlight was seeing the World Premiere  of another new ABC show called Missing (trailer here) which, like Touch, looks amazing! Even better though, after the pilot aired in the Grand Auditorium, it was a Q&A with with writer/creators, stars and so forth. Once that ended, we were bussed down the road to the “Red Carpet” event at a nearby hotel. That was the most glitzy moment of the week. I was able to take a bunch of photos and exchange a few words with stars Ashley Judd and Cliff Curtis (Left) (where I made just about the biggest fool of myself, and that’s all I’m saying about that!)

 Anyway I think that is enough sharing for one day. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back to MIPCOM next year with a project of my own next year or simply to hear more killer keynotes! I know I said in my first Cannes Diary that there were three installments but maybe two’s enough? What do you think?

Hey y’all, it’s Thea here again. Earlier this year I penned a few diary blogs from my trip home to the Silicon Valley – in particular to a mobile conference at Stanford and a day trip to Google. So it occurred to me to do something similar for my recent trip to the South of France.

First, it is probably worth pointing out that the opportunity to go to Cannes arose via social media, LinkedIn, in particular.

You see, I came across a post on a group that the opportunity for a (partially) “funded” trip to MIPCOM in Cannes presented itself.

For those of you, who like me, weren’t aware of what MIP was – it’s conference that caters toward content of all types – largely that meant television, but also games, films, technology and even social media applications too.

You’d be amazed at just how big this event was. The absolute biggest global content producers/promoters were there – Disney, Sony, YouTube, Fox, NBC International – to name just a few.

One thing that became readily apparent was that big or small – we’re all in the same boat vying for unique ways to capture consumers through content and find ways to monetize it. The second thing that was most apparent was just how challenging that is becoming for all of us – the niche companies like mine, the middle ground and even for the big players too.

TV’s ALL ABOUT THE SECOND SCREEN AND THE SOCIAL

A few of the top buzz terms discussed at MIP were – “Transmedia” and also the concept of the “second screen”. I’ll save the former for another day, but generally speaking, on the notion of second screens – the primary screen would be a television, and the secondary might be a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. Yet these days there it’s been cited that there are more handsets than televisions around the world – so one might question if television has now become the second screen. (That too is another discussion for another day).

One statistic being banded about was how something like 60-65% of American teenagers were watching television but doing something else at the same time.

Picture above – watching my father’s Californian TV on mine in Glasgow.

Well, I’d argue that it’s not just the teenagers…

Months ago on here, I blogged about the Evolution of my TV viewing, through my slingbox player, wherever I am in the world, I can watch TV with my father who is at home in California. Most days we view shows together, while having a Skype chat window open to discuss what we’re viewing. Did I mention that my dad will be eighty on his next birthday? So it’s not all about the kids, folks.

Technology these days enables us to engage with others while shows are airing – allowing us to vote, discuss, play along with etc.

Though it’s possible in a variety of ways now it certainly looks like it will become even more common place in the coming year or so especially if Anthony Rose has anything to say about it.

Anthony is the man behind Kazaa and the relaunch of BBC’s iPlayer. He is now poised to launch the “next big thing” – Zeebox - a real-time platform for social TV viewing.

Initially starting as an iPad app – you’ll be able to following with your friends and contacts on Twitter and Facebook, and tag content, but as it progresses, broadcasters may have widgets for certain programs.

At some point, due to your own preferences and tags, advertising will be targeted to you, and it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy things straight from it too.

Zeebox – is set to launch any time now. We’ll see if it lives up to its hype.

In any event, to a content creator and consumer like myself, it is an exciting and socially vibrant time.

Hello ya’ll Thea here again. As I promised in my last blog Social Media Week Wrap Up, here is the transcript of my first (and possibly the last, ha!) Social Media talk…“10 Quick Tips for LinkedIn Success”.

I started by taking a show of hands of how many were on LinkedIn (LI). Pretty much everybody – as you’d imagine. Then, I asked how many felt like they were utilizing it to its fullest potential (because frankly, most people, in my opinion, aren’t). About three people raised their hands. This talk wasn’t for them! It was my hope that the vast majority of the audience would go away with even just one tidbit to try at home later.

So if you’re not a LinkedIn expert, then this one’s for you. Starting at the top here we go…

(1) MAKE YOUR HEADLINE NEWSWORTHY

Make yourself interesting. Avoid sticking “Business Development Manager at ACME WIDGETS” as your headline. That tells me absolutely nothing about you or your company. If you don’t change the default text, LI just uses what you put for your most recent job entry.

You just have to remember you’re more than your JOB TITLE – so consider giving a bit more information. Imagine you were walking up to someone at a networking event, how would you introduce yourself and describe what you do to them in an interesting way?

Also your headline is a key search area on your profile – so use it wisely.

(2) CHANGE THE DEFAULT TEXT

Do you have a website? Does it have a name? If so, then put that. The default text in LinkedIn merely says “Company Website” or “Blog” on your profile (see above).

Honestly, I can’t believe how many of my contacts haven’t bothered to change the default text there, and are thus they’re missing out more key search optimization. As in the example above of someone who has more than 500 connections. Room for improvement there, my friend…

So if your profile says “Company Website” – or “Blog” then please do me a favor, go home and change it to its real name OK?

(3) PICTURE PERFECT

Stating the obvious here but don’t leave it blank (i.e. the grey default avatar), or stick your logo in as your profile pic – save that for your company page.

Instead use a good, professional headshot whenever possible.

LinkedIn is not Facebook – so avoid your holiday snap, a cropped picture from a night out with your friends, and always remember that first impressions matter.

So put your best FACE forward…

(4) DYNAMIC PROFILE

Don’t make your profile read like your CV – with bullet points listing the tasks you do. Ditch the dryness and find engaging things to say about yourself, your job and or company. Use positive wording, correct spelling and good grammar. (Write it in Word and paste it in if needs be.)

Make people WANT to connect with you. A good example, and I am not just saying this because he pays me – is NSDesign’s head honcho Gary Ennis. His profile tells a story, not just lists a bunch of things he’s done or achieved. It has personality (see the last paragraph – magic, juggling, geeks etc – you get a good snapshot of what he’s about…) and I believe it makes you want to connect with someone when they do go that extra paragraph if you will.

And speaking of connecting – that’s what LinkedIn is all about…so when you do….

(5) ALWAYS BE PERSONAL

If you’re going to add someone to your network, it’s good to start off with a comment on how you came across them, where you met (if you have met somewhere), or how you’re connected if by a group, contacts in common and so forth.

One thing to avoid is using “friend” for someone you’ve never met or spoken to.

Even if you have met, never leave the default text - “I’d like to add you to my professional network” – please, please, please, always be personal with a message. It only takes a minute.

One guy added me recently. I didn’t know him. We’re not in the same industry. He didn’t put a message and he called me a “friend”. For principle, I hit “ignore”. I know not everyone is as picky as me about this, but equally I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are!

If you want to connect with someone, then be worth connecting to in your request!

(6) GO ON GROUPS

If you don’t know a person, but want to connect with them, find groups they’re on and join and begin genuinely engaging on them.

Groups are an amazing opportunity to learn information, find jobs, become aware of opportunities and events – as well as to connect to people who you might not have ability to get in front of so easily otherwise.

Local groups are a fantastic source of getting relevant information, sourcing contacts, various specialist recommendations etc.

Recently on one of our local groups, there was a post offering a funded trip, for a content conference in Cannes called MIPCOM. I replied and I just returned (blogs about that to follow here soon!)

This was an opportunity I’d never have been aware of had I not been actively engaging and monitoring that group.

So definitely check out relevant groups to your interests or sector.

(7) RECOMMENDATIONS

You can use LinkedIn to get past OR present colleagues, suppliers, customers or bosses – to say a few nice things about you.

Some people I’ve come across have NO recommendations and others seem to go to the other end of the spectrum and have zillions.

For me, I personally would opt for few quality recommendations, over quantity but to each their own on this one and it may differ according to your sector.

(8) TAGS

Only recently, I discovered that if you go into your Contacts you can tag them. You may wonder why you’d want to do that, but say you were having an event in Glasgow and you wanted to message all of your contacts that were local, you can type in “Glasgow” and it shows you all the people you’ve tagged with Glasgow and you VOILA you can message them all in a ‘oner’.

Please don’t use this feature to SPAM people or you’ll quickly start losing connections!

(9) DATABASE DOWNLOAD

Has anyone ever lost their phone, or their contacts due to an email malfunction? I updated my software on my Blackberry a few months back and overwrote my entire address book accidentally (nightmare!). But with LinkedIn’s contacts area, you can export all your contacts (via a variety of formats) and import to your computer email program and/or into you phone’s address book.

I highly recommend periodic downloads of your contacts. Just because, you never know…

(10)  GET CONNECTING!

My top and final tip is just get out there and start connecting. Like anything in life, you get out of LINKEDIN what you put into it. It’s work to build up a solid network online just as it is to do so OFF. But if done right – it can lead to more contacts, mentors, suppliers, clients and maybe even friends.

Thank you.

PS: Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn but only if you make your request personal