Things im liking at the moment

Zero Moment of Truth – It’s a free ebook and toolkit on strategies and tactics on how to show up at the right place, at the right time and with the right content.

My new iPhone case from Project mu mu – Beautifully crafted wooden cases made here in the UK.

Mailbox app – Redesigns your inbox to make email light, fast and mobile friendly.

Polar – Addictive,easy way to create and vote on photo polls.

Wok&Go on Bold street Liverpool – Simply Awesome noodles, I recommend the Hot Box.

The result of bad Christmas TV

On the whole the TV this Christmas has been awful, so instead I made the most of it and caught up on some reading and a video from Microsoft regarding UI design that I thought I would share.

I started with:

Creative Mischief – David Trott
Rework – Jason Fried
What ever you think think the oposite – Paul Arden
Confessions of a mad man – George Parker

And finished with:

Connecting (Windows Phone Design Studio) http://vimeo.com/52861634

I’ve read ‘Rework’ and ‘Whatever you think the opposite’ more times than I care to remember but I find myself coming back to it every so often for inspiration.

Enjoy!

My one prediction for 2013

To all those people you still like to predict the future and what 2013 will bring, remember the only true prediction about the future is you will be almost certainly wrong.

Context is king

Without it you can’t design your brands content experience.

Popular doesn’t mean experienced

GQ magazine shows us how not to use QR codes

QR codes still seem to be the hot topic amongst marketeers and seen as a simple and effective way to integrate off and online comms.  Unfortunately the technique is often abused and many executions offer a poor user journey and rarely add value.

A recent example I saw where the full journey looked like it hadn’t been considered was from GQ Magazine.

The article in question offered extra video content around the feature but to my disappointment, when I scanned the code with my iPhone it took me to a page on the site, not optimised for handsets that informed me that I needed to install the Flash player.

Now I realise that some handsets can view Flash content but it would have been better to use a HTML player on a mobile optimised site.  A quick win would have been to use GQ’s YouTube channel which has far better experience on a handset.

Many brands see QR codes as a quick win, easy to execute and implement.  Unfortunately few ask themselves what the user journey and experience is like once the codes has been scanned.  If they did I think we would see a lot less of them.

Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.

This quote from Bill Bernbach is more relevant now than it ever has been.

Message in a bottle

This is a great idea from Max Arlestig and Maximilian Gebhardt.

From the simple action of opening that first bottle of beer, they have left the door open and allowed for a deeper engagement with the brand, which in this case is to propagate the message ‘invite your friends over for a beer’.

You can’t change your passion

A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his God. But there’s one thing he can’t change. He can’t change his passion…

A quote that stuck with me from the film ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’.

A change in direction

I’ve been blogging for a few years now, both on here and as a guest and in that time I have written and covered a whole host of topics.

Recently after looking for a link in a earlier post i started to skim the headlines and I couldn’t help but feel I have strayed away from the original goal of the blog which was to Help brands tell better stories.

It was a shot in the arm but a good one and the up shot from this has been for me to strip back a lot of the original content which doesn’t fit with the original goal. Its been painful to see it all disappear but I feel its an important step non the less to ensure the underlying goal and content/message that remains is clear and has room to breath.