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Best of Branded Content Marketing eBook

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BEST OF BRANDED CONTENT MARKETING IBOOK NOW AVAILABLE ON ITUNES

The Best of Branded Content Marketing iBook I conceived and produced for the Branded Content Marketing Association is finally available on iTunes or as a PDF version here. It features observations and case studies from sources as diverse as Capital One, DuPont, MINI, Macmillan Digital Education, Remington, Duchy Originals, Nissan, Perrier and more.

This is the first in a series of ebooks we’re creating to explore and showcase the different kinds of social media and branded content marketing activities that businesses are carrying out. We’re now looking for more views and experiences for the next edition, so feel free to get in touch.

Stowe Boyd on Socialogy: The Theory And Practice Behind Social Business

STOWE BOYD DISCUSSES HIS LATEST RESEARCH IN A 45 MINUTE INTERVIEW

I was tuned into the work of the web anthropologist, futurologist and self-confessed clairvoyant Stowe Boyd by Bruce Lewin from Four Groups who I interviewed recently (see here). It turns out it’s a small world because Stowe spoke at the Meaning Conference here in Brighton last year that was hosted Will McInnes of Social Business specialists Nixon McInnes. I’d interviewed Will back in 2007 at the Widgety Goodness conference put on by web veteran Ivan Pope who interviewed last year (see here).  There’s another connection through Change Agent Steve Hearsum of Deboxing who I had coffee with the other day, and who also co-founded the Fit Forum with Bruce Lewin.

I mention this because the strength of weak ties and social density are some of the topics I discussed with Stowe around his recent research into Socialogy (The Theory And Practice Behind Social Business) and the Physics of People. His research is still very much work in progress, so we discussed some of the interesting and unexpected findings he has discovered through a series of interviews he’s been conducting. We also discussed how this helps shape his thinking on what’s round the corner. I’ll put a summary together of the interview shortly, and Stowe plans to create a transcript so I’ll link to that when it’s online. In the meantime, it would be great to get your feedback about the interview with Stowe, particularly in terms of whether you have similar case studies or research findings.

 

Digital Education: an educators perspective

PEPS MCCREA ON THE SWEET SPOT WHERE PEDAGOGICAL, TECHNOLOGICAL & BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION MEET

Peps Mccrea is a former National Curriculum Advisor at the Department for Education, and the course leader for the second largest secondary school maths PGCE in the UK. I’d originally connected with Peps as part of a business model innovation and new product development project I helped facilitate for Maths Doctor shortly after their acquisition by Macmillan Digital Education.

I’ve been conducting a series of podcast interviews over the years. The idea is to see whether there are patterns emerging that cut across different industries, or at least identify what implications there might be from the thinking and practice in one area on another. So I caught up with Peps again to discuss his idea about learning design, and get an educator’s perspective on innovation in digital education, and we discussed the following:

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Bruce Lewin on Stowe Boyd’s Socialogy

BRUCE LEWIN ON SOCIAL BUSINESS AND THE FIVE FACTORS REQUIRED FOR BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

I interviewed Four Groups co-founder Bruce Lewin back in 2009 for some pilot research I conducted with Dr Alain Samson (LSE) into Collaborative Innovation on behalf of NESTA (see more here).

Bruce provided a behavioural/group psychology perspective, and pointed out that what seemed to be missing from the client point of view is a methodology, system or tool (e.g. Kaplan Norton ‘Balanced Score Card’, Six Sigma, etc.) to help optimise collaboration, working relationships and productivity, particularly if a new project is starting or a new initiative is under way.

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#hackshop at Brighton University School of Ed Video

I’ve been experimenting with the iMovie app on my iPad, and have edited a video of the #hackshop Hack Event that I helped with a couple of weeks ago at the University of Brighton School of Education. It formed part of the DigiMaka pop-up brand that I had helped set-up in order to seek funding from NESTA for a collaboration that included the Build Brighton Hackerspace, the Computing At Schools (CAS) initiative, the regional STEM Network, and the University of Brighton School of Education. You can find out more about the DigiMaka project here, but hopefully the video above gives a flavour of what we were trying to achieve and why.

The 10 social tools you need

I was interviewed for Scott Beagrie’s piece on The 10 social tools you need in HR Magazine. I urge HR to adopt a similar creative mindset to that of marketing or R&D, which have been quick to seize the opportunities presented by harnessing the power of the crowd:

“If you really think about HR 2.0, then it’s about how the HR department helps facilitate crowdsourcing among its employees to provide internal innovation, …For crowdsourcing to be truly transformative, it needs to allow ideas to be developed from the bottom up, and filtered by the crowd.”

3D Printing Pilot in UK Schools Funded by Dept for Education

My article belowon a DfE funded pilot appeared today on the 3D Printing Industry website:

3D Printing Pilot in UK Schools Funded by Dept for Education

The Department for Education (DfE) is running a small trial to investigate the use of 3D printing technologies in teaching mathematics, physics, computer science and engineering and design. The pilot will enable schools to explore innovative ways of teaching using these technologies, and to find ways of making scientific and mathematical ideas easier to teach and understand.

21 schools have been selected from 40 top performing maths and science schools who submitted short proposals on how they would use the 3D printers across the relevant subject areas. The schools all received a Makerbot printer, consumables and access to training.

The project will run until September 2013, and is being managed by the Institute of Physics (IoP) and the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) with support from the Design & Technology Association.

Charles Tracy, head of education at the Institute of Physics, explained the exploratory nature of this exciting project:

“The Institute is very pleased to be working with the DfE and The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) on this pilot project. This is an exciting technology and we are hoping that, in the hands of subject experts, we will find some imaginative ways of using it to help teaching and learning in physics.”

The project kicked off with a seminar at the DfE in October 2012 where participating schools got to meet each other and hear more about the pilot project.  They also got to meet the folks at MakerBot, and hear from peers who are already using 3D printing in schools. The schools are expected to report regularly on their progress throughout the trial’s duration, and it is also hoped that the pilot will encourage collaboration and sharing of ideas in this area between schools, provide a better understanding of ways this technology can be used in teaching and help identify barriers that need to be overcome.

This is an important consideration, as highlighted in the recent Decoding Learning report on digital education by the UK innovation charity NESTA. The research, conducted by the Institute of Education, showed that “one the best ways people can learn is by making and sharing things”. However, the report also points out that although innovations in ‘technology-supported learning’ shows great potential, this can only be fulfilled if “those required to use that technology are also supported”.  So it will be interesting to see whether the findings from the DfE backed pilot helps address this potential barrier to the adoption of 3D printing for teaching in schools.

Podcast interview with Scrivener’s Keith Blount

As part of my MSc, I’m conducting a horizon scan on eBook authoring and digital publishing, and you can see my conference poster/infographic mapping out the territory here. I’m constantly reminded of the parable of the six blind men and the elephant when ever I explore an area of digital media. So what I try and do is get different perspectives to avoid getting caught up in the vortex of self-affirming opinion. You can check out my previous interviews with the horizon scanner Ivan Pope and self-confessed pamphleteer Julian Spalding. My latest is with Keith Blount of Literature and Latte, who’ve created the Scrivener writing software.