Canuckflack

You know, it’s a great feeling when the people you work with know exactly what to get you as a going-away present.

Like this custom t-shirt.

Take one sophisticated computer model capable of predicting individual behaviour in a variety of urban settings. Add a large consumer or retail corporation interested in maximizing their in-store marketing efforts.

You can just predict the co-opting of an extremely sophisticated urban planning tool.

Not that this scenario has happened yet. Paul Torrens, an assistant professor at Arizona State University, has received a multi-year National Science Foundation grant to:

“…develop a reusable and behaviorally founded computer model of pedestrian movement and crowd behavior amid dense urban environments, to serve as a test-bed for experimentation,” says Torrens. “The idea is to use the model to test hypotheses, real-world plans and strategies that are not very easy, or are impossible to test in practice.” (ASU news release)

Once the academics have done all the heavy lifting, I can easily see commercial applications:

• modeling traffic flows at trade shows
• evaluating the efficiency of urban and suburban guerrilla marketing campaigns
• testing category placement at grocery stores
• maximizing the placement of shopping centre info booths
• calculating the maximum tolerable distance between airport departure gates

Pruned has suggested some other applications:

• simulate how a crowd flees from a burning car toward a single evacuation point;
• see how the existing urban grid facilitate or does not facilitate mass evacuation prior to a hurricane landfall or in the event of dirty bomb detonation; or
• design a mall which can compel customers to shop to the point of bankruptcy, to walk obliviously for miles and miles and miles, endlessly to the point of physical exhaustion and even death.

In practical terms, I wonder how much of this new modeling the folks at Disney theme parks will review and say “knew that. knew that. that’s not a surprise!”

Personally, I would like to see the results from one of the professor’s other projects:

Modeling Time, Space, and Behavior: Combining ABM & GIS to Create Typologies of Playgroup Dynamics in Preschool Children

pointer from CityofSound

Technorati Tags: traffic flow, urban design, patterning, shopping habits

Stolen directly from Dave Gray’s blog, Communication Nation:

“…A blog is a way of getting support and affirmation from the outside, for the things you are trying to do on the inside.

A blog is a way to keep your faith alive.”

I know blogs, podcasts, general and specialist social networks and plain old Yahoo newsgroups have helped me explore new ideas as a:

• public relations specialist
• government communicator
• blogger, and;
• all around know-it-all

Technorati Tags: evangelism, xplane, Dave Gray

What sensible media plan includes doorhangers? What is the goal of a doorhanger campaign? Awareness through irritation?

I live in the suburbs, so my perception may be coloured. We seem to get a lot of doorhangers - from the standard coupon for local restaurants to the oblong, the irregular and the just plain inconvenient.

Sure, a market still exists for doorhangers. Hotel guests need a convenient way to order breakfast, ask for a room refresh, or warn the hotel staff that “if this dooknob’s a rockin”, don’t come a knockin’.”

There a distinction in this case, though: the client is the one choosing to use a doorhanger.

In fact, there’s only one application for a door hanger campaign that appears effective: when the recipient has been pre-qualified.

Social marketing campaigns appear to rely on door hangers as one component of an integrated marketing campaign to push behaviour change by residents - whether to encourage composting, change recycling habits, or avoid groundwater pollution.

Similarly, political campaigns leave doorhangers behind as a polite reminder: “Hey! we were here to drag grandma and grandpa down to the polling station, but you didn’t answer the door.”

Which still leaves me with the three 8×6 fish-shaped door hangers I received over the weekend. The work of a lazy media planner who just bought novelty hangers by the tens of thousands and had them distributed by the Citizen.

How did I get three? One in the giant flyer package that gets jammed into my mailbox every Thursday (delivered by a subcontractor working for a Citizen subsidiary), one with my Citizen, and one blown down the road from a neighbour’s door knob.

And not a one of them pushed me any nearer to taking my banking to the President’s Choice accounts available at Loblaws.

Technorati Tags: doorhanger, door hanger, direct marketing

“Are you ready for the summer? Are you ready for the good times?” Do you remember that scene from the Bill Murray classic Meatballs? When the kid in the electric wheelchair passes the school bus headed for camp?

Hey! Whatever happened to Chris Makepeace?

Now that the fashions of the 80s are back, shouldn’t we relive the movies of the 80s? Discuss amongst yourselves over at the Lovely Mrs. Davis.

• Why are John Cusack and Gedde Watanabe the only stars from Sixteen Candles to have a career?
• What is Ally Sheedy doing nowadays?
• For a disaffected youth, Christian Slater had a lot of electronics gear. Maybe he should have channeled that money into Benetton and Kappa clothes. He would have been more popular.
• Who knew Jeff Spiccoli would turn out to be the most principled of the bunch?
• So, Ferris Bueller was fastidious about his hair, particular about his clothes, and turns out to really like Broadway musicals … ?
• I thought Valley Girls would have had more staying power.

Moon Unit Zappa had a great Valley Girl video. Totally, fer sure! (She’s totally lip-syncing!)
For your enjoyment - an old, old school David Letterman interview with Frank and Moon Unit Zappa.

Liza’s got a passable Dirt Bike Annie cover of the Meatballs theme.over at Copy, Right?

Technorati Tags: 80s, john Hughes, high school reunion

If I haven’t mentioned this lately, I’ve moved some of my public relations posts over to sosaidthe.org - my site dedicated to improving government communications.

Lately, I’ve written about Remaking a government communications community and How to improve your Minister’s bio page - two subjects that can easily be applied to organizational communications as well.

Go ahead, take a look!

Do you like I Can Has Cheezburger? Those lolcats pictures really are funny, aren’t they?

Then you will love this extensive collection of lol80s pictures. Featuring, of course, all your favourite musicians and actors from the 80s and 90s.

From The Friendly Ghost, a lesson that a truly prepared guest can counter an aggressive interviewer. An interview between Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys and Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Afghanistan, sputtered for a moment when the diplomat supported his arguments with fresh reporting from the BBC’s own website:

“…A short way into the piece, with Humphrys trying his best to put him off his stride, my ears pricked up because Cowper-Coles suddenly said “You only to have to see your own website this morning where quoted on it is an Afghan villager on a superb feature on the BBC website saying the Taliban is the biggest threat to the future of Afghanistan.”

“That’s brilliant,” I thought. “He’s saying ‘this is what you’re broadcasting on your own site - and I’ve been prepared enough to read it. I’m using your own techniques against you.’”

Cowper-Coles arrived for the interview with facts and personal anecdotes to support his position. This sort of preparation should be second nature for any communications specialist and spokesperson - and will help prepare them for any tense or confrontational moments during an interview.

The audio is on the BBC site - and his quote is right up front.

Photography that represents real life. An action, a look, a still life that records a moment in British social history. That’s the goal of Tate Britain’s exhibition of photography, “How We Are: Photographing Britain.”

The exhibition draws from mass media pieces (postcards, propaganda) as well as personal (family photographs, medical records).

The Tate Britain is encouraging public participation as well, using a Flickr Group to feed a slideshow page on the exhibition’s website. During the closing weeks of the exhibition, 40 photographs from the Flickr group will be displayed alongside the other works.

Martin Parr, a contemporary photographer, discusses the work of the John Hinde studios, a commercial photographer whose works from the 40s, 50s and 60s are gaining critical appeal.

“…In twenty years’ time we will be shocked by how certain works are perceived, and that’s exciting. The parameters shift. One of the recent changes is the acceptance of vernacular photography. John Hinde’s photography for The Small Canteen is a great example of that vernacular, because it wasn’t done to be great art. It was done simply to illustrate a book about canteens.” (Tate Etc.)

  

 

Photograph by John Hinde published in The Small Canteen: How to Plan and Operate Modern Meal Service 1947 (RPS/NMeM/Science & Society Picture Library)

While Hinde’s work was largely commissioned for commercial use, it is finding new appreciation as a record of life in Britain in the middle of the twentieth century. For instance, consider his series of postcards about the Butlin’s holiday camps.

“….Anticipating the later success of Disney and other recreational theme parks, Butlin’s was in its heyday at the time these images were taken, its ‘hi-de-hi’ redcoat entertainment the epitome of family holiday fun (and camp, though the latter in retrospect).

The Butlin’s represented by these photographs is intricately bound up with the history of mass tourism, mass consumerism and popular culture in the British Isles: ‘cheap and cheerful’ low-brow entertainment and affordable packages attracted over a million people for a week’s holiday each year from the 1950s through the 1970s.

As cultural documents, these images portray the working classes/masses on holiday, and in all the images the markers of class and how it is inscribed on the body (clothes, hairstyles, postures) are evident…. (Sarah Browne, in Circa)

A large set of Hinde’s Butlin’s photos are available online (as are numerous other articfacts collected by Butlin’s fans)

Technorati Tags: Tate Britain, How We Are, John Hinde, Butlin’s, British 

Well, the Ottawa Citizen is breaking new ground with its monitoring of Facebook profiles. Not only can social networks be helpful in drawing up an initial impression of a possible murder suspect, but a simple update on a Facebook profile can make for valuable additional column inches on a story that’s a little slow to develop. 

On Saturday, both the Citizen and the Ottawa Sun referred to a murder suspect’s online profiles while detailing his personal life. 

Today, the Citizen ran a story on the front of the City section detailing how someone had changed the young man’s Facebook profile early on Saturday morning. 

“…But Saturday morning, at 2:11 a.m., the online profile that Mr. Howard maintained on the social networking website, Facebook, changed. Under the category of “relationship status,” the profile was updated from “single” to “in a relationship.” He named an 18-year-old Ottawa woman as the person he was dating.

The woman, who says in her profile that she works at an Ottawa submarine sandwich shop, is more vague about her relationship status.

“In a relationship and it’s complicated,” her profile says…”

Monitoring Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites can often prove valuable for journalists (and identity theft specialists).

Still, I have to question whether a profile update is valuable enough to report - especially without more details.

In effect, the Citizen article was implying that the Facebook update may be related to the murder investigation. And maybe it is - if this case develops into something more complex, possibly involving the girlfriend.

At what point to disparate pieces of information become facts worthy of reporting in traditional media? Should a person’s online persona only be evaluated as a complete package with dozens, hundreds or thousands of online hints, notes, and facts?

Or can our online identities be broken down into individual actions and impressions?

I sure hope no-one is characterizing me by taking note of my Facebook status updates - they’re nonsense.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, MySpace

Most advertising and advocacy work developed for animal shelters plays on sympathetic pictures of abandoned pets.

I love the twist Leo Burnett Toronto has developed for the Toronto Humane Society.

Their new campaign focuses on the benefits of animal adoption for humans: stress reduction, a sense of play, change in lifestyle, and personal health. And a substantial dollop of whimsy.

Three more ads can be found on the Leo Burnett blog.

Technorati Tags: Toronto Humane Society, animal adoption, advocacy, not for profit

This just in! Experiments conducted at Stanford reveal that “the brain’s ability to suppress irrelevant memories makes it easier for humans to remember what’s really important.”

There we go. Scientific evidence that my inability to remember insignificant details is simply the product of a highly functioning brain.

“…Memory allows humans to be predictive about what’s likely to be relevant to them as they go through life, Wagner explained. “What forgetting does is allow the act of prediction to occur much more automatically, because you’ve gotten rid of competing but irrelevant predictions,” he said. “That’s very beneficial for a neural information processing system.”…” (Stanford News)

So, to recap: it’s not that I undervalue what you’re telling me. It’s that I expect something much more important and personally relevant to come along any moment now.

It was 31 degrees celcius or more today. In a hot and humid capital city, that seems to be taken as permission to dress completely inappropriately.

I’m sure someone, somewhere, was wearing a mesh shirt to work.

Leigh Householder (AdverGirl) has some clear advice for a new account executive, including Eleven Unbreakable Rules for AEs and a Be A Better AE Cheat Sheet.

Technorati Tags: AdverGirl, account executive, advertising agency

As workaholics contemplate their upcoming summer vacations, they’re coming to the realization that there will be a lot of time to fill up. Hours and days normally consumed with meetings, lunches and gossip are now booked off. In an attempt to seem deep and pensive, many bloggers are writing up lists of the great or new (those two adjectives are often exclusive) books they’ll be attacking during their vacations.

As a dose of reality, I offer some practical reading suggestions:

Urban Self-Help Books

• Flickr and Shoe Leather: Scouring the City for Your New Artistic Vision
• A Stranger At Home: Uncovering New Places by Falling Asleep on the Bus While Drunk
• 8 Essential Steps to Actually Making A Meal At Home
• Your First Summer Project I: Finding A Home Depot
• Your First Summer Project II: First Aid After Care
• Hiking for Exercise and Fresh Air: Your Map to Urban Ravines
• What to do when you find bones in an Urban Ravine
• Battling OCD at Home: Don’t Keep A Timetable Of Your Neighbours’s Habits
  

Cottage Self-Help Books

• Comparative Measurement of Volume: Do We Have Enough Gas To Get There and Back?
• Making Temporary Friends: How not to get beat up by townies
• Bushwhacking: Finding a Dog That Wants to Be Lost
  
• Meeting People on the Water: Pickup Lines for Windsurfers
  
• Cottage Economics: Is it really cheaper to bring beer from home?
• Rural Cancer Risks: Is Burnt Meat Bad For You?
• Dealing with the Inconsiderate A*hole next Cabin Over
• Rural Connectivity Challenges: Stealing Wi-Fi from the Big House on the Point
• The Two Channel Universe: Tips to Remixing Public Over The Air Television on your iBook

Road Warrior Self-Help Books

• It’s Called Soccer, and Your Daughter Plays It Three Times A Week
• No, This Is Our House. The Difference Is, It’s Daylight
• Playing Well With Others: Those People Live Beside You
• Learning to Relax on Four Bottles A Day

As communicators, public relations types, flacks, marketers … do you remember the moment in your youth when you realized that the wonderful smörgåsbord of media did not just fall into your lap for your consumption and enjoyment?

I mean, when did the fourth wall fall down for you? When did you realize that vast armies of writers, composers, directors, producers and broadcasters were manipulating every moment of the music, film and cartoons you were sucking through your greedy little eyes and ears?

This was it for me:

Bob: “This is where the D.J. talks. Don’t say anything!”

Doug: “Okay, eh!”

That, of course, is the opening line to Bob and Doug MacKenzie’s “Take Off!”

After that revelation, it was all downhill. You mean there’s a reason why most pop hits are less than two and a half minutes long? My favourite sitcom is only 22 minutes long? Radio tease? What’s that?

Gasp.

A Chevette. An Oldsmobile. A K Car. An Omni. All for under $3000. That’s the mission of Dave Campo, a television sales consultant that apparently worked across the United States helping local car dealerships move their clunkers and fine used automobiles.

See a compilation of his selling techniques: gestures, exhortations, catch phrases and facial expressions, on YouTube.

“Wait a minute, FRIENDS! We’ve got cars galore. AHA! You like this car, HERE: ‘81 Camaro. OH! Pick up the PHONE. Give us a CALL!

…THREE-PIECE twilight-blue suit: semi-silk designer shirt; thickly knotted wide tie; black Euro-loafers; big gold rings on each hand; pens in the jacket pocket; crocodile smile; piston-drive handshake.

From the tips of his manicured nails to the razor burn on his cheeks, Dave Campo fits every known image of the car salesman. And for 30 of his 50 years he has been one. “I’m a car man,” he says proudly as if it were a merit badge he’d won.

He doesn’t just like the car business, he loves the car business, doesn’t just like selling cars, he loves selling cars, doesn’t just like swaggering around a car lot screaming like an apoplectic banshee, he…well, you get the picture. “I get emotional with that iron,” he says.” (Selling Power)

Technorati Tags: car sales, television advertising, auto sales consultants

The day’s best cross-cultural reference:

“Nobody puts Swayze in a corner!”

It’s the promo tag line for AMC’s showing of the 80s film Red Dawn.

And for those readers younger than twenty five, it echoes Patrick Swayze’s famous line from Dirty Dancing.

Technorati Tags: 80s, eighties, Dirty Dancing, Jerry Orbach

Okay, people. I’ve got a job. I’ve got a family. I sometimes watch network television. Who is going to invent a Trillian-like app for all these damn social networks? Really.

• MyRagan
• Melcrum’s Communicator’s Network
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

Yes. I know. I’m mixing multi-purpose professional networks with more general apps.  

Robin Crumby of Melcrum makes some good arguments why specialized networks may be more valuable to professionals.

Still, I don’t mean to seem like an old man, but I may not have the attention span to maintain all these networks!

Especially when the Senators are playing!