Tag: swimming

Plundering UGC Cash, Who’s In?

I’ve just been flicking through New Media Age. And after my earlier comment about User Generated Content, I was dismayed to see how many column inches have been given over to terrible UGC ideas – but with MASSIVE cash prizes. I did a quick count, and I reckon that this week there’s about £20k up for grabs. Not to mention holidays, TVs, etc. I reckon there’s probably cars and things out there too if I were to go and look. (Doritos just put up $50,000 in cash for their ‘Crash the Superbowl Promotion‘)

Suddenly a really evil plot hatched in my brain…

  • Most entries to those things are not very good – I know from bitter experience of being on the receiving end.
  • Most of them don’t get that many entries
  • If you were good at writing, making short films, photography, etc. it wouldn’t be that difficult to win a lot of the contests that exist. They’re all being judged by marketing departments after all. And we all know what clients want to hear (or at least we’ve got a reasonable idea).

Anyone fancy forming a loose ‘A-Team’ (or a rubbishy B-Team) of creative types with a single-minded ambition of seeing just how much we can extract from UGC campaigns? I’ve got a fantasy of releasing a story to the marketing press with a bunch of people swimming in a pool of ill-gotten cash?

Anyone up for it?

Busy not blogging

I’m faced with a daily paradox at the moment: the busier I get (sometimes doing quite interesting stuff) the less time I find that I have to blog about it. I need to get better at putting aside a few minutes a day to keep the site up to date. Or maybe I need to consider a slightly new format for the blog where I can say more in less words? Here’s a few things I’ve done in the last 2 weeks of quiet blog time:

  1. Been working with Zopa. Professionally I’m working with Zopa which is one of the most interesting projects I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on. I’m finding it fascinating and incredibly taxing in equal measures. Taking a inherently simple proposition (which has very very complex underpinnings) and making it work from both a product and a communication point of view. It’s one of the first things I’ve done recently where our work touches so much of their business. If you’ve not heard of Zopa, go check it out.
  2. Been taking swimming lessons. I’ve never been a good swimmer, but always wanted to be better. I read about a method of teaching swimming that uses principles from the Alexander Technique, so I resolved that I’d find out more about The Art of Swimming using the Shaw Method. I did. I signed up, and I’m finding it absolutely amazing. I’ll talk more when I’m finished my lessons.
  3. Had a very interesting meeting with MySpace. I’ve talked a lot on here about MySpace, and I’m going to talk some more in the next day or two, but it was great to meet some people who are actually involved in the business. I still have some reservations about what they’re doing, but there’s undoubtedly some very interesting things we can all learn…
  4. Had a long weekend of going out to parties with old friends. Behaved like an idiot 10 years younger than I am (and had a great time). Feel like an old man now. Interesting to see how 24-hour licensing now means that you can essentially go clubbing around the clock in parts of London now, and people do, and they quite often look like a mess. I’ll say no more.

Anyone got any tips on how to stay blogging during times of stress and heavy workload?