Archive for the ‘Danny Devriendt’ Category

By Danny Devriendt

Dabbing my toe left and right in the stormy waters of Social Media, I bumped into a fascinating quote from Google big boss Eric Schmidt (Google him, it’s impressive ). He said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time… I mean we really have to think about these things as a society… Young people may one day have to change their names in order to escape their previous online activity.” This is a concern I have voiced for a long time now. Do people really know what they are sharing? Do people really want to tell every last detail of their most private lives online, for Google to index? Do people realize that that very cute picture in that minuscule teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini is available for their future boss? What about the massive tagging of pictures taken by smartphones in the dark of a hen night? Do people realize Tweets are indexed and kept, long after their authors have deleted and forgotten them? Schmidt has a point. Digital citizens should be more aware of the digital traces they leave behind. Some social auto-responsibility is required, indeed. Some social clean up even: map your real friends. Find a circle where sharing is mutual and well defined. Un-friend and un-follow the shady ones. Be online street-smart. And we need more e-netiquette. The freedom of waving your digital camera around ends where someone else’s freedom (for privacy) begins. An opt-in/opt-out for tagging? We all can become social-digital smarter. But we’ve all been young. We’ve all partied. We’ve all made big, social mistakes. Luckily, for my generation, the memories of those mistakes have been blissfully eroded by the softening hand of time. Should we now be merciless on youngsters that made that one drunken mistake online? Should we continue to judge that one girl for loving the wrong guy just a bit too much, and ending up tagged on exgirlfriends.com? Maybe Eric Schmidt and his all-powerful Google have a responsibility here: can you get a second chance from Google? Imagine, mister Schmidt, if a youngster made that one online mistake, and motivates why he/she would like to see it blown into –permanent- oblivion. Could you alter your logarithm, and give the kid the rest of his/her life back? Would that not be easier, more respectful, and more educative than just offering future generations the possibility to change their names? But I do not want to put the entire burden on Eric Schmidt’s shoulders, I agree with online consultant Suw Charman-Anderson who said somewhere: “As a society, we are just going to have to become a bit more forgiving of the follies of youth.”

by Marta Majewska

Ladies and gentleman … or señoras y señores! On Thursday night we reached our final destination – Madrid! The next morning we were expected at Loft39 – a very elegant location where the seminar was taking place – and after some good café con leche (or a triple espresso if we’re talking Danny), the seminar could start.

After a warm welcome and the introduction of the speakers by Juan-Cruz Más Vidal, the CEO of Porter Novelli  Madrid, Gary Stockman was the first to take the floor to talk about how real-time has redefined communications, the need for a holistic, integrated approach and the urgency of authenticity and innovation. John, using a fluent Spanglish;), talked about his experiences with Community Management, the need for brands to become curators of high-quality content and took our attendees to the magid world of augmented reality. Danny showed off with his mayorships and foursquare badges when talking about location-based services and introduced the participants to new analytics and Delphi – Porter Novelli’s forward looking cornerstone.  Next to our great speakers from Porter Novelli, we also had a guest speaker, Celia Morales, Head of EU Social Media and PR eBay Europe, who talked about the latest, and very successful, social media campaigns of eBay and the company’s take on social media.

After the seminar, we met with the Spanish from comms&marketing, business and technology publications including  PR Noticias, IPMark, Brandlife, Negocio, El Periódico de la Publicidad and El Publicista with who we’ve had some really great and open minded discussions. We discussed the role of social media for companies as well as governments and oh how handy it is to speak fluent Spanish in moments like that

The day was rounded off with an internal session at PN Madrid where we’ve met with our wonderful colleagues!

Big thank you to Juan-Cruz Más Vidal, Higinio Martínez and all our colleagues from the Madrid office who helped with the organization of the event!

If you speak Spanish, check out the blog of our Madrid colleagues for further reading.

Our one and only Danny Devriendt talking about Belgian politicians and their social media behavior on Studio Brussel! To listen, click on the image below (Dutch only, sorry guys!)

By Danny Devriendt

It has to be said: I can appreciate a good old trend from time to time: a certain continuity that clearly shows life is going on. Rambo, 1, 2, 3; The Godfather I, II, III; Windows 2000, 2005,… But trop is just too much… Lately people use the word generation a bit too eagerly.

First there was Generation X, and then came the fully connected web-designed smart kids of generation Y. Here @ Heliade towers, we’re still trying to figure out what those Y-ers eat (lactose free bio vegetables?) and there comes Randstad with a new label: Generation R.
According to a study conducted by Randstad, a human resources group, Generation R describes a whole generation (there you have that word again) frustrated professionals who have survived the recession. Yep: the R stands for recession.
Many companies had to downsize (rightsize, optsize, lay-off or fire) a lot of staff, leaving those who stayed with much expanded roles. These survivors had to shape up and take on roles above their job titles and pay-checks.
Needless to say that these people progressed way faster in this lean and mean environment: skills and experience were injected and generated Red Bull-fueled progress.
Now that the economy stops sputtering a bit, and some slow traction can be perceived, Generation R wants to be rewarded: upgraded, refitted and boosted. And we’re talking paycheck, title, and career path. If they do not get what they want, fast… they leave, to cash in their new status elsewhere…
I guess the keys of all those lonely Audi R8’s and Porsche GT3-RS’s that were slowly gathering dust after the financial bubble, will be tossed to Generation R now.
Heck, I’ll have to ask mom what generation I am….

Brands don’t properly take into account the influence of social networks like Twitter and Facebook to open up a dialogue with consumers. They need to be more present and control what is happening there in order to avoid difficult situations. Some groups or communities appear on the web around a certain brand without the consent of this brand, and not always for the sake of this brand. Besides, the effect of a tweet, especially negative messages, is exponential even if short in time. On social networks, the consumer approaches the brand, not the other way round, while companies are unilateral in their way of communicating. Finally, brands needs to understand that a ‘human’ message will have more impact than a commercial one. Community Managers are key to more and more companies.

Danny Devriendt, Intelligent Dialogue Director at PN, has just created a social media lab called @PNBR5. As a former journalist, he now has more reach on Twitter than the audience he had when he worked for a daily newspaper. For him, social media is essential to any communications strategy. “There’s an ambiguous approach around the phenomenon, and not only around Twitter. Web-users expect brands to be present on these networks to discuss and criticize. Brands think it’s only a new advertising channel. On the +/- 200 existing digital networks, there are a few stars, but also some targeted and more confidential networks,  that are more efficient depending on the product or brand. What many brands don’t understand, is how you can and must communicate on these networks. Until now, their message was one-way through advertising and would either convince the consumer or not. With digital interaction, dialogue is key, also when you get criticized or attacked. For example: an overweight person was denied single tariff by a US airline company. The company was then hit by boycott calls on the social networks. Brands still need to be educated about this new way of communicating to their consumers.”

Posted by Kathy Van Looy

By Danny Devriendt

Have you noticed? Lately online it is all about “conversation”. It’s the new buzzword in town that shall be listed in Vogues Great Guide Of Words To Drop @ The Next CocktailParty (have you noticed the “@”?). Conversation online. In social media. Because, you know, nomen est omen: it is about conversing with people, having a chat with attitude, talk on steroids. Bidirectional swapping of digital thoughts. Dialogue for the brainy ones .

Now, do not get me wrong. I’m all for it. I love “conversing” online, swapping witty reflections with notorious clever people with a laser sharp vision. I love the gentle battle of like wired minds, the old jousting with rock solid arguments.

Mind you, I do enjoy intercultural reflections on life, the universe, everything, even with people I only know as a slightly silly, greenish one eyed Avatar.

But what bothers me lately is that some virtual nitwits these days position it as a “sine qua non” for digital presence; as a “must do”. As a “have to”.

I hate “have to’s”. I listen to everyone. Most is not interesting, short of even vaguely amusing. Some is nice. Some is intriguing. Some triggers desire to engage, comment, swap, battle, encourage…. I gladly succumb to these feelings…. Because I want to. Not because some digital guru with a fan club thinks it is a wise thing to do.

You’re seduced in a conversation, invited into one, sweet talked into one, maybe even bribed into one… but never ever forced into one

Conversing is an art form of connecting, persuading, pairing up. You have a conversation going on, or not. There is no grey zone. It’s a war on my terms

So you, conversation manager, better be a darn good artist….

“Conversation should be with people who give a rip what you have to say, not just anyone with a frontal lobe”

Witnessed a great keynote by metaio on augmented solutions. While until recently augmented reality seemed to be limited to very exotic and expensive equipment like the Apache helicopter or some Q-designed James Bond gadgets, it is soon coming to devices very very near you .

Augmented reality applications allow relevant information and exciting features to be overlaid on top of the visual reality. Usually this would be through a laptop or -even more handy-, a mobile phone.

Noora Guldemond from metaio demonstrated with skill (great presentation with utterly visual slides. Refreshing after some of the other death-by-Powerpoint I witnessed here @ #SXSW) how AR starts interacting in a compelling way with our increasingly mobile lifestyle.

AR tags trigger -once decoded by the devices camera- a plethora of information that is projected on top of the reality, making use of data more easy, or adding exciting possibilities. Creating visual interaction in both real and virtual worlds makes even dull every day products as a shoe into exciting high-tech game and content controllers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRcognsyqNY&feature]

Can’t wait to try more of this out!

Walking through #SXSW you meet an interesting variety of people who have one thing in common: Social Media. And to be fairly honest, after being immersed for a full 48 hours in this digital Mekka:  most of the tweeps around here are useless .

Maybe I should blame my jetlag, or is it my down to earth Belgian mentality… but a lot of these so called digital upper crowd make no sense at all. I hear a lot of quacking about nice dreams, but three or four questions into the conversation you notice that they have no clue what the real-world-out-there rules of engagement are.

What is the benefit of the tool/platform/technique/gimmick for the user? How does it make life better or more interesting? How do you monetize it? Who will you partner with to make it happen? Is an-all English tool to conquer the multilingual world the best you could come up with? Have you realized not ALL people use an iPhone?

I see a lot of lonely, nearly desperate people with shiny airbooks struggling to explain the one great idea they have.

Once the connection with the real world is lost, even the most brilliant nerd is doomed. My advice to these too pale web ghosts is: unplug. For a while. Take some air. Take a minute AFK (Away From Keyboard). Meet real people. See what they’re like, what drives them. How business is done.

You’ll see, you’ll get there. Eventually.

Luckily, there are still enough people here who DO know what they are talking about…

My jet-lagged-bones woke me up a full three hours before my alarm clock was set, so it was a quick, dirty, short night (had an argument with my air-conditioning unit on noise pollution). But hey, sleep is way overrated anyway .

Finally met the complete Porter Novelli Austin gang. Funny to shake hands with some of my favorite online avatars… Great also to see some good old familiar faces. Setting up the #SXSW booth, picking up our badges, testing equipment; fine-tuning the plethora of Social Media channels that we’re going to lean on (heavily ) over the next days…

By Danny Devriendt

I must say that this weekend’s Social Media stream on natural disasters triggered very mixed feelings. I followed both the devastating earthquake in Chile, and the brutal storm over France live on social media. Twitter and YouTube proved to be way faster than CNN and even the local French news desk. The social media warrior in me had a glorious “told you so” moment, the journalist in me felt fundamentally and completely by-passed. Simply no way in covering news any faster than this live-stream… you can follow the ripples of the news as they unfold.

What is astonishing is the near real time experience. The constant stream fully local tweets gives a hallucinating vivid image of what is happening. Multiple channels (more people tweeting on the same event) and location tracking filter out hoaxes and disinformation. Direct links to online pictures, videos and text-content give this crowd-journalism a cross-media and very visual impact.

As Social Media can be done on most mobile phones these days, the technical barrier to use it is extremely low. Anyone armed with an 89 dollar phone can cover, edit, shoot, post and share news-as-it-is-happening and will probably have hours of head start before a traditional journalist can work on the premises.

But as the stream of abhorrent news kept on flooding my trackers and feeds, the big difference between this unfolding disaster covered by people who are involved (even committed) and the more distant approach of the traditional channels became very clear.

It is not all about speed, and volume of data. TV gives you a filtered, selected story based on information that is carefully put in a context. It is calibrated for a normal audience. Too shocking or disturbing facts and images will be polished, or left out.

The news will be packed in an item that is tailor made for understanding and assimilating.

Social Media feeds are unfiltered, un-blurred, and raw. It puts you right at the receiving end of a fire hose of pure emotion and drama that is happening right now. You are simultaneously voyeur, analyst, journalist, editor and news anchor.

My question is: can you handle it?