Power of online video seminar - video presentations

We have uploaded films of some of the presentations made at the Sadler's Wells seminar on online video.

Tom Laidlaw from VideoJug talks about short-form video.

Richard Cohen speaks about making the most of your content (and McFly!).

Patrick Johnston talks about SEO for video.

Maya Gabrielle from the National Theatre speaks about content...

...and here is my opening for the afternoon, on the importance of video to Sadler's Wells comms strategy.

Google Trends

A bit of a sad post I admit, but I love graphs, data and maps.

At the ECHO digital conference recently I included a screen grab as an example of the kind of information you can easily get from the web. It was done using Google Trends  a site you may or may not have used but one that is easy and quite fun.

Searches for Dance Classes

This was what I used as an example. Searches for Dance Classes, which showed that, like going to the gym, people make a resolution at the beginning of every year to learn to dance. Anyway, huge data sources are truly fascinating and I tried a few other things.

Aftershave and perfume are seasonal searches too. Though the market for perfume is definitely on the rise, I presume as it becomes part of every celebrity brand offering. Some more traditional seasonal trends are rather more predictable.

Searches for Aftershave

Searches for Perfume

Searches for Turkey Recipes

Naomi Campbell vs. Kate Moss goes to prove one major indiscretion can't compete with being a badass on a regular basis.

Searches for Naomi Campbell

Searches for Kate Moss

One of the interesting things is noticing the major trends up or down and then figuring out the reason why. Though Google sometimes helpfully reminds you.

Searches for Glastonbury

Searches for MDMA

Searches for Stingray

Tracey Emin vs. Damien Hirst makes an interesting comparison.

Searches for Tracey Emin

Searches for Damien Hurst

The rapid growth and decline of a global phenomenon...

Searches for Guitar Hero

...and everyone's gift for Christmas 2010

Searches for Kindle

And finally in case you were planning on getting one hot tubs are sooo over...

Searches for Hot Tubs

Ok, I need to stop now.

Guardian goes "Digital First"

I have not had time to post about this until now but it promises to mark a huge change in the way that the Guardian and Observer deal with content. Whether it has wider implications for the future of the UK newspaper industry, or is just a drop on the blood trail that leads to corpse of the Guardian remains to be seen. For those who missed it the Guardian have announced that from now on they will have  a policy of digital first. This is a dramatic change, and one prompted one suspects, less by a conviction that the future for newspapers is purely digital but instead by the huge losses the Guardian and Observer make (£33 million in the last financial year). After all GMN spent £80 million on brand new Berliner presses just 6 years ago and it wasn't as if anyone thought the web was just a fad back in 2005.

As part of this shift it has been announced that the GNM group will make £25 million worth of cuts over the next five years, so there will be a reduction in staff. Shifting direction like this is always difficult for any company that has an existing and long established business model. If you were to start an online publication from scratch you would, I am sure, begin with a very different management and staff structure. Unfortunately GNM have to adapt their existing print led structure to this new direction; shedding staff, retraining others and taking on new ones with brand new technical skills.*

There has been a lot said about the financial difficulties that GNM face but not much about what a digital first Guardian will be like. I wonder how this move will change how they deal with content. If they are not introducing a paywall what other measure of success will they use? Ad revenue of course, but page views and comments? We are endlessly told that only "real journalism" offers the expert analysis needed to make sense of the world, and that amateur bloggers don't have the experience and skills a "proper" news source can offer. Possibly true if you still have a full staff of credible journalists left and are not chasing web traffic by any means necessary. The Guardian has a passion for blogs but predictably those posts that get the most comments are either the most general or those that provoke most outrage. I can imagine a future where generating comments is seen as a measure of success, which inevitably will change the type of stories they pursue and the nature of the coverage. Certainly where commenting becomes a significant part of the plan it naturally has an impact on the tone of the site (as all you secret readers of the Daily Mail website will know).

What else will a digital first Guardian be like? Well there will be more video for sure. In fact, for the arts not having video, or at least enough images to create a gallery will put you at a distinct disadvantage I'd have thought. As to the impact this shift has on the amount and nature of reviews on both website and newspaper, we will have to wait and see.

*This change process to adapt to new technology and falling revenue is very interesting and theatre in many ways faces some similar (though less threatening) situations. After all if you built a theatre today what size phone room would you have bearing in mind over 80% of sales might be online anyway? Would you even have one at all? If you started a theatre company today where would digital fit in the business plan? As an old timer I find it funny that knowledge that was once essential for all staff (about print production for example) is needed far less now across the communications team. But, we have a foot firmly in the past even as we embrace the future. As digital grows steadily in significance we still produce thousands of leaflets, and to be fair a large section of the audience continue to want their information in this format. 


As I often say when asked about the application of modern non-arts marketing  to theatre, we should not forget we work within a great tradition that goes back over 2000 years, long pre-dating any 20th century ideas of brand based marketing. The issues we face today when selling shows have always been around and theatre marketing is probably the world's oldest form of mass marketing. There was probably a poster outside the Coliseum that said "Lion vs. Christians. Wednesday Matinee. Kids go Free!" and I bet Ancient Roman theatre owners worried how they could get a younger more diverse audience in to see those dull Greek Classics. Interestingly as more and more diverse channels of communication open up, and brands try and turn customers into audiences mainstream marketing comes to resemble theatre marketing more and more. But more on that another time.

Google adwords - competitor bidding and related ads

Following up on my post about the Royal Opera House bidding on Sadler's Wells as keywords for its current Adwords campaign I thought I would follow up with some more observations.  Again, I am using the ROH as an example, not because I have a particular problem with what they are doing, but because they are running an extensive campaign that is not show related and so highlights very well how Google Adwords work.

The first covers competition for page placement on Google and what this means when adverts are added to the equation. As you can see in this screen grab a search for English National Ballet gives you an ad for the Royal Opera House that sits at the top of the main column rather than in the familiar position to the right. Ad positions like these set you up in competition for your own name in search and force you (assuming it matters to you of course) to take your own ads to outbid your rival and regain top position. Great for Google's income line, but it would be a shame to see arts organisations waste money in a bidding war.

The second screenshot features something called Related Ads. These are Google ads that appear on keywords you may not necessarily have bid on. As far as I know their appearance is related to previous searches done, what Google considers is relevant to the user, and the broad match terms the advertiser may has used in their campaign; but I'll leave the definitive answer to any adwords experts (assuming they even know). It is a feature that has been around a while and is so often the case with Google appeared without much explanation or warning. A few people have gone as far as call these Evil Ads though of course Google say they are just offering customers better service.

There is more on this subject here and here for Google Adword junkies.

ECHO digital conference - Gateshead 20/21 June

The ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) Digital event was a big success and it was great to be asked to join the panel on Digital Media as a Communications Tool. There were some excellent speakers and case studies all in the lovely setting of the Sage, Gateshead. A stunning building with wonderful, welcoming staff.

Particularly interesting to hear from were some of the overseas speakers. Marie-Helene Serra, the Head of Education and Library of Cite de la Music, Paris showed us some of the extensive resources they offer online (check out the Media Library and Education sections on the website). Christoph Franke and Robert Zimmerman who look after the live broadcasts of the Berlin Philharmoniker via their Digital Concert Hall gave a fascinating insight into the seriously heavyweight set-up that they have in place to film and stream all their concerts. Benton Dellinger spoke about the New World Symphony in Miami and their incredibly versatile concert hall. There was also a great case study from the Manhattan School of Music and its distance learning programme. There was a scale to these overseas projects that was incredibly impressive. Tony Hall from the Royal Opera House did his bit for the UK however, talking about how much they have achieved globally through their cinema broadcasts, and it was great to see an impressive local  initiative, Live Theatre's Be A Playwright interactive course.

A big well done to Anthony Sargent for pulling together a truly international line-up and also for creating an event that was so wide ranging in its scope.

Personalised search in Google - the Filter Bubble

When I was a very young I remember talking about a TV programme on that night (it was probably Doctor Who) and a friend said "Will that be on my TV as well?" I had to explain that what was on my TVs was on all TVs and we would be watching the same thing at the same time. Of course things are very different now, but even today we still have our shared must see moments like the Apprentice (if I don't watch it when broadcast I have to hide from the metro, facebook and all work chit-chat till I see it).

The reason I thought of this is that you might imagine things were the same if you and a friend searched for exactly the same thing on Google. But I recently did a search on the term "dance" and found my results very different to the ones our web manager Mark got. Of course search results we assume will vary by country, or even by region but it really does seem that personalised search for all of us is now here. Last weekend there was a large piece in the Observer on this very topic which makes interesting reading. It certainly messes with your SEO strategy if searches are primarily based on an individuals previous activity. What does this mean? Well I suppose Google would say it makes your search more targeted so you get what you want but is that always a good thing? Or does it just reinforce your positive or negative opinions by never exposing you to anything new or challenging? Cynics would say it encourages businesses to spend money on Adwords to ensure your message gets across. Some people would say it just balances out the work done by companies trying to force their own messages on us. I mention all this because in the arts our aim (I hope) is always to reach new people and widen our audience. This was something the web offered that was very exciting. By narrowing down what we see to what we already think and like, Google is perhaps only giving us the illusion of access to information.

Eli Pariser has written a book on this very subject that comes out on 23 June and follows on from a powerful TED lecture he gave. His term for it is a Filter Bubble and it is an interesting concept with big implications for how we use the web to find information. The impact it has on how we will access news in the future is immense. Interestingly, Google may say this all makes their search engine more efficient and faster but at best it may make it a duller place to spend time, offering you more and more of the same. At worst it may limit how you think about the world.

Building Digital Capacity for the Arts - Arts Council and BBC partnership

On 10 March I was one of the speakers at the launch of the new BBC/Arts Council initiative Building Digital Capacity for the Arts. The event marked the beginning of an exciting series of seminars on a wide range of issues around digital and its impact on the arts.

The first seminar took place on 23rd March and covered Internet TV and Apps while the second will take place on 5th July and cover Audio and Audio Visual content. All the seminars will be available to watch online if you cannot attend adding up to a invaluable resource.