Adam and I went along to another great Verne Harnish Rockefeller Habits event put on by The Growth Faculty on Tuesday and sat next to Derek Hodge, a TEC (The Executive Connection) Group Chair.

With a full day of Verne under our belts and sharing ideas, Derek invited me to join him the next day for a TEC presentation by Marcus Child (@digitalmarcus) titled “Leading an Engaged Culture”.

What a cracking few hours! Marcus was incredibly energetic as a presenter with great practical ideas around leadership and staff engagement, not to mention some incredible results to report. If you get the chance, I highly recommend you go to see him.

I videoed Marcus afterwards and asked him the question: “How can we use the web to build an engaged culture?” . The video is below.

The quick take home for me: The web can be used to really bring leadership messages to life through visual and audio, and enable them to be shared so much more easily!

Thanks again Marcus!

The video

It’s 2.03mins (transcript below):

Interview Transcript:

Hello my name is Marcus Child.

I’ve been speaking to the leaders of TEC today and that’s my work! Speaking to people all over the place, describing to people how they can get an engaged culture. And think about how we might use the web for that.

My own story, a year ago, somebody said to me: “Marcus, you do these talks, people really enjoy them” (really nice things) “but afterwards a few months after, they say: how do you keep it alive? How do you keep the messages because I’ve forgotten what you said?”

So I made a series of Digital Marcus. Made a website, and made a series of downloads, all audio downloads – mp3s – which people can listen to on their mobile phones, listen to on mp3 players, download onto their laptops, listen on the tube, when they’re driving.

And do you know it’s made a massive difference. For my business it’s been marvellous, but also for people to keep the message alive. I sold 25,000 of these things in the first 6 months! Ever so strong! And that’s been really good for me. I’ve decided to blog, and give people videos and footage of me working – just to keep the thing alive.

With some of my clients we do the same thing. Literally MDs and other people in their organisations, are finding ways of not only blogging, but sharing what they’re saying, what the latest newscast is in a podcast, in a really quick mp3, which gets shared around the business for everyone to get the latest message.It’s a much more modern, powerful way to get to see, feel and hear your leader in action.

And I think there’s a lot there. I think there’s something about replay it, build it into an accessible device, and it can be ever so colourful. And way better than the black and white of a page.

Richard Flint, he of the Hawaiian shirt, straight-talk and multiple PhDs, gave the keynote address at Thursday’s GLAM event. Richard travels the world to speak at over 200 events each year on matters of behaviour, motivation, success and money. Resilience is his second favourite word (love is his number one.)

Bluewire Media has enjoyed a relationship with GLAM (Girls Learning About Money) since 2007. We are a proud supplier sponsor, looking after their website and email marketing. Lesley Hays and I attended GLAM’s latest seminar, hosted monthly to discuss investment, the stock market, real estate, prenuptial agreements and—next month—profitable home renovation.

With a glass of bubbly, a handful of crackers and a metaphorical, motivational kick, it was an excellent way to spend a rainy evening in the city.

After Richard’s seminar, I was introduced to Rebecca Griffin, public relations and marketing officer for GLAM. In 2010, Rebecca co-wrote the book ‘Ms Millionaire’ (perennially lucky Lesley won it as a lucky door prize.)

We look forward to the next GLAM event on Thursday 2^nd June.

In the interview, Liz covers how she helps businesses become “irresistible” to their clients and customers.

It’s a three step process, she says:

• Take away all the things in your service that your customers don’t like,
• Enhance, and add value to the things they love; and
• Add something extra that your customers will die for.

Here are some examples of the questions I asked, along with some summaries of Liz’s fantastic answers.

What are the ingredients of a successful blog?

• A strong voice with great content.
  “There’s information all over the net, but there’s only one you.”
• Be honest, give opinion. Think of the way movie critics mark their review with perspective. Don’t just relay information.

But what am I supposed to write about?

• Successful people only do two things “talk and move” – blog your experience, share something that you know and I don’t.
• The most compelling and profound blogs are on the edge.
• “If you make yourself the center of the universe, the universe goes out of balance“.
  Blog about your customers, ask them questions, talk about businesses doing great things.

What’s the difference between traditional marketing and web 2.0?

• People.
  “It’s not about the product anymore, it’s about how the product will help you connect to other people“.

How do you, and how can others promote themselves or their business?

• Talk about what you do, both online and offline. Meet people, blog, be involved with others.
• Build your network before you need it. Don’t ask “what can you offer me now?”
  “Look at people as opportunities to connect to their whole network.”
• Promote other people
  “Look for people who are interested in what you’re interested in and listen to them. The best self promotion is to promote other people.”

How can I create community and encourage comments?

• There’s a difference between presentation and conversation – If you want a conversational blog, leave room for people to comment and add to the conversation. End with a specific question people actually want to answer, that you can answer, and that you’d want to answer.
• Discuss your experiences, don’t wrap things up in a bow. See it like a puzzle.
  “Leave room for people to contribute, then ask them to.”
  
• Respond to comments with another question, keep the conversation going.

What are the biggest fears you come across with people starting their blog and how do you overcome them?

• Time – It doesn’t have to take long. Keep it simple.
• What will they write about? – Everything’s something to write about!
• Fear of negative comment – Invite guest bloggers, people at your level. If people feel involved they’ll help protect it.
  “Raise the barn, don’t build the colosseum.”

This month I bring you another great iPhone game from some more guys I studied with at QUT. Yes my course included some talented individuals as you’ll remember my last iPhone review (BW News Feb 2010) also mentioned fellow course mates, The Voxel Agents, who created Train Conductor.

This month however, it’s all about Fruit Ninja! Developed here in Brisbane by Halfbrick Studios, Fruit Ninja is an amazingly simple swipe and slash game that just works. It looks beautiful and while the game’s premise may be simple, the mechanics of it are so polished and executed brilliantly, that it makes for the perfect time passer.

But don’t take my word for it, watch the trailer below from their website or download today to see for yourself. You’ll be craving fruit salad in no time…

Fruit Ninja is fun, fun, fun. It’s an instant pleasure.”IGN.com “It’s simple, fun and best of all challenging.” – toucharcade.com

It’s with a bit of trepedation that I take over these posts! So here it is… the first of Bluewire Media’s Monday Weekly Round-ups.

• Has the iPhone lost its cool? – CNN
• Test drive Internet Explorer 9
• 24 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed – Mashable
• 17 Useful Tips to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life – Guiding Tech
• Google Launches Secure Search – Mashable (Use it here: https://www.google.com)
• 25 Crazy Cake Designs – Abduzeedo (graphic design inspiration… really)

Did you miss Google’s Pacman game? Play it here.

Fascinating stuff! Do you think we can fill Sarah’s blogging shoes? Look out for next week’s round-up, now on Mondays.

Have you ever wondered why all Apple product mockups show the time at just after 9.40? Neither had I (nor had I even picked up on this peculiarity). But indeed, the iPhone’s clock displayed 9.42am. The iPad displayed 9.41.

I’ll let Fast Company explain:

Turns out Apple’s keynote organizers think about this stuff right down to the tiniest detail–and this is certainly one of the tinier details. They rehearse the presentation with Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, and whoever else will be speaking, and time it so the big announcement comes 40 minutes in. They add a couple minutes to be on the safe side.

That means that when Apple puts that most important slide up, the one introducing the new hardware, the time on the static image of the device will be damned close to the time the packed room of journalists sees it for the first time. It’s just one more example of how carefully Apple prepares everything–that’s a detail we didn’t know about until a couple days ago, and they’ve been doing it for years, with no fanfare. Very cool, right?

Their level of perfectionism is at once impressive and intimidating, isn’t it!

See for yourself at Apple.com »

 
‘BIRD’ by Andrew Zuckerman

BIRD Ferruginous Hawk from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

BIRD film from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

Anyone who’s seen Andrew Zuckerman’s incredible wildlife photography will appreciate this stunning video created to accompany his book called BIRD.

Via Kitsune Noir.

 
Have a go at First Person Tetris. Frustrating, fun, totally retro!

Being the 30th, I thought I’d put together an animation and take you on journey through the month that was Movember!

Nic & myself as The Bluewire Media Team, managed to raise a total of $265.00. (Not bad for a couple of hairy lips) Donations are still open if you’d like to chip in…

To date, (over 6 years) Movember has raised $60 million globally for the fight against prostate cancer and depression in men. And, more importantly, as a direct result, male awareness of health issues has improved with Movember helping to spread health messages directly to millions of Mo Bros & Sistas around the world.

Below is the tally for 2009! Great effort everyone! Thanks to everyone who dontated!

When I was a young teenager at the turn of the century, I fiddled around with building small web pages, in so far as to create fan sites for whatever computer games I was playing at the time.

What programs do you rely on most heavily?

My workflow consists of a variety of beautifully designed Mac OS X software: The Hit List, Textmate, CSSEdit, Safari, Billings etc. Photoshop is in there, but it’s just not very well designed!

As a freelancer, how do you advertise your services?

I currently receive leads from word of mouth, which is negating the need for advertising at this point.

Are you a fan of any particular industry blogs or websites? Which ones?

The majority of my professional-related reading comes from the personal blogs of like-minded designers and developers.

What do you think is the most important attribute to being a good developer?

Intrinsically maintaining a one-to-one client relationship is highly beneficial for both people involved. Not only does it provide the client with the best possible product, but greatly spurs the developer on.

What would you like to get better at?

As web technologies are increasingly being utilised for non-web purposes, I would like to become awesome at applying the technologies to other strange and wonderful applications – such as desktop apps, exhibits, engineering etc.

What do you like doing when you aren’t working?

I occasionally participate on a multicultural youth radio show. Other more disparate hobbies include music production and cycling.

You won the QUT web design prize in 2007. What made your entry stand out?

When compared to the other groups working toward the same goal, we excelled in providing the most impressive and personalised product for the client. Our documentation was extensive (due to QUT’s requirements) allowing us to better describe our intentions.

And finally, what is your business mantra?

Ease of use, speed of production & support and very high client satisfaction!