It is called Hackybeanpouffe.

I’ll [...]]]>

Yay, I have found an exercise that I can be bothered to get off the sofa for (and you can play it right next to the sofa so WIN!). Not just discovered but invented; I came up with the concept, Pete Ashton then refined the techniques involved in this brand new sport.

It is called Hackybeanpouffe.

I’ll just let that sink in for a second.

Hackybeanpouffe is a cross between hackysack and volleyball, but played with a giant bean-bag type cushion. You get three hits before you must pass it back. It should be played with an imaginary net, preferably to its theme tune (see below).

Although surprisingly aerobic due to the effort involved in manipulating beans mid-air, Hackybeanpouffe can be dangerous – the dust, the dust mites, the heavy aerobic breathing; all of these may contribute to sneezing, stuffiness, red itchy eyes, and possibly an asthma attack.

So Hackybeanpouffe: aerobic but allergenic.

Witness the birth of Hackybeanpouffe on YouTube – and note its theme music Cafe Vixen, by Glatze/Ms Hypnotique, which you can buy for a snip (EP £2.99) from Glatze:

So tonight, I blogged over on Tourist Vs Traveller about [...]]]>

Fuelled by Kanye West‘s ridiculously wrong Tweet about hating stickers on laptops, I was impelled to blog not just my laptop stickers but also my stickered up old guitar, my songbook, my diaries and any other stuff I could lay my sticky little hands on.

So tonight, I blogged over on Tourist Vs Traveller about pimping travel diaries, only to realise that you can’t embed slideshows in WordPress.com. So, because I made one, and because I have an urgent need to share my sticker love, here is it below.

And for the full sticker addiction, you can view all 39 pics here as a Flickr set called, yup, Stickers.

I’m thinking of [...]]]>

These links are relevant to my interest but have been sitting in tabs for the last two weeks. I will read them, I >will<. But after I’ve dumped them here. They make quite an interesting view of what has been taking up my time in the last little while. Links as diary entry?

I’m thinking of buying an Android phone…

• HTC Desire review by TechRadar – five stars, looks good, please tell me if this review is all to cock in the comments though as buying is imminent via Top Desire deals. Or should I iPhone it like the rest of the world?

Festivals

• CoCoMad is this weekend (July 3, 2010) in Cotteridge Park, South Brum. I have heard it is good. Here is the line-up.
• I missed it (on purpose) but I’m glad it’s being televised. Here’s a rant about TV coverage, though: After the flags, the mud-slinging.

The garden

• The garden has been battered into submission to my will. This rose was planted by my Mum and is the prettiest thing in it: Woburn Abbey floribunda. I heartily recommend this little try-hard. Lots of colours and it flowers repeatedly. All for a tenner. Thinking of getting another one.

Content strategy

• I thought I liked this site. Boy, was I wrong – Kristina Halvorson cocks up and learns a lesson in user research.
• Content strategy for the real world – slides by Kristina Halvorson.
• Fusing content strategy with design – CS appears in UX Mag.
• Content isn’t king after all (but neither is content curation)
• You can stick your lorem ipsum right up your CMS – for the title alone, but I also like Jeremy Head’s writing (he’s a travel writer too) and rather amazed to find out he’s become a content strategist. Parallel worlds.
• Skills to transition to content strategy
• Content Mapping: A Different Way to Audit
• Organising content – by I’d Rather Be Writing
• Walk Like a Publisher – Don’t Evolve Like One
• The New Rules For Judging ‘Quality’ In Published Content
• CS Forum 2010 Paris – the video presentations

UX / IA

• UX myths – eg, people don’t scroll (agree), but Flash IS evil!
• Zombie personas and many more links that are relevant to my CS/UX interests.
• Personas as User Assistance and Navigation Aids
• The Future is Already Here: Three Trends in IA

Travel and photography

• Eric Fischer has mapped the difference of where tourists and locals take photos – lots of cities mapped. Fascinating. One to blog on the the travel blog.

Copyright and fair use

• The battle lines are being drawn over fair use: Two POVs on the Barclays v. TheFlyOnTheWall.com case

What do the super-rich want to read about?

• The invitation-only subscription magazine for the super-rich – fuel for my day blogging.

Memes

• Know your meme: Jejemon:  “In the Philippines, Jejemon is an internet slang used to describe someone who typEs LyK tHIs.”

Blogging (and hyperlocals)

• 4 Web analytics basics – includes how to lower bounce rates
• How I Publish 42 Blog Posts Per Week – Tips for Efficiency

(and from a convo with Talk About Local’s Will Perrin in the pub…)

• Gypsy Roma Traveller Month: Travellers Got Talent competition
• Kington Blackboard
• Saddleworth News
• Parwich

Yes, the Creative Commons licensing of your content has the direct side-effect of shareability, clarity and time efficiency of not chasing copyright permissions. But it also has the real-world, real-time impact of more people (hopefully) attending what is a truly lovely [...]]]>

…is better parties, social occasions, family life and harmony. Possibly.

Yes, the Creative Commons licensing of your content has the direct side-effect of shareability, clarity and time efficiency of not chasing copyright permissions. But it also has the real-world, real-time impact of more people (hopefully) attending what is a truly lovely family event in Birmingham this weekend. And here’s why – in a 24-hour timeline:

Saturday 12.00: Yesterday, I took photographs at a family day out at this weekend’s Traditional Edwardian Fete at Winterbourne House and Garden, and as is my habit, set them uploading to my Flickr photo account, during the making of dinner. Here’s the set of 60 and also in slideshow format:

Saturday 22.00: After adding a few captions and tags and the like, at midnight I posted the link to the family on Facebook, and then also posted to Twitter.

Sunday 10.00: This morning, I discovered that Nick Booth from my Twitterstream had blogged about my day and posted some of my photos on the Birmingham Conservation Trust charity website.

No need to contact me first; the pics were released under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial licence.

He then let me know via Flickr comments and Twitter that it was up – just in time to get the word out to more potential visitors.

Sunday 12.00: Hopefully, as a result, many more people will get to enjoy this lovely house, garden and fete – as it was intended, full of promenading Edwardians, the bluebell wood still just about in flower, cream teas on the terrace, cheese-rolling skittles and coconut shies on the lawn, and donkey rides down in the glade. And now, by doing something interesting with my content, Nick’s driven me to blog about it too.

Winterbourne Gardens Traditional Edwardian Fete is on til 5pm today in Edgbaston, a stroll from the Barber Institute, King Edwards School and Birmingham University. £6 for adults, concession £4, under fives, free.

Fascinating as Content Strategy Forum 2010 was two weeks ago, one major thing that came out of it was the need for benchmarked case studies that focus specifically on online content strategy, its effects and [...]]]>

Karen McGrane and Rachel Lovinger present a workshop on content audits at CS Forum 2010 in Paris. © Fiona Cullinan/Flickr

Fascinating as Content Strategy Forum 2010 was two weeks ago, one major thing that came out of it was the need for benchmarked case studies that focus specifically on online content strategy, its effects and its impacts on the development and success of a website.

Serendipity landed Kristina Halvorson (queen of content strategy) next to me at lunchtime on #csforum10 Friday – which, by the way, was a three-course  à la carte lunch with wine. (Bless whoever decided to set the first-ever dedicated content strategy event in Paris in the springtime.)

Content is a hard sell
Halvorson admitted that content strategy can be a hard sell, particularly in an environment that is prioritised for design and development with content requirement boxes full of ‘lorum ipsem’ often only fulfilled with real content at the 11th hour.

There is a lot of advocacy for content strategy going on at the moment to sort out the mess of working this way.

Halvorson herself has spent the last 18 months being very vocal about why something as crucial as content should be considered not only upfront but throughout its lifecycle. She looks for content advocates within organisations to help make the case. And last year, she wrote Content Strategy for the Web, a handbook that outlines a repeatable process to take care of the whole messy content thing.

Finally, the content strategy buzz of 2009 means that clients are starting to request content strategy directly.

Lack of successful case studies
And yet, despite reading the book and saying ‘yes Yes YES’ like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally at the common sense that lies within, the finally page is a massive deflation:

‘At the time of writing, I’m not aware of a single case study available to the public that documents a content strategy successs story.’

It was something she echoed at lunch. Part of this is because projects are often not benchmarked from the outset and then monitored for change arising from content strategy changes. Partly, it’s because content advocates are still trying to get in on the act at an early enough stage.

But expect to see some case studies soon, I think.

Facebook’s content strategy success
It was great, for example, to hear Sarah Cancilla, the solo content strategist at Facebook, talk about some basic content tweaking to make the calls to action clearer on the ‘Get connected’ section. Some simple sub-editing here resulted in an overnight rise of 56% net traffic to those three links and six million more people connecting as a result of the change.

Six million! Now that’s what I call a justification.

Facebook is now also hiring a second content strategist, unsurprisingly.

A multi-tasking discipline
But as a former sub-editor, I’m not surprised. I come from a background of 20 years’ prepping raw copy for an audience, both in print and online, and trying to make it more engaging, clear and understandable for readers.

But content strategy is not just sub-editing and clever writing. And there is still a whole lot of new to take on board…

A content strategist has to get to grips with the disciplines of information architecture, user experience, monitoring and analytics, pinning down key business goals, auditing and analysis, alignment of stakeholders, and so on. All of these inform the choice of content.

It’s a lot to get your arms around, as Halvorson might say.

But forget arms. Since coming back from Paris, I’ve put my legs on backwards and kicked myself up the butt to initiate three content strategy projects for clients. I’m hoping to create a benchmarkable case with one of them in particular.

Fierce Festival as a case study
Fierce Festival, an internationally renowned arts festival based in the West Midlands since 1997, has become a different beast over the years. It has developed a training arm for artists and consultancy arm for arts organisations. The festival itself is also morphing and this year has two new artistic directors, Harun and Laura.

With their arrival comes a clean slate. Past sites have been archived or taken offline and a blog has been set up as a conversation leading towards a future full-scale festival website, in which all the strands of Fierce will be brought together under one umbrella at last.

I’ve volunteered to help with this from a content perspective. It’s going to be a journey but I’ll be documenting some of the issues involved in trying to unify Fierce’s radical and innovative performance side with its practical training/consultancy side.

Halp!
Of course, I’m learning here too so I’m kind of on my own journey here with content strategy – and the arts, too, since the rest of the week I’m Grant Thornton‘s freelance blogger (they’re a large accountancy firm btw).

I hope the project will be interesting to watch, document or engage with. I should be blogging about it both here and possibly on Fierce’s blog as their journey develops.

Not having been in Birmingham at the same time as Fierce festival, I’m also fresh to it, but would love to hear from fans of Fierce if you want to give me a nudge about something.

(Afterthought: how much will people be looking for Fierce festival stuff on smartphones, do you think? Great slideshare from #csforum10 on optimising content for mobile by Erin Scime. Would hate to see web/blog stuff shovelled onto the small screen.)

After a week of unusual nights out– featuring trampolining, Balkan and Israeli folk dancing and ukulele to name three – tonight had the potential to be the weirdest yet.

The Box of Frogs theatre impro workshop is held in Moseley, Birmingham’s arty, crusty and eclectic postcode, every [...]]]>

Whose Line Is It Anyway - screenshot by Skitzitilby/Flickr

After a week of unusual nights out– featuring trampolining, Balkan and Israeli folk dancing and ukulele to name three – tonight had the potential to be the weirdest yet.

The Box of Frogs theatre impro workshop is held in Moseley, Birmingham’s arty, crusty and eclectic postcode, every Tuesday evening. For just a fiver, you can revisit your inner child for two hours of pretend, singing, mirroring, general making things up on the spot and playing games called things like ‘Zip Zap Boing’.

Now let me just say, I am not the dramatic type and hate being put on the spot. I used to be very shy and hid behind my mother’s skirts when people came to the house. I also hated acting at school and found it false, stressful and humiliating. As an adult I can hardly breathe when speaking in public. Oh and being a ginger, I blush to the roots.

And yet… I admire people who can perform naturally, who can wing it at a talk or who can give a confident or charming presentation. And there is something (megalomania?) within me that drives me towards taking the lead. I also seem to have an occasional exhibitionist streak and have sung/played on stage (for Gordon Brown) in what now seems like another lifetime.

Finding an improv session in Birmingham was part of my SXSW Interactive follow-up, after feeling particularly inspired by the fun, games and confidence-building at a session called Improv Lessons for Freelancers.

Box of Frogs featured seven players and was fascinating, supportive and not at all embarrassing. This was unexpected considering that tonight I have had to perform a contemporary dance about dog walking, sing in fluent nonsense and play a bank manager so obsessed with a potential loan customer’s spectacles that she just had to touch them and get them for herself.

Because the great thing about improv is that nothing you do is wrong! For once, the brain can take a day off from fretting about getting it right.

Which was a particularly good thing – because I spent the first 10 minutes in the church next door doing vocal exercises with the local choir.

Now that’s what I call improv!

Well, here it is. The perfect post. Albeit leading to 3,000 >more< words of juicy goodness about a trade that is being eroded, outsourced and killed off as mainstream media declines. Over on Subs’ Standards, I’ve [...]]]>

My blog mentor used to say keep your posts short. One point per post. Three paragraphs should do it.

Well, here it is. The perfect post. Albeit leading to 3,000 >more< words of juicy goodness about a trade that is being eroded, outsourced and killed off as mainstream media declines. Over on Subs’ Standards, I’ve just posted up the final chunk of a three-part epic looking back over my 21 years as a sub-editor.

And here is it: RIP Sub-editing 1987-2008. Enjoy! Meanwhile check out these taster pics: of my old-skool kit and the changing size and shape of technology…

Typewriter, typescale, proof marks, reproduction computer

Silver Reed vs MacBook