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What does it mean to do business in a truly social economy? More importantly, what does it take to succeed?

These are two questions at the forefront of any modern marketer’s mind, although the answers are slightly harder to come by. Thankfully, this month we’re hosting our very own seminar on the subject so you can really get to grips with your place as part of ‘The Networked Economy’.

Taking place at The Hospital Club in Central London on the morning of Friday 25th May, our planning director Ronnie Crosbie will be taking guests on a whistle-stop tour through three of the most influential marketing texts of recent times – Alan Moore’s ‘No Straight Lines’, Joseph Pine & Kim Korn’s ‘Infinite Possibility’ and Alex Bogusky & John Windsor’s ‘Baked In’.

Using these texts as a foundation, Ronnie will look at how advances in social, mobile and digital technology have rewritten the landscape of the modern marketplace, returning us to an economy in which word-of-mouth, personal recommendation and social communication are once again the keys to brand success.

The talk runs from 8.30am – 10am. Attendance is entirely free, however places are limited.

To reserve your seat, send us an email with the details of how many places you would like and which company they are for.

We look forward to seeing you there.

It’s generally accepted that social media changes the way organisations interact with their customers, but without the right expertise it’s not always obvious how to make the most of this.

How exactly should a company go about dealing with its customer base in an environment that is, by its very nature, public and intended for sharing? What is the best way to go about rewarding loyal fans, and what areas need to be addressed in the event of a crisis?

These are all tricky questions, and ones that are vital to get right if your organisation is to succeed in the social media universe. Thankfully, finding out the answers needn’t be a stab in the dark.

On 29^th March, our director Lloyd Salmons will be speaking at The Social Customer 2012 – the UK’s leading conference on social customer engagement. Appearing alongside British Gas Social Media Manager Laura Price, Lloyd will be discussing the best ways for large companies to tackle the issues of customer service, digital marketing and social CRM in the modern digital era, and you’re all invited to come and join the party (and by party, we mean interesting and informative e-business conference).

The event is being hosted by renowned social media consultancy blog Our Social Times, and takes place from 9am – 5pm at Prospero House, London, SE1 1GA. Also speaking on the day will be representatives from BT, Citibank, M&S and CapGemini, among others, making this a great day of talks that’s sure to bring a new insight into the online workings of some of the UK’s largest companies.

To see the full program of talks or to book tickets, head over to the event’s official website.

We’ll see you down the front.

We are looking for a Motion Graphic Designer to join our online video content team here at Outside Line.

Some of our work is produced in collaboration with our digital studio, therefore a good understanding of interactive design and technology is essential.

Photography, film & directing experience will count in your favour.

Salary is 30 – 35 k.

Submissions without portfolio or showreel will not be considered.

Our Agency:

http://outsideline.co.uk/

Our video work:

http://vimeo.com/outsideline/videos

Please send all applications to adam[dot]alexandroni[at]outsideline.com

We’re happy to announce that our creative collaboration with DJ Cheeba for Beck’s has won the vzaar award for Best Video by a Creative Agency, judged by renowned Hollywood Director, Oliver Stone (see Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, Any Given Sunday).

Recognised for our visionary approach and creative execution of the DJ Cheeba viral for the Beck’s Vier Music Inspires Art campaign, we managed to impress Oliver Stone and the esteemed judging panel who singled out the project from over 1000 entries as a “superb, imaginative commercial”.

“Being identified by the great Oliver Stone for one of our video projects is an outstanding achievement and a great boost for the team who worked with great precision to deliver a fantastic result,” said Lloyd Salmons, one of our founding fathers. “This will certainly go down as one of our greatest moments.”

As the leading online video hosting platform, vzaar created the Video Festival to highlight the outstanding style and the seamless blend of artistic concept and effective communication which is being achieved by agencies using video across the globe.

BBCify via Kelly

“BBCify mashes up TV and radio listings from the BBC with Spotify to create playlists of shows.

As well as new playlists for each broadcast, BBCify also creates magic playlists; a single playlist that gets updated every day with the latest tracks. Add a magic playlist to your phone, set it to sync offline and each morning you’ll awake to great playlists lovingly crafted by the awesome BBC people.”

Kelly swears by The Huey (of Fun Loving Criminal’s fame) Show… this will give you a playlist with Velvet Underground, James Blake and Al Green. Score.

Life in a Day via Tony

Another video that we’ve been waiting a long time to see, Ridley Scott’s ‘Life in a Day’ project.

“On July 24, 2010, thousands of people around the world uploaded videos of their lives to YouTube to take part in Life in a Day, a historic cinematic experiment to create a documentary film about a single day on earth.”

This film will attempt to navigate the cliff edge between being heartfelt and being cheesy – from this trailer we’re not so sure that it’s going to do it successfully but it’s still a great idea.

Cinemagraphs via Rob

Ok, so we’re not the only ones shouting about these this week. We love the re-cycling of a simple technology (ie GIFs) to make something new and great. This one seems to be the most popular in the office, but check out the full collection at From Me To You’s Tumblr.

Royal Wedding Cereal

The obligatory Royal Wedding entry. Purely for the genius copy on each pack…”Put a monarch in your morning!”

‘Special Kate’s’ and ‘Wills’ Royal O’s’ gets our vote for best Royal Wedding merchandise.

A few weeks ago, D&AD held one of their Sharp’ner events on What Makes A Great Idea? (apologies for the cliched lightbulb pic) and the answer was a resounding shoulder shrug and a muttered “I dunno but it kinda looks like one of these ideas…” Feeling deeply unsatisfied with this answer we asked five members of the Outside Line team, all from different disciplines, what they thought made a great idea…

David Hamilton, Development

I always thought ideas are like greatness. Some ideas are just great (internet porn), some ideas achieve greatness (Facebook) and some ideas have greatness thrust upon them (Twitter).

Ideas often depend on your point of view and great ideas come from being able to see something in a way no one else has, or even seeing a use in something that other people have dismissed as ridiculous.

For instance, washing fruit and vegetables in your washing machine sounds dumb, right? But check this out, a washing machine manufacturer in China went round to a guy’s house to fix his washing machine and when they got there they found it was clogged up with lettuce and other veg and they were like “wtf man?” (or something to that effect). He replied ”yeah I wash my food in here”. Instead of laughing at him as they probably should, they went back to their R&D team and they designed a washing machine that cleans food as well as clothes. That may not have been the greatest idea but that kind of thinking can result in winning ideas.

Dan Rutherford, Creative Planning

For any idea to be successful it needs to offer a fun, entertaining or useful experience for consumers. If it doesn’t, then don’t bother.

It’s not just about delivering the brand message in a certain way, it’s about creating something that adds to the consumers day.  In my opinion, brands that offer a continual flow of experiences for consumers are the ones that create better connections with existing and new fans of the brand.  The energy that’s created by fans who interact with your idea is what makes the idea great.

Gemma Bardsley, Social Media

Great ideas come from insights into culture; knowledge of the way people behave and using this information to create a relevant ‘solution’. The solution and ‘idea’ may not have been a problem anyone knew needed to be fixed. Way before Facebook existed we were all happy with the way we interacted with people, the creation of Facebook wasn’t essential to our day-to-day life. However, insight into human behaviour suggested that there was another way to facilitate communication, which harnessed the web’s ability to connect people and our inherent desire to share information. This led to the creation of the biggest social networking tool.

In the way that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunities; a great idea is what happens when cultural insight meets inspiration.

The below video is a great example of cultural insights resulting in a great idea; providing a city with 20,000 bikes so they can move from a to b and kickstart their own economy.

Kelly Wisker, Accounts

“I wish I’d thought of that first”… if people say that about your idea… you’re onto a winner.

A great idea is something that fills a void that people never even knew existed – a new product that you didn’t need, but now you can’t live without it… an app that solves a problem or makes your life easier… a tool that brings you together with friends or reunites you with family.

Ben Stapleton, Video

A great idea is something you shouldn’t have to think about, it should come to you.

Whether it’s the perfect sandwich filling or a great idea for a video, it’s something you should want to put into action straight away, regardless of any hurdles.

It’s often so easy to get bogged down by obstacles and the thought that “someone else has probably already done it”. This can be the death of an idea before it’s even begun, it’s important that once you have an idea that you have confidence in it and block out your inner naysayer.

Red Bull Street Art View

New Radiohead Album

22tracks

Watson

Uniqlooks

We’ve always been big fans of the online fashion stalking site, lookbook.nu, and we love Uniqlo’s take on the theme with their new site, Uniqlooks, where customers show off their on-brand style skills.