The launch of Google+ brings once again the opportunity/chore to categorise our real world and digital relationships into some sort of meaningful schema. It’s the social media equivalent of copying out names and numbers into a new address book (remember those?) and analysing the probability of ever needing that contact again.

Is the person I spent a night with drinking at a conference and discussing our children a friend, an acquaintance or a co-delegate? Where do colleagues fit in on my relationship map? And what about the person who I’ve never met in ‘meat-space’ but correspond with regularly in conversation on twitter/flickr/facebook? Do I need to worry about circling someone as a ‘Social Media Maven’ rather than a ‘person who does cool stuff? (Answer: Yes)

“Create around one at least a small circle where matters are arranged as one wants them to be.” – Anna Freud

It will always be hard to put people into broad categories because, well, we’re all special and unique flowers, man. But questioning the nature of online friendship is an exercise worth revisiting every now and again. As the lines between online and offline blur we’re going to need to find new ‘friendrank’ algorithms. So, while code can reveal to us who we communicate with most often, it can’t tell us who we care for. Right now I’m categorising ‘friends’ as people I am genuinely pleased for if something good happens to them and ‘acquaintances’ as those whose news I am merely interested in.

This is as far as I’ve got with my Circle Schema and is subject to change – I’d love to hear your strategies in the comments below.

Author: Alice Bullimore, Integrated Producer, BBH London

What would happen if you asked everyone in the world to take a video of their life on the same day?

Well, it’s happened. The day was July 24th 2010 and people from 120 countries uploaded over 80,000 videos. Life, in a Day.

The raw footage itself is powerful. As Alexandra Coghlan comments in her great review, “what is perhaps most extraordinary and exciting about this project are its leftovers”,  and on the ‘explore’ tab at youtube.com/lifeinaday the guys at Google have made all this footage available for us to filter and view, the many stories untold.

But then there’s the film.

Kevin MacDonald & Ridley Scott at RSA undertook the ambitious curatorial job of creating their story of the world, Joe Walker took on the crazily gargantaun mission of editing.

Over 4500 hours of footage reviewed, complied and cut into a coherent 90 minute film.

The film’s not bad either.

It was well received at Sundance, Berlin and SXSW film festivals, Total Film have given it 4 stars and it currently enjoys a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

But what was it like laying down this challenge?

What if no-one had entered anything?

What if most of the crowd sourced footage was unusable?

With so much footage to go through, how do you choose what story to tell? An individual’s? The world’s? The editors’? Just whose agenda is at work, and what are the implications of a film like this?

Well, we’re privileged to be able to get a bit closer to some of these answers with a preview screening & live Q&A with the editor, Joe Walker, at BBH in London this wednesday 15th June at 5.00pm.

If you would like to ask Will and the team a question of your own, we have a limited number of tickets available for you & a friend to join us.

Please email carrie.murray@bbh-labs.com to get a free pair of tickets. First come first served.

We look forward to seeing you.

You can also upload questions for Kevin MacDonald and Life in a Day contributors here, by 2pm UK time *today* in advance of the UK premiere. The film is on national release in Vue cinemas on Thursday.

“This is of mythical proportions. We have to deal with it, even if it turns out not to be true.”
~ Kevin Kelly

Sarah Speake introduces the 'Transcendent Man' screening

Regular readers of this blog will know we have an abiding fascination with what technology may bring in the far flung future (see our The Coming Age of Augmentation post and, most recently, Greg Anderson on Asimov’s First Law).

So it’ll be no surprise to hear we got *extremely* excited when an invite arrived, courtesy of Google, to attend a screening of Barry Ptolemy’s Transcendent Man at the Science Museum in London, followed by a Q&A with the director and the film’s subject, the futurist, author and engineer Ray Kurzweil.

The documentary is an elegant stringing together of a series of points and counter-points voiced by an extraordinary cast of technology sages, providing a coherency to the controversial Technological Singularity debate previously lacking (see our amateur knitting together of different points of view here, for example). It’s slick, impressive stuff. The film also contains a classical and wholly human theme which Ptolemy chose to highlight during the Q&A – Kurzweil’s complex relationship with his father, to which I would add: his overriding preoccupation with (avoiding) death.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but think these themes are the director’s attempt to lend some day-to-day humanity to what otherwise becomes a circular debate about whether technology will bring about a future Dystopia or Utopia. For brevity, the extremities of the debate can be summed up in sound bites from the film:

“People routinely underestimate the law of accelerating returns… in about forty years the pace of change is going to be so astonishingly quick that you won’t be able to follow it, unless you enhance your own intelligence by merging with the intelligent technology we’re creating.” ~ Kurzweil

“We always use the latest technology to create the new technology… we will create AIs that are real people.” ~ Kurzweil

“There will be a major war in the late 21st century between two human groups about whether to build or not build AI..the Artilect War” ~ Hugo de Garis

And, finally, the impossible-to-argue-with perspective: “The biggest implication of the Technological Singularity is that we don’t know the implications”  ~ Dean Kamen

At the very end of the Q&A we were lucky enough to ask Kurzweil a question that’s been vexing us since we first came across it:

“If we’re to believe we will live forever, it follows there will be no need to procreate and hence no evolutionary need for love… so what exactly are we transcending to?”

His response was swift and fluent; the practised, polite putdown of a professional used to deflecting tricky questions:

“To be creative. To have relationships, to give to one another..”

Music to an optimist’s ears, perhaps: who wouldn’t want to eradicate poverty, disease and death if they could? And replace all of that with a pure and harmonious focus on creativity?

Nonetheless, I cannot help but think this isn’t a future I want. Give me the messy, heart-breaking, silly and all-too-short side to human life. And the joy brought about by children; not in terms of the hypothetical future they represent, but the way they are right now, in front of us, making us laugh and cry with their indescribable brilliance. What do you think? Do the laws of evolution dictate a future coloured by unending cyborgian perfection, or will we fight to wallow sentimentally in our flawed humanity?

The Science Museum looking suitable sci-fi last Monday night

Just as it is very easy to have an opinion about art without knowing how to draw, it’s very, very simple to talk knowledgeably about ‘digital’ without knowing anything about coding – the logic underlying every website and digital product we’ve ever used, tweeted about and, often, criticised.

So as part of Internet Week Europe and with Google Creative Labs we held a Coding for Dummies workshop which was an opportunity for 40 or so people to learn at the feet of some true coding ninjas and take their first, shaky steps along the path of geek enlightenment.

We started from the basics, quickly learning that 40 people cannot transfer a file to the same server simultaneously. We covered basic html, the fundamentals of server-side and client-side interactions moving smoothly onto CSS and javascript embeds before Googler @monocubed wowed us with some experimental HTML5 projects that might, right now, be a little beyond our abilities.

The afternoon didn’t finish with the class able to recreate We Feel Fine or launch an alternative blogging platform. But what it did was give everyone the confidence to go and have a look at a webpage’s source code and the beginnings of understanding why things on the web look and behave the way they do. A bunch of people can now go and play with code, launch a page onto the internet, tweak it, break it and maybe even fix it again.

Below are @tomux’s slides and at the end of them we’ve added a few of the pages that some of the dummies-no-longer created. We enjoyed ourselves so much (and still have so much to learn!) that we hope to do this again some time – keep an eye on our twitter for details.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along and special thanks to Googler’s @tomux, @monocubed and @potatolondon and BBHers @mrjonandrews and @jimhunt_ for patient teaching and technical prowess.

We know code-fu.

We particularly like the casting of two ‘Scandinavian’ looking gents as the main protagonists; perhaps a gentle reference to our own ECDs on the project, Calle and Pelle Sjoenell.

Here’s the original, in case you missed it.

And here’s our film about how we made them.

Finally, a few snaps from the shoot.

]]> http://bbh-labs.com/we-know-chrome-is-fast-but-is-opera-faster-than-a-potato/feed 9 http://bbh-labs.com/on-the-art-of-persuasion-bbhs-sir-john-hegarty-at-google-zeitgeist-europe-2010 http://bbh-labs.com/on-the-art-of-persuasion-bbhs-sir-john-hegarty-at-google-zeitgeist-europe-2010#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 16:19:21 +0000 Ben Malbon http://bbh-labs.com/?p=5215 Three undisputed masters in their field discuss how the art of ‘selling’ is evolving.

Moderated by: Matthew d’Ancona (Political Columnist, Sunday Telegraph & Evening Standard)

Image from Zach Hilder's blog: http://deathfrom.blogspot.com/

Author: Heidi Hackemer (@uberblond), Planning Director, BBH New York

We just went through recruitment for our upcoming internship program, the BBH Barn, and since we announced our six interns from the 150+ applications we’ve received a lot of questions about our selection criteria.

Whether literally or figuratively, the candidates that made the cut had a two-column resume. In column A, we saw an interest and understanding of advertising and/or consumer and brand interaction. It doesn’t mean that these interns are advertising experts by any stretch of the imagination, but it does mean that they have an appreciation for it and may know a bit of their way around our world. 98% of the applications checked off this column quite well.

The second column is where things got interesting: we also looked for candidates that had a bit of “mess” in their resume, i.e. a curiosity, a drive to think about and do things beyond pursuing the perfect advertising career. As a result we have filmmakers, activists, dancers and a guy that has worked in third world development.

We believe the mess is just as important as the “proper” education and inputs: advertising is one of those fields that should collaborate not only internally, but with culture at large – to be relevant and human we should inhale the world around us, circulate it in our lungs a bit and then exhale our response. The minute that we get too obsessed or spend too much time focusing on what happens within our walls or the minute the great love in our life becomes a widget or :30 second idea is the minute we lose the oxygen that we need to make great work.

Let’s face it, the people that are purely obsessed with advertising (and we all know them and have phases in our own lives where we’re guilty of being one of them) aren’t the people that contribute much to a truly sparkling dinner party or a stupid fun night out or bring a perspective that really changes things.  So we wanted to make sure our Barn was filled with the dinner-party-rockers of the future. We think it will make for a more interesting summer and better work.

So here’s where it gets cool:

We were thinking of the above criteria, that we applied externally, and we thought we’d check internally how well we were doing. We asked BBHers in the NYC office to send along their personal, out of office, projects. We had a whole bunch of stuff submitted. Some highlights included:

Calle Sjoenell @callesjonell wanders around new york and puts up basketball nets where there are none. http://www.flickr.com/photos/callesjonell/sets/72157621869375075/

Harper Reitkopf @itsharper pretty much lives at the honey-space gallery to help artists do their thing http://honey-space.com/

Dane Larsen @dlarsen is documenting the life and times of his Brooklyn backyard this summer http://bklynbkyard.com/

Brad Haugen @hoogs throws his passion into being the Director of Marketing and Brand for Pencils of Promise, a non-profit that helps build schools in third world countries http://www.pencilsofpromise.org/blog/2010/04/bring-out-lead-forth/

Zach Hilder keeps an awesome blog of his drawings and photographs http://deathfrom.blogspot.com

Saneel Radia @saneel is working with a team to figure out the next big thing in coffee cups http://www.thebetacup.com/ & @thebetacup

Kris Chu @kris_chu documents his struggle to banish cable from his life: http://suckitcable.blogspot.com/

Colleen Leddy @colleddy blogs tips about being the impeccable bridesmaid http://holdthebouquet.squarespace.com/

Kenji Summers @kenjisummers gives time to the Marcus Graham Project, a network of diverse advertising, marketing and media people @MGProject

Kirsty Saddler @keava has taken her personal passion for corporate social responsibility and started a think tank/action group within BBH called the Hive @BBHhive

Chris Araujo @cornfedchris is working on a soon to be unveiled project that’s all about making the world a better place and that’s all I can say about it right now upon fear of death.

Miranda Kendrick @mirandakendrick has two culture grabbing blogs: http://workingitatwork.tumblr.com/ that shows off the beautiful people of BBH and http://nyink.blogspot.com/ that shows off the beautiful tattoos of the world.

Hal & Masa have been busy working on the follow up to their Webby-winning music video for “Hibi no Neiro” (Tone of everyday) by “Sour” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfBlUQguvyw (watch this space)

And me? I’ve started the Wilhelmine Project, a mini-gallery that is hosted in the display window of my converted storefront apartment in the East Village http://thewilhelmineproject.com & @wilhelmineprjct

So our question today is, what’s your 20% project?

Are you busy waiting for permission?

Or are you busy just getting on with it?

Let us know what you’re up to. You never know, there might be some common ground; we could collaborate.

The first film is for Chrome Extensions, and demonstrates how users can personalize their browser. The music used is Fats Waller’s (Do You Intend to Put an End to) A Sweet Beginning?

The second film is for Chrome Translate, the range of translation features that are built in to Chrome, and that enable users to seamlessly translate Internet pages from one language to another.

Both of these films are quite unlike most other tech product demos. They use lo-fi, hand-made elements and simple metaphors to show how the products work. There’s no hype. No extravagant claims. We instead try and keep everything simple.

As with our previous work for Chrome at the end of 2009, we worked with the extraordinary production team at 1st Avenue Machine in New York. The films were directed by 1st Avenue Machine’s Aaron Duffy & Tim Brown.

We hope you enjoy them. They look particularly great in HD on YouTube (click through the videos and then select the HD button).

And watch out for more new work for Google to come in the next few weeks.

Credits

Client: Google EMEA

Titles: Google Chrome Extensions/Translate the Internet with Google Chrome

Agency : Bartle Bogle Hegarty New York

CCO: Kevin Roddy

ECD: Calle Sjoenell, Pelle Sjoenell

AD/CW: Maja Fernqvist

AD/CW: Joakim Saul

Head of Broadcast: Lisa Setten

Senior Producer: Melissa Bemis

Business Director: Ben Malbon

Acct. Manager: Rossa Hsieh

Production Company: 1st Avenue Machine

Director: Tim Brown

Co-Director: Aaron Duffy

DP: Zak Mulligan

Exec. Producer: Sam Penfield

Line Producer: Keely Gould

Editorial Company: Lost Planet

Editor: Charlie Johnston

Assistant Editor: Christopher Huth

Exec. Producer: Krystn Wagenberg

Producer: Meagen Carroll

Telecine: Company 3

Telecine Artist: Billy Gabor

Online Facility: Black Hole

Online Editor: Tim Farrell

VFX Company: Black Hole

Producer: Tim Vierling

Audio Facility: Plush

Audio Engineer: Rob Fielack

Music: Extensions

Music Supervisor: Sara Matarazzo, Anna Lasxurain & Stephanie Diaz-Matos

Title: (Do You Intend To Put An End To) A Sweet Beginning Like This

Artist: Fats Waller

Music: Translate

Music Supervisor: Sara Matarazzo, Anna Lascurain & Stephanie Diaz-Matos

Title: Plastic Sunshine

Composed by: Steven Stern and Stuart Hart

We’re after a big room, studio or small stage in NYC for three days in January (14-16th). We’re trying to find a space where we can re-create the Chrome Features short films we’ve just made for Google.

For a start, we want to have a little party, and January seems like a good time to be doing that. But we’d like to open it up to anyone who wants to come along and have a look at how they were made.

The space needs to be around 60 x 40 ft, with – ideally – some good height to the ceiling. If you have somewhere you can lend us, or you know someone who might, please email me at ben.malbon@bbh-labs.com

THANKS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Here are the films:

And here is a film about how we made them:

We took Google’s ingenuity & innovation as inspiration in developing the idea for seven short films (& an intro), demonstrating the benefits of Google Chrome. Every creation is built by hand, filmed in camera, with no special effects added.  Even the music where Jacqui, the harpist, is playing is live on set. As it should always be with Google, the product is the hero. We celebrate the Chrome product, but we hope in a “Googley” way.

The films work as a longer single film of around 4 minutes, where the 8 films are merged together. We’ve designed annotations into the experience on YouTube; these are effectively hyperlinks to other films embedded into the film itself – like roll-over hotspots with links behind them. We hope this makes YouTube even more interactive. The transition device between films (the ‘notice board’) is based on annotations.

The project was especially fun from a collaboration point of view. BBH New York, BBH London & the team at Glue London worked super closely together with the Google team on the development of the strategy, creative and media. The Director was Aaron Duffy and the production company were 1st Avenue Machine in New York.

Here’s a peek into the production process where you can see a little of the intensity and excitement that results when you gather a bunch of geeks, designers, artists and a harpist together in a small studio. The knitted props were actually knitted by the Director, pretty much there and then.

A lot of people worked very hard during an intense but awesome process. The Google clients (based in London) were very much part of our team too. It was fun. I hope that shows.

Here are a few photographs we took on set.