June 2010 – whatleydude.com

Mobile Geeks of Montreal

Matt Singley, James Whatley, Jeb Brilliant and Brad Fidler @ MGoLA
– via the very talented Rachael Depp

The last time we took the Mobile Geeks of London on Tour was back in September last year when we descended on the Big Apple itself, New York. Before that, Los Angeles (where the above awesome photo was taken – thanking you @Rachael).

But what about 2010? Where in the world should we host Mobile Geeks of London ‘On Tour’ this time ’round?

Well, I’ll you right now – we’re headed to Canada! 😀

Since the start of the year I’ve had a couple of trusted friends run their own ‘franchise’ events of the Mobile Geeks vein, a couple of which have actually already appeared within the Canadian borders; covering both Vancouver and Toronto. Good work Tom Hall.

However, this is Canada’s very first Mobile Geeks ‘On Tour’ event and what an event it’s set out to be.

Mobile Geeks of London ‘On Tour’ in Montreal – aka #MGoM – kicks of Friday 16th July at The Daylight Factory on 1030 Rue Saint Alexandre, Montreal.

If you’re coming, please add yourself to the facebook event page and – all flights and connections pending – I’ll see you there!

😀

_______________

Date: 16th July 2010
Time: 18:30ish â€“ 23:00ish
Location: The Daylight Factory
Street: 1030 Rue Saint Alexandre
Town/City: Montreal

I know most of the Mobile Geeks of London are, by definition, NOT based in Montreal but, some of you reading this might be, or you may someone who knows someoneâ€¦
You get the idea.

🙂

PS. If you’re wondering what I’m doing in Canada in the first place, then look no further than the #N97MiniTour, I’ll be joining the WOMWorld/Nokia team for the second leg of the trip from Montreal to Toronto it’s literally going to be amazing…

Bring. It. On.

Helicopters & Poison

Molekskine entry: September 1st, 2009

Food poisoning. All of us. Wiped out for 24hrs. Eugh.

Today we were supposed to walk up to the next camp. A three hour hike taking in ice climbing, hills, glacier walking… none of this happened. Instead our keeper in Italy, Dee, organised a helicopter to fly us up at lunchtime. Reluctantly and somewhat lethargically we packed our things and made our way to the heli-pad.

All of us, in bits.

The flight itself was fantastic. There’s another photographer on this excursion, Alex, and he and I keep getting bundled together. In the ‘Helipos’ it was the same. The good part being our pilot gave us the full tour ’round and over Mont Blanc.

Spectacular

Full set 74 photo set available on Flickr

We arrive, walk to the lodge and collapse. All but two of us crashing out like we’ve never slept. Sam, who was especially ill the night before, sleeps through from 2pm to 6am the following day. He needed it. The rest of us? We made it to about 7pm before we began to stir. Downstairs we tried to eat. Telling jokes, trying to will ourselves better. There are others here, they’ve been out climbing. Lucky beggars.

Later, the energy levels are up. Not refilled totally but we are on the mend, at last. We spend the rest of the evening playing poker by candlelight.

Tomorrow we’re to go out again. Glaciers await.

More iPad thoughts

I’ve been using the iPad for around two months now I guess and, although my thoughts on the device have been percolating since February… I think, at last, some words have finalised themselves in my head;

The iPad is a high-end, luxury disposable device. An oxymoron. Social, yet non-committal.

Social, is the key word here and it’s this, as well as the whole damn anthropology of it all that brings me to our conclusion.

The mobile phone; hyper-personal. Unique. Yours.
The laptop; still personal, but inclusive. At times, socially unacceptable. Effort.
The iPad; social. Open. Socially acceptable.

Flat and, like table top space invaders of old, it just works. Around the home, in the pub or even in the office – the iPad is handed ’round like it’s always just been there.

I like the iPad. It’s a social consumption machine and there really is nothing else like it.

– – – Drawn, written and posted,Â from my iPad

1000heads: Things we like #1

The first in what I expect to become a series of blog posts from us ‘heads over the coming months. I’m going to kick it off with this effort from David & Goliath, USA

Image courtesy of Direct Daily —

To highlight Universal Studioâ€™s latest King Kong 3D attraction, D&G arranged for these huge footprints to be left in the sand on Santa Monica Beach, complete with a crushed lifeguard vehicle for added effect.

A bit stunty, yes. But imagine walking down to the beach to discover these one morning or, better yet, looking out of your sea-facing window to spot a whole trail of them walking up the coast.

What else could you do?

Send out ‘Giant ape sighted’ alerts to key voices in the area?
Engage with the local sasquatch believers/hunters?
Hide things in the actual prints themselves?
Building up to the event, plant reports of ape sightings?

We’re always trying to improve on things here at 1000heads. The ideas above lend themselves to this slide taken from a recent presentation I gave to New Media Age –

When social presence strategies are becoming the norm, what can you do that sets you out from the crowd? YouTube, Twitter, Facebook – these things are now mere housecleaning to any decent launch.

Do something cool. Do something different. Do something awesome.

This is James Whatley, reporting live from Santa Monica, USA.
(and the less we say about this video, the better)

The Alps, Aug 31st

Molekskine entry: August 31st, 2009

I’ve not had time to do any writing as yet. We’re here, on the border of the French, Swiss and Italian Alps, looking up at Mont Blanc after a really, really intense couple of days. Yesterday, after flying in the 1hr 15mins from London, we were picked up from Geneva and drove through to Italy. I had no idea it was so close.

Within an hour of arriving we were already kitted out and on our way for a training session in the hills.

Yes. That’s me.

We walked for hours and climbed for a while too. Aside from a couple of smashed phones (my own N86 and an iPhone belonging to one of the winners), it was a good day. Intense, but good.

But that was just day one. Today, August 31st, has been one of the scariest days of my life. Being up there, in the mountains, some 3300m above sea level, with nothing but a single rope, a guide and your friends to keep you alive. It’s pretty hairy.

There was a bit, just after that I decided to cut. We stood there and just cried. Cried and cried and cried. The emotional intensity of it all. Completely overwhelming.

Festival season and mobile: The ugly truth

There now follows a minor rant by James Whatley…

‘Here in the UK, festival season is kicking off a plenty and with the great and the good outdoor musical bonanzas just ’round the corner it falls to the mobile industry to produce a veritable banquet of hand-held software and hardware to help the savvy, mud dwelling, sun-loving festival fan this season.’

You’ll probably be reading this kind of opener quite a lot in the national press over the next month or so. Both online and off, journalists and bloggers alike will extolling the virtues of what you should be packing in your tent-rammed sack this year

So, instead of doing the same old, same old – I’m just going to offer some pointers. Having done the mobile festival thing a couple of years running, and having also sent a few tweets from the middle of the Namibian desert, I’d like to think I can offer a bit of first-hand experience when it comes to travelling light while maintaining a degree of connectivity.

Continue reading “Festival season and mobile: The ugly truth”

1000heads: Commended!

A couple of months ago we entered a little creative awards ceremony known The Chip Shop Awards. Billed as ‘creativity with no limits‘, the categories include such prestigious titles as; ‘Best work any brand you haven’t a hope of winning’, ‘Best reject’ and ‘Best use of shocking copy’.

We must admit, while we entered pieces of work (some real, some not) into a fair few categories but it was our entry into the ‘Best use of plagiarism‘ that not only caused a certain amount of hoo-hah, but also earned us a cheeky nod from the judges.

The ‘original’ idea was to take last year’s plagiarism winner and re-enter it as our own. As it turned out, the judges loved it.

— Yes, the ‘award’ is an actual bottle of vinegar. Amazing —

Special thanks to 1000heads CEO, Mike Rowe,for coming up with the ‘original’ idea and of course, it wouldn’t be fair to accept this without a special nod to last year’s winner (and creator of the ad in the first place), Miss Ali Turner.

Ali, drop us a line or leave a comment – we’d love to send you some cake 🙂

1000heads: We heart cupcakes

We eat use them whenever possible.

With Gumtree, with Miele and sometimes Aussie too.

Giving cupcakes is great. Getting them is so much better. So, as you can probably imagine, we were made up when this absolute monster of a cupcake arrived at our office yesterday afternoon!

Nothing too fancy, just the perfect gift from every one at The Family Cake Company, thanking us for our business these past few months. Nom. There was just about enough to feed everyone in the office and well, it didn’t last very long…

Remember delight and surprise? Yeah, that.

Have a great weekend everybody! 🙂

Dear World (and especially Robert Scoble)

Today I read a fantastically thought-provoking piece from Robert Scoble. Yes, that guy. Love him or hate him, he is talented and he definitely knows a thing or two about tech. We’ve had our fallings out over mobile from time to time, but overall – he’s a good guy.

The post in question, entitled Location 2012: Death Of The InformationÂ Silos, talks about what the geo-location-based/cache world of tomorrow could look like by the time we hit the Olympics. The key word here is could.

Continue reading “Dear World (and especially Robert Scoble)”

Why isn’t my MP3 more like Flickr?

The last great MP3 player (and I’m obviously talking about phones here) was the N73. I’m not talking about any old N73 either. I’m talking pre-internet edition, pre-music edition, I’m talking the original, the beautiful N73 v2 firmware.

Why? Because this player gave you a glimpse of the future – as well as the present.

But why is this important? And how does it relate to the question of the title?

Allow me to explain…

Continue reading “Why isn’t my MP3 more like Flickr?”