1000heads – Page 4 – whatleydude

1000heads in my Moleskine

Molekskine entry: September 12th, 2009

Second entry today. We’ve arrived in St Maarten and I am happy. The reason?Â Yesterday I verbally accepted a role at 1000heads.

This is pretty big.

You see I left SpinVox with the full intention of going freelance for a while. Maybe start my own business etc… And so when I initially approached Mike Davison (MD @ 1000heads), it was about how I could help them out on a one, maybe two day a week basis.

However, upon meeting him – for the first time I might add – I knew it could lead to good things.

My decision making process is often quite intense and I never, ever do anything unless I am 100% certain it is the right thing to do. Yes, I take risks. Everyone does. But they are calculated ones and every possible outcome is noted and accounted for. Suddenly I remember I was chess champion at school. Makes sense.

I digress.

I met Mike after the Wyoming leg of the Lucozade Energy Challenges but before the Alps (challenges two and three respectively). In the time between those trips I had planned to try and work exactly what it was that I wanted to do. This of course didn’t happen and if anything my choices were muddied yet again. I blamed Mike for this. Entirely.

I thought. I worked for a bit and then I thought some more. All the while trying to work out where I should go next.

I met with Mike again.

As before, he and I spent most of the time talking about our mutual visions and beliefs on branding, community, word of mouth and crucially our respective futures. I told him I was still trying to work things out and also that he had made things much harder.

Mike was great. “Go. Enjoy the Alps.” he said. “Speak on your return.”

I went. I came back. I knew.

1000heads was the way ahead.

O Canada!

T-minus 2hrs until take off. I’ve never been to Canada before, this time last year I was just packing my bags to head of to Wyoming and still a little bit unsure of my future. Amazing to think how far and how much things can change in a year.

Why Canada? Work, naturally.

1000heads have been signed on to do some work for Nokia Canada and since the start of July we’ve been executing our first kick off activity; the N97minitour.

Driving from Vancouver to Toronto (with stops along the way) and timed with the Canadian N97mini launch, our team on the ground over there have been organising meet ups, competitions and generally blogging and tweeting their little hearts out.

I’m flying over for leg two; Montreal to Toronto. What with Mobile Geeks this coming Friday and a whole host of other events lined up for the ten days following, it should be pretty awesome.

As I type, the team are en route to Montreal and I’m already grinning at the thought of the RV pictured above pulling up at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International and my team waiting to greet me. Amazing.

Like I said, I’ve never been to Canada before. What a way to see it first hand?

🙂

Hello Texas!

Today I fly to Texas, 1000heads are sending a small team out to the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival to provide support to Nokia and a group competition winners who found out on Monday (!) that they’d won a rather sweet all expenses trip to join us.

It’s going to be awesome.

If you’ve never heard of SXSW before then don’t worry, I hadn’t until a couple of years ago. It’s a ten day event that’s broken up across three (relatively independent) parts; film, interactive and music. The second one is the bit we’re headed out for for – the interactive aka – SXSWi.

Although, it must be said; if I ever return on my own dime then it’d be amazing to attend all three.

I’ve always loved film and a few influences in my life of late have also helped me rediscover a healthy taste in music.

At the time of writing I’m somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, about halfway between London and Chicago (our first port of call en route to Austin, Texas). This is my first time at SXSWi. A bunch of my friends have been several times before however I am still a Texas virgin. I literally cannot wait.

Did I mention that it’s going to be awesome? 🙂

BRING. IT. ON.

Mobile Geeks of…

Three years ago, in June 2007, I set up the Mobile Geeks of London Facebook group. Set up and designed for the sole selfish purpose of meeting folk like me, the first event the following month was a resounding success.

Looking back at the ten event history, we’ve had meet-ups in London, Los Angeles, New York and even Las Vegas. The Mobile Geeks Of… bug has spread far and wide and, over the 1000 days or so that the group has been running, occasionally I’ve been approached by a number of people who have wanted to set up their own chapters so to speak. Their very own Mobile Geeks Of.

My response has more often than not been: “No, not yet…” while I worked away trying to get a website up and running where we could all coordinate our efforts quickly and easily. To say life has been getting in the way a little in the meantime might be a little bit of an understatement. What with leaving one job, travelling the world, starting another job then moving house, ‘spare time’ has been… rare.

So, although the killer website to run everything is still very much on the roadmap (I do own a very specific URL for this very purpose), in the meantime I don’t want to have to keep saying no to people who I know and respect who want to organise their own Mobile Geeks Of event in their area.

First up, probably the bestest friend that I’ve never met, Ricky Cadden, asked me if he could setup Mobile Geeks of Fort Worth. Then, days later, my 1000heads colleague Tom Hall asked if he could set up his own event over in Vancouver. Normally my answer would be ‘Not without me!’ – but there’s just no way I can get to Fort Worth or Vancouver anytime soon, so – like the website – visiting the chapters will have to go on the roadmap.

Tom. Ricky. I’ll be getting in touch shortly. Let’s get this show on the road.

Who’s next? London. That’s who. I get back from Texas (more on that tomorrow) next week, I’ll set the next MGoL up then.

MGoFW and MGoV are coming your way real soooooon!

Watch. This. Space.

1000heads: The Social Media Week Digest

This week, believe it or not, is Social Media Week.

As the website says:

“Social Media Week conferences take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance the use and understanding of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors.”

From New York to Berlin, San Francisco to SÃ£o Paulo and Toronto to London, across the globe people are coming together to ‘explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large’.

Here in London, the home of 1000heads, there are events happening all week and – hashtag tracking aside – some might find it quite difficult to try and get to everything on the rather packed out event schedule. To aid those in their quest to consume as much knowledge as possible, 1000heads is hosting the official ‘Social Media Week Digest’, this Friday, from 10am at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts.

There are a couple of other events going on Friday morning, including Reputation Online’s ‘Crisis Management‘ session as well as a special Social Media Week Tuttle Club. However, having seen how quickly the tickets for these events have been snapped up, we think there might be scope for one more thing..

So if you’re free and fancy joining us – you’ll be made to feel very welcome indeed.

As our sign up page says:

The Social Media Week Digest does exactly what it says on the tin; by Friday morning at least some of you would have all had the chance to catch one of the aforementioned fantastic events and this end-of-the-week gathering is your opportunity to come together and share stories, anecdotes and generally catch up on some of the interesting things you’ve seen and done.

Come drink some coffee (on us) and have a chat about where weâ€™re all headed next.

Tickets aren’t mandatory (get yours here), they just help us keep an eye on numbers etc…

See you Friday! 🙂

Thanks to ICA London for the super last minute providing of the venue, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of the place very soon.

A New Adventure

The summer is over and – at long last – so are my travels. My work with Lucozade is at an end and this time last week, I finished up my stint with Oxfam as well.

As the title suggests, it is indeed, time for a new adventure.

Today I’m doing just that by joining 1000heads as Engagement Strategy Director.

I’ve been aware of and worked alongside many different people from 1000heads (aka ‘the word of mouth people’) over the past four years, and they’ve always impressed me with their ideas, professionalism and more than anything else, their ethics. We’ve often shared stories about our respective projects & conversation ideals and very recently I had the opportunity to talk to them much more openly about my long term plans and ambitions.

It was the synergy that came from these meetings that made me realise that working with 1000heads was clearly the next logical step in my career. When it transpired that they felt the same way, everything just fell into place…

Even if you don’t know of 1000heads, you might not be surprised to hear that they are word of mouth (WOM) specialists. The company works with a range of clients from various industries to understand and engage with their consumers, from Nokia and 3Mobile to Canon, STA Travel, Sky and the BBC.

I am absolutely over the moon about joining the ‘heads and can’t wait to sink my teeth into the work ahead. I’ve already been into the office to meet some of the team and I’m going to spend this coming week getting up to speed with the accounts, campaigns and overall strategies I’ll be working on in the coming months.

After an eventful summer (where I really feel like I’ve been getting my hands dirty again), this move makes complete sense to me and well, I look forward to telling you all about the new adventures, as they happen.

Said in the only way I know how:

Bring it on.