THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH. Much Gratitude.

Many Thanks to all my connections on LinkedIn,
all my friends (fellow-updaters) on Facebook,
all my fellow-tweeters and followers on Twitter,
fellow-tubers, broadcasters and viewers on YouTube,
to all in my circles and who've circled me on Google+,
enthusiastic pinners on Pinterest, and
fellow-bloggers and readers of my blogs: Mr. Madness & Mr. Social.

Thank You all for having me in your community and your world. Much gratitude for sharing your comments and reviews. Most of all, for caring enough to express your thoughts so I can learn and improve from them.

In case I haven't said so before, I'd like you to know: I value every single interaction we've had (online or offline). I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each one of you from the bottom of my heart. Your love, support, feedback and encouragement mean the world to me.

A generous Thank You to all my mentors and teachers - for the education and inspiration.

Much Gratitude, Best Wishes and Kind Regards to all.

Thanks for making the web a better place to log in.

Until next time, Happy Times on the Web. 

Stay positive, live well, smile often and... get social with it!

Never too late to say... Thank You!

Game Theory - When Gaming meets Marketing, Fun happens!

Word-Cloud created using Wordle - a cool data viz. tool*

Gaming is fun. Gaming is big business. Gaming is the marketing buzzword du jour. Gaming is red hot right now!

Proof:- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (or MW3) made the biggest entertainment launch of all time in Nov 2011. Alec Baldwin created a tweetstorm when his addiction to Zynga's social game "Words with Friends" famously got him deplaned. (see pic below) Even The Economist has run a Special Report on gaming (The Importance of Fun). And, perhaps, as the greatest testament to the rising phenomenon, there's already a Hollywood cult flick out there on the racy life of a fully grown-up gamer - Grandma's Boy

But seriously, as the popularity of games grows worldwide, companies are increasingly looking at gaming (in its multifarious forms - gamification, social gaming, advergaming etc.) as a strategic brand marketing channel.

Here's my article on gaming (in NZ Marketing Magazine, Jan/ Feb 2012 issue) which came as a result of a Social Media Club Auckland event I ran in October 2011 on Social Gaming & Gamification.

Game Theory - Marketing meets Social Gaming and Gamification

For optimal reading, view in FullScreen 
[ Zoom IN (+), Zoom OUT (-) to adjust ]

Addendum

Although I omitted them for lack of space, no article on gaming could be complete without mentioning:

Nintendo - with cult-hits like the Mario Games (and Donkey Kong), and more recently, Wii and Wii Sport, and that great hope of handhelds, Nintendo 3DS. 


Sony Playstation - with its game-changing PS1, PS2 and PS3 (Blu-Ray) series of consoles, and the ubiquitous Sony PSP, which took the gaming world by storm a while ago.

With Gratitude

Many Thanks to Stephen Knightly of InGame, without whose valuable contribution, neither the article nor the SMCakl October event would have happened.

Big Thanks also to Ben Fahy and Vernene Medcalf of NZ Marketing Magazine for their creative input and support.

A special mention to Tim Train of Zynga & Vishal Gondal of IndiaGames for the inspiration behind this piece.

Update

Article by Darren Steele of Mindspace (Mashable, May 2012): 4 Tips for Gamifying Your Marketing Plan

Social Scrabble


Zynga's rapid-fire tongue-in-cheek response to the Alec Baldwin - American Airlines incident.

A Baldwin - 1, American Air - 0. (Let Alec Play... he's got a hard case of social gaming :-)

Click here to jump straight to the article

* Wordle is the creation of Jonathan Feinberg - ex-IBM Researcher, now S/W Engineer with Google

The World of Social Media in 2011 (VideoGraphic)

What do you call an infographic with audio and video? A VideoGraphic. Well, erm..., maybe! Anyway...

Here's a clip - The World of Social Media in 2011 - loaded with stats sure to make you look like a brainy egghead at the Office Christmas party.

One viewing and you'll start mouthing off social gems that'll make your workmates go hmmm.... (Career Tip: Best done when the CEO/ CMO is within earshot!)



Ignore the typos, enjoy the info. Pure eye-candy for the anal-attentive = analysts who pay acute attention to and enjoy up-to-date details presented in an easy-to-digest format.

If you liked this, you'll love Erik Qualman's Social Revolution series of videographics. Click here to view the 3 viral super-hits.

7 Verticals of Social Media. 1 Orgasm.

7 Verticals of Social Media - each showcasing Line-of-Business Expertise.

There you have it. My views on social media captured in the Nov 2011 issue of AdMedia.

I wrote the article on the back of a talk I gave at The Auckland BarCamp Un-Conference #bca5 in July.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the article. Have a read and let me know what you feel coming on...

What NZ Needs is an ORGASM *

For optimal reading, view it in Fullscreen

I'd like to offer Many Thanks to Chris Grimstone, Designer, for his support on the article.
And David Gapes, Editor, AdMedia, for making it happen.

Social Gaming and Gamification – a huge success!

Social Gaming and Gamification in New Zealand

#SMCakl

What a night it was… the Social Media Club Auckland meet up on Tuesday 18 Oct was a fun night - a roaring success!

The theme for the evening was Social Gaming and Gamification in New Zealand and we had the Who’s Who of NZ gaming in attendance at the flash new YooBee Flagship Store in Britomart Central.

Truly, it was an evening when geek went chic. Where hardcore gamers got social with fashion stylistas. Above all, it showed the NZ gaming industry is in good shape and on the path to a bright future. Watch this space!

Attendees were "awesome-ized" by excellent presentations by our panel of speakers, exploring the hottest concepts in gamespace. From social games and gamification of business to mobile apps, game design, F1 simulators and a cool live display of AR (augmented reality) and VR (voice recognition) on the Xbox 360 Kinect.

Mitch Olson, Co-Founder, SmallWorlds.com

Stephen Knightly, MD, inGame.co.nz

Jonathan Rogers & Chris Wilson, GrindingGear.com

Kevin Andreassend, ICE AV Tech

Rowan Wernham, Co-Founder, Sna.pr

Nigel Parker, Development Advisor, Microsoft NZ

Nigel hit a high note during his presentation with his voice activated "flame-on" balls of fire, 

red laser light-sabres and 3-D models (if that sounds like gibberish to you, see demo video here.)  

Happily, the Social Media Club Auckland event received unprecedented media support:

AdMedia & Fastline - What's got the games biz buzzing and SMC Dates

Idealog - Win tickets to Social Media Club and StopPress - To sell, you must compel

Tech Day - YooBee to Host Social Gaming social

Base FM / Juice TV / Radio Ponsonby

PIC Courtesy: SnapStar Here are some snazzy pics from the night taken by Charlie Kim.

Also published on the YooBee Newsletter - Are You Game?

Huge Thanks to all above, and in equal measure to our...

* Venue Sponsors - YooBee
* Prize Sponsors - BurgerFuel, YooBee and Microsoft
* F&B Suppliers - People’s Wines, Quintessential Food (Tnk yoo, Tara)
* Team YooBee: Kate Johnston, Emma Henaghan, MonaLisa Codling, Clare Coulson, DJ Phoebe Falconer, Ryan Watson, Arama Cookson, Jamie Yang, Brandon Black, Michael, the 2 girls in-store and... Richard Webb.

Highlights from the Awesome Evening

The tweetstream off our official event hashtag (#SMCakl) was flowing fast and thick and it was trending in Auckland before the event started.

The entire event was livestreamed via SMCakl's U-Stream channel (click here to view). And there were quite a few who couldn’t turn up to Britomart but tuned in live - from the north shore to San Francisco (Well done, Brandon Black.)

Plus, we even had a QR code for the event. How cool is that - if it is!

5 Cool Prizes - Haunani Pao, Camellia Yang and a lucky lad won $50 Burger Fuel Vouchers + a YooBee NoteBook, while Anika Nafis and a lucky gent won Microsoft Xbox 360 games.

For prize distribution, we used a fun ploy (invented by Vaughn Davis) called Spin That Tweet – where we used Simon Young’s iPad to give the #SMCakl tweet-wall a whirl and touched the screen at random to draw the lucky winner!

And the venue, man! The chic, new YooBee Flagship Store in sexycool all black. With large Apple screens rolling tweets off #SMCakl, Macs loaded with apps for all to game on and play, music playing, wine flowing…

AND... I was the MC for the night. Seriously now... what more can one ask for :-)

Yup! It was a fun night alright. Cheers and thanks again to all who helped piece the event together. Special Thanks to Kate Johnston, Emma Henaghan & Richard Webb of YooBee and Stephen Knightly of inGame.co.nz - they made it happen. (ps: Thanks also to Katie Heenan for all her support.)

Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011) - Today, genius died.

RIP Steve Jobs

(1955 - 2011)

Steve Jobs didn't show the way. He created it.
This says it all.

People followed him, connected with him, and liked him much before it was socially cool to do so. And you don't have to be an Apple fan to recognize his creative, branding, mktg, tech genius. Just look around and you'll see how he's changed the world. The Steve Jobs effect on the world will be felt for many years to come!

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs... you will be missed.

Apple Product history upto 2007 - double-click to enlarge image

The landmark TV commercial that spawned a super-brand... The Apple Mac

Social Media Marketing in 7 days (Book Review)

To connect with the author, Linda Coles... click here!

"Learn Marketing with Social Media - in 7 days" - a new book by Linda Coles is out now. You can find it in on the shelves in all leading bookstores in Australia and New Zealand and on the world's largest e-bookstore: Amazon.com. You can buy the book here from late Oct 2011.

I know Linda for over a year now. She is the Founder/ Director of New Zealand’s foremost social media consultancies - Blue Banana, a regular contributor to Michael Stelzner's popular business blog - Social Media Examiner, a sought after speaker at conferences worldwide, and now, an international author.

Julian Waters, Linda Coles, me and Justin Flitter - Good times at SMCakl !!!

My first meeting with Linda was when she spoke at our Social Media Club Auckland (SMCakl) event in October 2010. Which for some reason (I still don’t know why), was a beachy, summer event - in biting cold weather J

See Blog + Pics here > One helluva chilled out summer social

Just about a month ago, I was happy (and pretty awed) to learn from Linda she was releasing her own ‘Learn in 7 days’ book on social media – probably NZ’s first hard copy to be published on the subject!

Fortunately, I ran into Linda recently at a breakfast seminar (Business Intelligence Series) where she invited me to write a book review.

‘Learn marketing with Social Media in 7 days’ by Linda Coles released in the first week of September 2011. Right as rain, I received my crisp copy home delivered via courier (thank you!) about the same time. It is my privilege and pleasure to write this review:

"Surely you know someone who wants to get started with Social Media, or could benefit from knowing more.

‘Learn marketing with Social Media in 7 days’ is a handy, ready-reference guidebook. A helpful companion to any social media user, it is written in an easy-to-follow, friendly manner. And the live examples (written by NZ’s best-known social media practitioners) make learning a lot simpler.

With 4 main chapters dedicated to - FaceBook, LinkedIN, Twitter and YouTube - the book is a coherent, sequential learning guide to the most popular social media platforms of today.

Social media is all about learning by doing. Linda’s book is the essential reading that goes along with the doing. It's the theory of social media.

Generously sprinkled with tips and to-dos,‘Learn marketing with...’ is a must-have for those venturing out into the wide world of social media.

At $34 NZD, it makes an excellent (Birthday/ Christmas/ New Year) gift. One they’ll keep & use (and remember & thank you) for a long time."

USAGE TIP: Keep this handbook close to your computer. Pick it up as often as you can - and yes, please DO try everything at home - and the best part, you can do so in your pyjamas :)"

To sign-off, here's the amazing Linda Coles, in her own words: