Simon Young

What have I been up to? Woah, baby. What haven’t I been up to! It all started last weekend.

• I got a Nokia N95 cellphone, which has a fantastic still and video camera built-in. All the cool social media kids like Loic LeMeur and Robert Scoble are using them. Naturally, I had to share my joy. Much discussion ensued!
• I participated in a Flash Mob – a conga dance in a shopping mall. Videos here – and my video thoughts on implications for marketing here. And the angry response of the security guard just accelerated my inevitable slide towards Marxism. Kind of.
• I chaired the first Brightstar Interactive Marketing Summit on Monday. My notes. It was great to meet some old friends and synthesise some great marketing thinking from practitioners, publishers and agency types alike.
• On Tuesday I attended the launch of Nielsen’s Buzzmetrics service in New Zealand. I’ll soon be writing a post about this for iJump, but in the meantime here’s Jake’s take on it, which I very much agree with. However I do think Nielsen were actually wise to take a … well, traditional (I’m trying not to say ‘boring’) approach becauset the culture of business is so conservative. They don’t want to scare away the money. Er, people.
• On Thursday I was very blessed and privileged to attend a celebration party for Looksy.org, and meet some of the people who have been participating in Looksy’s weekly TV show on Alt TV, filming interviews to find out “what your world is like”, and supporting us in other ways. Very exciting to see something grow organically! We also made the world’s biggest collaborative cocktail, which included bemusing ingredients like lavender and tobasco sauce. Could have powered a car on it, and the exhaust would smell like bananas. That’s what Looksy’s about – leaving the world a better place than you found it.
• I also got to speak at the Marketing Association’s Certificate of eMarketing course, which is always great to hear the real life marketing concerns of students.
• I’ve been privileged to work with the pilot project of A Bigger Voice, an exciting US-based startup that’s helping people harness their remarkable wisdom and grow a business through community. Some great synergies with iJump there.

Finally, I was very relieved to buy some jeans that actually fit me last weekend. That may seem a trivial thing, but I’ve been wearing baggy jeans for months after losing some weight. It’s great to wear clothes that fit you.

On a similar note, I’ve been discovering my strengths through StrengthsFinder 2.0. I’m working on reducing the areas that play to my weaknesses, and focusing on the areas that play to my strengths. It’ll take a while, but I know I’m on my way. It’s exciting.

For the record, my top 5 strengths are:

Strategic

Connector

Intellection

Learner

Empathy

Coming up soon:

• Speaking engagements in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in August and September.
• Interesting developments in the businesses.
• Out now – an article on branding in the current NZMarketing Magazine.