Press Release

London (February 24, 2010) - Today sees the launch of The Co-Creation Hub, www.co-creationhub.com. A collective of organisations, academics and individuals who passionately believe in doing things ‘with’ people rather than ‘at’ people. Their first project is Co-Create London, an independent initiative giving the general public’s most pressing issues, and their solutions, a platform to be heard.

The founding members of The Co-Creation Hub – London are Face, the co-creation planning agency, which has successfully co-created projects for international companies such as Coca-Cola, Nokia, Unilever, and Reckitt Benckiser; Farm, the advertising agency, which has co-created communications for Nestle’s Skinny Cow; Opticomm, the media planning agency; Touch of Mojo, the brand design agency; and thrudigital, the social media development agency. And, they are actively looking for organisations and individuals from different fields that share their way of thinking, to get involved and help develop the co-creation movement.

The Co-Creation Hub – London is the first of a planned number of Hubs across the world, as the principle of co-creativity grows and develops in territories such as Latin America, Asia and the USA.

Andrew Needham, founding partner of Face, as well as group managing partner of Tangible Group London, a core division of Cello Group Plc, is one of the key instigators of The Co-Creation Hub – London. Andrew explains: “In the next decade brands must adapt or die. The Co-Creation Hub – London recognises that social media isn’t simply another channel; it has fundamentally changed the way consumers interact with brands. We need a more collaborative, adaptive and continuous model of marketing – one that is based on the core co-creation principle of doing things with people not at them. We call it Adaptive Brand Planning. It is a model that will ultimately be better placed in helping our clients deal with the advent of social brands”.

The Co-Creation Hub – London is the first place to bring the principles of co-creation to all stages of the marketing process, and is founded on three key tenets:

1. Constant consumer involvement throughout the entire marketing planning and brand communications process – maintaining a continuous dialogue with consumers; harnessing their ideas and opinions to develop better products and communications and adapting to their changing needs and tastes in real-time.
2. A continuous process, with no end points as the communication is constantly building and evolving. A fluid way of working with a tightly knit team of agency specialists, seamlessly pulsing in and out of the process, as and when required.
3. Creating communities and fan-bases, and constantly communicating with them, online and offline.

Needham continues, “By putting the consumer at the heart of the communications process we have removed the old linear process of passing the baton from one agency to another. We work in a continuous loop of insight, co-creation, validation, engagement and real-time measurement. And, with Co-Create London as our first independent social project, we are creating a platform allowing people to be heard by those who can make a difference, using the co-creation principles.”

Co-Create London, the first co-creation project by The Co-Creation Hub – London, is a social initiative giving Londoners the chance to change their city.

The project is designed to crowdsource the problems and ideas of the general public by asking the simple question ‘What Would You Do To Make London a Better Place?’.

The most insightful and tangible ideas from the crowdsourcing phase will be taken forward into a co-creation workshop. The workshop will see Londoners who contributed to the www.cocreatelondon.com website come together with open innovation experts and key London stakeholders to refine the best concepts and convert them into robust solutions.

The top three ideas collected from the co-creation workshop will be put up for voting online and the idea with the most votes will then be presented to London Mayor Boris Johnson.

As an example of how this creative philosophy is applied to design and branding, The Co-Creation Hub logo was developed using the process of co-creation. An identity brief was written and ideas were crowd-sourced from members of the public. The crowd-sourced designs were taken into a co-creation workshop attended by members of the founding agencies together with members of the public, following which, two logos were selected and refined, using the learning from the workshop, by Gary Robinson, Farm’s Creative Director and Ray Armes, Creative CEO of Touch of Mojo.

The final logo is a combination of a crowd-sourced identity, an output from the co-creation workshop, and the skills of an experienced design team.

Owen Lee, Founder and Creative Chairman of Farm and Hub member, comments: “Consumer research has long been considered a wet blanket on creativity, but the answer certainly isn’t to remove them from the process, it’s quite the opposite. The brand building process is now continuous and the consumer is a constant and integral part of it. We no longer launch our view of a brand at a passive audience; it is about building fan bases, allowing them to play with brands, re-shape them and even imbue them with new meaning.”

Ray Armes, Creative CEO of A Touch of Mojo and a Hub member, points out, “Consumers have always been a rich source of insight and creative inspiration; bringing them into the heart of the creative process yields big brand ideas that both agencies and clients can believe in. For once, consumers can become part of a brand’s vision and even help determine the most effective channels of communication.”

Charles Dalton-Moore, Managing Director of thrudigital and Hub member, says, “Today there is a constant consumer dialogue going on around products and services. The challenge for brands is how to join and add value to this conversation using a range of co-creative tools.”

Paul Cox, Managing Director of Opticomm Media and Hub member, adds: “It is increasingly apparent that consumers are hard to define by prescribed statements on a generic survey, and as media owners can make or break brands. By combining traditional tools with sharper adaptive media planning bespoke to our audience, as well as looking at the efficiency of our media usage in real time, we can make immediate changes within a campaign.”

Whether manufacturers, artists, writers, designers or government organisations, The Co-Creation Hub – London is looking to collaborate with people from around the world involved in co-creation, whatever their discipline, to stimulate the co-creation approach.

As part of the launch, an inaugural members’ open evening will be held on Thursday 18^th of March at The Design Council 34 Bow Street, London WC2E 7DL at 6.30pm.

To reserve a place at the evening on a first come first served basis, please register your interest here: ldn.co-creationhub.com.

Up to £35k based on experience and skills, plus brand new Mac or PC

thrudigital builds websites, social networks, widgets and social media apps. We take ideas and turn them into reality. Become one of the nerds in our central London office.

You will join our friendly, fun and hard-working team of social media development junkies on a range of projects. We develop websites, social networks, widgets and social media apps for exciting and high-profile clients from entrepreneurs to large organisations such as Sky, ITV and 10 Downing Street.

As a developer, you will be involved in a range of work on a daily basis:

• Helping to plan out projects and come up with technical solutions collaboratively
• Ideas and feature development
• Coding (…obviously)
• Optimisation
• Analysis and evaluation of technical solutions
• Research and blogging
• Bug fixing and maintenance (wohoo!)
• Development of your own projects

What you give us:

• You must be on the cutting edge of web technologies and trends and know the ins and outs of Web 2.0
• Always learning under pressure, whilst improving your own standards as well as ours…all the time
• Able to work with demanding clients to figure out solutions to complex problems
• Able to meet deadlines, manage own time efficiently, and work very quickly
• OO PHP/MySQL, xHTML/CSS, JavaScript (RoR desirable)
• Computer Science degree or 2-3 years commercial experience

Just some of the things we love at the moment (if you have experience in these, it’s a bonus):

• jQuery
• AJAX
• Git
• Capistrano
• Cake
• Amazon EC2

We are a friendly team who are proud of each other and our achievements. We don’t work for objectionable clients or on projects that are set to fail. We take it in turns to be the daily DJ and there is usually something interesting going on in the background, but we like to get our heads down when we need to. We often take the afternoon off to down tools and discuss anything as a group that we think is interesting. We work in a fast-paced environment, and you will find that no two days are the same.

Some of our recent exciting work has been for:

• Church of England
• ASOS.com
• Oracle
• NHS
• Universal
• Sky
• ITV.com
• 10 Downing Street

To apply for the position, please send us your CV with a covering letter/email explaining why you are interested in joining us to: jobs@thrudigital.com. Links or attachments of previous or current work will help to support your application.

If we shortlist you for a second interview, we will also ask you to complete a couple of tasks. The first task is concerned with dynamic page styling in PHP, while the second requires you to produce a database schema. You can find the tasks here: http://www.thruserver.com/proveyoucanworkforus

You must be a current UK resident to apply.

NO AGENCIES

What’s the ROI?

It’s one of the most asked questions in this field currently. And at this early stage, there are not yet firm results from social media projects in every industry. In fact, Seth Godin would tell us that if we wait for a case study, we will be too late to catch up (I disagree with that, but I also digress…). So let’s have a look at this in more detail.

Social media does cost.

Many of the tools might be free, but the time spent in using them, and especially paying an agency to use them, is certainly not. Anyone who is looking for a solution that is completely free, is probably going to be disappointed. However, it certainly does lower the cost of many activities.

Social media does takes time.

A pay-per-click campaign or magazine advert might yield immediate results, but it takes time to listen to and engage with your audience. It takes time to be accepted as part of the conversation as a valid and valuable voice. But the results are much longer lasting. That’s because the results are founded upon relationships.

Social media is hard to measure.

Some aspects are directly measurable. Costs cut. Revenue gained. The trouble is, many companies aren’t measuring these effectively anyway. So the ROI question is irrelevant until the company becomes functionally data-driven. Because social media goes way beyond a single business function and impacts process, perspectives, and cultures as well as specific campaigns, it is very difficult to calculate a cumulative effect. However, what can be measured, should be measured.

But what’s the ROI?

As Nick Tadd puts it very eloquently, “Social media is just communicating. You say 5000 words a day, yet no one tries to establish an ROI for talking!” I would take this a step further, and say that if I was in a sales meeting, or speaking at an industry event, I could theoretically place an approximate valuation on the effect of my words. But in every other circumstance, it would be a completely fruitless exercise. In just the same way, the ROI on specific social media uses and campaigns should certainly be measured. But don’t go trying to assign a revenue line to ‘talking’ in your P&L…

Why the sudden focus on ROI?

What’s the ROI on your office location? What’s the ROI on your email system? What’s the ROI on your office lobby? What’s the ROI on your phone line? Because its the new kid on the block, social media suddenly is forced to prove itself form the ground up. Again, where this is possible, go for it. But instead of trying to prove a positive six-month ROI for your CEO’s twitter account, go do something more useful for your company’s strategic success, like watching this. Only joking. Actually, go watch this awesome presentation by Olivier Blanchard on Social Media ROI.

Right, now that I’ve got that off my chest, the next post will look at the valuable opportunities available to brands. And yes, it will include some quantifications of value returned by social media investment! As in, actual numbers.

To get the followup posts over the next few weeks, simply click the “add to RSS button”, follow thrudigital on Twitter, or subscribe to these posts by email by clicking the button above.

Bowling quickly degraded into a competition of creative methodology. We had backwards bowling, sliding on knees, see who can throw it the highest, the furthest before landing, the slowest, get it as close to the TV screen as possible without hitting it, bowl the most balls in one go, knock the next-door lane’s pins over, and run as far down the alley as possible without getting caught. We learned that bowling the ball really slowly helps greatly in improving accuracy (I’ll add that to the wiki).

Eventually once all other options had been exhausted and the diminishing marginal returns commonly associated with drinking were realised, we got ourselves on to the dodgem cars. Twelve months of stress manifested itself in complete carnage on the floor. However the trick became less about trying to thrash the hell out of our fellow work mates but more to try not to laugh any sick up or have it projected out by the seatbelt pulling on impact.

We have already established that a conversation is occurring, without your consent or control. Nice. But what should you do?

Relinquish control. Or realise you have already lost it.

Within your company’s processes, or your day-to-day activity, change your perspective and approach to one that expects and values brand mentions, whether positive or negative. It’s what people were saying anyway… just now you can eavesdrop. This might sound tough, but its a decision to place the customer at the centre of your business which will pay off.

Listen. Without reacting.

It’s kinda like the playground. Some people are not going to be saying nice things. Even well-meaning and supportive customers are going to present you in a bad light sometimes. Get over it. Controlling the message is not what’s important. Trendstream research shows that customers perception of brands improves even when you just show you are listening. For a disappointed customer, shouting into the interwebs might bring them some consolation. But for you it represents a valuable customer signal, which you should be listening to. Because soon enough, your competitors will be. So set up a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, and use a feedback form or an open customer support service to show customers you are listening.

Participate. Yes, like write something.

Whether it is just ‘friending’ vocal customers on Twitter, commenting on blog posts, or blogging yourself, start to take part in the conversation. In February, I will be participating in the second LikeMinds conference at which the topic will be “P2P.” Social media has enabled a world where classifications like B2C and B2B are less important. The important conversation is now P2P – “Person to Person.”

Add value. Create a meaningful contribution.

Your audience already has a set of behaviours online. There is already an ongoing conversation. Your target market searches for content, plays games, chats, researches, and watches funny videos. Instead of interrupting their activity to deliver an advert, why not try and add value: something eye-catching, funny, interesting, or informative. Why not aggregate the conversation? Why not deliver quality branded content? Why not provide tools for your audience? Why not provide a forum for customer service queries? Why not build a game or quiz to engage people? Why not create something that people will be interested in, discuss, and share. By engaging with your audience, and then exposing your brand by adding value, you embed your brand within the consciousness of your target market. At the end of the day, its about being present, and vocal.
In the next post will will outline the most valuable opportunities are for your brand within social media. One clue – its not all about marketing. Many business functions can benefit. Then we will start looking at successful examples of what others are doing.

To get the followup posts over the next few weeks, simply click the “add to RSS button”, follow thrudigital on Twitter, or subscribe to these posts by email by clicking below.

thruSITES was set up in 2005, with our first clients being a couple of local primary schools (you definitely won’t find these sites on our portfolio!). From these humble beginnings, our team, services, clients, and ambitions, have changed significantly through time. We started out by delivering great customer service and great (albeit simple) brochure websites, hence the old name. By growing through word-of-mouth from satisfied clients, we slowly built a strong portfolio and client base, and a service offering that stretches beyond “websites” to include social media applications, online communities, email and search marketing, and heavy-lifting data analysis systems.

So the time has come for our name to better reflect what we do. As thrudigital, we will still build brochure sites, but our competency stretches much further. We believe in the future of the open web, distributed content, the power of data-driven marketing, the new world of social media, and in multi-platform distribution. We are also taking the opportunity to build on everything that we do for the longer term and develop our own products in-house to help address market needs and provide better value to our clients. And we will continue to deliver superb solutions, with a service built on delivering great customer service, whether they are blue-chip corporates or bedroom entrepreneurs.

So the new site looks different, new, fresh! And, as the designer and developer of the site, I would like to write a few words on what we did.

Conceptualisation

The outline plan, vision and timeline for the new site was delivered to the team back in early August this year. It was to tie in with the rebranding of thruSITES, into something that better reflected what we do (and have been doing for quite some time). The new site and brand identity would have to be full-reaching and a considerable improvement on last time.

Wireframing process

As usual we started with wireframing. We brainstormed on many occasions as a team and put together a basic layout for the site with respect to the proposed content. My role was to put it on the screen in some form. I took one of my old friend’s 960 grid system and started position boxes in Photoshop. Later I replaced the boxes with some dummy copy so we could better focus on the layout with all its apsects. There were some parts which we managed to nail straight away and there were some others which took us a couple of (weeks!) iterations to get to the point where we were happy.

Setting up the visuals

Once we had all the content elements in the right place we gave more attention to the look and feel of the site and the brand identity. Charles came up with the idea of having typeface which looks like hand writing. After couple of tries and fails, and much persuasion, we had our header ready in place. We set the colour scheme quite neutral so the portfolio images could stand out the most.

We constructed a colour palette around what we had all agreed upon already, and on this basis finalised the background, text, links and accent colours. We had already tried a number of logo versions but none of them worked very well with the current style. We went back to the drawing board with the logo and after much experimentation and discussion around different shapes and typefaces I went with Helvetica Neue which is my favourite typeface anyway. The rough ages and drop-shadow fit nicely with the theme and set the design direction for the rest of the site. Drop-downs for the main navigation followed this pattern.

We also wanted to keep the hand-drawn atmosphere throughout so we used it for all page dividers, the footer, header, sidebar, comments headers and so on.

Development

Although slightly reluctantly, we have a lot of experience working with Wordpress, so we decided to go with this for the back-end (despite the many limitations, it’s nice and quick to build on, and easy for any team member or author to update regularly). Furthermore Wordpress, with all its plugin/widget possibilites, allows us to do almost everything that we had in mind functionally.

In terms of front end I went for one generic stylesheet and separate stylesheets for blog section and portfolio together with standard reset style sheet and IE specific styles (because as usual IE can be a pain in the arse). Javascript – in our case good old (not so old) jQuery – is used extensively across the site. Except for the standard validation, hide and show cases, I built automatic height adjustments for form text areas and ajax for sending the form data. We always care about accessibility (and inparticular mobile) so I built the layers (html, css, js) so that they fall back nicely if needed. The site can be used with javascript or css turned off without any problems.

I came to accept this fact a long time ago and have since got used to the idea that as soon as I return home for a weekend I won’t be allowed to leave (or in some cases even eat or sleep) until I’ve fixed all the problems with every technological entity within the building that I call home. On my last visit I discovered that they had purchased a brand new DVD/Hard Drive video recorder for the lounge. I should mention that this is the third video recorder that they have purchased in as many years and, just like the other two, it’s truly awful.

When my Mother is trying to set the new video recorder for Coronation Street in the ad breaks before X-Factor (whilst also attempting to dish up dinner and stop my younger brother from killing my sister), she doesn’t want to be trying to work out which of the 58 buttons on the remote she needs to press to change the recording quality – or why her last three recordings have all ended up with subtitles. Instead, she wants easy to use controls that allow her to set up the recordings, without being bamboozled by acronyms, jargon and irritatingly abstract trademarks.

Of course my parents, like most of the population, have become accustomed to the idea that video recorders are complicated and confusing beings that cannot be tamed, and that they will always be this way. This has led to complacency on the part of the manufacturers, who are perfectly happy introducing even more of the aforementioned acronyms to describe new features that aren’t really needed, but never stopping to realise that the products they’re making are a complete pain in the arse to use. It amazes me that no-one in the companies producing these devices that grace our living rooms has realised that it might perhaps be a good idea to produce something with an intuitive and pleasing interface, as few buttons as possible and a clock that can be set without a PhD in electrical engineering; to strip it back to the basics and keep it there until the basics work perfectly.

We use this very approach here at thrudigital – keep the idea as simple as possible to start with – refining until it’s as reliable, friendly and well designed as well feel possible – before adding any extra layers of complication.

Writing about Apple’s success with the iPhone, John Gruber posted a reference to ‘Gall’s Law’, which states:

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.”
JOHN GALL

One thing that I think Apple were wise to do when launching their phone was to resist adding everything at once. They were slated on launch for their lack of MMS, Copy & Paste and native third party apps – but what was there had clearly been refined and simplified until it was a joy to use. I’m not saying it was perfect, but in choosing to focus on the basics they allowed themselves the time and the simplicity to get the fundamentals right and defy the critics.

So, whether developing website, video recorder or phone, keep things simple and allow yourself the time to focus on the details. It’ll pay off. And please, somebody, somewhere, get working on that video recorder.

Social media. It can be confusing and undefined. It’s definitely a buzzword. It’s got its fair share of “gurus.” But it’s picking up sizable budgets from consumer-facing and business-to-business companies. And even at this early stage, it’s proving effective.

This first post will explore the concept. A second post will look at the ways that companies can engage. Then we will explore what are the major opportunities for brands. Finally, we will look at some case studies of industry leaders (as well as some obvious examples, I will show you a case study you won’t have seen – a small company with a small niche that has made £700k by engaging its customers). And hopefully a conversation will be sparked somewhere along the way.

So, firstly, the big question. What is social media? Rather than try and give a catch-all definition, here are the themes that underly the concept of social media. It is:

• The move from one broadcaster, to millions of voices.

• Media disseminated through social interaction.

• Where the audience is also an author.

• Enabled by very scalable and approachable technologies that facilitate the conversations.

And why should you care?

Well… this is not a fad. It is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Back in the late 90’s, brands were asking the ROI question of websites. “Is it worth it? Why should we bother?” Ten years later, having a website is not only one of the first things you do when launching a product or company, but it goes far beyond “marketing.” It is a platform for commerce, communication, research, tools, data, news, sales, and much more. The same will happen with social media in due course. It changes how businesses operate. Companies that engage early, will build competitive advantage, but in a few years, most industries will be exploiting the benefits.

The horse has bolted. Don’t bother closing the stable door.

The marketplace where you do business is now transparent, not controlled. It is consumer-driven, not product driven. It is no longer possible to broadcast messages and expect them to be swallowed by your audience, without uncontrolled conversation and feedback. Forget battling to hide your dirty laundry. It is already being examined, analysed, and discussed in minute detail, in thousands of distributed and very public conversations.

All humans have a desire for control. So this world sounds extremely worrying. And many brands are burying their heads in the sand to ignore the conversations they wish were not happening. But the upside is that in this new world your customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do, however, expect you to listen, respond, be honest, and do your utmost to serve them.

Your degree of openess, and your revenue growth, will be directly related. (Gerd Leonhard)

As a quick example to round this post off, recently we launched an application for ASOS (see site here), which aggregates the conversation around their brand, and classifies it as positive or negative. It’s a forward thinking move, which demonstrates a willingness to engage. And as well as the web version, it is now displayed on plasma screens in the lobby and cafes. This a method for enabling customers to become advocates, focus groups, marketers, product developers, and a community of interest.

The personal touch

Customers much prefer a personality to a professional facade. We are moving from a world of broadcast TV, PR-checked messages, and aloof corporate leaders, to one of scrappy, user-generated YouTube videos, public conversations with your staff on forums and blogs, and direct connection between your CEO and your customer via Twitter. Your personal face trumps your professional one.

Homework

I hope you are doing some of these already, but as a very first start, prove to yourself that there is a conversation worth engaging with online:

• Search Google, Facebook and Twitter for your brand mentions.

• Set up a Google Alert to notify you when more people mention your brand

• If you are a small company, search for related products, competitors, and topics to find out what is being said.

Over the next posts we will look at how companies, both large and small, can best engage, what the most valuable opportunities are, and successful examples of what others are doing.

To get the followup posts over the next few weeks, simply add this blog to your RSS reader, follow thrudigital on Twitter, or subscribe to these posts by email.

ASOS.com Launches Twitter Feedback and Reviews Site ASOSreviews.com

Summary

LONDON (November 13, 2009) – ASOS.com, the UK’s leading online fashion store, has launched ASOSreviews.com, an exciting Twitter-powered feedback and reviews micro-site. The site follows ASOS.com’s hugely successful launch of ASOS Life, an online community that facilitates interaction and conversation between the brand and its consumers.

James Hart, eCommerce Director at ASOS.com, said ‘ASOSreviews.com is a great way for us to keep in touch with and be open about the real-time feelings of our customers. Its bright, visual nature gives us nowhere to hide and I’ll be making it not only visible to our customers but to all of our colleagues at ASOS HQ as well. It’s also a great feedback tool and the great thing is that the loop is already closed as our customer care team already monitor and respond to tweets directed at us 24/7. We are excited about the launch of the site and have some interesting plans for its future development.’

ASOSreviews.com aggregates and displays positive and negative tweets about the brand, and encourages users to tweet their opinion about their ASOS.com experience. The site also visualises the overall sentiment of the brand and displays an interesting word cloud overview of what people are saying.

Charles Dalton-Moore, Managing Director of thruSITES, the social media development firm that built the site, said ‘ASOSreviews.com is designed to give a snapshot of customer sentiment on ASOS.com whilst encouraging ASOS.com’s online community to engage with and talk about the brand. We very much admire ASOS.com’s boldness in launching the site and taking the leading social media approach of any fashion retailer. Many other companies out there have yet to wake up to the reality of social media and should take ASOS.com’s example of learning from and engaging with their online community.’

About ASOS.com
Established in June 2000, asos.com is the UK’s largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer. With over 25,000 branded and own label products available, and 1000 new lines added each week, asos.com is rapidly becoming the market leader in the UK online fashion world. Aimed primarily at fashion forward 16-34 year olds, asos.com attracts over 5.6 million unique visitors a month and has 2.7 million registered users.

About thruSITES

thruSITES is a London-based strategic web design and development agency specialising in community sites and social networks, plus social media apps and widgets for a range of networks. thruSITES works with large multinationals and government organisations, directly and via top marketing agencies, as well as smaller clients and web entrepreneurs.

Key Words

asos, asos.com, asos reviews, community, twitter, social media app, thrusites

Links

http://asosreviews.com

http://www.asos.com

http://www.thrusites.com