Branding.... It's Harder Than it Looks

One of the first classes we took in Second Life was about branding and personal branding (link to reading;  http://chrisbrogan.com/branding-basics-2011/ ). This links in with the project that we have assigned to do as we have to make a charity global and in doing this we need to brand the chosen charity/cause, as " branding is important"(1).  A long with setting up social networking sites for this charity (http://cysticfibrous.tumblr.com/, http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/cystic-fibrosis/b5/b7/404, https://twitter.com/tlc4_cf?lang=en ) we are planning on running an event on Second Life as we wanted to link our project into our class. However, branding for the charity I feel has been quite difficult and although we have set up networks to connect the charity to broader audience it has yet to develop any sort of following. This I am afraid will cause a lack of interest in our project and could affect the success of the event. Right now the group is working on how we will be able to approach and market our event idea* so it can gain Second Life users attention. We hope that by using the logo that incorporates the rose and connecting it to handing out roses that this will help to develop a brand identity. 





Ending here 










Footnotes 

(1) Mudambi, Susan. "Branding importance in business-to-business markets: Three buyer clusters." Industrial Marketing Management 31, no. 6 (2002): 525-533.

*The event idea is to  hand out roses to avatars in Second Life and ask them to walk around with it and give out 5 other rose to other people they meet and ask them to continue the challenge.

Is the Medium the Message??

Last weeks class (class 8) started off with a little bit of a blunder. As mention in the previous blog the designed reading for week 8 was  ‘From Prosumer to Produser: Understanding User-Led Content Creation‘ by Prof Axel Bruns was a faulty linked and resulted in the class having little info in what was supposed to be discussed. Instead, the conversation was turned to Marshall Mcluhan’s idea that the ‘medium is the message’. This idea formed a debate round the class questioning whether or not the medium mattered. (Quite ironic seeing as the link we were sent didn't work....perhaps adding to the argument that the medium does matter? ). The question was also posed whether or not technology was an extension of the human body. It has been said that "An extension occurs when an individual or society makes or uses something in a way that extends the range of the human body and mind in a fashion that is new"(1) . When we use smartphones to connect to people, broaden our knowledge (web) or help in our mundane day to day functions we are therefore directly connected to the digital world through our finger tips. It becomes a part of your very being, whether acknowledged or not.  "The spade is similar to the cupped hand, only it is stronger, less likely to break, and capable of removing more dirt per scoop than the hand. A microscope, or telescope is a way of seeing that is an extension of the eye."(2) this idea reflects similarly to digital technology. 

Most of the class agreed that the medium did matter, with smart phones being the dominant example of a medium. Some of the class referring to how a texts messages can be perceived differently from how the messenger intended it it to be read. Face- to - face communication being lost because of the vast communication platforms we have today. However, it remains to be the best form of communication as it can immediately be understood or explained. This also sparked conversation on how certain mediums are targeted for different audience. This means that certain medium platforms are used for a different range of messages. http://blog.hootsuite.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media-advertising/ explains how certain social media sites are used for different forms of advertising and gives a guideline on how to use social media advertising.



Ending Here




Footnotes
(1) (2) Kappelman, Todd. "Marshall McLuhan:‘The Medium is the Message’." Probe Ministries International (2001).

User - Led Content

The reading for class seven was ‘From Prosumer to Produser: Understanding User-Led Content Creation‘ by Prof Axel Bruns. When I first looked at this I found the content quite confusing and only found out after that the slide show was supposed to have sound with it (for some reason this was not an option for me when I went on to it). As the sound didn't work  for me I decided to research and find out what ‘User - Led Content’ meant as I had never heard of the term before.

What I understood from the research that I did was that ‘User-Led Content’ is a base that the normal consumers become prosumers. A consumer consumes a product that already exist for instance a game player of ‘Halo’ plays the game that has already been programmed to have a set of step by step objective/task/goals to complete the game, therefore they use what is available to them within the software but cannot change this or add to this. A ‘User-Led Content’ allows for a consumer to become a prosumer, ‘Minecraft’ allows for users to add to the already existing software and contribute their own ideas, designs and programming (mods). Similar to Second Life people can build their own spaces and products. This allows the consumer to become involved in designing or customizing products

“the prosumer is clearly not the self-motivated creative originator and developer of new content which can today be observed in projects ranging from open source software through Wikipedia to Second Life, but simply a particularly well-informed, and therefore both particularly critical and particularly active, consumer.”(1)

This ‘User - Led Content’ allows for consumers to become engaged in building and extending pre existing  platforms “These produsers engage not in a traditional form of content production, but are instead involved in produsage – the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement.”(2). Do this furthering their involvement and perhaps inspires prosumers to further add to the content.

Ending Here 




Footnote 
(1) , Bruns, Axel. "From prosumer to produser: Understanding user-led content creation." (2009).
(2) Bruns, Axel. "Beyond difference: Reconfiguring education for the user-led age." (2007).

Selecting The Subject For Our Project

The group that I have been working with to make awareness of cystic fibrosis and the charity TLC4CF  (visit page here http://tlc4cf.com/) selected the chosen subject pretty quickly. I had researched a few charities but was most interested in using a charity that supported cystic fibrosis as it had affected someone in my life. I proposed the idea of choosing a charity that did this and possible using Cystic Fibrosis Ireland  (https://www.cfireland.ie/) to the rest of the group. Immediately all the girls seems interested but posed the question whether Cystic Fibrosis Ireland was already too well know and already had a lot of the communication and social media platforms that we wished to set up established. Elly, a first year Creative and Cultural Industry student, put forward the idea of using TLC4CF a local charity that supported cystic fibrosis and everyone was in agreement.

Although this was an efficient and time benefiting decision I feel it would of been beneficial to discuss the possibilities of what we could do for this charity (as in events, social media coverage, followers, branding etc ) and contrast it to what we could of done for another charity. It was  positive that it was a unanimous decision. However, it felt that it was the easiest decision as the group seemed to lack enthusiasm about discussing other possibilities. Perhaps, a better group discussion on different charity would of opened up the floor for different idea's but because of the pre-existing information on cystic fibrosis it dominated the discussion making. A more in-depth form of research on charity’s and everyone's contribution to this would of been more advantageous. I feel that more analysed, researched and prepared plan of action would have developed a better project. Rather, than a head first approach.  

Although there could of been some changed made to the initial development process I think the charity /cause we chose was a great decision and feel that the entire group is happy we made it and is making progress on the project.


Ending Here

Contribution

The Second Life group that I was assigned to make a charity go global, has been working on making social networking site to help create awareness for  the charity TLC4CF. www.tlc4cf.ie and for the disease cystic fibrosis. I had come up with the idea of using a cystic fibrosis charity as I knew a lot about it the disease because of people it had affected around me. The group was overall in favour of doing this and finding a charity related to it. Elly (see blog here https://ellymariec.wordpress.com/) found a local charity that supported and raised money for cystic fibrosis and we decided to chose that.

Its been a very interesting challenge working with people from across the ocean and even one from home that you have never met in real life.  Already there has been a steep learning curve. I think time between us has become the biggest challenge not because we don't have it but we all seem to have it at different stages in the week. Also, which I think is something that needs to be considered when forming groups, we are all in very different stages of our lives being so far and only using social networking to interact slightly detaches you from understanding one another's other obligations  or forming a group  bound. However, these platforms have also created  a great form of interaction between us and allowed us to connect faster and quicker than we be able to before

“A social networking site is an online place where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users. In the past five years, such sites have rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of internet users”(1).

Social networking sites have also allowed for the group to build on creating a personal identity/brand for our charity. The social networking sites that we chose to build are charities  awareness where Linkedin, Tumblr and Twitter. We each decided to take one of these to set up and take control to allow for the work to be distributed equally Elly took charge of the Linkedin, Kerri set up the Twitter and I started the Tumbler page “ wonderful web tools are just that – they are tools”. I also came up the idea of Give a Rose to Cystic Fibrosis and to incorporate this into Second Life where we would give out roses to avatars in Second Life and ask them to walk around with it and give out 5 other rose to other people they meet and ask them to continue the challenge. This idea was inspired by the ice booked challenge that had became a huge success in 2014 and raised masses amounts of money for Motor Neuron disease. I also designed the logo for the Tumblr page and thought that it could be used throughout the social networking sites to create greater brand identity.

I only hope that are group will be able to spread some of the same awareness for cystic fibrosis and   TLC4CF. www.tlc4cf.ie.

Check out the Tumblr, Twitter and Linkedin pages here

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard

http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/cystic-fibrosis/b5/b7/404

https://twitter.com/tlc4_cf

Ending Here,

Footnotes

1- Lenhart, Amanda, and Mary Madden. Social networking websites and teens: An overview. Pew/Internet, 2007.

2-  https://virtualworldnmfsfall11. wordpress.com/2011/10/29/painfully-coming-to-grips-with-the-medium-is-the-message/

Blogging About a Blog

Honda Motorcycles Blog

Motorcycles over the last year have become a big part of my life. It actually has very little to do with owning my own bike but because most of the time I am immersed in motorcycle videos, conversations or just generally around people that own a motorbike. Spending half my time in a house with a race bike in the dining room its hard not for motorcycles to have a place in my life. Therefore, I chose the Honda Motorcycle Blog partly because I own a Honda motorcycle and partly because it was one of the many blogs that popped up in my search.

Honda Motorcycles blog had a diverse amount of blogs on many different things. The thing I liked best about the blog was that it discussed and gave information about different motorcycles. First starting of with a description of the bike, info on what kind of rider would best suit the bike and how the bike handles. The post then went on to give a bit more detail about the bike such as height, weight, fuel capacity, suspension, brakes etc. Information that would probably be more of an interest to motorbike enthusiast or someone looking to purchase the bike in question. These blogs where short and kept to the point, which meant is was easy to read. However, the layout and structure was quite unapealing and lacked visual aids. Another thing that I found I didn't like about the blog it had many personal stories about motorcycles but a lot of them were suggesting that motorbikes , were 'Hard core' and dangerous therefore they were cool. Not something that I personally think should be promoted. Other blogs have tips on motorcycle insurance , discussed motorcycle tips and interview with passionate motorbikers. Over all the blog was interesting but lacked a good design format which could be developed to be more eye catching. The range of topics that it covered was good and was an easy read.