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  • Activ Right Brain
  • About Dean
  • Designing The Future
  • Speaker
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And the winner is... oh.

I’ve written enough about being a finalist in the Shorty Awards to make it quite clear how excited I’ve been about heading to the Social Media Oscars. It’s not until you find yourself sat in the audience at the New York Times building that you realise the social part of this isn’t all virtual.

I hadn’t been practicing my ‘honourable in defeat face’. Perhaps I should have, but sod it, I’ve worked damn hard to campaign on behalf of all great apps and I was genuinely disappointed not to lift the award on stage.

I was beaten by Digg. This isn’t sour grapes, but I lost to an app that hadn’t made any effort to win, had no campaign video and the Shorty community didn’t even vote for (it was added by the Academy). There’s something seriously wrong here – and not just in my category as this was a view shared by of many of my fellow ‘losers’.

To make matters worse, not only had I flown from London, queued for 40 minutes in the rain to get in, but had I actually won my category I wouldn’t have had my chance on stage as they were all read out, then the proceedings moved on. Anyway, here’s the 140 character acceptance speech I had planned:

“4 years ago, I queued up outside the 5th Ave Apple Store to buy the 1st iPad, to check our 1st iPad app worked. It did! The rest is history”

It may sound corny but this genuinely is a team effort. I’m the one hijacking the social channels and the airwaves and prancing around on stage for a living but without the incredible talents of Brandwidth’s design, development and client services teams, I wouldn’t have much to talk about.

If it looks as if April has been a big month for headlines (”Dean’s a Shorty Loser”) wait until you see May – major app launches in Music and Entertainment and interactive books for global blockbusters. This couldn’t be more exciting.

To add to April's news, we've just reached the final of the Webby Awards with our multi-touch book 'Saving Mr Banks' and our app 'The Doors'. It's too late to vote for the Shorty Awards this year, but we'd love a few votes in the Webbys.

The apps may be fun but this isn’t always the case for Social media.

We often hear of breaking news events through social channels, in many cases ahead of the traditional broadcast networks. I wrote about this last year after the tragic murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby outside the Woolwich barracks.

This week was no exception. We heard the tragic news of the death of Peaches Geldof, someone that had broadcast openly on social networks and attracted controversy, open criticism and abuse in the process. She wore her heart on her sleeve right up to her final Tweet.

This stuff is a window into our lives. We choose the shape of that window, and how frosted the glass is. Ultimately, we can retain control and shape the conversation, but it’s all too easy to broadcast one word out of place and suffer the consequences. The internet is an unforgiving beast – made up of both those who use it and the amplifying ripple-effect of digital content itself.

‘Social media’ is here to stay, even if the phrase and the Shorty Awards soon become irrelevant. Treat it with respect and it’s a fabulous doorway to your audience or a willing plaything. Step out of line and you’ll soon find playground politics are alive and well in the digital age.

tags: Shorty Awards, Will Ferrell, Natasha Leggero, Social Media, Twitter, New York, New York Times, The Times Centre, Rain, Awards
categories: Agency, Apps, Celebrity, Conference, Social
Tuesday 04.08.14
Posted by Dean Johnson
Comments: 1
 

Bring on the Social Oscars (The Shorty Awards)

I made it! Or rather, we made it! After a hard fought campaign, I reached the final of the Shorty Awards 'Apps' category at midnight on Tuesday. I'm still pinching myself as I thought I'd never fight my way past the One Directions and Justin Biebers of the world – the human hurdles in the social sausage machine. Here's my campaign video...

I have put myself through the pain of the chase for the past three years and always fallen at those aforementioned human hurdles. This year, that all changed as the organisers culled the irrelevant and banished the bands in categories where their presence wasn't welcome. Having said that, I'm still sharing the top tier of the Apps category with Cristiano Ronaldo's social network and Chay Suede, a Brazilian Idol 2010 finalist. I'm hoping the judges will take all our app credentials into consideration...

Speaking of which, as if the frantic nomination process wasn't stressful enough, the next phase of the Shorty Awards gets really exciting. The winner of each category is decided by the great and the good of the social media world. This doesn't mean they're all 'social experts' (beware of those), they are real people, albeit famous, that actually use Twitter, Facebook, Vine, etc to communicate with their audience rather than hold a one-way conversation with a random group of followers. The winners are announced at a glittering awards ceremony in New York on April 7th!

I don't base social achievement on the number of followers or 'friends' I've collected across my many networks. I have been on LinkedIn since the very early days, steadily adding depth and relevance to my profile yet my connections amount to a little over 600. I have exercised restraint and avoided connecting to my postman, my dentist or 100s of recruiters looking to plunder my network.

A similar approach applies to Facebook, where I reserve connections to friends for, well, friends – not someone I met once on a drunken night out, although I've shared a drink with most friends. There's also the Activrightbrain Facebook page, where the content relevant to this site lives.

Finally, Twitter and Vine illustrate my levels of restraint. I rarely follow back automatically as I either get to know or have a genuine interest in those I follow. When I dip into Twitter and Vine, I read every post, look at every video and hold actual conversations. Of course, I broadcast a lot but this tends to be relevant to my audience – and to be fair, I'm proud of what I and my Brandwidth team do so have plenty to say.

I'm not a fan of mass broadcast across all social networks, one message does not fit all and the language (and often content) needs to suit the audience. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn may well share network members but we're usually in a different state of mind when trawling each website or app. A scattergun approach with the wrong message can have the same effect as showing up to a job interview in a mankini.

Thanks again to my fantastic friends spread across many social networks and the Dadsaster audience. I touch on the Shorties in passing in episode 46 (Everything is Awesome) alongside LEGO Mindstorms and the new BleepBleeps range on Kickstarter.

If you're still confused about the Shorty Awards, I'll leave the last words to Ricky Gervais, Kiefer Sutherland, William Shatner, Conan O'Brien, George Takei and Grover...

tags: Shorty Awards, Social Media, Ricky Gervais, Oscars, Kiefer Sutherland, William Shatner, Conan O'Brien, Grover
categories: Apps, Celebrity, Innovation, Mobile technology, Social
Sunday 02.23.14
Posted by Dean Johnson
 

Back to The Drawing Board

If my life had taken a few different turns, I might still be painting portraits of the gifted and famous (not always mutually exclusive) instead of playing with gadgets, waving my arms around in front of an audience and helping to design the future. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be writing this.

Apptain_top_stylus.jpg

It doesn’t hurt to imagine an alternate reality from time to time so I thought I’d consider what I’d be doing if those two worlds had collided. If I’d turned right instead of left and continued on my path to artistic infamy, yet maintained a healthy interest in all things digital. More about my past creative endeavours in Face Time.

Where does one start? I didn’t want this to be a long drawn-out process so I’m not writing full technical reviews of each device. This is about the artistic and emotional rollercoaster, not screen resolution – you can follow the links for more info!

My plan was to test a variety of hardware, from the smallest and simplest to the largest and most complex. Each had one thing in common – a stylus of some kind, but they all use different methods to communicate with the surface or screen.

All but one device is manufactured by the industry-leader, Wacom. First-up is the Inkling £84.95.

Inkling_sml.JPG

A small black box clips to the top edge of a sheet of paper or pad then monitors the movements of a hybrid stylus/ink pen as you draw on the surface.

In theory, this sounds like a superb way to retain a natural drawing style whilst digitising the results. In practice, it’s actually quite remarkable. Once your sketch is complete, you plug the black box into your computer via a USB cable and download the results to the supplied software. This displays your artwork in staggering detail with the option to export as bitmap or vector files. You can even save an animated movie of your illustration in progress!

I love the freedom and the lack of compromise when drawing. I’d like to see a wireless transfer or real-time screen rendering option at some stage but for the relatively cheap entry point, this is a superb product for preliminary sketches.

Jot Script Evernote Edition £49.95 / $74.95 (plus an iPad!)

Jot_sml.JPG

Making use of the iPad’s Retina screen and a fine-tipped bluetooth-connected pen seems the perfect combination. It so nearly is, but there’s a fraction of lag evident when using apps such as 53’s Paper (not Facebook’s!), Procreate or Evernote’s own Penultimate. The lag can be overcome by using your finger instead of the stylus, but I’ve never been big on finger painting and the pen’s lag just highlights the shortcomings of this compared to ‘real’ art materials.

Wacom Bamboo (now Intuos Pen & Touch £169.99 / $199)

Bamboo_sml.JPG

I wanted to refresh my memory of working with a basic tablet and Wacom’s Bamboo was a cool looking device, with bright colours, interesting textures and a material label at one end to hold the stylus when not in use. My view remains unchanged – I’m still not a fan of the disconnected pen and screen. It has always felt unnatural to me when the result of your input is displayed so far away from the tip of the stylus, despite the fact that I’m perfectly comfortable with a mouse in similar circumstances.

Unnatural or not, here's one I made earlier...

Tim2.jpg

I started this process a while ago and the Bamboo has since been replaced by the Intuos range, a more sober look but it sits comfortably with Apple’s current visual approach to hardware design.

Wacom Cintiq 24HD £2,499.99 / $2,999

24HD_sml.JPG

Wow. This was my reaction before I even manhandled the Cintiq onto my desk. This really is the big daddy of the digital art world, an enormous 24” multitouch drawing board where the image you create is rendered directly under the stylus, just like a real drawing board or easel.

The large drawing area immediately encouraged me to (quite literally) think big, to take large unrestricted strokes and adopt a freedom of creative expression that required less image zooming than other devices. It all feels right and I’m glad I saved this beast until last as it finally convinced me to plunge back into the art world.

I took my alter-ego as inspiration and created a quick illustration of Apptain America, using a wide range of brushes and materials. Having stepped away from my portraiture for nearly two decades I admit to being tempted to pick up where I left off thanks to the Cintiq (and the Inkling). Wacom offers a smaller mobile version but I’m not interested as they’ve been hobbled by Windows and Android operating systems – they’re not allowed to use Apple’s. I’m a creative so It’s Cupertino kit all the way.

Apptain2_sketchSML.jpg

 

So, do I miss the artistic life I rejected 20 years ago? I miss being able to offer a simple answer to the question “what do you do?” I’m still part of the team that creates amazing things but I’m less ‘hands-on’ than I ever have been. It makes me sad that my wife and children aren’t impressed by what I do and it doesn’t make them proud.

I’d like to change that, so maybe I’ll find more time to sketch and paint in a digital world. I have a hunger to bring faces to life again so I’ll start making my hit list to add to my previous scalps, whoever they may be...

Portrait_history.jpg
tags: Wacom, Inkling, Evernote, Jot Script, Bamboo, Intuos, Cintiq, Portrait, Art
categories: art, Celebrity, Design, Galleries, Illustration, iPad Mini
Friday 02.07.14
Posted by Dean Johnson
 

The 2014 Shorty Awards: The Short Story

Every year I take advantage of my loyal Twitter followers – a mixture of friends, colleagues, clients, industry peers and generally a bunch of great people, then bombard you all with requests for votes in the Shorty Awards. This year, it all got too much for Apptain America...

If you've never heard of the Shorty Awards (and this is possible), they were set up to recognise excellence in social media by allowing leading Twitterati to canvas for votes... and ultimately acclaim. This resulted in an unfortunate number of award wins for Justin Bieber and One Direction and this annoys me every year when they finish ahead of me in the Design, Technology and Apps categories. I'd love to turn this around in 2014 so please consider my plight and release me from Apptain America's evil clutches. I love an iPad, but wouldn't want to spend too much time in here!

All good campaigns offer one main reason to vote so I'm hoping a hostage situation helps. If not, then my mix of industry news, design, tech, publishing and innovation insight and general irreverence keeps you entertained. My audiences at numerous conferences, on Nikki Bedi's BBC show and the amazing Dadsaster podcast add some extra spice.

Go on, you know it makes sense. Just follow the link, sign in with your Twitter or Facebook account, then add one more vote for @activrightbrain in #Apps, with one simple reason I should grab the award (good, bad or ugly).

shorty_badge_125x40_me.png

Vote for @activrightbrain

Thanks

tags: Shorty Awards, Social Media, Social, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Nikki Bedi, BBC, Dadsaster, Podcast
categories: Apps, Celebrity, Design, Innovation, Social
Sunday 01.12.14
Posted by Dean Johnson
 
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