Media 140 – Ande Gregson one year on..

By Richard Baker

Ande Gregson

Ande Gregson can come across as an unassuming and softly spoken man. He’s one of those rare people who have a quiet charisma and the ability to draw the attention of a room of people.

I first met him in November 2009 after I was asked by Kate Pickering to appear at the media 140 event covering brands in London. I was using social media to build relationships with customers for the company I was working for and people were keen to learn from my experience.

The event, like many that have followed (and the one before) was a first in the UK;  it brought together people using the real time web to connect with customers. I’ve written about the events I’ve appeared at on this site and you can read about them here.

To be honest, I’m not even sure I spoke to Ande at the media140/brands event; it was my first time speaking on a panel and I was pretty nervous. Ande was busy working with the rest of the team to deliver the days agenda.

It wasn’t until January that we got to know each other – meeting for a coffee in Soho and sharing ideas. I remember he carried his little notebook everywhere with him, and scribbled furiously as I threw out ideas and observations.

It’s fascinating watching the journey Ande is on – from an idea last year to raise funds for MENCAP, to leaving his full time career to focus on building a global brand. I talk to him one year on about the challenges, the learning and how he almost had Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder at an event..

Ande – how has the last year been?

A rollercoaster of a year! The 20th May for me was a milestone in it’s own right in that we launched an event into London under the banner of realtime news. It trended on Twitter at #1 and raised the £7000 I needed to raise for Mencap for a mad race across the Sahara, known as the Marathon Des Sables, which was of course the primary reason media140 came about.

What countries have you had media140 events in?

Countries include Australia, UK and Italy – I think from memory it’s around 12 events in Sydney, Perth, Perugia, London, Oxford, Glasgow, Bristol with plans afoot for Spain, India, North America and a few other places we are considering – it’s exciting stuff!

What’s changed in the industry since you began?

There has been a massive explosion in social media events and conferences all over the place, each month a new event or conference is announced looking as aspects of social media. It has become difficult to see the differentiators across some of these brands.

What’s a typical day like for you these days?

Busy. Everyday is different – whether it’s speaking to sponsors, sourcing content, finding venues, running logistics for future events, catching up on emails  – which seem to never go away. Everyday is fabulous and it’s all part of growing a small business.

What’s the best piece of advice you have had in the last 12 months?

Focus. Don’t try to do everything at once – there is a huge amount of opportunity in this industry and you need to focus on the bits that create the most value not only for the community we are developing but also the people that are part of the media140 global team.

What’s been your worst moment?

There are no such moments, there are just challenges. The biggest one I suspect was dealing with a volcano and disrupted flights during the Italian project in Perugia. We lost a number of international speakers including Julian Assange of Wikileaks, and I had to motorcycle across Europe to re-jig the event.

Claire Wardle, our lead editorial producer, had to contend with being stuck in the London after planning most of the Italian event, which was very stressful, as she had committed a tremendous amount of effort to try to make it happen. However, as usual the media140 team pulled a rabbit out of the hat and with the help of Claire, Kate Pickering, Christian Payne and others; they produced a live TV show that ran concurrently to supplement the agenda in Perugia  – now that was amazing!

What would you do differently in the last year if you could go back in time?

Generally? I guess learn how to speak Spanish and Italian

In relation to media140 I think I would have started in earnest sooner and done more events in Europe. But that’s all I guess; the team we have working on media140 is amazing. All committed, passionate and determined to make it a great success. Over the past year Dee Jackson, Kate Pickering, George Nimeh, Petra Johansson, Sejal Parekh, Lisa Zilberpriver, Julie Posetti, Sarah Allen, Rebecca Cole, Bree Mitchelson, Lechelle Gerrard, Brad Keeling, Graham Langer, Glenn Lesanto, Chris Hall, Mark Jennings, James Griffiths, Nick Hazel, Monica Garriga, Gemma Urgell and Maria Ripoll have all contributed to make #media140 what it is.

What do you think is your greatest strength?

Motivation, commitment and inspiration coupled with a creative mind. So spending 3 years studying a design degree has helped tremendously.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would you change?

Hmmm I would probably try to change the workaholic in me and spend a little less time focused on working and more on relaxing.

What are you most excited about this year?

The prospect of what’s coming next year: growing the brand into new markets, developing the new ideas we have and building our global community.

Media140 now offers events, training and consultancy at their new site at http://media140.com. They are always looking to build connections with interested people and organisations. Go take a look or connect with media140 on Twitter!

Drink wine? Check out a new online resource.

I’m probably in the majority when I say I like a glass of wine. After a busy day – or any day for that matter – it’s often rather satisfying to settle down with a glass of red or white and unwind.

There has been a steady increase in the amount of wine drunk at home over the last twenty years in the UK and now you can get decent wine at a decent price in most supermarkets.

If you are anything like me, you will rarely spend over  fiver on a bottle, unless it is for a special occasion. Most of the time I will look for a wine on offer.

I tend to know what grapes I like, although that does shift over time. I don’t tend to read about wine because generally the write-ups are all about expensive wine you might buy from a merchant.

However, there are a couple of new sites launched here in the UK that promise to offer something different. Red wine and white wine are two sites set up by Fraser Edwards. He has written a really interesting post about how he began in affiliate marketing and the lessons learned along the way, including the influence Google had over his business. You can read that here.

If you take a look at the sites you’ll notice they are written in a user friendly way. There isn’t a lot of winespeak which makes it quick and easy reading – perfect for those of us with an ever decreasing attention span! Fraser also reviews wine that costs £5 as well as the more expensive stuff.  There is a good article on grape varieties too.

Fraser has started reaching out to people using twitter. In fact, that’s how we found each other. His twitter account at twitter.com/whiteandred offers updates and links to articles and ideas of red and white wine.

The Amazing Bobble Water Bottle

It’s not often I come across a product that really impresses me. For me to blog about it is ever rarer.

The Bobble is a simple, elegant and beautifully designed idea that reduces the environmental impact of millions of plastic mineral water bottles. In the UK alone there were 2.09 billion litres drunk last year (source: britishbottledwater.org). Thats a lot of money spent on water!

The bobble is a clear, PET bottle with a coloured carbon filter that filters tap water and can be used over 300 times before a new carbon filter is needed. That’s about two months worth.

Lets say you buy one bottle of mineral water a day. That’s gonna cost you at least £56 every two months compared to the £6.77 plus shipping the Bobble would cost you (and thats the initial cost, the refills cost even less).

But its not the cost that appeals to me, it’s the convenience. If I run out at work, I can just fill it up at a drinking water tap. Same for the gym.

The bottle looks good too, designed by the prolific and gifted designer Karim Rashid who designed, among other things, the Issey Miyake perfume bottle.

Its a cheap, convenient alternative to buying expensive bottled water. I’ve ordered a couple today and I’ll let you know how I get on via Twitter.

waterbobble.com

Human Judgement and Organisational Effectiveness

By Rich Baker

One of the areas I am studying as part of an MBA involves a look at how innovation and creativity manifest themselves in individuals and organisations.

Part of this considers the perception we have of intuition. Rather than it be a ‘magical’ ability that some possess and others do not, it is argued that intuition is more a matter of ‘expert recognition’ i.e. a ‘by-product of of training and experience that has been stored as knowledge’. (Simons, 1988).

Traditionally, in the West we have always sought to rationalise decision making, and this has implications upon the value placed upon both individuals in organisations, and the role they play. I have a friend who has little ‘formal’ education, but is an insightful people manager who always seems to know what to say and when to achieve the best out of people, in sometimes complex political environments. Luckily the organisation in which she works recognises this, and she holds a senior leadership position.

Similarily, our judgement is affected by patterns that might seem rational, are in fact a product of what we might expect to happen.

Try this test;

Which of the following birth orders is more likely?

BGBBGB

or

BBBBGB

Most people assume the first, in actual fact both are as likely to happen.The same would be true if we were to toss coins. This is what is called representativeness bias. (Thanks to the Open University for the exercise).

I’m interested in the impact this has not only on the individual, but also upon decision making in organisations. How do we reduce bias, but harness and leverage intuition?

Thoughts? Does your business/organisation place value upon tacit knowledge or ‘intuition’?