September 27th, 2011 by gordon

It’s a new season here at Filtered Media. Lots of new things.

We’ve incorporated as a new company – The Filtered Group Pty Ltd – and moved into new office space in Wahroonga. (And that gave us an excuse to buy new computers too, which makes us happy.)

We’re also in the process of conducting a strategic review of the business, focused on three primary divisions:

1. Filtered Media – digital media production, freelance journalism, public speaking and events.
2. Filtered Communications – executive communication skills coaching, public relations, and corporate digital content production.
3. Filtered Causes – digital media and communications services for non-profit and cause-related organisations.

We’ll have more to say as the strategy takes shape, but it’s been amazing to see the business grow in each of these areas over the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, if you’re new to this site, contact us.

Onwards!

Tagged: Media, New media, PR & Comms
Comments: Leave a Comment »

February 13th, 2009 by mhjones

I live for moments of clarity, when all those passing thoughts and observations suddenly collide and create something new. And this time it was during a chance encounter on ustream.tv, the free video channel community.

One of my twitter buddies had linked to a test broadcast by ABC personality James Valentine. He was in a radio studio with an engineer (off air) and trying to figure out how to possible weave a live video feed into his radio show.

And here we were, some 92 people who had caught wind of the experiment and buzzed by to see what the fuss was about. James was engaging directly with the assembled onlookers. He wanted to get the sound working. Technical stuff. As an aside, it was fun to discover one of the ustream participants was an old friend who I’d not seen for years – the online equivalent of bumping into someone in the street.

Meanwhile, I had other stuff happening while ustream’s live comments unfolded. I was glancing at my twitter stream (you can find me here, btw), reading email, doing some online research ahead of a social media workshop I was to host the following day, synching my ipod and smartphone. Just your regular Joe with an digital attention deficit disorder. Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: Aussie media, New media, Social media, Twitter
Comments: Leave a Comment »

June 26th, 2008 by mhjones

The digital media revolution has arguably hit the entertainment industry harder than those of us in the journalism business. But the technologies and content delivery strategies in question are common to both sectors. And with many non-media companies pursuing various forms of online content delivery, there’s now a lot of people now asking the same questions that media and entertainment folks have been asking for decades.

I sat down with Sony Pictures Television executive VP Jack Ford in Sydney at the VentureOne/AIMIA Commercialising Video conference to talk about digital media convergence.

Watch it here on AFR TV. And kudos to producer Marc Tewksbury for the slick editing.

Tagged: Media, New media, Television
Comments: Leave a Comment »

March 26th, 2008 by mhjones

I think I’ve just been handed a whole new image, thanks to Lee Hopkins and his creative genius.

To return the favour after his flattering post following our yarn over Skype today and hand out a bit of link love, check out Lee and Trevor Cook‘s latest Social Media whitepaper.

These guys are contributing to an important global discussion in a meaningful way, so they deserve all the kudos (and speaking fees!) that come their way.

Tagged: Funny stuff, New media, Social media
Comments: Leave a Comment »

March 11th, 2008 by mhjones

Today’s “duh, who knew?!” newsflash comes to us from this yarn in the NYT which reminds us that Internet companies like Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, MySpace etc collect copious amounts of personal data.

This idea has of course already surfaced before in the form of different ideas, such as the attention economy and the attention trust. The point is that all of us implicitly or explicitly make an exchange when we use the Internet. We get access to oceans of content and data, and some of the service providers collect tolls along the way – in this case the search engines and digital media companies that store, mix and exploit personal data. And that data is valuable. There’s no great socialist conspiracy here (to the best of my knowledge) – it’s simply the way the ‘net works.

But food for thought raised here is that there’s been a shift in the balance of power away from traditional media. In times past, media companies drew their strength from understanding and knowing reader behaviour. An editor is at his or her best when decisions about editorial and the media business are heavily influenced by reader behaviour.

Now, that situation hasn’t changed. Editors still understand their readers and publications. But the vast computing power being deployed by Internet giants continues to change the game regardless. Here’s a quote from the NYT piece:

The rich troves of data at the fingertips of the biggest Internet companies are also creating a new kind of digital divide within the industry. Traditional media companies, which collect far less data about visitors to their sites, are increasingly at a disadvantage when they compete for ad dollars.

The major television networks and magazine and newspaper companies “aren’t even in the same league,” said Linda Abraham, an executive vice president at comScore. “They can’t really play in this sandbox.”

During the Internet’s short life, most people have used a yardstick from traditional media to measure success: audience size. Like magazines and newspapers, Web sites are most often ranked based on how many people visit them and how long they are there.

But on the Internet, advertisers are increasingly choosing where to place their ads based on how much sites know about Web surfers.

So where does this leave big media? Do you rush out and buy sophisticated web analytics services or software? Wait for the consumer privacy outrage to swing the pendulum back in your favour? It would be foolish and simplistic to say there was one easy answer.

But for me, an interesting subtext to this piece is that what counts more than ever is the opinion of advertisers and marketers when it comes to online spending expectations. In Australia, we’ve got some really savvy online marketers, and plenty of others who sadly think digital media still equals a flashing web banner.

Reminds me of a video that I helped Foad Fadaghi produce for BRW (bottom right side of the page) for his Digital Generation report. If advertisers want accountability and metrics, and you’re in the media game, then now would be a really good time to evaluate or re-evaluate online measurement tools.

Tagged: Marketing, Media, New media
Comments: Leave a Comment »

February 20th, 2008 by mhjones

What is Enterprise 2.0? To paraphrase Harvard Business School’s Andrew McAfee at yesterday’s Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum, it’s a term that describes the use of social software by companies. Think Web 2.0 for the suits.

(Cartoon source: Geek and Poke)

So that’s the definition, but what about real world applications? Forum host Ross Dawson assembled some interesting local case studies, and you can listen to their presentations and the Q&A session on The Scoop. (Btw, it’s the first time I’ve done a live recording of a panel using my Zoom H4. The feed out of the desk was a little hot for some of the speakers, but with a bit of digital spit and polish I’m largely satisfied with the result.)

There’s plenty of blog coverage out there from the event, including posts from Brad, Trevor, Mick (plus more from him at Phil Morle on Tangler), and of course Ross’ own reflections.

As for me, it’s been interesting to reflect on the expectations that we bring to this discussion. If you’re a digital marketer, you want to know how social media effectiveness can be measured in terms of ROI and sales leads. If you’re in business, there’s a sense that Enterprise 2.0 should add significant business value. Andrew McAfee’s assessment was that we expect any new collaboration tool to be at least 10x better than the incumbent technology – email.

Expressed in more simple terms, we’re impatient for success. Enterprise 2.0 is part of a broader, very significant shift in the way we communicate and collaborate. We’re still experimenting, and those on the bleeding edge like those in featured in my podcast are blazing the trail. It strikes me that to simply sit back and demand instant success does not reflect the spirit of what’s happening here. It’s the different between participation and consumption. Consumers say “gimme!”, while those in social software are prepared to take a risk and get their hands dirty.

We got a chance to flesh out some of these issues during roundtable sessions at the event. I attended one hosted by Capgemini’s CTO Peter Evans-Greenwood called “Effective implementation of Enterprise 2.0.” Here’s the notes I typed into my dopod 838: Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: MISaustralia.com, New media, Podcasting, Social media, The Scoop, Weblogs
Comments: Leave a Comment »

February 13th, 2008 by mhjones

Hey, are you one of the thousands of people who download The Scoop each month?  How are we doing? What topics would you like us to discuss? Want to come on the show?

Join The Scoop’s Facebook group and let us know.

Tagged: New media, Social media, The Scoop
Comments: Leave a Comment »

November 19th, 2007 by mhjones

Steve Jobs’ famous Reality Distortion Field apparently struggles to include his lieutenants and PR people, according to this blog post by Fortune.

The post includes a video (below) that offers a telling insight into the way Apple’s PR troops handle the media. Ask the wrong question, and sorry folks, the interview’s over!

Of course, these sorts of situations have been happening for years. My own experience dealing with Apple has nearly always been positive, but it’s no secret that their PR people really live by the company’s “think different” motto. I recall the weeks it took to negotiate a series of exclusive interviews around the launch of Apple’s Xseries server boxes circa 2002 when I was at InfoWorld. In order to get the exclusive, questions had to be submitted in advance, our schedule was tightly controlled, they made their own recordings of what was said, we had to be careful of what we spoke about, and so on.

Here in Australia the PR distortion field includes various rules like “thou shalt not quote an Australian Apple executive” (my paraphrase). The PR folks themselves are good people and typically explain their perspective well, and on rare occasions will even give the media a sound bite from a “spokesperson.” The simple reality is they’re acting under orders from On High – and it’s a question of whether you want to keep your job.

What’s changed now, however, is that these backroom/off-record conversations can now easily be digested by everyone thanks to the wonders of social media like blogs and YouTube. And that, as the PR people are now all too aware, is a game-changer.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44w-RYurbN4&rel=1]

(Fortune link, perhaps ironically, is courtesy of PR agency Dateline Media‘s e-newsletter)

Tagged: Apple, Media, New media
Comments: 6 Comments »

November 9th, 2007 by mhjones

Asher Moses at the SMH has been writing a series of articles, such as this, and today’s piece on Facebook’s plans for world domination.

Like most things in social media, the Facebook story is part spin, part reality, and large doses of intrigue.  I don’t think anyone really expected the Facebook fad to last. After all, you could argue MySpace has already become yesterday’s social network. What’s interesting is the lesson that Facebook’s learning in a hurry is actually one that’s an age-old truism in the media business. You must always put the interests of your readers/audience/community before that of the advertisers. Yes, that’s an obvious statement, but the irony is that Facebook is a social media company. A central tenet of social media is involving your community in corporate decision making, or at least responding quickly when you upset them. Breaking the new and old media rules simultaneously is quite a feat!

So has Facebook has jumped the shark? The Facebook community is dangerously offside, while on the other hand the investment community appears unlikely to back away from demands the company turns a profit.

Meanwhile, there’s a lesson to be learnt in all this over at Second Life. I was also prepared to write off Second Life as yesterday’s social media fad, but the opposite appears to be the case. As I learnt from my chat with the ABC’s Lisa Romano, Mr Podcast himself TPN’s Cameron Reilly and The Project Factory’s Gary Hayes on The Scoop, the SL community has jumped by 9 million residents during the past 12 months. Oh, and it gets better. They’re apparently not all geeks, but 30+ high-income earners, many of whom spend real money on SL.

I’d suggest the lesson Mr Zuckerberg has to learn from Second Life is that Linden Lab knows it lives and dies based on the degree to which it keeps the residents happy. It’s called social media for a reason.

Tagged: MISaustralia.com, New media, The Scoop
Comments: 2 Comments »

August 13th, 2007 by mhjones

I’m a pretty mild-mannered kinda guy, but today I’m mad. 3 Mobile, my mobile phone provider seems to be struggling with the concept of customer service. My Dopod smartphone has not been taking phone calls since last Thursday. That’s 5 days where callers to my mobile have dialed my number and heard one ring before the call is hung up by the network. It’s not me being rude, I promise. SMS still works fine, and I can still make calls. But I can’t receive calls.

I logged the fault with 3 customer care on Friday morning when I realised I had a problem. They promised to call me back on Saturday with a status update on why the network was having issues. It’s now Monday and I had to call them myself. They had no idea why I didn’t get a call. And they still had no idea what the problem is. And they had no idea when service will be restored. In fact, the customer service person I spoke to (not sure if he was in Australia…) could not even promise that I would get a call back from their customer service people today. Maybe tomorrow he offered…

Nope, not good enough. I pointed out to the customer service guy that my mobile is my business line. It must be restored today. And if they were smart they’d see in their CRM system that I give them a lot of money each month. You’d think that means I need to be looked after!

My experience with this carrier, until late last week, has been fantastic. But now I’m starting to seriously question what’s going on with this company. It’s not just me. Cameron Reilly has been having a more difficult experience than yours truly – story here. And Shane Williamson, an ex-3 employee, has gone into bat for Cameron.

Stories like these remind me that many companies in Australia still have not engaged with new media.

Update: Well, I’m not sure how it happened. But at 7.30pm last night I got a phone call. We’re back on the air and I’m a happy man again….

Tagged: Mobile, New media
Comments: 2 Comments »