I learned a lot in 2008… and I loved a lot as well. Read about some of the highlights of my year from music, books, design, the web and technology to Obama, going green, success and failure, who I am/ what I do and sticktuitiveness!

Music:
I continue to and always will love music. I discovered some new music and re-discovered some old favourites in the form of Santogold, MGMT, Katy Perry, the Ting Tings, Lykke Li, Vampire Weekend, Sam Sparro, Duffy, Kanye West, SIA, The Script, Kings of Leon, Jeff Buckley, Jewel, Billy Holiday and more…

Books:
I re-discovered my love of books. Having always felt that I didn’t have enough time (or rather didn’t make enough time) to read more due to studying and a heavy workload, I finally made some progress to read more in 2008. Favourite reads included: “Let The Right One In” by John Ajvide Lindqvist and “What Should I Do With My Life?” by Po Bronson. Read an inspirational excerpt from Bronson’s book.

What/ Who I am… What/ Who am I?
I’m a designer. No, I’m a multimedia producer. No, I’m a developer. No, I’m a project manager. No, I’m a marketeer. No, I’m a web consultant… It can be hard to define what I do because up to now I’ve done a lot of things. In parallel with that, I’m creative, I’m a photographer, a musician, a film-maker, a writer and a human. What I do and who am I are still sometimes quite different and I want them to be more aligned and streamlined… For now let’s go with the working title of creator and communicator. I’m working on it!

Impressing the wrong people:
If you want to impress people, impress the right people – those whom you respect and want to emulate.

Success and failure:
Failure doesn’t feel good but you can learn and grow from it. (Continued) success at the wrong thing can trap you forever. I like freedom.

Going green:
I did more than turn off the computers and lights in 2008. I moved paying my bills online, recycled more, donated more, eat organic and started replacing the regular lightbulbs in my house. Read 50 ways to help the planet.

Breaking up:
There is no such thing as a good break-up. However, you can ease the pain a little by being clear, honest and respectful with yourself and to the person that you are/ were involved with. If all that comes out of a break-up is another lesson in life that’s something more than you started with.
“You have to forgive to forget, and forget, to feel again.”
– unknown

“Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable.”
– Wizard of Oz

Design:
In 2008, I was inspired by websites including The Grid System and Fontstruct and a huge amount of musicians, writers, bloggers, designers, film-makers, artists, logos, t-shirt designs, album covers, furniture, architecture, street art, art art, websites, nature and photography.

The web & social networking:
In 2008, I loved Twitter… Yes, twitter gets all of my web/ social networking love for the year! I also really liked LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and SlideShare.

Technology:
In 2008, I loved my Apple I-Mac, my Sony Cybershot T-700 and my magic 8-ball (I consider my 8-ball technology and it gives me answers to some very important questions!).

Obama:
Change is good! I loved watching history being made in 2008.

Style:
In 2008, I loved my retro Nike 6.0 Air Morgan’s, my Converse, my skinny jeans, my PLO scarves, my Abercrombie hoodies, my trilby hats, my big chunky watches and my tribal earrings.

Wall-E:
One of the most unique and unexpected movies of 2008.

Advice:
Always listen to advice but don’t necessarily take it… look to your gut. I listened to a lot of advice this year but I’m glad that I didn’t take some of it. Working in a stockbrokers was an experience but I’m glad that I didn’t buy shares!

Travel:
An eternal traveler. In 2008, I got to see Barcelona again and visited Sicily and Lisbon for the first time.

Having fun:
Whether it was playing a wii for the first time, having a game of tennis, chilling out watching a good movie, going for a rollerblade, going to a gig, walking the dogs or just laughing out loud. I loved it all! But I want to have more fun in 2009!

And finally, a new word:
“Sticktuitiveness”. I went to a talk that Erin Brockovich was presenting at and she introduced me to this word. A determination to persevere and to stick with an endeavor once you’ve committed to it while using your intuition. I love it.

Happy New Year all!

- Niamh.

Social networking is not exactly new to politics but as the web has evolved so have the strategies and tactics of political campaign teams and the online profiles of politicians. One thing that has struck me as very interesting throughout the U.S. presidential campaign this year was the overall design factor behind each candidate’s brand, graphic identity and website. A topic that I will be looking at in greater detail in a later post but for now I want to focus on the way in which Obama in particular has utilised the web and social media to promote his campaign.

Obama is everywhere. He was the first candidate to start using widgets to make it easy for anyone to donate to the campaign through his social media tools and networking sites (see the screenshot above).  He was the first candidate to have a LinkedIn group and the first candidate with a profile on BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com and GLEE.com. You can connect with Obama on all of the usual suspects too, of course -  Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. The Washington Post have called Obama the “King of Social Networking”, the New York Times have labelled him the first “wiki-candidate”, there is even an official Obama iPhone application and a website, Barack 2.0, dedicated to analysing the Obama campaign’s use of social media from a small business perspective.

In previous political campaigns the online strategy seemed to be to get as many visitors to a candidates website as possible, a strategy not limited to politics, however, as many sites took a tunnel-vision approach to website hits. Since the web is a much busier, interactive, diverse, on-demand and collaborative world now, and while these social networking sites are still somewhat in their infancy, their value in reaching and engaging with people is another important performance metric. Not only does Obama’s web strategy reach people though, it calls them to action. All of Obama’s networking tools serve as extensions of interaction and user involvement centered around a clear call to action – get involved, volunteer and/ or donate.

I wasn’t expecting to receive an e-mail like the above.

And I was not expecting to be a 2nd LinkedIn connection to Obama either. But the question remains, regardless of the means what will the outcome be? Could the wiki-candidate be a wiki-President? We will find out very soon.

To be continued…

- Niamh

I saw the new Microsoft advertisement on tv earlier today. Microsoft’s response to Apple’s “I’m a PC… I’m a Mac” advertisement seems more like a retaliation than an innovation. “I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype.” Is that an admission that the smaller rival is winning or are they taking them head-on?

What’s clever about Microsoft’s ad is that it focuses on the everyday nature of the PC and the good they can do in the world. A nerdy PC-user is just a scene setter. The ad then quickly moves through lots of different types of PC users including an African school teacher, a blogger for Obama, a McCain supporter, people wearing jeans, designing jeans, and studying genes and not to mention some celebrity endorsement in the form of Pharell Williams, Eva Longoria and BG himself. This is a refreshing contrast to the Apple ads because they take place in a variety of different, colorful locations, with a variety of races and cultures, rather than existing within Apple’s clinical, white world.

Microsoft’s I’m a PC – Life Without Walls website features more information and a chance for users to become a PC on TV by uploading their own “I’m a PC’ videos, which Microsoft will use for their online advertising and TV campaigns.True, this could be considered a great Parthian shot at Apple but what about the people who use both PC’s and Mac’s? We’ve got 2 Mac’s and 4 PC’s in our house… what does that make us? *Niamh walks away saying “I’m a PC and a MAC”… Though, I’m more of a Mac! *

Watch the “I’m a PC” video on YouTube.