Just Weird

A few months ago, we joined Pinterest to keep a visual record of some of the weird and wonderful things we find online during our daily research. We now have over 250 pins across our 7 boards; here are 10 of our latest Weird & Random finds…

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Check out all of our finds on Pinterest here! (socialalchemy)

via wokay.com

At first, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about; in fact, hearing that the US government was taking active steps to protect intellectual property, sounded like a good idea! It seems I shared the same attitude with many of my fellow Brits, I mean, why should we care about US legislation? It’s not like it would have any impact on our internet usage here in the UK – or would it?

Many of the sites I visit and use on a daily basis are US-based and incredibly negative towards the legislation; they cite issues ranging from its effect on US economy, US jobs and censorship. Whilst their protesting has received strong international sympathy, I don’t feel that the full potential effect as a non-US internet user has been fully recognised.

To prevent jumping ‘on the bandwagon’, I’ve spent time pulling some research together to show why, even outside US jurisdiction, the international community should be concerned with the likes of SOPA & PIPA.

So, what is US Congress proposing?

To start, this video is a comprehensive overview on the current proposals and how they are going to be implemented:

In a nutshell, SOPA & PIPA are Hollywood-backed anti-piracy legislation for the entertainment industry. However, quite a few questions have been raised about the real scale of the piracy problem within the industry and whether the proposed “significant restructuring of the internet” is really the solution.

Most of the legislation is directed at foreign websites (non-US) dedicated to infringing activities, such as Pirate Bay. However, the bill doesn’t work towards shutting down these sites or stopping pirate activity; in fact, it so vaguely outlines “infringing activities” that almost any internet user could be classed as a criminal.

What are outlined as “infringing activities”?

Chris Heald wrote an article for Mashable.com with a break down of the written bill. It makes an interesting read and raises some serious issues:

“Infringing activities” are not only explicitly breaking copyright, which existing copyright laws already outline; in the case of SOPA, anyone who ‘facilitates’ is also taking part in infringing activities.  Facilitating could mean anything from advertising, to sharing or simply linking!

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is an existing US copyright law (the equivalent of our Digital Economy Act).  The safe harbour provision means copyright owners must notify a company of supposed infringement and give the company 30 days to investigate and have the content removed.  Google, YouTube and most websites already comply with this legislation.

With SOPA enforced, those sites would be considered equally violating copyright.  Any site (including blogs) which uses user-contributed or pre-existing online content and even, as Chris points out, sites which allow comments would need stringent policing to prevent potentially copyrighted material being posted, regardless of which country the site is located in.

To get an idea of scale of the problem, the Neatorama blog has “nearly 40,000 posts and over 311,000 comments” and policing “presents a huge day-to-day operational problem.” That’s just one site! Take into consideration how many users are on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and it’s fair to say we’re looking at a content-filtering nightmare!

I can’t even begin to imagine how Wikipedia would cope; with over 3,831,000+ articles on their English encyclopaedia alone, policing user-contributed material would be a continual challenge and the likelihood is they would fall victim to censorship or, even worse, closure. No more free encyclopaedia! No more social networking!

Eric Schmidt, Google Executive Chairman, said the current proposal would “criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself.”

What about news sites? Dan Gillmor in his recent comment article for the Guardian quite rightly points out that, “since all journalism and entertainment is built upon borrowing from other creators, nothing new could be legally created without permission.” That may keep the Rupert Murdochs of this world happy, but that would well and truly effect the broadcast of international news.

What would be the consequence?

ISP blocking isn’t a new method of anti-piracy; fortunately for us, the European Court of Justice recently ruled that the imposition of an obligation to filter network traffic is contrary to EU law (and thus affects every EU member state). However, that hasn’t stopped entertainment corporations, such as the Motion Picture Association (MPA), taking UK ISPs (BT and Sky) to court to block access to sites. If the UK does become Anti-EU any time soon, we may see more law suits of a similar nature.

For now, if your site is blocked by US ISPs and your primary customers/readers/traffic are US-based, you may have a serious issue on your hands!

Search engine censorship is also not a new concept; just look at Google’s Love-Hate relationship with China. However, there are a few questions that need to be raised, particularly, if Google – that’s an American multinational Internet and software corporation – has to censor its results, would this effect be seen across all their search engines or just the .com?

As for payment providers, Paypal already cause enough controversy with the way they manage their e-commerce users. The scary thing is, you do not have to be notified that your service will terminated in advanced. So, if e-commerce is your main business, you could potentially lose everything you have made.

Don’t get me wrong, these tactics may sound like good practice against anyone selling counterfeit DVDs, pharmaceutical drugs, etc. However, the current bill could easily apply to any small businesses who are not committing copyright infringement knowingly.

Take the home-made boom of 2010/11 and the rise of Etsy.com and Folksy.com as an example. At present, any breach of copyright can just be notified and removed. However, if a single seller on Folksy – A British Craft site – was found to breach SOPA legislation, every user could effectively lose ALL business through the site if Paypal terminated their service. OK, it’s an extreme example, but very possible.

The legislation also takes a guilty before proven innocent stance, making it open for abuse by large corporations making false claims (which already happens) in order to oust their global competition.

Would SOPA have a negative affect in the UK?

SOPA is not all doom and gloom for us foreigners; in fact, a positive twist (one of very few) could be an increase in UK/EU economy.  If internet-related companies are forced to leave the US, we may see the equivalent of Silicone Valley appearing on our side of the Atlantic, creating new jobs and revenue at a time when our economic future is looking grim.

However, if SOPA does go ahead without any changes, we could potentially see a negative impact not only with the loss of e-commerce, but the take-down of social networking sites and potentially any other site which has user-generated content. Can you imagine life without Facebook?

As it currently stands, the SOPA bill is aimed at ‘foreign sites’ (that’s us!) and written so vaguely it goes beyond preventing entertainment industry piracy. The real questions are, can we trust the US with this power that will, undoubtedly, affect the way we use and create business on the internet, regardless of whether we’re outside US jurisdiction? And will we be protected by UK/EU legislation to combat false infringement?

Awesome Design & Art

A few months ago, we joined Pinterest to keep a visual record of some of the weird and wonderful things we find online during our daily research. We now have over 200 pins across our 7 boards; here are 10 of our latest Design & Art finds…

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Check out all of our finds on Pinterest here! (socialalchemy)

I want to start with an interesting article I read in The Guardian about orchestra conductors. It fascinated me because, like many people, I had always taken for granted the role of a conductor!

The conductor is described as having the most important role of an orchestra; the audience only gets to experience their hand waving during a performance however, it’s their behind-the-scenes knowledge, relentless practising and interpretation of the composition that makes that performance what it is.

And whilst each musician within an orchestra could play unaided, it’s the conductor who decides how it should be played based on extensive knowledge of, not only all the instruments in the orchestra, but the composition itself.

The role of the conductor is crucial to the performance of an orchestra – A great musical experience cannot be created simply by getting the notes right.

So, how does my new-found understanding of music maestros relate to having a plan? Well, because a company without a marketing plan is like an orchestra without a conductor: “A great marketing experience cannot be created simply by getting the departments right.”

I say departments; whether you outsource or keep your marketing in-house, I expect your website, sales, social, mobile, PR and advertising are managed by different people or companies. Like the musicians within an orchestra, each department can play unaided and do what they interpret best for the composition – your business. However, without a conductor, a marketing plan, how can you guarantee that they are performing to the same melody?

Too many SMEs make the mistake of not having a plan first, leading to inconsistencies throughout their marketing and even their sales. Whilst individual department strategies can be developed by each expert in their field, the marketing plan should outline the key goals to be achieved.

I’ll be touching on marketing plans again soon; in the mean time, if your business requires a marketing plan, visit businesslink.gov.uk for some guidelines.

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© iStockphoto

Happy New Year! We’re over a week into the New Year and still I can’t get my head around where the last year vanished to… 2012 already? Oh gosh…

I’ll try my hardest to keep this short and sweet but frankly I’m bursting with things to say; I realise that my outbound communications are rather sporadic at times and it seems like opportunities such as these are the only moments I get to air a few thoughts. Bear with me!

2011 has been an enormous career cornerstone, to say the least. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a huge fan of trial and error; I cannot tell you the future, however I can make logical decisions to move forward and I’m not afraid to deal with whatever comes my way.

This time last year I was a freelance social media manager; and I was BUSY! Too busy. The only logical step forward was to take my business to the next level; so in April, Fuelled by Social Alchemy Limited was born.

I thought being freelance was tough, but nothing could prepare me for being a director. Without delving into details, I can say that the past 9 months have been a total roller-coaster; a massive learning curve that, on one hand, I have no regrets about experiencing, but on the other have vowed to NEVER put myself through again. 2012 has to be a year for change.

Now, it wasn’t that 2011 was particularly hellish; I don’t have any major horror stories to tell of, nor is Fuelled by Social Alchemy Limited going anywhere. But in hindsight, I’ve learnt more about “what not to do” in a surprisingly short period of time, that it’s had quite a profound effect – a change I never saw coming!

It wasn’t all bad though! I’ve beaverd away over the Christmas period, reviewing my “long-term” clients (the ones I’ve managed for 2+ years now!) and my hard work and relentless persistence to boost their online reputation has paid off. Of course, there’s always room for improvement and 2012 is looking pretty exciting for generating content for these guys! I also, for the first time, have a year’s worth of solid statistics that I hope to share with you in the very near future.

Looking forward to 2012, some changes are already taking place…

From February my “assistant”, Lauren, will be leaving and I have no immediate plans to replace her. She’s been my right-hand gal for the past 7 months, tending to our clients’ needs. There’s no animosity towards this move, and I wish her all the best for the future – I’m most certain we’ll see each other again around Leeds!

This year, Social Alchemy will be offering a new service focusing on improving existing websites and blogs, as well as creating next-stage strategies. It’s something we’ve already done for our existing clients but this will be extended to a one-off service for new business as well. More details to come soon…

Lastly, my New Year’s resolution is to spend as much time blogging for Social Alchemy as I do for my clients! So, if there’s anything you would particularly like me to cover, please drop me an email to michaela@fuelledbysocialalchemy.com.

Thank you for reading. To a prosperous New Year!

Michaela Laubscher

Whilst Michaela has spent the last few weeks sunning in South Africa, our friends at jelly have been decorating their studio wall with a creative landscape of London.

The art produced by illustrator Matt Johnstone, not only features a pink tower of jelly at its centre as well as agencies such as BBH, Ogilvy, CHI and JWT, but also each member of staff has their own character somewhere on the map!

Apparently this is Michaela! We’ll have to spot her like “Where’s Wally” the next time we visit them in London!

Check out a short time-lapse film of how it was made!

inspire. create.

Call For Entries!

As part of our campaign to help retain the best creative talent within in the region we are hosting an exhibition – with a twist! Not only will we give local students and freelancers the chance to showcase their digital work to the thriving creative sector we have here in Leeds, but we have also secured two fantastic prizes for the winners…

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adtec

Adtec Explains… the difference between digital printing and lithography

We thought we’d talk about two services that we offer – digital printing and lithographic printing – and the difference between the two of them.

If you’d like to talk to us about a print job please call +44 (0)20 7837 6714 or email info@adtec.co.uk and we will do our best to solve your problem.

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jelly

Different for Better’s Sake

Alison Carmichael worked closely with Publicis to develp a ‘blueprint’ style of lettering which reflected the styling details on the car – she also illustrated the little architectural details on the layout and generally made the whole thing go with a va-va-voom.

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jelly

Introducing: Steve and Layla!

Say hello to two fresh faces in the jelly studio: Steve Dunn and Layla Boyd!

Layla is the new lady in the jelly studio, bringing cake, an Illustration BA(Hons) and a bit more ‘jelly’ to the team…

Steve was a project manager until he made a life changing move and decided to return to education to pursue his long term passion of illustration…

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three blind mice

THE FRUIT, THE WHOLE FRUIT AND NOTHING BUT THE FRUIT!

At the start of the summer, Jennifer Fewster (Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R) approached Three Blind Mice to produce a set of research animatics for Innocent Smoothies latest TV campaign.

After looking through the different available styles on our website, a brightly coloured vector style was chosen for the artwork to help convey the rich colours of the fruit…

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three blind mice

Fosters Gold

Have you seen the launch commercial of Fosters Gold?

TBM’s Jess worked with Adam & Eve to produce these great still frames with our artist James. You can see this campaign on the T.V featuring a very attractive Holly Valance. Where has she been all this time? Being invited to swanky parties like this one we imagine!

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fuelled by social alchemy

What would your superhero power be?

Back in June we came up with some superhero powers for our meet the team feature. A few months down the line, our friends at Interactive Art Services started The Super League of Creativity and we jumped at the chance to get our superheroes realised.

We also set ourselves the challenge of drawing ourselves as stickheroes… what do you think?

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