Hive Health

Blimey, its that time of year again. The chaps in the office have all got together and decided to celebrate Movember.

Movember is about raising funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men.The rules are simple,

• The boys of the office are starting Movember 1st clean shaven
• We pledge to grow a moustache for the entire month.
• The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men.
• The girls take a sweep stake of the winning effort

The more people we get on board, the more lives we can impact. All we are asking is that you join the team and either grow a moustache as a Mo Bro, or join as a Mo Sister to help us on our journey.

PS. Ian’s artistic talents remain consistent. Anyone who wants to submit a better bee feel free. Here’s one I did, and I think it’s better

PPS. Rupert’s effort shows that designers make a huge difference

Pull your ad spend, your work is done. Genius

I was avidly watching X-Factor the other night (Go TreyC!) and was delighted to see Yeo Valley’s  TV advertising debut.

Great to see the organic brand – best known for tasty yoghurts – not taking itself too seriously and sending up the rap genre with silver cows on their Massey Ferguson tractors.

A couple of blogs ago, Tim mentioned making presentations a little less corporate.

In our industry, we present all the time. Be it pitches, creds for new clients, training reps on something we have produced with their marketers – we’re often found on our feet with a clicker in our hands. But doesn’t Powerpoint sometimes get just a little bit dull?

Microsoft have been working on LightSpace technology. It isn’t quite ready to use yet, but one day it could totally transform the flexibility of the way we present. The device will let you present on any surface at all by taking a 3D image of the room you are in, and even let you pick up a piece of your presentation and carry it across the room to project on something else – if you can’t quite imagine what that looks like, that you can see it on the video here.

The different components of your presentation can also be moved around in space on the surface you are projecting onto. You play with the light, and the system understands what you are doing through motion-tracking sensors and depth-sensing cameras. It’s all gone a bit Minority Report.

Have a look at the video and let us know what you think. Is this the best piece of presenting software you’ve ever seen, or is it a horribly unwelcome distraction that puts tech ahead of content?

Many campaigns these days claim to be ‘global’ but how many truly are? For one reason or another, the subject matter or the delivery often resonates only in certain parts of the world. Today, as I was about to conduct my first Google search of the day, I noticed a link to a new campaign from YouTube so I clicked through. What I had stumbled across was YouTube Play, a fascinating collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim museum in New York, involving a biennial display of creativity in online video . The concept is that any person from any country could submit an online creative video. These would then eventually be whittled down to 20 videos by a global panel of acclaimed ‘jurors’ and displayed at the Guggenheim museum.

Judging day is 21 October with a live event to be broadcasted on its YouTube channel straight from New York at 8pm (EST). The competition currently stands at 125 shortlisted videos which have been narrowed down from over 23,000 submissions across 91 countries. So we cannot deny that this is a genuinely global campaign. In addition, the channel hosting all content has only been active since this May and has achieved an accomplished 35,344 subscribers and over 10.5 million channel views.

Not only has this campaign successfully reached across borders, it has also demonstrated the true essence of web 2.0. It is connecting people across the world on a digital, social platform with a common interest to engage in art and more importantly inspire and share ideas.

Take a look at the YouTube biennial channel and judge for yourself!