Matt Kelly
(on digital strategy) . . .
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The Journey - From Concept to Execution
I’ve got a story that illustrates how compelling content + social integration = outstanding outrageousness!
4 weeks ago I broke this world record with a good friend of mine, Dave Thompson.
Since then, life spiraled out of control. We started to get media attention initially from a few random websites, but also from Bloomberg’s Business Week. After doing a few interviews, we found ourselves in touch with the Co-Founder and President of the Universal Record Database, Dan Rollman discussing whether or not it could be possible for us to be in Austin, Texas on the 13th of March. This conversation was taking place just 4 days prior.
So long story short, we found a way and ended up in Austin for this event.
We spoke briefly onstage to the thousands present and then went on to break the record for the fastest time to eat 3 tim tams while crowd surfing.
Insanity was only just beginning. After the big event, people started to recognise us when we were out walking the streets of Austin. We had various people coming over and wanting to talk to us. Not only was this an amazing experience, but more so, it started to open doors.
From there, we had 4 days at the South By SouthWest Interactive festival in Austin. This is one of the biggest tech conferences in the world today. We saw some of the most influential tech folks do keynotes and attended some outrageous functions where we were able to meet some of the people I really look up to.
As a result of this trip, I’ve identified truth in many of the concepts I’ve been talking about for a long time. When you have a compelling story, people listen and share. Work on your content and collaborate with your followers/fans/friends, this is a simple process yet so frequently companies are missing the opportunity. -
I’ve had an amazing week in Austin, Texas as part of the South by Southwest Interactive conference. After such a crazy week of meeting literally hundreds of people, I realized there were a few key people that I was able to spend time with that deserved a special mention.
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It’s on in Texas!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I can’t believe I’m saying this but the stars aligned and we are heading to Texas in less then 48 hours.
See, after breaking our most recent world record (http://urdb.org/world-record/high-five), the world’s longest high five, we’ve been getting quite a bit of attention online, it started with a few tweets, then a couple of Facebook status updates, next we had Bloomberg Business Week interview us and Ella Morton wrote this fantastic article about our feat (http://t.co/Lk5qpqH). As a result, we couldn’t pass up on an opportunity to jump aboard the URDB bandwagon and head to the very special live event (as discussed in a previous post). The event is set to demonstrate some mega cool new records, play up some fantastic live music, and raise awareness for a great cause.
On Tuesday night, I was sitting at my computer talking to Dave Thompson on the phone when I noticed that the guys at the URDB had posted an article about the live event this coming Sunday (http://tumblelog.urdb.org/). After some brainstorming, we decided that we just had to be there, we couldn’t miss this for the world! We spoke with Dan Rollman (Co-Founder and President of the URDB) who was incredibly keen to get us there. Both of my parents have fought cancer in the last 5 years, so that alone was a strong motivation for me, let alone the opportunity to get infront of 5000 URDB fans!
So we identified that the best way would be to get a corporate sponsor onboard.
We ended up talking with the marketing department of a major international airline as well as a huge domestic flight booking organisation. Right when we thought it was all going to happen, they pulled out! We couldn’t believe it, with just 48 hours until the deadline we thought we’d make it, and they both pulled out!
Never the less, our family and friends pulled together in an amazing act of epicness and as a result, we’re heading to Austin, Texas in 1 day!! This is going to be huge, we’ve been working hard with the URDB team to make sure that we’ve got some pretty exciting stuff going on when we get there!
Huge special thanks to those who have contributed, you know exactly who you are and you know how much you mean to Dave and I.
If you would like to meet up with us when we are in the USA, or you would like to interview us, or just hang out and have a beer with us, please don’t hestitate to contact me using the email link to the right!
See you in Austin Texas!
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So Jennifer Aniston has been working with Smart Water in the USA to send their product viral. Unfortunatly they may have just missed the mark.
To quote one of the commenters “Talking about viral hoping that you will go viral is like talking about a lottery win hoping you win the lottery.”
It was a good effort and I don’t hate the video, they’ll get the hits they are looking for and will probably see the commercial benefits as a result. I just think it could have been a little more.. Classy?
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Another Day, Another Record
So early last week I was awarded an ‘Official Universal Record Database World Record’ for the McDonalds experiment that did last year. Click here for more info on what happened and why.
As a result, I was talking to Dave Thompson, a good friend who mentioned that he too wanted to break a record. We quickly found the existing record held by The Record Collection titled the Longest High Five. In simple terms, this requires that 2 people run the longest possible distance with their ‘high fiving hand’ in the air the entire distance.
The previous record was a total of 3.30km. We knew we could beat this, so spent some time mapping out a course, planning our strategy, even picking our outfits.
Anyway, long story short, we accomplished the record and ran a total distance of 4.20km. You can see the official video and all of the additional info here.
That’s not where the fun ended though.
Firstly, given the extreme nature of the record and the length of time the previous record stood, we knew there would be some talk about out accomplishment online, but didn’t quite expect what happened next.
The guys both at the URDB and the Record Collection reached out and discussed the new record with their social followers. It then spiraled from there. We were approached by the URDB stating that they are wrapping up their first official book of records and that we would be featured. This made the record feel a little more real.
Then Ella Morton from the URDB published a fantastic article for us here. The article was tweeted out plenty of times from a range of people.
Finally, we’ve just been approached by Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek to be interviewed tonight.
The whole experience has been fascinating and once again shows the value and ‘sharability’ of quality, interesting or compelling content.
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Dave Thompson from Brisbane, Australia is about to launch Talkin’ Sweet TV!
This is going to be a pretty exciting jump for video based educational content in Australia. I’ll keep you posted on progress as I hear it!
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The value of corporate social networks
If you choose to prevent your employees from accessing social networking tools, you are essentially telling them that you don’t value their opinion, they have nothing new to bring to the table and most importantly, that you don’t trust them.
If you enable the conversation, you have some control over what happens next. For example, Yammer is a pretty amazing tool which facilitates a private network between employees. This essentially means that anyone in the company can jump in and collaborate with anyone else. Your customers won’t see the conversation, nor will your competition or anyone else.
Answer = Empower + Engage + Collaborate = Success.
