What's Floating Around Cloud 9 this Week? 29 April 2013

Welcome to another week and it’s another busy one!

We start with a rather lovely trip to Leeds as its the Northern Conference &Hospitality Show which takes place at Leeds United tomorrow.

We're lucky enough though to have been invited to attend as VIP's this year so our invitation extends to a rather nice preview of the event which starts this afternoon with a drinks reception at The Queens Hotel, followed by a tour of the new Leeds Arena, the UK’s first purpose built fan-shape arena before it opens to the General Public later this year. 

Then its on the recently opened Trinity Shopping Centre, with a little time to shop, before we make our way to Oulton Hall to dinner and an overnight stay.

Tuesday is the actual show itself and if it is anything like last year, its a great event with an impressive list of venues, new innovations in the event industry and some truly fascinating seminars, all of which we found really beneficial last year.

Whilst we feel a little guilty for taking the time away, events like this enable the team here at Cloud 9 to ensure that we know about all of the best venues and the advances in the industry which we can there share with clients - well, that's our excuse and we are sticking to it! 

We've also got to ensure we get all of the entries out to the first stage judges for the PRCA DARE Awards which officially closed last Friday - although we have been kind enough to allow some of the last minute entries early this week!

With any new awards programme you never know just how well supported the programme will be, but we have been pleasantly surprised by both the entry numbers and the diverse range of entrants so the entire DARE programme should be an exciting experience.

 

Judging is also on the cards this week for the Midlands Media Awards 2013. We've had all of the results in from our first stage judges and the short listed entries are all ready for Thursday when our prestigious panel assemble in Birmingham to make the final decisions.

Chaired by Peter Lowe from Sky News, it’s an impressive jury and one we feel will no doubt be extremely vigorous in their assessment of the entries that have made it to the second stage of judging.

Whilst the nominations for the programme will not be announced until 13th May, a month before the awards ceremony itself, we are already getting ticket bookings so if you don’t want to be sat at the back of the room, you'd better book yours quickly!

Finally this week, we are delighted to announce the launch of the new Brand You Awards which we are running in association with Bristol Media.  The awards are now open for entries and we look forward to seeing some great work from individuals, hence the title, Brand You.

We’re in an industry surrounded by opportunities to win awards and be recognised for campaigns and projects across a variety of genres, but there are few programmes around that focus on the individual - the actual people who make a real difference and whose contribution is sometimes overlooked as part of the bigger picture.

The Awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday 1st October in the Auditorium at The Arnolfini Gallery from 7pm and the full details will be announced nearer the time.

So that's it for this week people, have a good one and we'll see you after the Bank Holiday! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 22 April 2013

Welcome to another week and we are finally hoping that Spring has arrived!

Busy as we’ve been, we have, along with the rest of the population we are sure, been getting thoroughly fed up with the bloomin’ awful weather in Blighty this year to date.

Luckily most of our events take place indoors so the weather is rarely an issue and despite previous experiences where snow has prevented some guests from attending anything we have staged, we have never had to cancel an event due to adverse weather.

This got us thinking though about all of the cancelled events last year which must have been terribly disappointing for everyone involved, especially those that organised them, as we know first hand just how much work goes into delivering events.

Persistent rain caused one of the largest countryside events in the world to be cancelled last year.  The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) Game Fair was expected to attract about 150,000 people to Belvoir Castle last July. 

The event is held at different locations each year and had only been cancelled once before in its 54-year history. Organisers said it would be impossible to set the show up because thousands of vehicle movements were still required and the grounds were water logged.

About 900 businesses had booked space and the fair is so popular that no hotel rooms were available in a 40-mile radius, so it was estimated that the local economy could lose out by as much as £32m.

Organisers also called off an outdoor concert which was due to stage performances by Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue and Steps last July.

The ongoing poor weather meant the Hit Factory Live had to be cancelled before the event which was due to take place in Hyde Park, and promoters spent hours trying to get the site into a fit state for the show after the ground was churned up by heavy rainfall and visitors to a previous event, the Wireless concerts.

But they pulled the plug after their efforts failed to get the royal park into shape and the site was declared "unfit". The concert was celebrating the music of Pete Waterman and was due to reunite Minogue and Donovan, performing their chart-topping hit Especially For You.

Even the hardiest of souls who are happy to brave the weather under canvass sometimes come unstuck!

The Camping and Caravanning Club also had to cancel its annual national camping rally, National Feast of Lanterns due to the weather last year too.

The continued rainfall waterlogged the temporary campsite at Long Newton Grange in Stockton on Tees and made it inaccessible to vehicles and almost impossible for any of the infrastructure needed to create the campsite and its entertainment facilities.

Hundreds of campers from across the country had pre-booked a pitch  and the National Feast of Lanterns had been running for many years so it was such a shame it was unable to celebrate in 2012 due to the awful weather.

Of course, the weather is not always the only reason for cancelling an event.

Glastonbury 2012 was cancelled due to a lack of Portaloos and police officers down to the London Olympics.

Michael Eavis, the festival organiser, said there would be a severe shortage of portable toilets as the capital drains the nation of officers, forcing prices for the remaining few far higher than normal. He also said Avon and Somerset Police warned him that not a single officer would be available to oversee the event due to the Games. 

Lets hope the weather stays better this year so everyone can enjoy their events and event organisers can deliver their events safe in the knowledge that rain will not affect play!

Also this week, we’re on the look out for budding writers for the New Yorker Times.

The New Yorker Times is a dynamic and sociable news media network. The New Yorker Times offers its members and readers a comprehensive social network along with an Artist’s Review experience unlike anything ever offered on the internet. Artists such as musicians, singers, dancers, actors, painters, models, designers, authors, writers and many others, now have the opportunity to participate in the creation of a collaborative movement that seeks to highlight up-and-coming artistic talent.

The New Yorker Times is a platform designed to enhance the reach of the artist on a worldwide scale, while also providing breaking news and information important to members of the entertainment industry. Although the primary focus is on all members of the creative arts community, the founders of the New Yorker Times will initially emphasise up-and-coming writers capable of producing content in the following areas:

Fiction, Non-fiction, Novels, Investigative journalism, Personal essays, Autobiographical essays, Critique of a published source, Historical times context essays, Science articles or reports, Business articles or reports, Ghost stories, Myths, Tall tales, Fairy tales, Local news reports, Newspapers or magazine features, Human interest stories, Obituaries, Eulogies, Tributes, Gossip articles, Articles covering entertainment and/or the Tech industry.

They are looking to recruit 10,000 creme de la creme of writers to set-up their groups, and promote their own books or articles. A couple of models have already been set up by the founding VIP members on site to give you a rough idea. It's relatively simple to set a group up just click onto groups at the top of your screen, and, then create and follow the instructions. Also follow, and befriend, and, then invite as many VIP founding members to your group as you can by clicking onto members at the top of your page, and then invite them to your group.

They advertise via 500 newspapers across the USA but are looking to go global and you could be a part of the story.

So that’s it for this week.

Enjoy

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 15 April 2013

Welcome to another week and it’s a rather special one at that as we are celebrating our 10^th Birthday…yippee!

Unfortunately our plans to have a party, get our new website up and running or mark the occasion with anything special have been somewhat overlooked as we have been busy doing what we always do, looking after our client events rather than our own!

Despite our manic schedule it would be churlish to simply dismiss this anniversary so instead, we thought a little look back at some of the highlights of the past 10 years and provide a Cloud 9 by numbers….

We have just calculated that in our time we have now run over 200 awards ceremonies and numerous other events including product launches, conferences and parties.

We have worked with over 100 different sponsors and partners, but our client list remains almost the same today as it did when we first launched. We might have added a few new clients along the way but it’s a testament to our great service that most of our original clients are still with us, and will hopefully continue to be so in the next 10 years.

 

We would also like to thank all of the wonderful people who’ve worked and now work at Cloud 9 – many of them we’re still in touch with and who have all gone on to bigger and better things.

Things have certainly changed since we started. Although Linkedin was founded in December 2002 and launched the following May, it wasn’t really a big part of our normal working day until 2008. These days, not only is it invaluable for connecting with people it makes events much easier to manage and the promotional opportunities are also great, in that you can engage with your specific audiences both pre and post event.

With almost 900 connections so far, we are starting to wonder how we ever managed without it!

 

2008 was also the year we reluctantly decided that we needed to be on Facebook, and yes we were slow in comparison with many of our chums!

Whilst we still don’t feel the need to share every little detail of our lives and are continually embarrassed by some of the awful photographs our Facebook friends post on the site, we do have to admit that it’s a great tool for event organisers in keeping everyone up to date.

 

And then there is Twitter…..

Love it or hate it, you cant deny that this is another great marketing tool for event organisers and there’re rarely an event these days where the client does not want to include lots of Twitter activity in the run up, and during an event.

Created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter is now universally popular and has over 500 millions registered users and generates over 340 million tweets daily.

Its time consuming, addictive and a great way to stay in touch with people, but if you are not careful, can quickly overtake your life and work schedule!

We’ve around 2000 followers on Cloud 9 so we’ve a way to go before being ranked anywhere near the top Tweeters but we like to think our audience is mostly relevant and likes what we have to say!

Eventbrite is another new addition that’s invaluable to event organisers and we’ve been using it for a few years now, although it was launched originally in 2006. As it allows us to plan, set up ticket sales and promote events of any size and publicise them across Facebook and Twitter and it’s a great platform for us here at Cloud 9 Towers!

In terms of our events, there have been some whoppers and some truly great experiences, but also lots of funny and memorable moments.

 

We’ve had a confetti cannon go off ten minutes before guests were due to be seated at an awards event so it was all hands on deck as staff, crew and a few guests included, had to sort out the front five rows of tables.

Then there was the time when an expected audience of 375 in Birmingham for an awards ceremony was somewhat hampered by snow. With just 40 odd guests, it was a tough decision whether to present the awards and hope for the best, and as seating and wine pre-orders all went to pot, it was one of the more interesting events we’ve staged – and not all for the right reasons!

We’ve had pink themed parties, public sector ceremonies, product launches and podcasts. We’ve organised speakers, and sponsors and even judging in unlikely locations like Stratford or Skegness. We’ve hired out feathers, booked flights and found missing glasses.

And that’s just the first 10 years, whatever next!

So please join us in celebrating our 10^th year and enjoy your week, we will!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 8th Aptil 2013

Welcome to another week!

So that’s two short weeks out of the way and normal service resumes here at Cloud 9 Towers. We’ve having to be super organised currently (not that we are not usually anyway) but with so much going on, dates and diaries and schedules are even more important than ever.

What with closing dates for entries for the PRCA DARE Awards, Fresh and Brand You for Bristol Media, judging dates for the Midlands Media Awards and booking deadlines for the CIPR Northern Conference, as well as nominations announcements, meetings and the events themselves, it could be a bit of a blur without a proper schedule in place and those all important diaries.

This got us thinking a little this week about the good old diary, just who started the trend for them, the more famous ones that have been written, the introduction of the Filofax and in more recent years the  trend for electronically sharing dates through hubs.

After a bit of a search on Google, we discovered that the oldest diaries in existence stem from both the Middle Eastern and Asian cultures, although even earlier examples are still around, written in Greek by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second half of the 2nd century AD. 

There is then a whole tale about Eastern Europeans and Japanese style diaries, but we are not here to deliver a history lesson, or indeed look at the stories based around some medieval chronicles and itineraries, which detailed their authors own opinions,  hopes and fears without any intention of publishing. Something many a youngster who hides their diaries away from prying adult eyes will recognise as an on-going trend!

 

In 1908 the Smythson company created the first featherweight diary, allowing diaries to be carried around, and it’s the introduction of this diary that we probably recognise most today. 

If you think famous diaries then you probably think Samuel Pepys, the earliest diarist who remains well known today, and of course that of Anne Frank, who wrote her diary whilst in hiding during the German occupation of Amsterdam in the 1940s. Otto Frank, Anne’s Father, edited his daughter's diary and arranged for its publication after the War.

And of course then there are the famous fictional diaries such as The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾  which was the first book in the Adrian Mole series, written by Sue Townsend, and Bridget Jones's Diary from 1996 by Helen Fielding.  Not to mention Diaries of a Call Girl and the Vampire Diaries, both more famous for their television presence than in their original literary form.

And then came the Filofax…

The Filofax was a 1980s phenomenon. Although the Filofax has a long history dating back to 1910, it was re-invented by Ian Logan, when he revamped the Filofax in 1980. The Filofax, like the mobile phone quickly became a desirable accessory for the aspiring Yuppie and its image was helped by being on sale in top designer Paul Smith's London store in the 80s.

The original idea for a loose leaf ring binder goes back to Philadelphia in 1910, when the Lefax organiser was invented to hold engineering data and in 921, a UK company, Norman and Hill, began making the Lefax.

The name Filofax (File of Facts) was coined by a secretary Grace Scurr, who eventually became chairman of the business, and in those days the Filofax was mainly used for military and scientific data. The transformation from personnel organiser to personal organiser was undertaken by David Collischon who bought the company in 1980 and asked designer Ian Logan to give the Filofax a new image.

The reborn Filofax had arrived with varying diary options, and forms for everything as well as pockets for credit cards and passports. You could and still can, buy a larger version for your desk or a smaller wallet sized version as well as oodles of stationery accessories to fill your Filofax.

The Filofax is still going strong today and even though it was much maligned as a Yuppie accessory (anyone who has not seen the episode where Dell Trotter is a Yuppie in Only Fools and Horses, a la Filofax is either too young to appreciate this or has no sense of humour).

Many prefer its simplicity and charm to the variety of electronic organisers that are available and I have to agree with them – even if the only diary pages I could find this year were pink…..

To be fair, most meetings and emails scheduling meetings these days are quickly followed by a confirmation email with just a calendar symbol and the details of where and when and who, even if not why.

And, most companies operate electronic diaries or regularly use things like Google Calendars on a regular basis.

So there you have it, diary info and in whichever form you use to make a mental note of dates, the following might be useful for you….

• Monday 15^th April : Bristol Media Brand You Awards Live

• Friday 19^th April : Discounted Ticket deadline for the CIPR Northern Conference

• Friday 26^th April : PRCA DARE Awards Entry Deadline

• Friday 10^th May : Midlands Media Awards Nominations Announced         

• Friday 17^th May : PRCA DARE Awards Nominations Announced

• Thursday 13^th June : Midlands Media Awards Ceremony

• Wednesday 19^th June : IPR Northern Conference

• Thursday 20^th June : PRCA DARE North

• Friday 21^st June : PRCA DARE Scotland

• Wednesday 26^th June : PRCA DARE South East  

• Thursday 27^th June : PRCA DARE South West & Wales

• Friday 28^th June : PRCA DARE Midlands

And we haven’t even mentioned Fresh or got as far as July….but more of that to come.

So get organised, get diarised and we’ll see you next week.

Enjoy!

What's Floating Around This Week? 2 April 2013

Welcome to another short week!

We hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter, it was certainly a little manic for us as entries closed for the Midlands Media Awards in the run up to the break so the office started to resemble a newsagents!

We've had some great entries though from a really diverse range of entrants and it has been interesting to see the categories which have had the most support - including the new Blogger of the Year category and the one which is in the hand of the masses, the Public Choice category. 

From newspapers, to radio stations, to blogs, this category has attracted some really diverse entries, giving our initial judges a fairly tough task and an interesting read!

Each of the entrants has been asking their listeners or readers to vote using Twitter and Facebook and some of the posts have been highly entertaining, and this got us thinking a little about how the public can really affect the outcome of so many things and increasing trend for Crowdsourcing.

When it comes to creativity, tapping of creative talent pools to design and develop original art, media or content, crowdsourcing is used to tap into online communities of thousands of creatives to develop original products and concepts, including photography, advertising, film, video production, graphic design, apparel, consumer goods, and branding concepts.

Heineken recently using crowdsourcing to generate entries, and they are no doubt starting to prepare for the final phase of this year's annual Your Future Bottle Design Challenge. A team of brand people and design experts are planning to select a single winning bottle design at Milan Design Week next month as Heineken uses the second consecutive year of the crowdsourcing initiative to mark the company's 140th year in the beer business.

SuperBrugsen, a Danish cooperative grocery store chain, is running a campaign to crowdsource the items on its shelves.The supermarket is asking its customers to suggest locally made products that it should carry by filling out an online form or speaking with managers in-store. The form asks users to explain why they want to see the product on the shelves, as well as information about the company selling it. SuperBrugsen staff will taste-test products to ensure they are delectable enough to feature in the stores. The chain hopes to add 500 new local products to its 230 stores, and if successful, the initiative can reduce the chain’s carbon footprint by reducing shipping time. It can also help to foster stronger local economies by offering farmers and food artisans an outlet for their products.

Though we haven’t seen supermarkets engage in too many crowdsourcing campaigns, the two seem to be a good fit. Crowdsourcing is all about creating a stronger connection with consumers and gauging market demand – something any grocery store can use more of.

Past crowdsourcing initiatives by supermarkets include Walmart’s ‘Get on the Shelf’ campaign, which resulted in three new products being introduced to its roster and it seems that Walmart now have the crowdsourcing bug. They are considering a radical plan to allow customers to deliver packages to online buyers in a shakeup of delivery services that could allow the supermarkets group it to better compete with Amazon.

Many start-ups help people make money by renting out a spare room, a car, or even a cocktail dress, and Walmart would in effect be inviting people to rent out space in their vehicle and deliver packages to others. Such an effort would face legal, regulatory and privacy obstacles, but Walmart executives said the scheme was at an early planning stage. The supermarket chain is making a big push to ship online orders directly from stores, hoping to cut transportation costs and gain an edge over Amazon and other online retailers, which have no physical store locations. Walmart offers this service at 25 stores, but plans to expand to 50 this year and could eventually bolster the scheme to hundreds of stores.

Walmart uses delivery firms such as FedEx – or, in the case of a same-day delivery service called Walmart To Go that is being tested in five areas, using its own delivery trucks. The retailer, which also owns Asda, has millions of customers visiting its stores each week. Some of these shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route home. The grocer would offer a discount on the customers' shopping bill, in effect covering the cost of their fuel in return for the delivery of package. 

"This is at the brainstorming stage, but it's possible in a year or two," said Jeff McAllister, senior vice president of Walmart US innovations, so lets watch this space! 

Walmart is not the only supermarket to use crowdsourcing, as you have only to look at our very own Waitrose. Back in 2011, Waitrose asked customers to send in ideas for new products and the winner was a dessert named “Seriously Chocolaty Rose-Infused Chocolate Ganache,” which does, indeed, sound delicious.

Its not just retail that's using the power of crowdsourcing, its also increasingly being used online and for entertainment. Fans of Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be happy to hear that they’ll be seeing a lot more of the actor-director starting in August. Recently, Gordon-Levitt announced that his crowdsourced production company hitRECord is getting its own variety show on the Pivot network in the States.HitRECord is a for-profit online collaborative production company that Gordon-Levitt started with his brother back in 2005. 

The project first started as a place for the brothers to get feedback on videos, but quickly evolved into a site for creatives – writers, photographers, actors, musicians, singers, and others – to collaborate on larger projects. HitRECord’s collaborative model is compelling and fairly straightforward. Artists can upload their work to the website for others to review and offer feedback, or remix. All the content has to be original work, or within the public domain. 

Artists can collaborate and alter each other’s submissions, including citations of all the

works they used. In 2010, the Gordon-Levitt brothers introduced a way to monetise the crowd contributions. HitRECord gives back 50 percent of the profits it earns on any user-submitted content back to the creatives. Thus far, the production company has sold records and books, screened films at festivals, and put on live shows. A TV show should give the creatives on the site even more exposure. The variety show, which will air weekly, will feature short films, speakers, animations, songs, and more, Gordon-Levitt promises. Each week’s episode will be focused on a different theme, and the actor will host the show himself. This innovative idea is bound to reach our shores before long so stay tuned! 

Well, that's it for this week. Enjoy.