Russell Davies
Website: http://www.russelldavies.com
About the speaker
Russell was born in Derby, enjoyed an uneventful childhood, did college, all that. After failing as a popstar and a joke writer he ended up in advertising. He did that for a long time. Worked on some good ads for people like Nike and Honda and did a load of bad stuff too.
He writes a blog called eggbaconchipsandbeans.com which has won some awards and was turned into a book which almost won an award. And he has another blog at www.russelldavies.com which seems to have become part of a little community of people talking about brands, people, design, business and life.
Right now he spends a lot of his time trying to help people work out how to get the most from blogs and everything 'web 2.0'. When he's not doing that he's hanging out with his family or making little bits of music under the name Agricultural Light and Magic.
What was talked about
Blogging and community and stuff.
The media world is getting very blurry. The lines between things are getting confused. This means big opportunity for the person with the small but interesting voice. Because media power is no longer about media size or scale, people will pay attention to stuff that's interesting, original, human and engaging.
This could be you. It's not that hard.
The first thing is to be interesting. Interesting gets you an audience and a community. Express yourself in ways that connect to people's hearts and imaginations, not just their brains. Use pictures, video, objects not just manifestoes and arguments.
The second thing is to be useful. Useful gets you relationships. What little thing can you do for people that will make their lives a little easier. This isn't so easy, but it's do-able.
But the most important thing is to be energetic. Do lots of stuff. Be enthusiastic. Be positive. (Don't become an angry blogger.) The great thing about digital tools is that you can try all sorts of things and fail with all sorts of things and it doesn't really matter, it's not cost you much money, and it's probably taught you useful stuff. And you have to try lots of things before you find the tools that'll suit you and the sound of your own digital voice.
The top tips
- Get a flickr account. Upload a picture a day.
- Put something on YouTube. Ideally a one-minute video about your cause. Make it better every now and then.
- Blogs - read, comment, write. (Learn to use an RSS reader).
- Enjoy it. It's supposed to be fun.
Downloads
Next speaker: Tony Davidson