Ed Richardson's posterous

Christmas snows and family glows . . .

After an almost two week holiday from my social media I feel the New Year is under way and an update on all of my publishing platforms is overdue. But I'm glad I took the time out from my digital pursuits this year to spend more time with people on a face to face basis.

Christmas has been fantastic, with our two and half year old daughter really starting to get excited about the endless possibilities available from receiving gifts from just about everyone we know, the word "presents" has entered a whole new realm!

That said, Christmas this year was made extra special by the arrival of our son in November and the strong feeling of a family that comes with having two kids to run you ragged and absorb every moment of free time.

Family and friends is what really makes Christmas, catching up with your parents, siblings and friends and spending quality time together.

This Christmas in the UK has been made seemingly more authentic by the plastering of snow we've received across the country.

I love my winter weather, wrapping up and battling the elements. I had planned a quick trip to the summit of Melbreck while visiting my parents in the Lakes, but when we reached the lip of Fang's Brow we decided the down hill to Loweswater was a bit dodgy (especially when you've got young kids in the car).

Instead we all ventured out for a short walk on Carling Knot which was gentle but very entertaining, the video below was recorded when our daughter started to complain of cold toes.

I got my winter experience dose a few days later when I took Dylan our Springer up Seatallan in Wasdale by myself, with winds reaching 90-100mph on the summit and icy winds blasting fresh snow in your face it rejuvenated my love for winter sports.

Happy New Year everyone!

(download)

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MOV06504.MPG (15.36 MB)

The Peak in all its glory - Autumn Shades

The colours in The Peak at the moment are stunning.

I took these two snaps while I was out yesterday, but I'm pretty disappointed with them. I didn't have time (ensuring my daughter didn't jump in the stream was a distraction) and the battery on my Canon D60 is playing up.

But for those with time and the inclination, the colours at the moment are a photographers dream.

For those that aren't inclined to try and capture the moment to take home, there's plenty for your eyes and memory to soak up.

Musical collisions create synaptic analogies . . .

Listening to my favourite "album of the moment" this morning and I heard the following lyrics that I thought I'd share:

"So I'll keep on talking,
for as long as I can,
warm you with my embers,
hoping you'll remember,
as I leave my debris,
like temporal graffiti,
audition for your memory,
oh please don't forget me"

From the John Callaghan (Phylactery) remix of Autechre's - Tilapia

A clip can be listened to here, under the sound clips tab, on the great Norman Records site, I think it's too new to find a complete copy on LastFM or elsewhere:

http://www.normanrecords.com/records/110380

It sort of sums up where I am at the moment. Autechre's music has been a close friend of mine for many years. The recent, well not so recent, emergence and development of the experimental folk scene, that I'm now a fan of, is merged beautifully on this album with electro of over a decade ago, summarising nicely where WARP records now are with their artists and development.

It reflects nicely on where I see myself now with my digital career developing well, merging with my past experience in infrastructure management and strategic planning. It excites me when I hear innovative music and it fires my imagination, one of the very reasons I moved out of my old career and it to one in digital media, a need for a more creative environment.

If you haven't got the album, that celebrates WARP's 20th anniversary, I'd highly recommend you do.

What type of bird is the new default Twitter avatar?

I've been meaning to ask this for a while.

Being a bit of a "at one with nature" bloke myself, I like things from the
natural world to be correctly defined.

So . . . If the old Twitter bird avatar/icon was a Blackbird/Thrush like
bird (certainly looks like one) what on earth is the new icon?

Answers on the back of a post card please . . .

(download)

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What_type_of_bird_is_the_new_d.zip (10 KB)

Old England's digital future . . .

Sitting on the train, comfortably travelling at high speed down to London from Manchester for the weekend.

Strange, or at least odd, watching old England flashing past outside the window and thinking about all the digital transmissions now passing through the airwaves everywhere with other travellers of all ages tweeting and calling from their smart phones using on-board digital hotspots.

How much does the country of our birth and the confines and environs of that physical space define who we become?

Photo taken travelling back up in the car.

Batucada in the sun . . .

Just back from the Big Chill festival with friends.
 
Great time had, which was almost certainly aided by the great weather the
event had over the weekend.
 
Preceding the event I'd had a very stressful two weeks with pitches,
tenders and all sorts of new and existing client work going on, which made
the break all that more needed.
 
This was our fourth camping trip of the year, which I'm hoping is going to
instil the same spirit of adventure all the camp trips I was dragged on as
a child instilled in me.
 
Anyway, back on the personal communication here's a quick video of a great
Batucada group that we saw at the Big Chill with me dancing like a fool
with my daughter in purple running around like maniac and friends kids
dancing.
 
Big Chill Batucada

10 brands on Twitter that are giving it a go . . .

I wrote this a few weeks back on Digital Signals, I enjoyed writing it.The more I study the way people use social media to engage with clients, fan bases, consumer and little old individuals the more I feel comfortable with how to achieve results with social media.

Reviewing a number of sucessful brands and the way they approach social media has encouraged me to start writing a best practice guide for my agency on social media. There are too many out there that are waiting for the magical way for brands to turn the social media channel into a profitable enterprise, which at the moment it's still not appropraite for.

It is however well worth investigating for client relationship building and in this post recession gloom we're all feeling at the moment, what better way could there be for a brand to re-establish it's consumers trust in them?

Anyway, I'll write some more on this sometime soon, but in the meantime here's what I found on the 10 brands I investigated:

10 brands on Twitter

Yesterday's lunch - Quality and quantity

Dropped into Koffeepot on Stephenson Sq. in Manchester yesterday.
 
Ordered the "Giant baked potato with chilli", I wasn't disappointed . . .
 
Ohh, by the way, this is me being more personal and testing the image facilty via e-mail in one swoop. :-)

Posterous - What's all the fuss about

Well, what better way to talk about my latest blog post on Posterous than
by using their posting facility to do so.

 I'm still getting to grips with the service, but I'm determined to give it
a proper go.

 It's hard sometimes to let yourself evolve with the evolving technology
around you, and unlike Steve Rubel, I'm still not willing to let go of my
blog and can't see it happening for sometime.

 That said, I can see the benefits of a more subtle life stream that can
promote content and act as a more conversational microblog that will
probably reveal more of my personality than my Digital Signals blog.

 Anyway, here's what I had to say on Posterous on Digital Signals

Peace through education?

In my semi-delirous state of swine flu suffering I finished reading Greg Mortenson book - Three Cups of Tea. I'd picked it up thinking it might tick a few boxes in one go for me, with a bit of mountaineering, a travel tale and a humanitarian story to boot.

I wasn't dissappointed, well perhaps on the mountaineering side, but from the other perspecitves it was an excellent and inspiring read.

The work that Greg Mortenson has completed in the areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan is amazing, all on his own steam. His courage to overcome some of the situations he finds himself in and push on with such a worthy cause should be a lesson to us all.

If you haven't already read "Three Cups of Tea", you should . . .

Peace through education - Digital Signals