Search Sense

A busy month - not only did the Spannerworks brand gently sail into the horizon, but an IKEA’s-worth of timber crashed onto Brighton beach. It was an event nimbly recorded by a number of iCrossing photographers, including Dean Harvey, who took this striking shot of the ‘wood slick’ near the pier.

As usual, there were diverse insights from the company’s regular bloggers. On Open, Antony Mayfield considered the fog of revolution in which we find ourselves, and how hard it is to imagine our way into the future even as we understand the technological advances of the past.

Revolutions are sudden changes, but they are also things which take place over time and the effect of which increase as time passes. The web is a revolution that will continue to bring incredible undreamt of changes to our lives for as long as we live and for some time afterwards, I expect.

However, for those wanting to try and understand the current media revolution through those of the past, Antony suggests some good starting points.

Should we be judged on our link networks? Nilhan Jayasinghe hopes not, after a school cop was put under investigation for linking to a MySpace profile that in turn linked to a porn site.

Nilhan wonders whether lawmakers and employers will be able to interpret proximity in networks, given that virtually anything is a mere click away from Google. Although he may of course just have been winding up to the punchline:

After all there’s only sex degrees of separation amongst all of us.

Nilhan’s also been enthusing about lijit, a form of social search engine that pulls in content that you or your blog network has posted elsewhere.

The principle is based on ask a friend or friend of a friend – and relies on mutual trust within these mini circles….. And unlike the doomed Wikia search launched last month, this doesn’t require me to do anything different, other than install it and carry on with business as usual.

Meanwhile, at Hackbash, Simon Handby noted an Experian report that predicts the rise of the ’super-advocate’ this year. Simon applauded the way that it described “how companies are losing the power to dictate how they’re represented online”, and how they will increasingly have to earn good relationships within their networks. However, he also noted that the accompanying press release apparently failed to run with the report’s insight.

The language of the release itself is an interesting contrast. It talks of the importance of super advocates and their “huge online following”, and gushes that they represent “citizen journalism at its most powerful”, yet it also says that they can be among a company’s harshest critics “if handled badly” - a jarring, old-school PR phrase if ever there was one.

IMAGE: Brighton Daily Photo

It was a simple choice for me. Do we hold on to Spannerworks as a name, or embrace what everyone is trying to create at iCrossing and work together to develop a great international organisation?

As the past few weeks have gone by, however, I have been really touched by the positive comments from so many people, clients, suppliers and journalists. I somehow expected indifference but what I got was what so many people have been telling us for a long time - we have a special team of people and a reputation that, over ten years, is very positive. As one journalist put it to me ‘Spannerworks have become synonymous with search and digital marketing‘.

I’ve felt quite emotional at times.

When I set out to start the company in 1997 I wanted to carve a specialist niche out for Spannerworks. We grew organically and embraced the opportunity that was presented to us in search dynamically. That ’start-up’ mentality is one that I believe we still have. Our people are still very much a close team and it’s been interesting to see the debate unfold about what we individually now call ourselves, are we iCrossingers, iCrossings?

People obviously need feel an identity related to the organisation where they spend so much time. If the values can combine in mutually beneficial ways a brand becomes live, robust and authentic.

I look forward to a renewed sense of everything that Spannerworks stood for and a revitalised vision that now encompasses Brighton, London and the USA from where I write today.

A heartfelt thanks to all who helped us get this far, I really look forward to building iCrossing in the UK and beyond.

Today, and after 10 years of building one of the UK’s most innovative and successful digital marketing companies in the UK, Spannerworks is taking on the iCrossing brand in the UK.

The integration will strengthen our position as we continue to provide our clients with global access to technology and agency-wide services, including natural and paid search, social media and content, display advertising and user experience. This does not diminish our heritage in search, but builds on it, by enabling us to continue promoting search as the common pathway to all digital marketing.

To mark the occasion, we are distributing a video release of global CEO Jeff Herzog, and CEO of iCrossing UK Arjo Ghosh, discussing the brand integration, and vision for iCrossing and digital marketing as a whole in 2008.

The above video is interactive, offering links to other sources of information on iCrossing, our spokespeople, and some of the work that we’ve been pioneering in integrated digital marketing. Hover over the logos as they appear throughout the short film to view a description of the additional resource they provide, and click on them to open-up the information in a new browser. A PDF transcript of the video is also available as a download.We hope you enjoy the video, and continue to support us under our new brand.

About iCrossing UK
iCrossing, formerly known as Spannerworks in the UK, is a global digital marketing company that combines talent and technology to help world-class brands attract, engage with and acquire customers.

The company connects digital marketing services – including paid and natural search marketing, social media and content, display and creative, user experience and web development – to create digital marketing strategies that deliver compelling brand experiences and unrivalled ROI.

iCrossing works with world-class brands including Coca Cola, HBOS, TUI and Virgin. Founded in 1997, the agency employs over 550 people worldwide with over 100 people in the UK.

Find out more at www.icrossing.co.uk or contact us on +44 (0)1273 828100 or results@icrossing.co.uk.

We did it! On the 7th of September 2007, 8 Spannerworker’s successfully reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the worlds tallest free standing mountain. We have been raising money for a Children’s Home in Moshi, Tanzania, The Amani Kids Home, which is run on donations.

So, we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way - our clients, our colleagues, and our friends and family. You have all been absolutely wonderful and we could not have done this without you, so thank you again. Notes and from the team and pictures of our journey are here.

The total amount raised currently stands at £12,402.72. Our target was £10,000.00.

Valerie Todd, Director of the Amani Home, says:

“Spannerworks’ dedicated support of Amani Children’s Home over the years is unparalleled.

The Spannerworks’ team’s climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro will make it possible for Amani to build a playground. For children who had been living on the streets, the chance to play and explore will be a wonderful gift for them, and an important part of how Amani restores hope and joy to their lives.”

In summary, we are totally chuffed that we all managed to climb Kilimanjaro, nobody got hurt or really ill, and we raised a shedload of money for a dedicated charity. Being able to visit the Amani Home and see how the money will help was really important to us, and we are even more pleased that we smashed our fundraising target.

Asanta sana!

dConstruct breaks out of talking about door handles (last year into a packed auditorium of web-savvy developers, designers and social media evangelists.

Tom Coates, a part of the Yahoo! Brickhouse team built his talk around the ‘web of data’ - data becoming more user-centric, more connected, and more useful… I am a fan of this way of understanding the rapid changes all around us in digital… Tom kept it fresh by declaring that ‘Your product is not your website’ - it’s anywhere where your brands reaches in the network. Network applications build instant connectivity via API’s, 90% of twitter activity is through APIs. Flickr is everywhere too. ‘The product… goes everywhere the network goes..‘

This fits well with how at Spannerworks we have been articulating how brands now live in networks and how they must adapt to a marketing world where we are fast moving away from channel control to evolving your brand in networks. Challenging big brands to make their data available, let their customers play with it and collaborate with other brands, for example to build a useful body of data needs scale, and lots of it.

Media owners should inherit the new world. Great content, data scale, ready built communities and recognisable brands (not always a positive thing) connected to networks in any way a user wants should make hay today. So, whoever your data curator is, promote them to head of interactive and the job’s a goodun..

In September 2005 six Spannerworkers climbed the tallest free standing mountain in the world, and raised a lot of money for one of Spannerworks chosen charities – the Amani Kids home in Tanzania.

So this year…we are going back for more! On September 1st eight Spannerworkers are beginning the long climb. The team consists of Jonathan Stewart, Tom Morphy, Alex Asigno, and David Coats, all natural search strategists. The team also includes Tom Kingsley and Will Lockie, account managers, Doug Platts, a natural search analyst and David Hughes, a data strategist. David has yet to give us the exact excel formula to fully optimise our mountain route, but is working hard on it.

Our goal is to raise £10,000 for the children’s home – so they can buy a playground, and also help with their family reunification programme.

We’ve been up to all sorts to raise money – there have been 10K runs, half marathons, and an exceedingly long bike ride. There has been a steady supply of mouth watering food, baked and sold to co-workers. There was even a half time fancy dress race at Sussex county cricket ground.

To cap it all off, and for which we are eternally grateful, there have been incredibly generous donations from all of our clients. We are holding a raffle for some brilliant prizes, so if you fancy winning a holiday, a mountain bike, or some limited edition speakers for your stereo – head over to the official Kili climb site and enter!

So, before we go, we would just like to say thanks to everyone, everywhere, who have been kind enough to help us, sponsor us, donate gifts to take to the home or just plain put up with us while we bang on about cakes, climbing and the perils of altitude sickness.

Technology permitting, we’ll try and post live to the Kili climb site as we go, so check in to keep tabs on our progress..and we hope to see you back in the UK soon!

Asante!

Hot on the heels of news that Linden Lab, the firm behind virtual world Second Life, are setting up in our hometown of Brighton & Hove the Financial Times yesterday ran a piece noting the city’s vibrancy as a new media hub:

With a trendy reputation that appeals to creatives and mavericks, a younger population than the regional average and a well-educated workforce boosted by an uncommon number of university graduates that remain in the city after their studies, Brighton has all the attributes of a creative hub.

We’re looking forward to Linden Lab’s arrival in the city of Brighton & Hove - it will strengthen the ecosystem of web businesses in the city and is a great validation of the vibrancy of our technical and creative community.

So for fun, here are the top five things I think Linden Lab employees will have to tempt them out of Second Life and into RL while working in Brighton when the office opens:

1. The beach: it may be pebbled, but Brightonians know that that is a user-friendly feature which means you can spend lunchtime on the beach without getting sand everywhere. Plus it’s WiFi’d up if you need to continue trading your Linden dollars and checking on your latest Second Life creation.
2. The Duke of Yorks Cinema: for some big screen action the town’s arthouse cinema is a legend. Big seats, impeccable sound and innovative shows - they’ve taken to broadcasting live HD broadcasts of opera from New York recently as well as satirising films like March of the Penguins by having comedians do voice overs for them.
3. The Lanes and the North Laine: you have to love the Lanes and the boho North Laine - a few steps from the office door and you’re able to lose yourself in the bustle of cool shops, bars and cafes.
4. Red Roaster: Seattle may have given birth to Starbucks, but Brighton’s keeping Red Roaster all to itself. The cafe roasts and brews its own blends of what many are happy to claim is the best coffee in the world. It also hosts the RSA-inspired Coffee House Challenge debates for those who feel like exercising their rhetoric after a coffee or two (I know I often do).
5. The Brighton Festival: if they’re hiring now the first employees should be able to be in Brighton for the festival in May which makes the most of the City’s eclectic charms and foibles, kicking off with the rag-tag children’s parade and often including street theatre spectaculars like people strapping massive pyrotechnic rigs to their backs.Those are some of my favourites. Would love to hear of any others fellow Brightonists would like to add…

: : By the way, for more of Brighton & Hove, check out the Brighton Daily Photo blog by our Dean Harvey.