My Beautiful Network of Professional Contacts

Last year Dopplr sent to its users a beautiful map which outlined their business travel for the previous year. Here is an example of the map they did for Barak Obama for 2009. As you can see it was a really beautiful way of presenting data.

It seems that Linkedin has been taking a page from Dopplr's playbook. And, they've done a brilliant job. I now have a visual map of my Linkedin connections. The colours represent connected networks. If you create your own, you will see that you can decide who the colours represent by scrolling over the dots to expose the individual people.

(click here to see it life-size)

I was surprised to see that the majority of my connections in Linkedin were associated with my time at Yahoo! This is incredible given it was only 2 years of my rather lengthy career. I guess I made lots of contacts during that time.

I'm now thinking I love my map so much I might make a set of MOO business cards with my personal map printed on them.

Go on make your own!

Me. Me. Me. Me.

Who Me?

Yesterday I was meant to speak about social media and MOO at a conference in Germany. Unfortunately, the snow in Frankfurt kept me from attending. I was rather bummed as I had worked hard on the presentation ON THE WEEKEND! Oh well.

I found this cartoon in a recent Marketing Week and felt it actually provides all the rules of social media and brands. Hey, brands and people for that matter.

How influential are you?

Fast Company is running an interesting experiment called the Influence Project. Evidently they are attempting to see who is the most influential person online. You would think that would be rather obvious, it has to be Ashton Kutcher and his 5 million+ followers.

It seems that influence is calculated on the number of people one can influence to sign up for the Influence Project.I have signed up as I was rather curious how it works. To date, I haven't managed to influence ONE person to do the same.

Now if you are curious and want to sign up for the project than please do click my link and show that I can influence ONE person on this interweb. If nothing else you can get your photo in Fast Company's magazine when the project is done.

The Project is in Flash (big surprise) and as a result, I had a hard time screengrabbing a shot of the collage of photos. It's probably best to visit the site yourself.

This project actually reminds me of a business version of the Dorito competition where J was a finalist. That is the winner was not based on the best ad but rather whether he was good at getting people to vote. (remember? I think I asked all of you to vote).

Happy 80th Birthday Barbie!

My Aunt's 80th birthday was on Sunday. Sadly, we weren't there to celebrate. And as she has just got a new red convertible, it'll be even harder than usual to keep up with this crazy lady.

Enjoy the new wheels!!

This Cat's Got My Tongue and More

Tonight, I went to a stranger's home who I met on the internet. I know - I've broken all the rules.

Actually, I haven't been hanging out on dating sites and haven't been flirting in chat rooms. I met this stranger because of my desire to get a cat despite my allergies.

Huh? You ask.

Well, here's my story. About 3-4 months ago, I decided I really wanted a cat despite being super allergic to these creatures. YYZ was busy with her 3 new kittens and I wanted one too. I was determined to find one with whom I could live. That meant searching out a hypo-allergenic equivalent of the feline sort. That's where I discovered Siberian cats and their alleged hypo-allergenic nature.

Now isn't it clear how I ended up at a stranger's house? That's right, I went to meet a few of these furry felines to see if they could break me. That's right, super-allergy girl was in a house with 5 adult cats and 9 kittens - all Siberian - for an allergy test. I had an enjoyable 30 minutes talking to the breeder, scratching and holding the big guys and playing with the kittens. . I even got to hold my potential kitten - Aurora. I was hopeful as I was only just a bit sniffly


Only after I left the house, did the full on allergy attack happen. On my walk home, I sneezed non-stop for 10 minutes and found I was scratching wildly at my neck. That's when I knew. I knew that baby Aurora would not be moving in with me.

*sniffle sniffle

A long long road

Over the last few years, I've shared some video work that J has done. It's included everything from a music video for Dusk & Blackdown to product demos for to promo videos for a ballet troupe. So, it's time again to share something that is keeping him busy.

For the last few years, J has been working on a real cool road trip documentary. It's still being edited and searching for funding. However, there's a trailer and here it is.

Driven, Trailer/Demo from Jonathan Howells on Vimeo.

How many takes does it take?

I was curious as to how long it took to make a video like this one.



So, I did a bit of internet research and found another video on OkGo's website which told the story behind the video. It looks like they went to the internet for the solution and Donkey Kong for inspiration. I actually thought of Mouse Trap.




This is another video from the same guys. It made its debut years ago on YouTube, but I was glad to stumble across it again. Remember, the treadmill dance? Of course you do. Why not watch it again?