Award-winning writer and journalist Heather Brooke, who recently published the book ‘The Revolution will be Digitised’, was a fan of  the Guardian’s ‘open journalism’ philosophy, but she has had a change of heart and recently labelled it “a failed business model”.

The Guardian’s open journalism initiative essentially articulates its view of the future of journalism, as free and open, in opposition to the growing spread of paywalls in the UK and the US. Read More »

One of my highlights of SXSW so far was a panel that focused on how social media can be used for social good just as we saw with clean-up campaign after the London riots. Bringing together a range of senior agency people and chaired by Economist journalist Matthew Bishop, the panel debated how digital communications can help deal with some of the big issues facing the world today, from child health to social change.

This is a topic close to Porter Novelli’s heart: when our agency was founded 40 years ago it was to pioneer the idea of social marketing – using the power of communications to change people’s lives for the better by helping them live more healthily and happily. Fast forward to 2012 and this topic is again back on the agenda and judging by the way the digerati of SXSW packed in to join the discussion, more relevant than ever. Read More »

UPDATE - There seems a growing controversy surrounding this with some arguing that the use of homeless people as wi-fi hotspots by BBH New York is a story about exploitation.

It isn’t hard to see a little of that position. After all, BBH gets all the publicity and these homeless guys get a few days of attention and cash and then they are back where they started. That said interesting interview here done with one of the homeless hotspots involved. However, take a listen to the Audio and YouTube interviews with the homeless guys concerned (below). Read More »

UPDATE -The Keep Aaaron Cutting site created by the BBH interns has raised £25,000 in two days.  They have also posted a video interview (see below).

Some great stories of community have come out online in the wake of the violence, fire and looting this week. First we had the #riotcleanup and the inspiring stories that came out of that over the last few days.

Now people are getting together to do something for some of the many individuals who stories were highlighted amidst the rioting. One of the most poignant among them was story of 89-year old Tottenham barber Aaron Biber and that of the despicable mugging of Malaysian student Ashraf Haziq.
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Dear Sophie: created by BBH

Google is marketing its browser, Chrome, pretty hard at the moment, but you might have missed these two rather lovely ads it has made recently.

First up was this spot about the It Gets Better project, which is trying to cut the rate of suicides among gay teens, showing the campaign in action. Read More »

We already knew that Unilever was getting into user-generated content for its brands, including Vaseline (now positioned as a skin care brand rather than a petroleum jelly product), but now news emerges that it has recruited people for an ad campaign after they complained about dry skin on blogs and social networking sites.

Vaseline: one of the bloggers talks lotion

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