The other day I came across the Digital Marketing School and I found it to be a great idea and a great example of a free service.

The online marketing company vStream have set up The Digital Marketing School to be a free online video resource for anyone who has an interest in the world of digital marketing, from a beginners level, right up to seasoned professionals. It’s the first time in Ireland that SME’s, and in particular start-ups, will have an online consultancy resource, that’s absolutely free of charge.

The lessons are short and to the point. Today I have learned about the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), Display Advertising and VSEO (Video Search Engine Optimisation) from Andrew Jenkinson and about Viral Video from Niall O’Driscoll and all of this in only 2 – 3 min lessons. It definitely beats standing in a classroom for an hour.

I love the idea of people sharing their knowledge and I strongly believe that people like Niall O’Driscoll and Andrew Jenkinson who are experts in their domain and passionate about their work are the best to teach about Digital Marketing.

I would like you to take a moment now and think back in time and remember your college experience when you really loved maths or biology or any other subject. Now try to remember the lecturer: his way of teaching and the way he spoke about the subject. How many of you remember the subjects and the lecturers because of their passion for what they were teaching?

In today’s schools we have lecturers teaching entrepreneurship without ever being an entrepreneur, marketing without ever working as a marketer, programming without ever working as a programmer and the list can go on.

I really believe that we should learn from people like Andrew and Niall and people like them should be invited to teach the students in today’s secondary schools and universities.

What are your thoughts on this? How could we get more career people to offer their time and teach about their passion?

Photography is one of my favourite user-centred research tools. Simply put, a photo allows you to show someone else who wasn’t there. Often we get asked in workshops about getting permission to take photographs at a client’s business. Or how to get access to someone in their home, which is a personal space. The answer could be as simple as give a camera to the person instead.

Anthony Levin-Decanini reconnected after meeting a few years back at a design conference. He worked on a project called Aphasia Talks, that used photography as a method to give a voice to stroke victims who suffer difficulty producing, using or understanding words. Aphasia can impair any or all of the abilities to speak, read and write. What a fantastic approach to empower people to communicate, as well as build empathy with a particular group that would have difficulty communicating their needs.

PhotoVoice is a research technique, as well as non-profit organisation whose mission is to bring about positive social change for marginalised communities through providing them with photographic training with which they can advocate, express themselves and generate income.

You certainly can influence what your brand stands for, but at the end of the day, it is out of your hands. If you still have doubts, check out the brilliant brand tags site.

I was personally taken by the whole “package” of the Help Remedies brand. Smart. Witty. Sustainable. Simple. User focused.

Help Remedies was created to make solving simple health issues simple. We find the best solution there is, and take away everything else. By stripping away some of the complexity and fear mongering of the health industry, we hope to make the category friendlier and more accessible, and in doing so empower people to make their own health decisions.

Their website even offers help if you’re just feeling bored.

via How to Change the World

Threadless is a great success story of a business model built entirely on co-creation. The idea is fairly simple; users create a tee shirt design and the community votes on whether it should be produced. If your design is selected, you get paid. Co-creation is as close as you can get to involving your user in the design process. Allowing the community to decide whether a product is produced or not certainly lowers the risk of new product launches. Also consider the benefits of a global R&D department that only gets paid when they produce.

Guy Kawasaki posted this short interview with their Chief Creative Officer.

I’ll be straightforward here. I am one of those who believes this to be true; that we have gone well beyond the “sole genius working in a dark room” model of design. The future is collaborative, disbursed and networked and the design process provides a wonderful means of addressing otherwise intractable business and social issues.

David Burney at RedHat writes eloquently about the democratisation of design.

via BMW …

We love the TED talks and you haven’t already been to the redesigned site, do yourself a favor and carve out 15 minutes, even over lunch to watch a talk by some of the most interesting individuals, thinkers and doers.

Underscoring a belief in the power of ideas-and the sharing of knowledge and inspiration on a global scale-BMW today announced its support for the new TED.com. It is a completely redesigned website that promotes the free exchange of “Ideas Worth Spreading.” The new site, which marks the latest venture between the two companies, features the most extraordinary talks made famous by the TED (Technology, Entertainment, & Design) Conference held annually in Monterey, California.

There have been many examples of people openly protesting organisations that blatantly destroy the environment. Could this be the first example of a peaceful campaign to urge a manufacturer to adopt sustainable practices? I was astonished to read earlier this year that Apple ranked lowest in a study of environmental practices by 14 electronic manufacturers.

Greening your products and services is a point of differentiation today. Will it be a cost of entry in the future?

Green My Apple website