I only discovered this song today. The original was on The Sensual World by Kate Bush. As part of her ‘Directors Cut’ reworking of certain songs, this one has been redone with [I believe] the voice of her son, Bertie as the computer. For a song written over 20 years ago it still remains relevant, if not more so, today.

I don’t think there are many songs that may me sad. They may ‘bring me down’ or slow me down but rarely sad. The soundtrack to Philadelphia was pretty bleak and I guess this song makes me sad. I love it, and won’t hesitate to play it but it makes me a little sad.

A great video from Bruce Springsteen, the Streets of Philadelphia.

 

This is a funny one. It was a one hit wonder [I think] but just works. Every time this comes on it perks me up. If I had thought about it at length it might have been Hey Ya by Outkast but here is Junior Senior, Move Your Feet. I bet you can’t resist a little wiggle

Now, I don’t consider myself a Deacon Blue fan. The ‘woo ooh woo ooh’ of Real Gone Kid just winds me up. BUT I love the album Raintown, I think it is soulful with a ‘depth’ of feeling which works well. If there was a category for ‘album to play when it is overcast’ I would play Raintown. But the one song on there that I really don’t like is Dignity.

I am in the minority with my not liking this song, for many it is inspirational but I just find it patronising. So, here it is, do you like it?

This is my latest email ‘newsletter’ – If you didn’t receive it you can read it here.

How are you? Can you believe one quarter of 2011 has passed already? It feels like a slow quarter with all the cold UK weather but in other ways it has gone so quickly. As it is almost Easter, I thought you may be interested to find out what I was up to.

If you were wondering why the heck you are getting this email, it is because we have shared business cards, email addresses or connected on Linkedin. If you don’t want to hear from me just skip to the bottom for the unsubscribe button. If you don’t know who I am, just Google me, you should find plenty of stuff there.

BirdSong

In February we launched BirdSong, Twitter optimisation for brands. I created BirdSong as I wanted to improve the efficienct of my own tweets. Instead of paying attention to the words, I wanted to pay attention to the data.

My thoughts were that there is no point improving your words when people aren’t active when your are Tweeting. If half of my 6,000 followers were awake when I was a asleep and vice versa then we would be ships in the night. Looking into that data also showed me the richness of data on each Tweet, from time of day to platform and location.

By analysing this data we could start to build a picture of how brands were using Twitter and how their followers were consuming it. From this data we started to see patterns, first published in our report of Virgin Atlantic vs British Airways. Virgin Atlantic praised our research, saying we were “right on the money” – they even link to it from their own forums.

We are now offering BirdSong analysis to clients as part of our consulation work. In time we will announce a new interface version and potential icensing opoorutnities. We are also analysing Facebook data as well. I believe this is the start of ‘Social Direct Marketing’ – you heard it here first

I keep crossing the I’s and We’s because my ideas are nothing without my wife and business partner, Katherine. Together we are shaping BirdSong combining my understanding of the medium and Katherine’s unrivalled skill at direct marketing, insight and understanding.

Katherine has also invested in and become a Director of Unscrambled, a PPC Auditing company set up by our former colleague and friend, Matt O’Brien.

Digital Briefing

We have also launched our Digital Briefing, a premium briefing service that distills my knowledge and constant future gazing into easily consumed insights that will help brands and businesses understand what is coming, why it is important and how they can harness it today.

There is a challenge to succesfully monetise content. There is so much content out there that it is hard for the average person to understand  what is of value. I hope that my free articles, the business profile and my personal profile will all combine to convince businesses of the premium value for deeper insight.  If you are interested in knowing more about the briefings just email me (insight@digitaltomorrowtoday.com)  or check this link. The subscription for this year is only £120 ex. VAT.

Our next briefings will be out on Monday 11th including a look at how QR codes are being used by brands and where Google is going with their Google Goggles brand trials. We will also be looking at how Windows Phone 7, coupled with Nokia, will start to impact the mobile market. We also talk apps with Google Android as they start to converge the platform across mobile, tablets and TV’s.

Build a Rocket, Boys!

In other news, Elbow released their latest album. The follow up to Seldom Seen Kid was always going to be difficult. I got into Elbow about the same time I was leaving Cheeze so the songs were very bittersweet in a way.

The new album really continues along in the Elbow ‘tradition’. The opening song ‘The Birds’ cannot match ‘Starlings’ in punch but makes up for it by getting under your skin demanding repeat listens. I got to see them in concert last week and they were brilliant, if you have time to get to see them, do!

Oh, and did you hear that David Gilmour is playing one gig with Roger Waters on his Wall tour in London next month? I hope it’s my concert!

Baaa!

Our first lamb of the season was born today. This will be the third year we have grown the flock of Portland Sheep. I say we, I actually mean, Katherine does all the management and I just tweet about it!

That’s it! Thank you reading. If you have time to say hi, just leave a comment, saying hi! It’s like Twitter, just in comments.

Thanks for reading.

Jamie