Look back at September

September was a huge month for Hebe. We agreed two new projects with two completely different yet equally interesting brands (that we are announcing this week) and had our best ever month on the blog. Here we take a quick look at some of the best bits of September.

Harvey Nichols were definitely on it during September: We hit Vogue Fashion Night Out, The Harvey Nichols x Land Rover Fashion Show and went to see the ace ICS at Harvey Nichols Freshers Event at Leeds University. This month promises to be just as busy as Leeds Fashion calendar kicks into over-drive during October.

Our Week in Pics posts included things like our visits to Hyper Island Manchester, Abbey House Museum, Nigel Martyn & Sky Sports, Leeds Festival and Stockholm!

Speaking of Stockholm, we also blogged about our recent trip there in 24 Hours in Stockholm along with the new Hebe Hits Stockholm Photo Gallery. 

Shang Ting told us how Bubble Tea Will Change Your World and we also previewed the cool new collection from our friends at Kitschen Sink, who also featured in the recent Leeds in Barcelona project.

One of the most read blog posts of September was my review of the 2011 LEP Summit. I dont think one post has resulted in so many DMs and emails. I think we said what a lot of people were thinking (something we are quite good at lol)  

I also posted our first 'Hebe Hit List' post where we speak about the people and brands we want to work with in the next year. First up was the brilliant Corey Latif Williams.

We hope you enjoyed checking in with us during September, it was nice to smash our record number of monthly visits on this blog and combined with more then 500,000 views on LOL! Leeds Online and 9,000,000+ on UK Observing Diary shows that people seem to be interested in what we are talking / shooting / filming about :)

We have some really cool stuff planned for October. Lots of events, annoucements about new Hebe projects and much more, so check in when you can and say "hello".

The Hebe Hit List: Corey Latif Williams

Photo: Julian Essink Fotografie

In this new series of posts, we are featuring the people we are going to try and work with in the next year. We made a 'hit list' list last year, but kept it secret inside Hebe. We managed to tick off a lot of people on the 'Year 1 List' such as Hyper Island, Heineken, LeLook and IED Barcelona. Now we focus on the 'Year 2 List' and first up is one of our favourite RnB artists: Corey Latif Williams. 

I first started checking out 'Latif's' stuff in 2006, most noteably the tracks Who's Lovin Her Now and the brilliant U Think U Know. I could tell immediately Latif was something special and after further digging I discovered he had non-other then the absolute legend that is Teddy Pendergrass as a mentor. Around this time (2006-2007) I was really into Latif, Johnta Austin (thanks to Turn It Up) and Ryan Leslie (thanks to Used 2 Be) . These guys were bringing something fresh at that time and regular collaborations between them usually resulted in some quality stuff. (I will try to dig out some of my live mixes from this time and post)

Since then the Grammy Award Nominated Latif has been in the studio working on new material and also getting his writing on for a number of other artists such as Chris Brown, The Roots and Musiq Soulchild. He has also put out a number of tracks online such as I Love U, Promise Me and No Mystery. 

U Think U Know feat. Ryan Leslie by Corey Latif 

Hebe x Latif 

In our past few music events we have featured stuff from house music legends like the Back to Basics gang and up and coming Punk / Dub band ICS. We definitely want to do something with RnB in the coming months and Latif fits the bill perfectly: He is young, mega-talented and we can see some amazing potential for collaboration with some of our peeps here in the UK. Remixes, live-performances, creative collaborations with fashion designers and artists, the possabilities are endless.

We are planning Creative Encounters with cities in America next year and we will definitely be exploring the possibility of hooking up with Latif and getting him involved. After all he did provide the soundtrack for some of the music and fashion projects that eventually led to the creation of Hebe Media so it would be amazing for us to make that contact five years after we were introduced to Latif and get him involved with some of our projects.

Watch this space over the coming months and hopefully we will report back good news! In the meantime check out his new track below :)

LEP 2011 Summit - Realise The Potential

On Friday I attended the Local Enterprise Partnership Summit entitled 'Realise the Potential'. The event was held at Saviles Hall at Clarence Dock. I must have typed and deleted this blog post at least three times, deciding which angle I would take this from. You will no doubt be able to read all the 'official' versions about how great it was and what the speakers spoke about in depth so I will simply give a personal point of view on the event and how it made me feel.

Why did I go?

First of all for you people who do not usually visit our blog (99% of the audience at this event) Hebe Media is a new type of company. We are trend researchers, communication specialists, bloggers, photographers, designers, event producers, DJs, strategists and what other people sometimes refer to as 'influencers'. We have worked with some of the biggest brands in the world but always try to create projects that are based here in Leeds where possible. We produce two projects focusing on Leeds: the massive LOL! Leeds Online network which is around 50,000 'members' strong and the UK Observing Diary project which attracts around 10 Million views per month.

In the lead-up to the event I had tried to persuade a number of people we work and hang with to attend the event, unfortunately only one would take up the offer and attend. I am asked a lot why I engage with events like this one and others I have attended in the past such as the City Centre Vision Conference and What if Leeds. The answer is simple - I am interested in what type of strategy the people making big decisions in this region are putting forward. I want to know what the LEP, Leeds City Council, Marketing Leeds and Welcome to Yorkshire and other important organisations in the city are doing because it can directly help or hinder some of the things we are trying to do. Maybe foolishly I am looking for an area or plan we can engage with and help shape the bigger picture in Leeds and beyond. It is not easy for me to do this, I give up lots of time, energy and ideas, but I do it because I am passionate about my city and want to represent the people in 'our world' at these types of events.  

Morning Session

As I approached the conference I had the usual 'odd one out' feeling as I was not wearing a suit, but I expected nothing less. I touched base with a few of the people I recognised from various organisations and made my way in to the lovely Saviles Hall.  

The conference started out with speeches from some of the main players involved including Neil McLean, the Chair of the LEP, Keith Wakefield who is the leader of Leeds City Council and Steve Morriss from the sponsors, AECOM. We were hit with a number of stats about how big and powerful the city region is and a nice video highlighting this. Just one point here, can we please ban all talk of Harvey Nichols opening here? It was 1996. Seriously. 

During this part of the day I jotted down a few quotes that caught my attention:

"This is a high level strategy"

"We are listening and learning"

"Region has not punched it's weight" 

"Fact we do not have any money means we can be more creative" 

At this point I thought, "ok I agree with a lot of this, we do need to improve and have massive potential here in the city region". I felt excited, waiting to see where the day would lead after all of the headlines and macro-economic stuff. The conversation and presentations that followed definitely had more of a political feel than I had expected. Aside from the odd line that caught my attention (from Peter Box usually) this is where I generally begin to lose interest. What did this mean to me or my ambitions? Does this inspire me? As the questions came in from the crowd I began to find myself drawn to the Twitter debate which was actually more varied and interesting than the conversation going on in the room.

Before the event started we were asked to sign up for break out sessions on different subjects. I had chosen 'infrastructure'. I was hoping for talk of soft-infrastructure and how we could create conditions and systems in which creativity could flourish. Perhaps we could even discuss potential uses and plans for existing unused infrastructure in the region that Evert Verhagen had brilliantly spoken about at the City Centre Vision Conference I had attended the last time I was at Saviles Hall. The conversation did not really move that way, so I decided to leave and gather my thoughts over a coffee with another young, creative business owner in the city. We both shared our thoughts and we were definitely thinking along the same lines.

Afternoon Session

We debated whether to stay for the afternoon session. I was still trying to convince myself that there would be something relevant to me at some point during the day. I thought the 'City Regions in a Global Economy' session would be particularly interesting for me with my Hebe Media hat on. After all we work globally and have produced projects that showcase Leeds talent and creativity on a global stage so surely that would be right up our street! 

Enrique Garcilazo spoke about the importance of 'human capital' in a regional economy. I think he meant 'people'. "Ok this is getting interesting" I thought, as I firmly believe our people and the talent they possess are the key to 'realising the potential' so this was exciting me. It was weird that it came from an economist and was based on mathematical equations that would make Doc Brown freak, but this was something I felt passionately about and was glad it was being pushed as an important part of the plan. During this part of the day the Chair, Neil McLean also mentioned 'Creative Industries' as being an important part of the plan moving forward. They had pressed my two buttons - Realising the potential of people and the Creative Economy! But unfortunately that one line was as far as it went.

As I made my way out I spoke with a number of people from both private and public organisations and the majority seemed to be pretty happy with how the day had gone. I did speak with other people who were not so enthralled and we talked about the things we would have liked to have heard. I am sure everyone who attended has their own views on the event, some will feel disapointed like me, some will be really happy with how it went and will have heard exactly what they wanted to hear.

Conclusion 

I thought about writing a conclusion that encapsulates my feelings from the day like I have in previous blog posts about events like this. But after the summit I felt so disconnected from the event and the people running things that I decided to use a quote from a good friend of mine, who sent me a message as I was leaving Saviles Hall,

"Hollywood and Silicon Valley do not wait for the government of California to help them"

This sums it up perfectly for me. We are going to create kick-ass projects with or without the help of LEPs and this message reminded me of that after having my creative brain and dreams for Leeds drained a little at the summit.

Look back at August

August was a bit of a crazy month here at Hebe! Watching and making films, partying / drowning at festivals, kick-ass presentations, cool events, photo-shoots, funny interviews, intriguing meetings, Stockholm, Manchester, London and much more. 

We have been working behind the scenes on a number of new projects including Creative Encounters in Stockholm, Taipei and Hangzhou. We have also agreed two new partnerships which we will be annoucing officially in the next week or so.

LOL! Leeds Online has made great strides in the past month and the Facebook Page alone is about to pass 47,000 members. We are also developing ideas for further platforms and content for the project which should start to go live during September.

UK Observing Diary is still kicking ass and attracting millions of views every month. The girls are in the final stages of writing their eagerly awaited first book. Clair is now blogging for Vogue Taiwan so big congratulations to her on that! Shang Ting is leading our charge in Asia and we are putting peices in place for some amazing Hebe events and experiences over there including a Taipei x London x Leeds Creative Encounter!

Looking back at the blog during August, we have been mainly taking pictures! Shang Ting's Street Style, Stacey's Week in Pics and an update and new gallery from Simon on his residency at Whitechapel Gallery in London. We also posted some of the (publishable) pictures from our Barca Crew Reunion including partying with Howard Marks and Louise Rennison. 

We are launching a couple of new features on the blog during September that we are pretty excited about. Plus after around 18 months of trying to figure out our 'about' page, we think we have finally figured it out (but dont hold us to it!)

Peace out for now!

LOL! Leeds Online

For the past two and a half years we have been working on a special project: LOL! Leeds Online. This is a massive online network for the city of Leeds. The network is about to pass the 50,000 'member' mark and we thought now was the right time to share some of the history behind the project, some of it's achievements so far and to share our plans for the future.

History

Leeds Online was created around two and a half years ago. It started life as a network for the Hebe team and our friends in the city. Back then we had lots of different groups on Facebook, related to the various events and projects we were involved with. For example, we had groups for small geographic locations in Leeds (Villages, city centre groups etc) and other groups created for taste / lifestyle (club nights, music genres, sports). We noticed a lot of these groups were not well connected with one another despite the fact their members were talking about very similar things. We decided it would be really interesting to try and create some kind of super-network on Facebook of our friends and subsequently, their friends. 

We created a 'Fan Page', or so it was called at the time. We wanted to leave it as open and accessible as possible so we stayed simple and called it 'Leeds'. After inviting our friends the page quickly swelled to around 1,000 members and the plan was working; some of the conversations we had been having in seperate groups moved onto the page, which was really exciting for us. As we reached the 1,000 'fan' point the growth slowed, except for a couple of weeks when we grew by around 100 or so members. This project was never about the numbers though, it was about creating something really interesting; something with lots of interaction and discussion so we just kept going doing what we were doing. Slowly the numbers grew and after around 6-8 weeks we hit 2,000 mark. 

At this point the conversations were mainly 'light' - things along the lines of 'Did anyone see the game last night, what do we reckon?" and "What a nice sunny day, what is everyone up to?" but I think that is what people liked (and still like now). Most other groups and pages were just spamming the hell out of their members with offers and invites to events. We were not about that, we were trying to create the Facebook version of the 'chat down the pub'. 

Over the first year and a half the numbers swelled to around the 30,000 mark. The content was still very simple. We started to add in photos and other simple visual content to stimulate conversation and debate. For the first time we also started linking out to other content. This was a risky move as we had always stayed away from linking out of Facebook. But some of the things we wanted to talk about were explained deeply on other sites (such as Leeds Arena / Trinity / What if Leeds?) and we would ask a question based on the article / blog post we linked to.

The network was starting to become an influential voice around the city. People knew the network and were often surprised when they found out we were behind it. LOL! Leeds Online is definitely different to the Hebe blog that most people know us by. It is much more neutral and asks questions, where as on the blog we are much more opinionated and focused on what we want to achieve and say. With LOL! Leeds Online the idea is to give a voice and platform to the members of the network rather then push our own.

Photo from LOL! City Centre albumPhoto from LOL! Roundhay Park album

What has happened?

"If you could have one thing in Leeds City Centre, what would it be?"

This question created the most interesting responses we have had to-date. We asked it because the 'What if Leeds' consultation was happening at the time and we thought it would be useful to get an alternative view to those being expressed by strong voices of Leeds people and brands on Twitter. The answers we had back were both entertaining, enlightening and also highlighted a gap in what people knew about the city, something we had previously taken for granted. We had lots of people talking about needing an arena, something that had already been confirmed to happen. The news about the arena had been put out in the local press and other platforms but a lot of people were not aware. Another rather funny answer was the need for a KFC in the city centre. I am not going into the rights and wrongs of this but what is funny is that after all these years of not having one in the centre, there is going to be a KFC in the centre now, coincidence? Perhaps ;)

Overall some of the reactions on the page have been great. Leeds United and Leeds Rhinos related posts are always popular, attracting 100s of interactions. Photos are also very popular with the audience. Over the last couple of years we have posted lots of different status updates, pictures and links and it is fascinating to see the level of interest they attract. Things you would think would be popular may not be and things you think may be trivial or less important can attract a huge response. 

The page is also proving to be really popular with people visiting Leeds or people who have left the city. We have lots of people coming on asking questions about the city and what they can do here. We also have lots of people who used to live in Leeds reminiscing about the photos we post and talking about their own personal history with the city. Lots of people post their own content on the group too, including their own pictures and memories (Around 170 member photos uploaded so far). This is a big part of our plan for the future and it is great to see people contributing the page in their own way.

Recently we have begun to extended the network to other platforms. LOL! Leeds Online is now also on Twitter and Linked-in. These two platforms are quite different from but complimentary to Facebook. The Twitter profile started out as a a simple feed from Facebook but is now developing it's own personality and network. Linked-in is very different but we want to take the principles and aims of LOL! over to Linked-in and get a different view on the subjects we want to talk about. These platforms are young in terms of their development but we think they will turn into really interesting projects themselves. 

In terms of numbers the project has grown significantly and today stands at 46,290+ Fans on Facebook, 1790+ followers on Twitter and 280+ members on Linked-in. The Facebook page has around 600,000+ views a month and 2500+ interactions, which we think is amazing. 

The demographic of the group makes interesting reading too. The members are pretty much a split 50/50 between male and female. The age of the group is pretty young overall, but the older age groups are growing all time. The biggest age bracket in the group is 18-24 year olds who make up 37% of the members. You can see the complete breakdown below:

Views and interactions for June 2011Breakdown of the LOL! Leeds Online audience

The Future

We have always intended to keep developing LOL! Leeds Online and over the past month or so the project has moved onto the next level. 

We have created a visual brand that people can recognise and identify with. Previously the only branding was a picture of the city centre that was used as our Facebook and Twitter profile picture. The project has a new strap line - The city, talking. We do not want to push this branding too hard as that would be a massive shift, but we feel that it's the right time to start developing a visual identity. 

Content-wise, we have a really clear plan in place for the next 6 months and the first parts of this have already happened. We have added new themed photo albums which have already attracted loads of interest and sparked new conversations. There are plans to create lots of different albums of different areas around the city. We will also cover events and special projects that we feel are going to be of interest to the network. 

We are also excited about our plan to develop video content for the network. This is a big challenge but one we are ready to take on. The videos will be special features on various things going on in the city. We plan to interview interesting Leeds people and businesses, and cover important events. This content will then be featured on a new 'LOL! Video' tab on the Facebook page.

We have developed a number of partnerships on the page. Initially we had a news partnership with the Guardian Leeds but following the decision by the Guardian to stop the project, this is currently under review. Another media partner is the Leeds Guide, who we will be doing lots of interesting things with over the coming months. We are currently talking with other media organisations about how they can get involved with the project and add value to what we are doing and we welcome interest from any other organisations.

We are also bringing on board a number of partners for the page. These are businesses and organisations who support the project and its aims. We are interested in featuring businesses in the city who have strong links to Leeds and allowing them to showcase to a massive audience. We have already confirmed the first of these - Virtual FD, who have been involved in a number of projects in Leeds over the last year, including sponsoring Leeds Fashion Show.

We are also looking at ways to feature Leeds music. This is something we are hugely interested in and are currently exploring our options. LOL! Leeds Online should be used for promoting Leeds creative talent and the Leeds music scene is something we have a big interest in. 

Team Hebe is really excited about the future of this project. We feel it is unlike anything else in the city in terms of structure and content. It has taken a long time to develop LOL! Leeds Online to the level it is at today. Our next big challenge is to keep the project fresh, interesting and to add new elements without losing the aims and vibe that made the network as popular as it is today. As with any big online project there are going to be all kinds of risks, but we are confident LOL! Leeds Online is going to continue going from strength or strength in the second half of 2011.

If you want to get in touch about the project your first stop should be our Leeds Online boss, Stacey Hicken. Click here to send Stacey an email.