UK Observing Diary Update

Last month we gave a brief introduction to the UK Observing Diary project featuring our very own Shang Ting Peng. Since our last post a lot has happened with the page including the number of fans swelling to 56,000+ and various television and newspaper appearances for Shang Ting and her UOD partner Clair Liu.

After appearing in a post on The Guardian Leeds site, the media coverage around the project has been quite unbelievable. The Asian media picked up on the story and it spread like wildfire. The story made the front page of Yahoo, was ranked no.1 in the fashion category and no.3 in the arts category. The story appeared in some of the most influencial newspapers in Taiwan including Liberty Times, NOWnews, Apple Daily, Chinese Television System and China Times.

When the Guardian post appeared the page had around 6,500 members and now as of writing this post the number stands at 56,816! The number of views on their posts has gone into the millions every month. It is a quite remarkable story that 2 friends who started a project as a hobby are now well on their way to becoming major published authors back in Asia, as a number of book deals are now in the offing.

Shang Ting has certainly been taken back at the response in her native Taiwan "It was a shock when we found out how many different news outlets had reported this story. Afterwards our UK Observing Diary email address has been full of invites to different things and proposals for new projects. It all happened so fast. We have now even been offered a book deal, and it is just so exciting."

Her partner on the page, Clair recently appeared on a TV show billed as an 'online buzz creator' something that certainly takes some getting used to " This was the first time for me to participate in a TV programe shot in the studio. I was so excited when the TV producer invited us to talk about our recent popularity on the internet. There are many interesting things on the show that I did not expect. I had so much fun there."

Clair continues, "I felt I was just like a little fan when I heard the other two famous bloggers who are going to join the panel. I used to read quite a lot of their articles. I am so glad to have had this opportunity to sit next to them and join their conversation. This was the day I found I was so proud of UK Observing Diary. Our page could be a real media connecting people who are interested in Leeds and London."

The girls are commited to their original vision for the page "We post everyday, and we try to answer fan's questions as much as we can. The relationship with them is very important to us. We don't want to change our style, which is fun and a style that people can easily relate to. We like to talk to fans as they are our friends, and perhaps one day they will become our friends for real!" says Shang Ting.

One really interesting dynamic of this project is the contrast it provides between the North and South of England, namely Leeds and London. While the capital may be high on tourist's and trend hunter's radars usually, Leeds is something of an unknown quantity in Asia. The UK Observing Diary provides an insight into the northern city and this has gone down well with a lot of the fans "Li Man Man said: This is so great~ Because most of the people know more about London, part of them don't have a clear idea about Leeds. So this observing diary is perfect~"

The content of the page is usually photos with a brief description. This could be an off-the-cuff photo of an interesting visual or it could be a photoshoot carried out at a particular event. The girls have also began to add deeper content in the form of interviews and articles which are presented more like a 'blog posts' in the page's 'notes' section.

The idea is to develop the content further with plans for more video content presented by Shang Ting and Clair currently on the agenda. It seems this is just the tip of the iceberg for this project and we should hear of more exciting developments (and 1000s more fans) over the coming months.

1. Jackie Chan 2. Jet Lee... 3. UK Observing DiaryApple Daily

Introducing: Muireann Carey-Campbell

Today marks the third anniversary of one of our favourite blogs: Bangsandabun.com In the latest of our 'Introducing' features, we talk to the person behind it all: Muireann Carey-Campbell to talk about the early days of her blog, her plans for the future and an update on the post that sent PRs and marketers running for cover last month!

Three years ago today Muireann posted her first blog post from her bedroom in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and set off on a journey that would see her talk love, life, race, music, fitness regimes, UGGs, fashion faux pas and even record her very own rap videos. I first got to know Muireann over a shared love of the Swedish hip-hop artist: Adam Tensta (more to come on this guy soon) and we immediately struck up what was initially a tweetship and then an offline friendship and I am always impressed by her passion, drive and global-outlook on things. This can be traced back to her travelling around the globe, working in different roles and generally becoming a citizen of the world:

"I moved to New York when I was 22, after I finished my degree. I lived there for a year and a half. Then I lived in Tokyo for a year and taught English and then moved back to my native Canada for three years (living in Montreal, Toronto and Halifax). I just moved back to England last year. It's just made me much more of a global citizen I think. I tend to look at things differently and don't particularly feel tied to any one place. If I want to go somewhere, I just go. That kind of exploration really opens your eyes to some amazing experiences. I don't miss those Canadian winters though!"

You can see from Muireann's blog and insane Twitter feed that her audience and friends are spread across the globe. After three years of hard work it seems that Muireann is becoming a major player. She was nominated for a Cosmopolitan blog award earlier this year and she is really happy with how everything is progressing:

I wanted to get back into writing for fashion/lifestyle magazines but my portfolio was full of music stuff. I came across blogs while searching the net and thought 'I could do that!' Initially I started it thinking it would be like an online portfolio for me and of course, Vogue would be beating my door down for me to write for them! It didn't quite pan out like that, but it has become a blog I'm very proud of and I'm really pleased with the progress.

Recently Muireann, after much deliberation, took the decision to post up a complaint letter she had sent to a PR agency over a project she had been asked to be part of. The post can be read here. It created quite a stir with many marketing and PR agencies using it as an example of the changing dynamics between brands and bloggers. Muireann was taken back at the response:

"I was approached earlier in the year by a PR company called Mission to do a half marathon and blog about it on behalf of their client Nokia. I was promised a bunch of stuff in return for that. As the months passed and I trained (going from someone who wouldn't even run for a bus to competing in my first half marathon in under four months), none of the things promised to me were delivered. It was just a catalogue of errors really. I wrote a letter of complaint to Mission a few days before I ran the race. They apologised, but I just didn't feel as though it was enough. Just saying 'sorry' after I dedicated four months of my life to something they asked me to do didn't seem right. So, two days after the half marathon, I published my complaint letter on my blog. I thought I'd get a few extra hits that day, but it went absolutely nuts! It spread around the internet like wildfire. I got almost 16,000 hits that day, was interviewed by PR Week and approached by many other PRs. Mission responded extremely well and in fact, next week we're about to have our second meeting about how PRs and bloggers can work better together. So, a lot of positives came out of it"

For her 'day job' Muireann works as features editor for North Leeds Life Magazine, a family run business focused more on her local community. The magazine certainly has a different reader and overall vibe to her bangsandabun blog but it is something Muireann enjoys working on:

"We're local community magazines distributed across North Leeds from Headingley out to Ilkley. Lots of our readers tell us we're a real life blood of the community, carrying area specific information and giving a voice to individuals and groups who might struggle to get their word out otherwise. On a personal level, it definitely differs from my blog work as I have to watch my language a lot more in magazine writing! But also the content is much more localised than I do on my blog. I probably wouldn't know half the things that were going on in my area if I didn't work for the mags, so it's great"

Another project on the agenda is 'Bangs on the run' where a Muireann and some of her Twitter buddies will take on the Paris half marathon. From our point of view at Hebe, we are looking forward to working on upcoming projects with Muireann and one of them is centred around our home city of Leeds, England. Like lots of the people involved in the new project and the city in general, there is a feeling of untapped potential in Leeds and it is something rising stars like Muireann can see and want to do something about

"Before moving back here last year, I hadn't lived here for about 10 years and boy, has it changed! I'll be honest and say I'm a little disappointed that the city centre kind of looks like 'anytown UK' now with the influx of national chain stores, but there's still enough individuality about the city. There's a lot of talent here and I think the potential lies in fusing our city with other international cities, drawing inspiration from there and applying to our city. Leeds in Barcelona was a great example of that. More of that please!"

We will certainly try our best to create more projects like Leeds in Barcelona only this time by collaborating with people like Muireann we can make each project even bigger and better! 

Check out the first two of our 'Introducing' series here: James Steward and Marc Leaf.

The Palace, Barcelona

Yesterday I attended an event called Innovation Lab in Leeds. As I sat and listened to some of the conversations taking place I began to think about the place I felt most 'innovative' and how that special feeling was created. There is no doubt in my mind, one place stands out above every other: The Palace, in Barcelona.

The place I am talking about was not pre-made or planned by a strategic agency, it simply evolved and changed as we went along. During the second year of our studies at the European Institute of Design, myself and a friend: Marcus Carlsson decided that as well as having somewhere to live, we wanted to have a 'space' big enough to share ideas, play music and drink beer.

Background

An apartment came on the market, it had small bedrooms but an amazing open-plan living area. As soon as Marcus and I had seen the space, it was decided and we took the 2 year lease. The apartment was completely empty but we decided the first three things we needed shipping in: Massive TV, PS3 and CDJs. Once they arrived, the first building blocks were in place for our very own 'Barcelona Innovation Lab' 

The look and feel of The Palace was really created as we went along, what was for sure was that plain white painted walls would not inspire creativity. We invited in some of our friends: Albin and our soon to be third roommate Shahin (both amazing graphic designers) to basically do what they felt like on one side of the room. The result was really cool as you can see in the picture. On the opposite wall, we had a massive painting of a super-hero (maybe that was our inner-child taking over) and the two sides contrasted well and both caught your attention equally. 

The main feature of the room had to be 'the booth of love'. What started out as a simple table with decks and a mixer quickly turned into the 8th wonder of the world: a 10 foot high, 2000 can Dj booth made of our empty Estrella cans. This structure took me around a year to make and is still one of my greatest achievements!

As the weeks and months passed, The Palace became a hub for some of the city's most exciting creative types. But this did not just happen overnight and neither was it planned this way. It actually started out very simple: come round to listen to some good music (depending on who was dj-ing!) grab a coffee or a few beers, read a book, sit on YouTube for hours, have a nap, whatever you want. We had certain projects we had to work on for our education but most of the coolest ideas that came forward were actually completely separate from our course work and more often then not included people from totally different creative backgrounds and countries.

Lessons

So the lesson here is to create a place where people can drink, smoke, play music, watch YouTube and then come up with ideas for projects? Not very realistic for a brand or a city, obviously. But there are things we can take from this moving forward. I firmly believe that to be 'innovative' and creative you need space, you do not need a pre-decided plan that needs to tick boxes or be measured every step of the way. Brands and cities need to take a punt, have a little faith. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes crazy, sometimes rubbish ideas will emerge but if the group of people involved are intelligent, talented, outside-of-the-box thinkers, then the time and money spent on creating this space like this can be paid ten times over with just one amazing project or idea.

We started projects like 'The First Six' something way ahead of it's time, (something we looking to move forward in 2011) art exhibitions, viral campaigns, international branding strategies, city vision strategies and marketing plans, music events, fashion brand launches and much much more and all these came from our time in this seemingly un-planned environment. Most of what we did was cutting-edge, creative, interesting and relevant.

Some of the former regulars at The Palace have gone onto amazing things: published writers, magazine editors, agency directors. Some have moved on to be professional photographers, bloggers, stylists, fashion designers, teachers, brand consultants, music video directors and probably many more we do not even know about.  

I will always look back fondly at this period of my life and I am sure there are many more who will do the same. It helped to shape my approach to projects we are currently working on and also lots that we will be announcing next year. I am sure there will be people who believe that a much more structured environment is the way to go and innovation can be 'taught' but we at Hebe firmly believe that by thinking about things in a different way and in a different environment can lead to innovation and creativity flourishing... now to paint that super-hero on our new office walls!

DADI Awards 2010

 Last week Leeds played host to the DADI Awards. This evening helped bring to an end Leeds Digital Festival and a good time was had by all. Check out the winners here

ps - Can you spot a certain Mr Chitty serenading the crowd? ;)

Introducing: Marc Leaf

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the debut of one of Leeds' best ever club Djs: Marc Leaf. Recently I sat down with Marc to discuss his career so far, his thoughts on the future, new projects and for anyone who is friends with Marc on Facebook... THAT status update!

It all started 20 years ago today for a fresh-faced Dj from Hyde Park in Leeds. He headed to his first ever gig at Rio Campus in Bradford perhaps not realising the journey he was embarking upon. When looking back on musical and artistic careers it is often the case that an artists' childhood plays a big part in shaping their sound, style or passion and Marc is no different:

"I am from an area in Leeds called Hyde Park. It was a place that has seen its fair share of troubles throughout the years. I was mainly there from the early 80's right through to about 1996.  Musical influence went through into quite a few kids of my age as the house sound was really picking up and the emergence of a now legendary "NightmaresOnWax" came about from the same area. It was a very special time in my life! How I got into dj'ing though was through a friend of mine called Mark Greenwood AKA Dj Task who is still part of my life to this day. He took me to a place called Sundance which led to going to a very illicit place in Chapeltown in Leeds called Sunny's... This was a massive piece of why I am doing what I do today and I want to mention a very special dj who carved a sound inside my soul which wont go away... Dj Mikey. Watching both Task and Mikey made me want to learn how to dj and Task showing me the ropes was similar to OB1 showing Anakin the ways of the Jedi in Star Wars... I Wish"

I first personally met Marc when he worked at the now defunct Record Box in Leeds, a 'must visit' place for every wannabe Leeds Dj at the time. I remember going along with my friends and being really excited to dig out a rare lost remix of some random house tune (all vinyl of course) This is an art / apprenticeship that no longer exists in the new world of digital music and file sharing and Marc, like many, thinks that may not necessarily be a good thing:

"The RecordBox was THE best record shop in Leeds for a long time... It was owned by a friend of mine called Adrian Tomasone who was a resident at the legendary Vague which was at the Warehouse in Leeds. My role there though was part-time filler inner and general organised chaos maintainer. A role that I thoroughly enjoyed and when it closed due to the digital era coming along I was pissed off! In general though we sold a lot of stuff that we got 2 or 3 copies of and if you missed it you missed out as it was gone, so the buzz in the shop on delivery days was ace. Alongside that we had a massive 2nd hand side of things full of whatever you wanted and I have some great memories of the times I've spent full days just going through stuff with my fingertips black brite from the dirty record sleeves at the end of it... Pure bliss and I miss it massively as playing vinyl for me is the true art of dj'ing"

Since his days at Record Box, Marc has focused more and more on the producing side of things. During the recent Leeds in Barcelona project we featured a showcase of some of Marc's best work (You can listen below) and it went down a storm with the Catalan crowd. His track 'Get Up' reached no.1 in the download charts. The formula for success as a producer though is quite simple according to Leaf:

"I've been producing now since about 2004. It doesn't seem very long really but have a back catologue of about 40-50 tracks of my own and remixes which isnt bad really. I love going to the studio as it brings out a side of me that is like a kid in a candy shop but I have also had days when things are not going well for me privately and my emotions drive my music. "Get Up" was a track that built itself really, because the drums alone made want to get up and go to a club! I still play it as I do a lot of my older stuff as it's a sound that I feel is what I'm about: Good, strong, well produced house music that even my Dad loves so if it's good for him then I'm all over it! My advice to anyone making their own stuff is to always make something they are going to play and support as a load of the stuff people send me is what they think is current but I don't think 80% of them would ever play. Listen to what people are playing and see what you can do to add your own stamp on that sound without being so upfront that you disappear up your own arse... Play and make the music that is in your heart, real goose-pimply stuff... THAT YOUR DAD LIKES"

One of Marc's new projects is Uber. You can tell when a event has 'it' by the people that recommend it. Uber is growing into other areas too with the launch of it's own record label. The label had a number one in the European download charts and the whole project is going from strength to strength:

"Uber is an afterhours we run in Leeds from 3.30am till 9am at Mission2. I'd been thinking about it for a good year or so as Leeds didnt have a good afterhours spot after the clubs had shut at 5 or 6am and with Leeds being a city of such musical awareness and it having a long standing foothold in the dance scene, I was adamant that things needed to change. So after a good think about it I approached a couple of friends who are now my partners in it and we've just celebrated our first birthday which was massive! Alongside the night we have a record label thats been just as fantastic for us called 'UberDigital'. We've had a number one in the download charts with 'GetUp' which im particularly proud of. Its mainly all our own releases but we've started to sign other stuff now for release over the coming months and we are now distributed by LabelWorks"

Marc and I will often speak about our home city of Leeds and it's talent as it is something we are very passionate about. This passion led Leaf to post a now legendary status update on Facebook that seemed to stir the passion of most of Leeds' house music and club scene, the status read: 

"The Electro/Bassline rubbish thats tearing the heart out of Leeds' clubbing scene is worrying. Too many folk downloading the 'big tune' of the hour that every other "DJ" has for free or ripped from another djs mix cd. Be different and stand out and dont be part of the "lets go back to the old skool" Billy Big Tune crew. If promoters used djs instead of chancers we may be able to make Leeds a proud musical city again" 

... The post attracted 152 comments and 118 likes!

When I ask Marc about his own vision for Leeds and the future, his response, as you would expect, is simple and straight-forward:

"I love Leeds and no matter what anybody says it's somewhere that I feel strongly about having spent all my life here and having played all over the country there is nowhere that parties like the Leeds lot. They are bonkers and go on for days and days. And while ever they are here so will I, doing what I do and dragging along a band of brothers that is now known as Uber... That is my aim and that is my goal"

I am really looking forward to working with Marc on upcoming projects and his talent and passion will be a great asset for the city moving forward. Happy 20th anniversary Mr Leaf, here is to 20 more :)