Last week, some of Crowd DNA squeezed into a lecture hall to hear what Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology at UCL, had to say about Facebook.

With over 800 million active users and approximately 80% of its users from outside the US, it’s about time that the social network received attention from academia. As an anthropologist, Miller is interested in the relationships between different groups of people, rather than individuals themselves – so Facebook provides telling insights into how social relationships are developing today.

Based on a year-long study into the daily Facebook habits of Trinidadians (argued to be fast adopters of new technology), and published in “Tales from Facebook”, Miller challenges common assumptions about Facebook.

The social network’s ubiquity is undeniable – it’s a facet of modern life that is used by approximately one in every 13 people in the world. However, we can’t assume that it is being used in the same way by everyone. Though US college students first adopted Facebook, this isn’t to say that it’s the preserve of youth alone. Miller refutes the notion of ‘one true Facebook,’ – as it is adapted in new locations, it is reinvented and becomes particular to each user.That is, if it’s adopted at all.

In the UK, a whopping 43% of the whole population is on Facebook.  However, Facebook penetration in Japan stands at less than 1%, where the social network faces significant obstacles. In a society where anonymity is valued, Facebook’s real name policy is at odds with the cultural tendency to post under pseudonyms, and which Japan-based social networks such as Mixi and Gree allow. 

While social networks are often used as means of expression in Japan, which is free from social constraints, they may be used to recreate the offline world in other societies. This week, Facebook’s policies have angered mothers worldwide, who are staging protests outside Facebook HQs against having their profiles taken down because of breast-feeding images:

"This is discrimination. There's no other way to look at it. We're being treated as pornographers. Breast-feeding moms, especially ones with infants, spend hours a day with their children at their breast. They're not trying to be sexually explicit. This is just part of their everyday lives."

Though Facebook defines itself as a ‘social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and co-workers,’ criticisms leveraged against it cite that it’s a superficial means of communication that is detrimental to ‘real’ face-to-face contact and that can even give you cancer(!). Miller, on the other hand, argues that the social network has a much wider impact. He believes that Facebook has become a ‘site of witnessing,’ an all-seeing, all-knowing medium, where what you see online can be more truthful than the real life representation. People are using the site to balance what is going on in their offline world and, therefore, Facebook can often provide a rounder insight into individuals.  

Though the backlash against Facebook is well underway, what does the future hold for this social network? One of the faster growing demographics of Facebook users is the over 50s, who are using social networks to reconnect with old friends and family. It may also be used increasingly by those that wish to engage with others, but that are unable to due to illness or shyness.

One thing is for sure – there is no ‘authentic’ way to use Facebook and as a result, brands can’t afford to have a ‘one size fits all’ social media strategy. The need to think carefully about the cultural sensitivities and idiosyncrasies of consumers has never been stronger.

BehaviourSocial Mediatrends

Continuing three and a half years years of pretty intense growth, Crowd DNA kicks off 2012 in search of two bright, innovative, progressively minded folk to join our team in Shoreditch, London E1, working in an exciting and open minded environment on noteworthy projects for top notch clients across categories such as media, technology, telecomms, alcohol, entertainment, fashion and FMCGs.

Both roles offer the opportunity for excellent career development, for learning a wealth of new skills and for making a mark at an ambitious company which encourages independent thinking. Here's the topline on each role:

Research director/Associate director

We're seeking a talented, resourceful individual who has a great handle on being creative, strategic and inventive, while also keeping a close eye on the details of project management, client liaison and overseeing other team members. One of two directors reporting into Crowd DNA's managing director, key requirements as follows:

• Solid experience of quantitative research is a must
• A good understanding/experience of qual a bonus!
• Good awareness of developments in media and technology and ideally experience in conducting research in these areas
• Track record of managing others, plus of end-to-end project management
• Experience of/an appetite for contributing to business development
• Must be a confident presenter with well honed skills in terms of analysis and producing striking debriefs
• Someone excited by the idea of thinking outside of the research box and of generally playing a part in shoving this industry kicking and screaming into the 21st Century!
• Motivated by the opportunity to take a lead role in a highly acclaimed agency that has ambitious plans for the years ahead

We see this role as suiting an existing director level researcher, or potentially a keen and ambitious research manager (or similar) looking for their next career move. Salary (and bonus scheme) negotiable dependent on experience.

Research manager

We're seeking someone who's comfortable both working solo on projects and as part of larger teams; who's great at managing workloads and who's keen to play a key role at all points from project design to implementation to debrief. In return we can offer the chance to work on incredibly varied, compelling, high profile commissions for a brilliant range of clients and great scope to develop a future proofed set of research/comms industry skills.

• Solid experience of quantitative research is a must
• A good understanding/experience of qual a bonus!
• Good awareness of developments in media and technology and ideally experience in conducting research in these areas
• Experience of presenting and of contributing to debrief presentations/analysis
• In search of a forward looking role in a non trad research agency

We see this role as suiting an existing research manager or an experienced senior research executive. Salary negotiable dependent on experience.

To enquire further about both roles, please contact (with attached CV) Andy Crysell

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It's all well and good asking the experts for their take on the year ahead, but it's equally important to understand what 'the people' (for want of a considerably better term) think the next 12 months has in store.

We took to the streets to canvas opinion on what people expect and/or want to see happening in 2012, with a heavy skew towards things digital. The three most salient themes to emerge were as follows -

• Targeted content: much debate on whether a little privacy is, or is not, worth losing in return for content that has your name written all over it.

• Simplifying the social network experience: consensus that things have become just to complicated and that there's a need to get back to basics.

• Online versus offline: particularly in relation to retail, a heightened focus on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Check the vid below...

trendsSocial Media

Crowd DNA embraces the January transfer window (we'll stop the football metaphors right there, though, before we start banging on about tricky wingers or midfield generals...), welcoming new research manager Chris Kebbell to our team. With five years client-side experience in the research department at international broadcaster CNBC under his belt, Chris brings extra firepower to our media skillset, with a particular focus on the quant side of things.

Like almost everyone else at Crowd DNA, Chris also owns a bicycle. But he's peddled his all the way to Russia and back (he's an expert on Soviet/Cold War history to boot) and therefore not just up and down Kingsland Road...

Crowd DNA

2012 greetings from all at Crowd DNA (symbolic new year sunrise pic shot from the window of our Shoreditch office; honest), and hope this proves an exciting, rewarding and an all-round action-packed 12 months.

We're kicking off the year grappling with topics such as the following: mobile phones and the parent/child purchase decision; music consumption habits in France; the role of UGC in media offerings across Europe; what content/opportunities get 'superfans' excited; multiple flavours of media meshing; various influencer communities; assessing multi-market sport and celeb gossip preferences; and tracking changes in the fashion accessory market.

Plenty to be getting on with, then, but we're always on the look out for a new challenge, so don't hesitate to get in touch (similarly, we're always happy to head out to meet prospective clients to share ideas and insights). We've got plans for various new products, tools and events in 2012 as well, so do stay tuned...

Crowd DNA

Season's greetings from all at Crowd DNA and big thanks to clients, contributors and co-conspirators as we wrap up what's been another amazing year. We grown considerably in numbers (staff and billings); we've cracked new categories; developing some excellent new tools and approaches (Impact DNA, Youth DNA, Crowd Communities); and we've squared up to an incredibly diverse range of research challenges – from iPad launches and media meshing trends, to understanding X-Factor superfans, conducting FMCG product development, building award winning online research initiatives and innovative campaign effectiveness work.

Along the way, we've hung out with farmers and music fanatics, got Brazilian guys to make us videos of them shaving, filled our heads with more info on French attitudes to sport and celebrity than we ever thought we would, tracked conversations around a car launch in every corner of of the world, sat on the sofa with dedicated gamers, got people to wear stop motion cameras around their necks, and experienced every taste and colour combo imaginable as part of new beverage range launches.

We'll be here right through to December 23 but, if we don't catch up with you before, have a lovely break and here's to more good fun and compelling challenges in 2012.

Crowd DNA

It’s quite an unusual concept, to question the value of money as a construct in our everyday world, and to imagine ways of living without it. While alternative currencies have been around since long before money as we know it was created, we’re seeing increased enthusiasm in the developed world not just for substitute currency but also the creation of new currencies.

At Crowd DNA we feel that this renewed interest is in part due to the resourcefulness that economic hardship produces, in part due to internet enabled connectivity and part a new hacking mentality in the west.

When times are tough, money is tight and lack of trust in state control is pervasive, it is natural for people to voice their ideas for how they could ‘do things better’. With networking capability having reached new heights in developed society, the potential for these voices to be heard both locally and globally has sparked new ways of thinking, doing and bending the rules. As anti-establishment ways of thinking are adopted by do-gooders in society, the idea spreads that hacking the system is the optimal solution for living well.

Through times of great social and economic struggle we’ve witnessed regression to alternate currencies from communities both urban and remote, developed and not. During the Great Depression in the USA, rabbits tails and wooden discs were traded by businesses; Curitiba in 1970s Brazil saw the government boost the economy and the local community by distributing bus tokens as currency in return for litter clearing. Ithaca Hours is the New York based, oldest alternate currency in the world and very much still in use – one Ithaca hour of time is now worth US $10. Alternate currencies have allowed communities to survive in hard times, but they have usually been considered a short term solution, inferior to wider, state controlled fiscal policies and mint-produced money.

Over the past few years we’ve seen a big grassroots refocus on the idea of currency and playing around with it. We have trading in alternate currencies of time, skills and goods popping up like the Camden Time Bank, The People’s Supermarket, Freecycle, GoodGym, fashion swapshops and The Brixton Pound to name a few. In wildly unpredictable financial markets, people are redefining value skills and knowledge that they can provide and are in need of within communities, whether they be on or offline. They are practising unconventional transacting. We also have people creating new, virtual currencies such as Bitcoins and Linden dollars, which can be exchanged for US dollars.  We look to explore why.

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Our society is getting used to a non-conformist ideal. Average Joe and Jane aren’t convinced anymore that slaving to the system is working for them. Having played by the rules, they’re not reaping the rewards. They may have been made redundant, daycare for the kids has been shut down and their high street clothes are falling apart. Our consumerist values have shot us in the foot. People want to find other ways to acquire stuff, whether that be advice or a new garden bench, and they want more real connections to others. Economic Anthropologist Keith Hart calls money ‘an instrument of impersonal relations’; we are now focusing on creating networks of people sharing ideas, skills, time and starting initiatives to make things better, on a much more personal level.

Bartering and exchange isn’t just a way of getting free stuff, and importantly this explains why the rich and the poor are taking part in such initiatives in equal measures. It’s now acceptable to be anti-establishment, to hack the system, to love thyself and they neighbour but not the government or God. The word ‘hacking’ has gone from conjuring pictures of criminals committing fearful activity online, to alluding to playful, clever and creative ways of bending systems, using connectivity to achieve personal and social good. The Guardian newspaper even has a part of its Technology section dedicated to hacking (and we don’t mean the NOTW type).

Sugru, the moldable silicon product that allows you to fix and amend household items, tells us to ‘Hack things better’ in its strapline. It has become iconic in creative communities interested in this idea of living life differently. Their website is all ‘Power to the (handy) people!’ sentiment.This is not about dodgy deals or making do - it’s about making the choice to go against the grain of our ‘given roles’ as consumers by buying less.

Interestingly, this has happened at the same time as the act of handing over cash has become less visible and tangible, as we substitute our coins and notes for contactless payment cards and mobile wallets (here). The idea that financial exchange is becoming more invisible is interesting in light of the popularity of alternative currencies of exchange, where no money at all changes hands. Radical ideas such as Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, whereby ‘participants’ do not buy or sell anything, but barter everything from sun cream to yoga classes are now inspiring the masses. It’s partly about self-sufficiency, and partly about being dependent on others to get by, and this pre-historic model of living is increasingly attractive to modern urbanites.

In trendy groups such as Metrosexuals in New York we’re hearing that upcycling is the new craze, and manipulating normal codes of conduct further, the coolest geeks in Silicon Valley and beyond are creating new currencies altogether using code.  Is money disappearing?

Bitcoins for example, are a ‘peer to peer cryptocurrency’, created by Japanese Satoshi Nakamoto that allow unregulated transactions across the internet, their value is unstable and they have no physical embodiment. They exist outside of any centralised financial authority and are untraceable to a large extent. This means that online transactions using Bitcoins achieve a higher degree on anonymity than any other digital option right now. There are also services which allow you to cash them in for American dollars, in much the same was as Linden dollars, the virtual cash of Second Life. Now, what is created online has very real effects on the economy offline - virtual goods are now worth $3 billion (here). Sometimes, mildly archaic ideas turn into new ways of living – many people now earn their full income from exchanging goods in virtual worlds.

Our desire to create new ways of living without money changing hands could be a stab at making life more meaningful and personal, where lives lead are increasingly insular. It makes sense that we’re looking for more qualitative ways to live life. It could be that disillusioned by modern living, we’re harking back to gift economies from more than 5000 years ago, relying on others to survive and seeing the social rewards, rather than focusing solely on acquisition of money for ourselves.

Now, we need to consider how brands could and should be using that germinating idea of alternative currencies to build consumer engagement.

Brands must adapt to human behavioural change, they cannot always create it. The value of being culturally plugged in to shifting norms can’t be underestimated, especially when it comes to topics such as our conceptualization of currency, value and spending, all three of which are being affected by prevalent sharing, bartering and exchanging behaviours.

A recent ethnographic research project we conducted UK wide with young people revealed that reciprocity is vital for brand affinity. Youth want something in return for their creative input, they adore it when brands barter with them, and don’t treat them like passive recipients. Asking something of people is a widely recognised psychological trick to create the idea of a pre-existing relationship – strangers don’t normally ask you to do them a favour, so when they do you attribute them status closer to ‘friend’ than brand – they’ve flattered you.

People have opened up to the exchange of ideas and goods, and hosting this on a global scale. Brands were second to the scene here, and so should be able to recognise that their role is facilitator and not leader first and foremost. People start these initiatives to go against traditional consumerism and so brands getting involved can seem counter intuitive. However brands can achieve affiliation with such schemes through genuinely and humanely helping to grow these ideas, putting real people on the ground, listening and providing infrastructure. Nokia did this when they created the mobile platform for Freecycle, allowing people to access the site any time from their pockets. It’s about brands being a part of a network which will exist and grow with or without them – full of creative, highly motivated people.

Brands have long been interested in how they can amass social currency. They can now definitely tap into our ‘in vogue’ desire to hack the system, to build communities around helping each other out and celebrate doing things differently. It’s not about forgetting about the bottom line, it’s about thinking more broadly about how to provide consumers with things they need, in more inventive and collaborative ways.

BehaviourCommunityRetail

Crowd DNA seeks a skilled, energised, open-minded associate director to join our team, working on innovative and noteworthy projects for top notch clients.

You will have good experience at least at research manager level and potentially in an existing director role. Next to first rate online/offline qualitative know-how, sound knowledge of quant will be advantageous, too; as will experience in media and technology research.

You'll be confident at all points from developing pitches to fieldwork and analysis. First rate presentations and written material will come naturally to you (we're passionate about weaving compelling narratives into our work); and you'll be confident and composed enough to manage a number of projects concurrently, if required. Your work at Crowd DNA will combine both hands-on project management/fieldwork when the in-coming projects demand it, and working as one of two team leaders, directing research managers, execs and freelancers, and reporting in to Crowd DNA's managing director. You will also play a key role in mentoring staff and overseeing their development.

The role comes with a competitive salary, bonus and holiday allowance, decent work hours (we don't start till 10am; whoop!); oh yeah, and a nice and shiny Mac laptop.

Contact andy@crowdDNA.com to discuss further

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