Archetypes in magazines

Even though we are researching in the digital space, and my main passion lies at the internet and digital media, I will always have a soft spot for magazines, Especially independent magazines. Next to my iPad, I always have a big pile of magazines waiting to be read. I read magazines offline as well as on my iPad. I must say, reading magazines on a digital device leaves something to be desired. For instance, you don't have the tactile feeling of knowing how far you are in a magazine. It doesn't have a nice way to flip the pages fast, just to get a feel of the magazine. That's why I will keep reading magazines in print. This led me to the Facing Pages festival in Arnhem this weekend. An intimate festival to celebrate independent magazines worldwide. Where else would you find magazines on Meatculture right next to a stencilled personal 'zine dedicated to DWDD's presenter Matthijs van Nieuwkerk? The festival revolves around three rooms: The lecture room, the exhibition and the lobby with magazine store. To start with the last. Amsterdam based Atheneum Bookstore runs the popup store with a great selection of magazines. I have found some great titles with outrageous designs. Some of the magazines have their digital counterpart, but to tell you the truth, they don't hold up to the real thing in your hands.

Tagged with: archetype, magazine, festivals,

Event12: been there, done that...

Since we are finalizing our current research on festivals and working towards a publication in September, we are coming out of our research closet! Last week a ‘snippet’ of our research was presented at the international ASCA meeting in Amsterdam by Jelke de Boer en Michiel Rovers. This concerned the somewhat surprising result of social media users having lower scores on motivation question, before as well as during the festival. Could it be that social media users are less intrinsically motivated and more ‘instrumental’, scanning what leisure opportunities are available and choosing which one fits most conveniently? And are social media users during a festival more pre-occupied with showing they are ‘there’ at the festival (‘look at me!’) instead of being in the moment of experiencing the festival? Putting a mobile phone between you and the performing artist is a physical act of distancing yourself from what is happening around you by literally putting media between you and your surroundings. Adformatie also picked up these surprising results, and although being wrongly quoted on it, was further evidence for us that people are interested in our research.

Tagged with: media strategy game, festivals, experience,

How to cope with social media use of employees that concern your organization: “threat or addition”?

More and more organizations are implementing social media in their communication strategy to communicate to their external and internal stakeholders. Vice versa social media are also being used by employees to share daily activities, concerns or other organization-related content with their online social network. Employees are increasingly present during working hours and in spare time on social media. Almost one third of the employees are regularly posting organization-related messages, according to a study of Verhoeven (2012). So the question how to deal with content posted by employees on social networks that concern the organization is increasingly important.
Recently the national railways of the Netherlands (NS) has send official warnings to employees who posted messages on Twitter about defective coffee machines and used (#) hash tags of the organization and (#) fail during the winter period. This in turn could cause, from the perspective of the NS, damage to the organization.

Tagged with: employees, social media use, organization brand, festivals,

A satisfying Christmas dinner?

As a follow up to my last blog on the measurement of quality, experience, satisfaction & loyalty, let’s take a closer look at satisfaction, as we did in the context of our festival research program. Satisfaction is characterised by most researchers as an ‘emotional response’, a response to a certain service; or as an ‘emotional state’, an affective psychological outcome of visitors’ experience. What this experience includes stays mostly unclear. In contrast to explanations how satisfaction comes about, no less than four models are usually presented to assess consumer satisfaction (taken from: Yoon & Uysal - An examination of the effects of motivation and satisfaction on destination loyalty: a structural model. Tourism Management 2005, 26, pp. 45-56).

Tagged with: satisfaction, festivals, christmas,

(my) Life is a festival

Sometimes all pieces of the puzzle come together. Last week I got this feeling at Festivak, a congress for festival organizations in RAI Amsterdam. In one afternoon my past, present and future festival experience passed before me eyes. Here is a short summary of my festival life in one afternoon.

Tagged with: crowdsourcing, festivals, participation,

Online versus real life experiences

It is a well known fact that the internet has brought with it many changes to the world economy, society and the daily lives of people. As people use the media and applications to define their identities (as I argued in my last blog), these developments and opportunities that accompany them might even be important for people’s perceptions and values. The popularity of internet applications results in their being used regularly to provide services for the general public. Besides that, the interactivity also creates opportunities for consumers to be proactive in gaining new experiences. As a result, the ways people choose to attend, prepare and experience events have changed.

Tagged with: museumkompas, festivals, experience,

DeBeschaving

Today, at the festival DeBeschaving members of the Crossmedialab were present to promote their concepts (among them BandSpot). Also a survey was held among the festival visitors, a survey (the 'eventmonitor') that is being developed by researchers of the Crossmedialab. A publication on the experience of festivals, with data from this survey will be published shortly. Furthermore, we also had fun watching DazzledKid, Kensington and so many other acts (a snail race, and of course Elvis lives....)

Tagged with: festivals, debeschaving, experience,