Infinita supports newly launched m.LOVE initiative

Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt famously said, “if you’ve got visions, you should go see a doctor” - we kindly disagree. We are happy to announce our participation in the m.LOVE initiative, a movement aiming to make the mobile world a better place by gathering people passionate about mobile, to share their ideas and visions about the future. For further details, please see the full press release below, and get involved via the m.LOVE website, the Facebook group and YouTube. PRESS RELEASE m.LOVE seeks mobile passionistas for Future of Mobile Mobile World Congress, Valentine’s Day, Barcelona - Spain: Today “m.LOVE” is launching a world wide search for passionate people for the future of mobile. As the world looks to Barcelona, Spain during the next week for news and trends during Mobile World Congress a small group of mobile enthusiasts is starting to talk about m.LOVE and how to make the mobile world a better place. m.LOVE started grass roots from a small group of “mobile passionistas” and is planning a summer camp event to meet and elaborate on the future of mobile. “We call out to passionate people worldwide - that are pushing the envelope of the mobile economy - to meet at m.LOVE and share ideas, visions and make new friends,” says Harald Neidhardt, initiator of m.LOVE and CMO at Smaato Inc. “We want to see how mobile advertising, mobile social communities and the society find solutions to be more engaging in the mobile media of the future.” m.LOVE originated from a first brain storm weekend in the German Alps January 2009 where a group of passionate people started the m.LOVE idea. The group came from mobile operators, advertising agencies, service providers, game developers and mobile entrepreneurs from the USA, UK, France, Germany and Japan. Now the call goes out to passionate people globally to participate in the conversation. “We are at the cusp of positive change and every single one of us can do their part. Mobile is the new medium of choice to foster global understanding and m.LOVE is a catalyst for this change to happen,” comments Jonathan MacDonald, a London based mobile futurist. “m.LOVE was the most inspiring weekend ever”, adds Michael Schade, CEO of mobile game developer Fishlabs. “Japan provides a glimpse of how mobile will be used in the future, and how this shapes society. By being a part of m.LOVE, we are aiming to help drive mobile innovation globally”, says Christopher Billich, SVP Research & Strategy at Tokyo-based Infinita, Inc. About m.LOVE is a movement that brings together people with a passion for mobile from around the world. With a focus on small format conferences, local meet-ups and by-annual gatherings - m.LOVE brings together mobile passionistas in an atmosphere of communication, learning and understanding. m.LOVE participants debates about the future of mobile and how little things can make the world a better place. Founded in January 2009, m.LOVE was initiated by Harald Neidhardt, CMO & Co-Founder of Smaato Inc. Harald is driving forward the notion that passionate people thrive on inspiration and exchange of ideas in a free flow environment with peers. Throughout 2009 and 2010, m.LOVE plans to organize several events to invite more people to join the conversation and present their vision for the future of mobile. The m.LOVE tour includes: London, New York, Singapore, Barcelona, San Francisco, Hamburg, Milan and Tokyo. Contact Email: press@mlovesociety.org Twitter: @mlovesociety #mlove Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/bsyddz Background “Mobile Passionistas” The term passionistas was coined for a market research study presented by Yahoo together with Mediavest for online behavior of “Passionistas: The New Empowered Consumers”: Passionistas seek relevant and timely information, including ads that look and feel like content […] and customized suggestions […] according to the research. They hold their brands to a high standard - and expect intelligent advertising, new approaches and authenticity. These consumers are more likely than average to remix content as a way to play with a brand, using online tools that make it increasingly easy for them to create movies, songs or slideshows to share with their friends. “Being passionate today means digital content sharing and influencing others’ brand perceptions and purchase behaviors,” said Mark McLaughlin, Vice President of Audience Strategies at Yahoo!, “Marketers who build their campaigns from the start with the goal of tapping into passions are inviting consumers to get engaged and create an authentic dialogue.” While this was published in 2007 for the online world, the m.LOVE group is convinced the digital passionistas of today are using mobile as their medium of choice when it comes to sharing and communicating with their friends and peers. Mobile passionistas live around the world. She might be an avid “pro-sumer” that is talking back to her operator and is active within her local community to drive for better service. Or she is an entrepreneur starting or running a company that is pushing the envelope with a mobile application, service or social community site. And by all means there might be passionistas still in hiding in larger corporations such as mobile operators that use the larger set up to drive the agenda for mobile innovation from within. The m.LOVE idea m.LOVE held a first weekend workshop during January 2009 in a castle, high up in the German Alps. Invited by Harald Neidhardt (CMO & Co-Founder of Smaato, Inc.) an international group met and discussed the future of mobile with the notion: “What would you do to change the world if you had all power and resources at your command”. While this was a very open start of discussion, the different work groups came almost to a similar conclusion: we as individuals and collectively in the mobile industry are shaping the future of communication and media - and we need to use it wisely. Throughout the many travels to conferences as speaker or attendee, Harald met some great people in the mobile industry - from start-ups, operators, media or service companies. But like most of us, there are sometimes those special people that become almost friends right away, because you feel a connection. For Harald, people with a passion for mobile and those who are in the drivers seat pushing the envelope are the most interesting to stay connected with. But, as everybody goes back to their busy lives, the idea was born to build a forum for some of those passionistas to meet and extend the time together and discuss about leading edge ideas and innovation. The Context Alvin Toffler, one of the most important futurologists of the 20th century, predicted a future in which technology changes faster than people are able adopt it. As a result people remain in a constant status of shock - a future shock - not capable to handle the enormous amount of change and information they will be confronted with. Toffler’s imagination 40 years ago became part of our daily lives. Frequency and number of sources of information increase every day as well as the quantity of communication channels. Besides news supplied by traditional media like TV, newspapers and email, people provide their thoughts, ideas and impressions on blogs, twitter and to anyone they are connected with on social networks. Due to the fact that mobile internet has grown, all these stories, opinions and states of minds are accessible or even forwarded to your mobile where ever you are, every time - all the time. Evaluation of this increasing amount of information absorbs a major part of our attention. The volume of information transforms into noise and induces an information overload which handicaps any kind of decision-making or progress. We, as communication enthusiasts, believe that it is our responsibility to reduce the noise surrounding us and create an environment for the richest and most valuable experience: social interaction. In order to achieve this target we need help - help to create noise cancelling devices, services, communities or plain “filters”. In quoting Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon: “The task is not to design information-distribution systems but intelligent information-filtering systems.” We do think future begins when we start to imagine it; therefore M.LOVE is introducing a first theme: L.E.A.R.N. - LIFE EXPERIENCE AND REDUCED NOISE. This may become a framework for filtering information based on emotions, explicit preferences, implicit activities and external factors in order to give us time for understanding and accessing truth. Join the discussion how to reduce noise. In order to start to learn about the future we launched m.LOVE, an environment for authentic communication and trust, where communication technologies are discussed in a holistic and sustainable way - an environment where future begins. Inspiration m.LOVE is inspired by movements for the future of advertising like “Every Single One of Us” (Jonathan MacDonald), communication frame works like “love marks” from Saatchi & Saatchi as well as the early work of www.attentiontrust.org (Seth Goldstein) and authors Guy Kawasaki, Clay Shirky and Seth Godin - to name a few.

Posted by:Billich | Entry Date: 2009年2月14日 12:19