Edelman Melbourne Instagram Challenge

Lonely Christmas is my favourite!

lunch time!

Lunch time or lonely Christmas!

I love lunch time – it’s just so melbourne – I love the place!

I vote for The loneliness post Christmas

The loneliness post Christmas is my winner

Love ‘Lunch Time!’ (no surprises there…)

Mine goes to Alex’s Loneliness Post Christmas

Lunch Time.

Lunch time

I Like Lunch time by Emma

lunch time

It’s a little bias however I vote for lunchtime by moi

Loneliness Post Christmas.

Lunch time has it for me

David McC

Basement.

What an absolute waste of time!  Haven’t you guys got anything better to do?  Particularly when you’re meant to be PR specialists and can communicate in ways which challenge others to think or act!?  Isn’t there some cause you can talk about…something that matters?  Abattois?  Starving children?  Dying species? Injustice?  Anything? Or aren’t you allowed to offer your thoughts on the real world from inside the factory?  Disappointed to say the least….(I’m guessing you won’t even let this comment go live!)

Hi Jaypee. Thank you for your
feedback.  The Instagram challenge was a bit of fun for our Melbourne team
in our down time to increase our creativity and encourage us and
other members of the PR and communications community to interact with an app
that is causing ripples in the social media world.  In regards to having
something better to do we actually dedicate a tremendous amount of resource at
our own cost to helping good causes including Make Poverty History, Planet
Water and the Cancer Council to name just three.
 

I guess it was the word ‘challenge’ that got me!  A challenge is much more than this activity:

Challenge is:1. a call or summons to engage in any contest, as of skill, strength, etc.2. something that by its nature or character serves as a call to battle, contest, special effort, etc.: Space exploration offers a challenge to humankind.3. a call to fight, as a battle, a duel, etc.4. a demand to explain, justify, etc.: a challenge to the treasurer to itemize expenditures.5. difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it.

It frustrates me to see people diminish the true power or gravitas of a word or words and I’m seeing it everywhere throughout the mediasphere, both online and offline. Words are being butchered and misused.  Words are losing their emotional value as they vie for space in sentences which themselves are quickly thrown together in order that the writer can quickly punch out the next quip or directive.  I find it hard to believe that anyone is truly absorbing information these days.  I think most are digesting bits and not bytes.  

As for Instagram, which is described as ‘a fast, beautiful (?) and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures’, I think it’s a fad – just another brand of chewing gum for the eyes* – it’s a distraction, a means to trivialize reality, to grab it, distort it and manipulate it because it’s not good enough as it is.  How many images can you fit on your wall before you have to take them down?  And then what do you do with them?  Store them in a closet?  What about the phrase ‘Please consider the environment before printing’? Does your firm use that statement at the end of your emails? Besides that, each sheet was once part of a tree!  Does your paper come from a sustainable forest? And each print requires ink, which comes from a cartridge, which needs to be replaced…etc, etc, etc. I could go on, but I won’t as I’m sure you’ve got the idea or I’ll bore you to tears.

Anyway, I understand it’s a little fun during your ‘down time’ and I guess it’s your prerogative to choose what you do to entertain the crew. But run a competition to choose photo’s your team take?  Why not ask people to suggest a theme and invite anyone to provide a picture?  Why not make it more socially engaging? Otherwise it’s just another ‘in-house’ agency creative whatchamathingy weekly team building scam.

As for helping good causes, I can’t seem to find anything on Edleman’s involvement in Make Poverty History, Planet Water or the Cancer Council.  I did however, find this:

Edelman understands the stakeholder expectations of companies and the evolving communications and media environment. We help increase trust, change behavior, engage communities and achieve commercial success. With creative ideas, a passion for our work and enthusiasm for our clients, we provide insight-based solutions with tangible business outcomes.

Forgot to add the * which attributed to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_W._Friendly

In a basement in a lane there is music

Really? You are reading the blog of a PR firm and you take the time to post such a long post against them taking a few pics and having a bit of fun (in their own time) with a tool that is being used more and more?
If you’re that concerned about what people do in their down time, and that it should be dedicated to more ‘honourable’ pursuits, think of the good you could have done if you devoted your attention to help others rather than writing the rant you have just left above…

Loneliness post Christmas