Building on opinion
Some examples and design principles
for social media frameworks.
David Bausola, Ag8.

Hello, I’m David.
Half service designer, half creative technologist.
I spend a lot of time researching how society works with
software and where it creates value.
In the studio, my focus on how storytelling, gaming,
utilities and commerce can work together to create
inventive frameworks for culturally relevant
productions.

About Ag8
We are a design studio. We design frameworks.
A framework is an opportunity, that:
1. Brings together editorial, technical, commercial and
operations to produce business within convergence
culture.
2. Alleviates the problem of noise in communications by
replacing the primary need of sending and receiving
messages with social currency functions.

Oh, tweet your questions as we go.
We’ll do them afterward, if that’s ok with you.
twitter.com/zeroinfluencer
or use the #canvas8 tag.

Examples, then design principles.
1. Some examples of frameworks using social media.
2. Some design principles for developing frameworks.

Example Frameworks
Where are the Joneses? - Riot - Purefold

Where are the Joneses?
Commissioned by Ford of Europe via Imagination.
A distributed entertainment platform for the internet that disperses
Ford design brand values through participation in story telling.
The Development
“Sitcom in a blog” based upon “Dawn and her 27 sperm donor siblings”
Used distributed under Creative Commons.
Audience feedback through blog, wiki and social media.
92 Episodes over 3 months, publishing 5 minute episode daily, producing
8 hour of video total.
The production was in partnership with comedy experts Baby Cow.

Simplified Use Case
Audience and cast Audience and characters
Wiki Script Film Blog
Producers

Key Learnings.
Relentless episodic productions are hard for an audience
to keep up with.
Real time logistics are very possible with light weight
production teams.
Use of improvisation based talent was key to daily
scripting, filming and production.

Riot.
Commissioned by Adidas via TBWA / 180 Amsterdam
A digital studio that can support Adidas’ online social media
activities.
The Development
A create factory for social media activity so that the client can
publish cultural responses to sporting achievements in real-time.
Using a mix of third party and brand owned properties, to produce,
distribute, aggregate and promote user generated sporting commentary.
Focus the attention around the high achievers in non-professional
sport fans.

Simplified Use Case
Audience
Social Media Produce Social Media
Sports Event
Conversations Response platforms
Agency

Key Learnings.
Look at culture as an operating system.
The language for multi-disciplinary teams needs
normalizing.
The audience will always be faster on news than even a
dedicated news team.
Enhance the audiences commentary as much as inspire
theirs.

Purefold.
Commissioned by RSA Films
An open licence franchise for film makers, supported by
sponsors, that works for the internet, brands and audiences.
The Development
Storytelling framework for film and marketing for RSA films, to
tell the story of what it means to be human through the state of
empathy, inspired by the ethos of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Using real-time streams of social media conversations, filtered
by synopsis and proposition filters, create relevant themes for
openly distributed films.

Simplified Use Case
Proposition
filters
Social Media Script & Social Media
Streams Shoot platforms
Synopsis
Filters

Key Learnings.
“Open Media Franchise” is a social enterprise.
Real-Time Web mechanics will create continuous streams
of content.
Interested in the role of empathy in social media, used
as a way to inform the project’s framework.
Commercially Open license to enable brands and fans to
develop the narratives freely and for profit.

Framework Components
Editorial
Technology
Commercial
Operations

Editorial
The Framework functions as a factory. The design of it
will influence the content of the style.
Use the internet for the design, production and
distribution of the framework - not just distribution.
Iteratively design and respond to social events outside
the project’s editorial - audiences look for social
relevancy - both current and future.

Technical
If you are looking to use bleeding edge technologies, be
acutely aware of their fail rate and their competition.
Don’t waste budget by building infrastructure - many
services will do it better.
Design with secondary services in mind - the project
must be platform agnostic.

Commercial
Using the Creative Commons “Attribution Sharelike”
commercially opens you to more inventive business
alliances than closed ones.
This leaves the project open to new commercial
opportunities without dealing with clashes.

Operations
We look to work with companies that can extend frameworks in
ways we could never imagine. Further, under an open license, we
encourage partners to develop their own external business on
top of our own.
The universe of freelancers brings a fantastic level of detail
when designing and producing.
The use of web services to design and produce the project is as
important as the production itself. Real time chat
communication embedded into wikis is highly recommended.

Design Principles
Some considerations to the role of
communications and currency.

Designing the perfect balance
The collaboration and balance between these 4 areas:
- editorial: (The topics)
- commercial: (Business practice)
- operations: (Day to day and Horizon)
- technical: (Functionality)
defines the form of the project - thus they need to be
designed in order to run smoothly, not arbitrarily
aligned. Together, they make the ‘experience’.

Finding the raw material
Social web is driven by opinion - all web services find
ways to enhance/exploit this. These constant, real-time
streams of opinions are normally our raw material.
Example:
Purefold - what do people expect/want from the near
future?

Creating value through reuse
The focus of the frameworks is to produce value not to
produce communications.
People need more usable media than commercial
communications.
Information that can be commercially reused is of great
value - value is enhanced when information is reused.

Error
Correction
Message Sender Channel Receiver Message
Noise
Moving away from information theory...
Information theory states that communications must pass
through noise to reach the person receiving the message.
This noise can be physical (hiss on a phone line) or
social, where meaning is obscured by context or cultural
events.
Information theory is an analogue ideology of
communications. There is an urgent need to find digital
alternatives.

Person B Message Person A
Currency
Transaction
Framework
...towards Transaction Design.
To replace the noise issue in communication and find
ways to bring more value to messaging, we are
experimenting with Transaction Design.
A transaction is an agreement between 2 parties.
They have a shared currency to exchange with.
The value of the service provider is in the currency.

Thank you. Questions?
David Bausola
www.Ag8.com
David@Ag8.com
twitter.com/zeroinfluencer