Justin Bieber is the most searched for celebrity on the internet and has the most viewed youtube video in history. His debut album, My World, was the highest grossing debut by any artist in 2009 and he is the first artist in history to have seven songs from his debut album reach the “Billboard Hot 100.”

At this point you’re probably asking yourself: “Who is this kid and how did he do it?”

Scooter Braun, who discovered the child star and is now Justin’s manager, offers some insight:

1. When Justin was discovered, he had 5 videos on YouTube, with the highest viewed having about 70,000 hits. Justin opened a Twitter account and with a year interacting with fans and uploading home-made videos to YouTube. He already had millions of fans when his album launched.

2. Justin’s appearances see uncontrollable crowds flocking to see him. A video of a 3 year old girl crying over Justin has over 13 Million views on youtube! As Braun says, “Kids would rather discover something on the Internet than hear it on the radio… there’s a sense of ownership.  People feel more connected to Justin, and they deserve to, because they made him.”

3. Justin’s dedication to social media tools like youtube and twitter give him unprecedented insight into his fan base. When asked about next steps Braun remarked, “the next step is to figure out what the fans want and give it to them. We know a lot of kids want to see Justin in a movie and now we’re preparing for that.”

4. In order to prevent Justin from becoming another soon-to-be-forgotten child star, Braun researched former child stars who had fallen from grace. What he found was that “the talent was always there, but their heads got too big and swollen and they forgot that without the fans you’re absolutely nothing.”. We often see companies get so big and removed from their consumer base that they have no idea how to interact with the public (BP?).

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Most of this is:

a) Fairly obvious and

b) Simple to do

but requires a will to stick to a plan and make sure you adapt your social media content to the needs of the audience. You probably think that the story above does not apply to you or your company but as all of us start to live our lives in public then we are responsible for our own brand.

Justin has crafted a beautiful brand around what the kids want, why can’t you carve out a brand around what your customers want – that is assuming you know what your customer want!

I shamelessly stole this title from an illuminating article in New Scientist (2739/40/41) in which the author talks about the risk of modern man being enslaved by gadgets, technology and (demanding) services. I am old enough (44) to remember a time before mobile phones, email, Facebook and Gowalla – it now seems odd if I leave the house without my iPhone loaded with access to email, Google maps, Gowalla or Twitter. I feel naked.It certainly does seem that we are being drawn more and more into a world of slavery as our gadgets take over and sometimes demand more of us than we want. The tables, it seems, have turned from our technology being there to serve use.

A great deal of technology undoubtedly still helps us and provides extremely valuable support in carrying out our day to day functions, but I strongly feel that in many cases this is overkill and can actually weigh us down. Technology should be able to set us free and complement our work and play time, making us more productive and happier.

This dependency on real-time technology has been bothering me for quite some time and as a result I’ve made a conscious attempt to change my lifestyle and, more importantly, my work style to better deal with these (perceived) pressures. It’s quite simple to create a better, more relaxed framework when dealing with all this modern technology.

(Not so) famously Baz Luhrmann released a song in 1999 called “Sunscreen” where he dished out useful life advice to the young including the need to “wear sunscreen”.

In honour of Baz, I intend to dispense my advice forthwith (sic).

1. Simplify all the technologies you use, right down to the basics. You don’t need most of the very latest gubbins that manufacturers throw at you so don’t use it unless it gives you a distinct and large benefit.

Simple computing is better, simple email is better.

If you can’t use the product or the application without resorting to a manual then it’s probably too complicated.

2. Create a location-free information environment. Not 99%. Ensure everything you need to do for work or play can be done anywhere. This will free your location and your time as you can choose to do work or play or family anywhere. You will note the use of the word CHOOSE.

3. Don’t chase the latest gizmo unless the latest gizmo is MUCH better than the gizmo you have now. If you use an iPhone 3Gs now then you’ll really struggle to find a reason to upgrade to an iPhone 4.

4. Value your learning time. Don’t waste it upgrading applications to add crap features you don’t need, don’t waste it playing Farmville or reading Stephen Fry’s twittering.

5. Read. Books, magazines, blogs, news. Use technology (Diigo, Reddit, Evernote etc) to queue up interesting things to learn and research about; and then make sure you go back and look at them.

6. Social interactions need to be with people. Virtual can work but come at a price not understood yet. Get out, meet people. Go to the pub.

7. Work when you want to. If you don’t feel like working then you’ll produce crap. If you don’t feel like working very much then change your job, or career, or lifestyle.

8. Don’t forget your family. They’ll give you the greatest support and the best inspiration for anything you do in life and you’ll do the same for them – if you find the time.

9. Everything changes and life is not fair. Get used to it. The phrase “move on” means the same as “adapt”. Learn to adapt and make change your weapon, not your enemy.

10. Most advice is bad, including this, but a lot can be learned from watching other people and picking out the bits you like and that fit you. The internet is a great place to watch people.

So there it is, 10 key pointers to a simpler, happier life. I’m probably wrong but I’m certainly correct in saying you’ll need to do something to liberate yourself from gadget slavery. Happy revolution.

Then came along the social media boom, with myspace, facebook and Youtube at the forefront. Introduction of online social media created a snowball effect for people using it more and more to connect with friends and using it’s tools to help promote up and coming events/share music/video/photos etc.

So as these sites gained in popularity I took advantage of this to tell the world what events are going on. Not using this method is without doubt selling yourself short to gain popularity of events. Facebook is the first port of call for whenever I am setting up an event by simply uploading related artwork, adding content telling people in detail, where? When? Who’s playing etc. and then distributing across my network. Then telling my friends to invite their friends and so on……after the event I add photos and video from the night to share with people who could or couldn’t make it.

Other nights such as the legendary Back To Basics (the longest running weekly club night in the world) uses Facebook heavily, posting information on events each week. See the below link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=101739476531177&ref=ts

Here is a link to my next event:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=10150136403150301&ref=ts

During December, January and February a new presence was crafted with a new web site, an updated Wikipedia entry to rival the best and a host of other initiatives including Facebook. The culmination of this work was an official launch party and subsequent concert the day after the new site was launched. An innovation in this concert was that conductor Natalia Luis-Bassa spoke at some length to the audience in between items, describing and analysing them quite humorously.

The concert was attended by a posse of 25 Connected teamies who all went along to support the orchestra. A great night was had by all and the concert was a resounding success with some great reviews.