“2011: What a Year! Now off for a Happy & Productive 2012!”

By Elizabeth Filippouli

Our World in 2011

What a year has 2011 been! The year of the news overload one could rightly say!

From political and media scandals to natural disasters, revolutions and brutal killings, the shattering headlines just kept coming through the entire year allowing no let-up and a few moments to digest the impact of one story before a new one hit the wires.

The imminent implosion of Greece and the tremors threatening the entire Eurozone or the Norwegian massacre could have been enough to keep the audience interested and engaged for weeks –if not months. But as if these were not enough, we were to experience more relentless information bombardment: the Arab Spring, the famine in the horn of Africa, the Murdoch affair, the imminent collapse of the Italian economy, the American debt ceiling, the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, the tornadoes in Arkansas and Ohio, the Royal Wedding, Dominique Strauss-Khan’s sex scandal story, Amy Winehouse’s untimely death….phew! I am exhausted to even attempt a quick research in my overloaded memory!

According to Google (and who is more reliable in tracking and presenting global interest trends?) here are some selections and interesting data the “2011 Zeitgeist”:

The fastest rising star has been Rebecca Black who made a big splash on the Internet with the release of her 2011 pop single “Friday.” The music video catapulted the then 13-year-old to celebrity status after the video went viral, receiving over 167 million views on YouTube.

Searches for Google+ peaked the week of July 10, 2011, almost 2 weeks after its launch, and then again on September 20, 2011 with the announcement of open sign-ups.

Best known for his daredevil stunts on the reality TV shows “Jackass” and “Viva La Bam,” Ryan Dunn lost his life in a car accident on June 20, 2011 at the age of 34.

Searches for Casey Anthony skyrocketed during the week of July 3, 2011, after a jury found the 22-year-old mother not guilty, and the public began to fixate on her life after the trial.

Searches for Steve Jobs grew 982% in 2011, making the creative genius the 9th fastest rising search on Google. How big was Steve Jobs? People’s interest in the Apple co-founder exceeded their fascination with American President Barack Obama through all of 2011.

How significant was the Japan nuclear crisis? Searches for 東京 電力 were 35% higher than for the keyword pizza during the week of March 13, 2011. Searches for 東京 電力 (TEPCO) rose so quickly and at such high volume that the keyword landed a spot on our fastest rising list, despite Japanese-language representing only 4.7% of total Internet users.

Global Thinkers in 2011

For us at Global Thinkers, 2011 has been a very very exciting and very productive year featuring some fantastic projects, new clients and partnerships!

To highlight but a few: Our work for Camelot UK has been a fascinating project as we had the honour to work with the superb National Lottery marketing team and very successfully support them in Camelot’s online presence monitoring and reputation management.

“Elizabeth, thanks. You did a great job and we should definitely have a debrief to learn lessons. It also adds weight to the real need to have this service and review how proactive we need to be”, Richard Peel – Director Corporate Affairs Camelot

Later in the year, in May, we had the amazing opportunity to collaborate with IIIJ’s Director David Nordfors in putting together his pioneering Innovation Journalism 8 Conference at Stanford University, CA.

In August we began our collaboration with Oxford Entrepreneurs the largest student entrepreneurship society in the world, with around 7,000 members! Global Thinkers helped the transformation of the OE public image and introduced some top-end names and partnerships to OE.

“I can’t thank you enough Elizabeth. It’s clear why Global Thinkers is doing so well under your leadership”, Husayn Kassai- President Oxford Entrepreneurs

NewsXchange in November 2011 has been another fantastic convention that Global Thinkers had the honour to be associated with! In the #1 event in the Global Media Industry, GT organized a debate on: Innovation vs. Journalism, featuring four big names in the fields of Innovation and Journalism: Marc Ventresca of Oxford University, Chris Cramer, Tim Cabral, Francesco Basterra.

Despite the overwhelming technological trends, it was Journalism that won the 500-strong international audience!

The Innovation vs. Journalism debate was highly rated by all NX11 survey respondents and, in fact, named as one of the top three sessions by approximately one-quarter of respondents. Across all respondents, it was rated in the top five, which was excellent and made the GT team SO proud!

Before 2011 expires Global Thinkers announced the Global Thinkers Forum 2012 to take place in Jordan next year to promote “Women in the MENA-Power & Creativity”.

Global Thinkers Forum 2012: Women & Power

And last but not least, in December 2011 GT launched the first and only Exclusive Lifestyle Concierge Service for the Chinese upper class: Select 168!

The New Year 2012 is already filling up with some fantastic new projects plus ongoing collaborations for GT. Our Team is growing, getting even more international, more innovative and full of fresh, productive ideas!

We are looking forward to another fascinating year, meeting new people, new projects and tackling new challenges!

A Happy, Exciting and Productive 2012!

Onwards and upwards,

Elizabeth