"Rooted in the community"

If you go down to the woods today, you'll find something a little bit different in New Lanark! In the continued development of the World Heritage Site on Lanark's doorstep, an exciting new project just been completed. 

In an area of New Lanark which I mostly remember as being a grassy hill, there is now a fantastic facility for families to enjoy: the Clearburn Picnic & Play Area. Walking through the park it's hard to know where to look, as it seems around every bend of the path there is something new for the kids to enjoy. From a 'Bug B&B' and a 'Secret Stage', to my personal favourite the 'Swirling Willow' and 'Once upon a time' story chair. The ingenious design of the play area makes it appear to be part of the landscape, and not just plonked down like other metal and plastic play parks I've seen so many of. The wooden texture and organic forms (like toadstool seats!) of the play area have a real fairy tale feel - and this is only enhanced by the hazy sun filtering through the trees surrounding the park.

There was no ribbon in sight to open the park, instead Willie Macleod, head of the New Lanark Board of Trustees cut a piece of scarlet New Lanark Wool (produced in one of the on site historic mills, don't you know?) to mark the opening of the park. 

Eagerly awaiting the wool to fall were children from local schools who had been involved in the development of the Clearburn Nature Trail. To the sound of applause from parents & on-lookers they formed, what can be called no less than an enthusiastic stampede, over the bridge then shot off in every direction possible to explore their new surroundings. I was slightly jealous that I couldn't join in & hang out on 'Monkey Mayhem', but as a big person I was privy to a bucksfizz and a New Lanark ice cream canape, so I can't complain too much. 

If you live in Lanark or the surrounding areas I'd definitely recommend packing a picnic basket and heading down to Clearburn for the day. Here's how to get there!

Take a peek at the different features of the play area...

Clearburn Picnic & Play Area has been generously supported by The Big Lottery Fund and The Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership. The project has been developed in collaboration with the local community and schools. 

Keep an eye out for more lifestyle/event posts from The Creative Frontier! 

Follow me on Twitter @_Melissa247https://twitter.com/_Melissa247

Greetings from...America!

The jet lag is just about wearing off, and I'm becoming accustomed to sleeping in a proper bed again (who knew the divine powers of a mattress?) since touching down in Glasgow early on Thursday morning after an amazing three weeks in the USA. Myself and 7 other twenty-somethings from around the world journeyed from New York to Los Angeles with trekamerica on the company's famous 'Southern Sun' trip. Whilst I was holding up the Scottish contingent on my own, we had Angela from New Zealand, Roy from Korea and 5 other gals/guys from England. Leading the group was our amazing tour guide Becky, from Washington State. It was such an incredible experience, I'm sure we'll all remember it for years to come. 

After sifting through all of my souvenirs and random artifacts I picked up along the way, I discovered I had quite the postcard collection going on. Whilst I didn't manage to raid a gift shop in each of the 18 states we passed through, the ones I did manage to get are from some of my favourite states/cities we visited: Texas, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Washington D.C.

I love the down right cheesy graphics on some of the postcards. They remind me of the idealistic America I had in my mind before setting off on the trip: big, brash, bold, colourful and a little bit retro. 

For your viewing pleasure, and from a graphic design point of view here's a look at the different styles of postcards you can pick up from sea to shining sea. 

Do you have a favourite postcard? Mine could be glitter-tastic Vegas!

Thanks for reading, Melissa.

Follow me on twitter @_Melissa247

Glasgow 2014: the #BestGamesEver!

Over the past two years I've been on an amazing journey with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games as we geared up to host Scotland's biggest ever sporting and cultural event - and as of Sunday 3 August we can say, we did it!! The Games are being hailed as the #BestGamesEver and I feel immensely proud to have been part of them. Over 1500 staff, 15000 volunteers and 6500 athletes & officials came together to make history. That's not even mentioning the millions of visitors and spectators who came to Glasgow and created a magical and buzzing atmosphere throughout the city that I'm sure many will remember for a long time to come!

My role as Social Media Executive with the Games has now come to an end, so I'm now back in the job market. (here's my linkedin and here's my creative portfolio) First of all though, I'm taking a 3-week trip to the USA with TrekAmerica and will be travelling from New York to LA through the Southern states armed with bug spray and a cowboy hat. I'm pretty excited, as Charlie Flynn would say I'm buzzin' like a jar of wasps! I have no idea where my next job will take me, and I'm pretty open to opportunities but would like to build on my experience in any social, digital, creative, communications, marketing, events type roles - ideally in central Scotland.  

See y'all later! Melissa x

Some Glasgow 2014 reading...
Top 5 social media moments of the Games
Top Home Nations moments
Magical moments of the Games
Glasgow 2014's Unofficial Anthems

Some of my favourite moments...

Ahhh The Queen photo-bombed our selfie!! 😄 👑 #royalty #sheevensmiled #amazing #Glasgow2014 @Hockeyroos @AusComGames pic.twitter.com/ZMtHYFUqHk — Jayde Taylor (@_JaydeTaylor) July 24, 2014

@chrishoy great look towards @Queen_UK #CommonwealthGames #baton #screwtop pic.twitter.com/LhRqzgftQz — Andrew McNab (@Andrew_McNab) July 23, 2014

I never thought I'd be able to stand in the Celtic Board Room in front of the trophy case. . . with no pants. pic.twitter.com/FClLZZm0ke — Rod Stewart (@rodstewart) July 23, 2014

The crowds united to chant on the underdogs - Uganda - at the #2014rugbysevens! #BestGamesEver pic.twitter.com/Zy6aHoahnN
— Glasgow 2014 (@Glasgow2014) August 4, 2014

Without doubt my favourite ever post-match interview from any sport: http://t.co/org2RxwLFf #CharlieFlynn #Character @Glasgow2014
— Fraser Wilson (@Doonhamer79) August 4, 2014

What I'd change about Twitter (and some other social media channels!)

Using social media for work and play, there are a few things about certain channels that are starting to get on my nerves. If I ruled the internet, there are a few usability and feature changes I'd make to some of the main social media contenders to make my life that little bit easier... 

Twitter

• Instead of having to go through a third party site like bit.ly, I'd LOVE it if Twitter had an option to automatically shorten URLs within the desktop site & mobile. It just makes sense!

• It would also be useful to have the ability to 'quote tweet' from the Twitter mobile app - I can't think why this feature is only on desktop? Sometimes you want to explain why you're RT'ing something. (Since writing this post and updating my twitter app you can now do this - someone must have been listening ;) )

• It would be great if the new ability to upload multiple photos was also available on the desktop version of Twitter - it seems to be only on mobile right now. The other day I found myself taking photos on my phone, emailing myself them to edit on Photoshop, then emailing myself them back to download them again and then upload them to Twitter with my phone - ahh!

• In the twitter ads platform it would be really useful if you could have an 'enter now' call to action with a webcard - makes much more sense for running competitions! 

Instagram

• It's kind of annoying that your 'Following' feed doesn't have a scroll or 'more' functionality so you can look through more of your friends' activity. (maybe I'm just nosey)

• The BIG one. Please Instagram, can we have hyperlinks in image descriptions yet? Pretty please with a cherry on top! (it would also be nice if there was an automatic link shortener - see above)

Linkedin

• When you accept someone as a new connection their little profile picture pops up for a second...then disappears! Of course you want to have a nosey at the employment history of this mysterious new connection. Instead of having to go and then (try and remember) their name and search for it, it would be great if you just had a simple 'view their profile' option after connecting with someone. 

Facebook

• Whadda'ya know - I can't think of anything I'd change about Facebook right now as a user. As a page manager that's a different story and a whole other blog post. 

What about you, do you have any social media 'bug bears'? Comment below! (...and let the revolution commence!)

Thanks, Melissa.

A look at the #WorldCup on Twitter so far!

It's here everybody. Last night the FIFA World Cup kicked off and for the next month we'll have football matches on the telly almost (thank goodness!) every day.

I'll put my hands up and admit that I'm really not that interested in football at all...like, not even a little bit. That being said, working at Glasgow 2014 has piqued my interest in how the biggest football event of the year uses social media, with a particular focus on Twitter, to engage and communicate with their fans.

Last night, the first match of the tournament #BRAvCRO, or Brazil vs Croatia to you and I generated over 12.2million tweets during the match. With 3,336 tweets per minute using the hashtag synonymous with the competition, #WorldCup. The tweets came from all over the world with more than 150 countries joining in the conversation. Check out this cool heat-map which visualises the conversation, and shows the huge influx in activity when a goal was scored. 


As we know, people love to share photos via social media - and that was no different last night. Twitter have pulled together an interactive gallery of some of the most shared photos posted during the match, with the top two coming from the Official @FIFAWorldCup account. The most mentioned player of the match was Brazil's top goal scorer @NeymarJ who consequently gained over 165,000 new followers on the day of the match. (10x the amount of followers he gains a day on average)

Look what happened to @neymarjr’s followers after his #BrazilvsCroatia performance https://t.co/YybPLg6pzg pic.twitter.com/891lw3SfYT
— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) June 13, 2014

Taking a look at the official @FIFAWorldCup twitter account we can see that they have 1.47 million followers. Interestingly, the account has been branded as the 'FIFA World Cup' organisation, rather than the individual event IE twitter.com/Brazil2014. This means that in four year's time when the next world cup rolls around they can just 're-brand' the channel and will have a solid follower-base of 2 million +....give or take a few hundred thousand. 

Another thing I find really interesting, and quite surprising is that the channel doesn't seem to offer any customer service facility - from looking at its 'tweets and replies' feed there aren't any direct @mentions to fans which would indicate them answering questions. With so many people using social media to voice their opinions/make enquiries I wonder if they are missing a trick here. On the other hand they may have made a conscious decision to make the channel purely about pushing out the best/most relevant content - and leave the questions about parking spaces to some poor guy on the end of a phone. 

In terms of content so far they seem to be covering a nice range of different types of material. They are giving fans exclusive insights by showing behind-the-scenes content like the players' dressing room and a shot of the stadium before the Opening Ceremony started. They are also sharing the most up-to-date information like team line ups, and live tweeting throughout matches. Not forgetting to engage with the fans, they're also asking a lot of engaging questions - and RT'ing some of the best answers, which always helps in driving up the replies. The web page they seem to be driving the most traffic to is the match specific Live Blog which is pretty nifty showing a range of content like quotes, facts, stats, weather and photos of people wearing carrots on their head. El dente! I mean....GOOOAAALLLLL!

I'll be looking out for interesting content throughout the rest of the tournament and will be saving my cheers for my sweepstake selection. Go Cameroon!

Thanks for reading, Melissa.

Feel free to share - 
Tweet

The CIA's #FirstTweet makes a splash on Twitter.

I woke up this morning and noticed that twitter was all aflutter with talk of the CIA's surprisingly witty first tweet. The secretive government organisation joined Twitter and Facebook yesterday, with a promise of making #unclassified information more widely available to the public. 

We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.
— CIA (@CIA) June 6, 2014

In less than 24 hours the tweet has gained 210 RT's and 120K favourites, driving over 383K followers of the new account. Not bad!

I can't say I know too much about the CIA (does anyone?) but I think they've made a smart move in launching the account with more of a 'human' tone of voice, much unlike the @FBI's account which just seems to robotically post out web links. Everyone loves the glamorous idea of secret missions and spies, so the tone they appear to be planning to use definitely further enhances the 'coolness' of the secretive government organisation. I'll certainly be giving the account a follow, and will be sorely disappointed if I don't see some form of extra terrestrial activity.  

Now I'm wondering if MI5 will follow suit in joining the social network, and if they'll use a similar tone of voice to our American cousins...or if the stiff upper lip will remain. 

A parting thought to the hypothetical land of film. 007's #FirstTweet? 

@Bond007: Shaken, not stirred. 


Tweet

Thanks for reading, 
Melissa x

121 with @AshlyLondon!

Hi everyone! The next blogger to be featured on The Creative Frontier is Fashion, Beauty & Lifestyle Blogger Ashly Rae! Read on to find out what inspired her to start her blog, and the beauty product she can't live without...


What's your name and where are you from?

Ashly, I am from Aberdeen up north in bonny Scotland.

Why did you want to start a blog?

To be honest I kind of started it by accident, I didn't really know what I was doing and found myself typing away about god knows what and here I am today!!

Where do you get your writing inspiration from?

Other blogs, magazines, shopping, what I have been up to.

What channels do you mainly use to promote your blog?

I love twitter, meeting and chatting to new people. Youtube is fab too.

What's your favourite high street clothing shop and why?

New Look because I find the prices are so great.

What's beauty product could you not live without?

My Arbonne intensive renewal serum, makes my face smoother than smooth.

Do you have any tips for someone looking to start a fashion/beauty/lifestyle blog like yours?

Just go for it. Be prepared to but in a lot of time and effort, it is not easy but in the end it is definitely worth it!!

Fashion, Beauty & Lifestyle Blogger
Web: www.ashlylondon.blogspot.com
Twitter: @ashlylondon

If you're a Scottish Blogger who'd like to be featured in the Creative Frontier then just drop me an email at melissa@247-design.co.uk!