We’ve all seen the mad scramble every time Big Brother has it’s yearly audition but when it’s not just for naked fame and glory, how many young people are interested in getting on TV and getting their voices heard?

Well, we are about to find out.

Enter studentvoice.tv. The English Secondary Students’ Association (ESSA) is collecting young people’s views on education for a Manifesto which they will present to the people in charge of education in the UK.

Young people aged 11-19 are invited to get their point across via the fresh and easy medium of YouTube.

And as if having a say in how the £62.2billion education budget is spent was not enough, the best of all vids will feature on Channel 4.

If you want to find out more then check out www.studentvoice.tv

[Duane]

OK, I know I’m pushing the BB reference but that logo looks so cool up there.

The End.

More Brain Food (making up for lost time).

Ira Glass breaks down the storytelling methods used by Hollywood and gives us the recipe for their success.

Some real ah ha! moments in there.

[Duane]

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you.

Without some brain food to step to.

Old-school Timbaland references aside, I wanna talk about SUCCESS.

Especially in this age, success has no skin colour. No sex, no age, no social background. On screen and in those annoying free papers that are shoved into our hands every day in London, we are seeing images of all kinds of people who have managed to make a lot more than just two pennies to rub together.

Success isn’t an outer form. It’s a mindset. So therefore tools that help us improve our mindset improve our chances of success, no?
Enter Exploratree, a collaboration between Futurelabs and Microsoft, that offers a wide array of thinking guides.

“Why would I need a guide to think” I hear you ask.

Well, nobody is saying that you do, but help from Futurelabs’ collective genius has got to be a powerful ally on the road to SUCCESS.

I thank you.

[Duane]

P.S. check out mindmapinspiration.com for more maps like the one above.

Our 30 Minute Cam Challenge. Just got a bout of nostalgia during the shortened edit of our old film. Maybe we should do another one of these… Now there’s a thought.

30 hungry young photographers, 30 disposable cameras and 30 minutes to get the best pic. Then an exhibition and a prize presentation. Ah, memories.

[Duane]

Home of Sir Norman Foster, architects of the Gherkin, the stunning Milau Viaduct and pretty much every interesting modern building known to man.

Thanks to four spanking-fast IBM PCs which now live at our offices, they have a new honour to their name – friend of SENSE Media. We are an easily impressed bunch, what can I say!

Seriously though, BIG thanks to them for giving us the kit which has made working life here a lot easier. You guys didnt have to help us out but you did, and we salute you for that.

[Duane]

A big shout goes out to Leanne Butterfield who done us proud this week.

Leanne effortlessly scooped up an award for best front-of-camera performance at the BOOM! Awards, held at the prestigious Apple Store on London’s Regent Street. MTV News recorded it here.

Check out the award winning performance here.

Once again thanks to TomTom Nation, MTV, Apple, Clubs for Young People and v. If you don’t already know about BOOM! check out the site. Guaranteed to restore your faith in humanity. Or at least put a dent in your cynicism.

[Duane]

There’s a whole world of high-end, chic, feelgood, celebrity-endorsed, red-carpeted charity fundraising out there. We got to experience it last Thursday when the legendary crew over at TomTom Nation gave us two tickets to the ICA annual fundraising gala at the Brewery, Chiswell Street (because they roll like that).

The roll call of names read like the gossip pages of The London Paper. At the risk of sounding like a “name dropper” Bob and Pixie Geldof, Allan Carr, Janet Street Porter, Bianca Jagger, Henry Holland, Alice Delal, Jo Whiley, Mika… Need I say any more?

The evening was fab (darling) with champers, an immaculate dinner service and good times with our table fellows including the guys over at SpinVox and a great geezer from Digital Media at Haymarket Publications.

Needless to say we had a great time, highlights included Mika’s last minute thwarted bid at the Auction to have a wing of the ICA named after him, Allan Carr’s raucous presenting, the unparalleled welcome on the red carpet from the concierge and assorted paparazzi and Janet Street Porter giving us her shower cap! I can explain…

And that ends our first (and probably only) pseudo celeb gossip column. Normal service will be resumed shortly…

[Duane]

NEW REGULAR FEATURE ALERT!

After we sent Jerome along to the premiere of Notorious he came back with this hilarious video review.

I enjoyed editing it so much we have decided to make it a regular feature. So Jerome gets to see films before they are out and mingle with the glitterati, SENSE gets some great content, and you guys get a heads up on the latest films, and a few laughs along the way.

Pretty good deal all around I’d say. Enjoy…

[Duane]

Yep, it’s true. We are featured on the website  of the world’s number one fruit-inspired brand.

If you wanna see for yourself you can check it out here (29th Jan) – the linkup comes via BOOM!

Special thanks to Clubs for Young People and TomTom Nation for this one. We like living on Apple’s site – we could get used to that!

Here’s the film which is the centre of the whole story. SENSE TV at Pimp My Ride.

Action.

[Duane]

So guess what kids. You’ll never guess this. Seriously. Etc etc et et al…

Anyway the scoop is that I now have a regular column on here. I call it Brain Food because that’s the best I could come up with.

I focus on… Yep, you probably guessed. Innovation. No prizes there then. Oh, you didnt guess it?

There’s tons of Innovation out there. Some of it inspires me, some of it takes up way too much of my time and some of it makes my laugh my head off. Not literally. That would be stupid. Don’t be stupid.

Pay attention. Keep up. We are talking about Innovation. Todays innovation shaped morsel comes in the form of Phone Brain. 

Phone Pay Plus  have created a site that aims to educate young people between the ages of 13-18 about the dangers of dodgy ringtone merchants and all the nasty evil people that try to scam people through their phone bills.

No innovation I hear you cry! Well throw in an entrepreneurial opportunity involving Peter Jones from Dragon’s Den, an online ringtone remixer and  400 schools and we are getting pretty close to some seriously tasty brain food.

What is brain food? Well hopefully it will feed your creativity. Help you generate some world-stopping ideas that will ensure your magic carpet ride into charmed circles, entrepreneurial success and fame, help you stand out in your chosen field. Or maybe you’ll just kill 5 minutes or so with it every month. Who knows?

It’s a wrap.

[Duane]