NEW YORK, United States — Catching a rare bit of television last week in between updates on the Icelandic volcano and the first ever televised British Election debate, I stumbled upon an episode of Electric Dreams on the BBC, which takes an average British family from 2010 right back to the 1970’s, stripping away every bit of modern technology in their home. Then, slowly, episode by episode, decade by decade, the family gets all of its technology back, like they are experiencing it for the first time. The key difference now, of course, is that they have the hindsight of knowing what’s to come in the years ahead.

In the 1970’s the family gets central heating, and the 1980’s sees the arrival of the first home computer, but it wasn’t until the 1990’s rolled around that one sees the huge impact of consumer technology on their daily lives. From fax machines, brick-sized mobile phones and pagers, the family rapidly integrates the gadgets into their lives, and then disposes of them just as quickly as soon as the next great thing comes along.

Growing up during this technological and communication revolution has been the so-called Generation Y, born between 1977-1994. They are notoriously difficult to reach using traditional media channels, having rapidly adopted new media and digital technologies. They rely on the Internet for absolutely everything. Indeed, no matter what new technologies were given to the Electric Dreams family, the younger generation was ultimately dissatisfied. It was too slow,too disconnected and a far cry from the always-on, always-connected, endless options of the Internet in 2010.

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The Social Graph Clinic | Source: LuxuryLab

NEW YORK, United States — The Business of Fashion is pleased to announce our second media partnership with LuxuryLab, following the much talked-about Luxury Lab Innovation Forum held last Autumn.

On January 29th, the New York University-based think tank will hold its first Social Graph Clinic, “a one-day intensive workshop that takes an adroit and sober examination of social media’s underpinnings, platforms, and best practices. The objective is to enhance participants’ fluency in brand-driven social media efforts.”

Confirmed speakers include:

• Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics who will speak on How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

• Shenan Reid, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Morpheus Media on Finding your Social Voice

• Fabio Freyre, Regional Vice-President of Facebook on Facebook, the Marketing OS

I will be speaking to brands on how best to engage bloggers. On that note, bloggers, let us know your pet peeves and top tips on how brands should engage with you. You can comment on this post, send a direct message on Twitter or send an email, and I will do my best to reflect your feedback in my presentation. Now’s your chance to have a say what you always wanted to say about those generic press releases, untargeted emails and unreasonable requests from fashion PRs. But please don’t just focus on the negative. What is the best relationship you have with a fashion brand and why?

Already, representatives from an impressive array of brands — including Brooks Brothers, Chanel, Coach, Dunhill, Gucci, J. Crew, Maxmara, Michael Kors, and Neiman Marcus — have confirmed their attendance. If you too would like to attend, please consider using this special BoF link to register and you will also help us to earn a commission on ticket sales to support the development of our content in the coming year and defray the growing costs of maintaining BoF. A portion of the proceeds will also be donated to the much-needed ongoing aid relief in Haiti.

A complete agenda and list of speakers is available here.

I look forward to meeting many BoF readers there!