now in colour | andy whitlock's OLD blog

this blog has moved

2009-06-17T17:57:00.002Z

You can see the new blog @ nowincolour.com.

Read about the changes in the welcome note or the about section of the new blog.

Bye bye Blogger.

rebirth

2009-06-17T13:08:00.003Z

My blog is being reborn. It's going to appear somewhere else, looking different.

As with all births, things could get messy. Like, for instance, the logo disappearing from above. Hmm. not sure where that went.

Anyhoo. A few more pushes.

threadcaking, anyone?

2009-06-16T09:37:00.005Z

There's something very 'internetty' about this lovely idea. Threadless are asking fans* to make cakes of their favourite T-shirt designs.

*[Is 'fans' a reasonable term to use? Fans feels passive. But people that engage with this kind of thing are anything but. I suppose these days the word fan means something very different.]

That cake is an accepted 'medium' for T-shirt advocacy speaks layers (sorry) about our effortless participation adoption of recombinant culture. The fluidity of ideas and media has reached a point where we can instantly accept the metamorphosis of an idea into an unusual new form with no explanation necessary.

I love it.

philosophy by bicycle

2009-06-15T15:04:00.006Z

On Saturday I cycled around London with a group of other people, sporadically indulging in light philosophy.

It was a 'holiday' created by The School of Life, an organisation I mentioned last week.

Signing up for this was an unusual thing for me to do and while it might sound a little pretentious, it really wasn't. Unless the idea of a light lecture on philosophy is pretentious to you. In which case, this was as well.

Here's the route we took:

Although the 'philosophy bits' were interesting, they ended up being merely lubrication for simple, human interaction. The reason I type that with a sense of surprise (if you can detect the force and speed of my key-tapping) is because I'm not someone who thinks of doing 'activities' with 'strangers' simply to socialise. I have - you know - friends and that.

I only realised retrospectively that the best part of the day was mixing with interesting, nice people. (Is this like the part where Pinocchio realises he's a real boy?) The philosophy thing ended up being just a prop or excuse for chatting. Bringing people together and giving them something to do. I suppose the unusual event structure pulled me out of my comfort zone and plonked me somewhere I didn't expect to be - and wouldn't have thought of pursuing. But I'm glad I landed there.

OK - In an attempt to drag this post out of being just a bit of dull psycho-self-analysis - a lovely phrase was mentioned during our outing that I will share with you. Next time things aren't going well for you just think of it as "the resistance of the world to your wishes". I quite like that.

droga's millions

2009-06-12T10:39:00.004Z

I was just looking at D&AD's four black pencil winners and discovered (for the first time) Droga 5's 'Million' project.

For the life of me I can't find a video to directly link to. But you can see it at the link above or on Droga 5's website.

It's basically an incentive scheme for less-privileged, under-performing students that rewards performance with a shiny phone. The better they do in school, the more minutes they get etc.

I love ideas like this. This is exactly the sort of way problems should be tackled - with solutions, not messages.

[I actually believe that this kind of thinking is over-lauded - mainly because it masquerades as a lateral approach to an 'advertising challenge'. In my mind it's only an advertising challenge if someone (perhaps wrongly) decides to ask for advertising. Anyway, that's an entirely different post.]

Props to Droga for actually making this happen. Coming up with ideas like this isn't the hard part. It's getting everyone on board and seeing it through. All the while dealing with the big, inevitable client question: "Will this work?"

Of course, no one knows if things like this will work. So we stand looking across the chasm of uncertainty and ask ourselves: Do we try something new which could be amazing or could equally fail? Or do we stick with something dull and safe that at least will get a few eyeballs and have a pop at some gentle psychological persuasionism?

I know which I'd rather be involved in.

why you should make excuses

2009-06-09T11:52:00.003Z

If you're in the business of trying to motivate particular behaviour, this thought might oil your kippers.

Jamie and I went to Breakfast Club at The School of Life last week. In a nutshell it was a group of people chewing over both muesli and light philosophical musings, all hosted by Robert Rowland Smith.

It hit me a few days later that although this was a new experience, it wasn't actually an invitation. It was an excuse.

It was an excuse for me to do something that I was already predisposed to doing but normally would not. It was an excuse because my usual reasons for not doing it were removed.

Here were my excuses for going:

1. It wasn't my idea to go - it was Jamie's idea
2. She goes to lots of interesting events, so it's probably not as pretentious as it sounds
3. It could be valuable for my line of work - it's "research"

Of course I loved it. Because it's exactly the sort of thing I would enjoy. A guilty pleasure of sorts that I would normally not act on because of the effort it would take to find out about and subsequently the message it would send out about me.

I have a point to make.

Rather than think how you can make people do stuff. Think who would like to do it and then give them an excuse to do so. Like, I don't know.. hand out microphones in Trafalgar Square and play one of the most popular songs of all time?

how to start a party

2009-06-04T12:59:00.001Z

Awesome.

RT @asi_sharabi & @chrisboardman

stress isn't good for anyone

2009-06-02T09:32:00.001Z

a post about why I'm not posting

2009-06-01T11:37:00.002Z

Very self-indulgent I know. But I'm missing posting regularly. Here are a few reasons:

1. I've been redesigning my blog
It's nearly ready and it will be hosted at www.nowincolour.com, finally. It's also really BIG. I got rid of the side column and pretty much made it massive. Goodbye blogger. Awesome.

2. I've been working on I Feel Earth
I'm very excited. We're close to a beta launch. It's taken ages - and will continue to be a slow burn - because Nilesh and I are, well, employed full-time.
But it's far, far more impressive and exciting than I dreamed of when I first uploaded I Feel London etc. *must resist.. doing.. smiley.. face...* Too late - :)

3. I've been planning my wedding
Which meant designing our website and invites, going to the States. All kinds of things. I won't lie, Wrisley is doing most of the organising, but still, weddings are an excellent example of Parkinson's Law I can think of.

4. I'm working on a pitch
Which I'm very keen to win and I'll explain as and when we do.

5. The weather is amazing!

Anyway.

Robots learn to fall gracefully

2009-05-21T11:46:00.002Z

There's something that really tickled me about this article in New Scientist.

When I first read that "soccerbots in Chile are learning to fall" I couldn't help but think of Didier Drogba. There's something amusing about the idea of robots learning to cheat.

But there's more to it of course:

"The aim of the RoboCup project is to have a robotic team in place by 2050 that can beat the best human side - an impossible goal unless soccerbots can learn to fall over without damaging themselves."

Cough.

But the research potentially has an even more worthwhile use:

'Giving a large robot the ability to fall over gracefully could greatly extend the role of humanoid robots outside soccer, including cybersuits and robot legs that assist walking in elderly and disabled people."

Read the whole article here.

how to make people think

2009-05-18T08:50:00.005Z

Warning: Short post written through the haze of Monday morning tiredness:

I'm a big fan of small gestures that have a disproportionate affect on the world around them. I saw a great example of this in Whole Foods the other week in New York. On the bins - which are marked by category: plastic; paper; tin etc - the 'trash' bit said: "Landfill" in big letters.

I hesitated, paralysed by the word landfill and all it implies and double-checked that everything I was putting in there could in fact not be recycled.

I think this kind of simple change in the language of signage can have a brilliant affect on behaviour.

Someone else agreed this was great - and luckily I can use his photo:

Pretend Office

2009-05-15T14:14:00.004Z

This is a wonderful example of the power of community. And how simple it can be to bring people together and give them something to do.

In the spirit of pretending (you'll see), I'll share this story in the form of a pretend interview, pasting in the explanation thus:

me:
So what's this all about?

Pretend Office:
"A few times over the past couple of years I’ve discussed with freelancing friends how we miss out on some of the aspects of working in a proper company: the Christmas lunch, the after-work drinks, the fire alarm tests. All that bonding."

me:
ok.....

PO:
"A couple of us thought that maybe we should start an email list to compensate in some way. So I set up the Pretend Office mailing list."

me:
Go on. I love your tie btw - is that real silk?

PO:
"A weird thing happened. With no planning, we all started acting as if we were people in a real office. Almost immediately we began to adopt characters and send officious announcements. Soon we were referring to characters in the office who didn’t exist in real life. Meeting rooms were booked, couriers arrived, servers went down, timesheets were requested, and embarrassing emails were accidentally sent to everyone in the company."

me:
That's awesome. I think I love you.

PO:
"After the first few fun days I was a bit worried that we’d used up every office topic. But several weeks in and we’re still going."

me:
Have you got any snippets of dialogue to share? Maybe something featuring a meeting room named after a celebrity?

PO:

Sorry James - I meant desk not deck...

Obviously I'll be first in line for Pamela
Gerridge-Smythe's 'Typos and Teepees' talk
tonight at 6pm in the Orlando Bloom suite.
See you all there!!!!!!!!

- Cat

Awesome.

twitter for SMS

2009-05-11T10:20:00.002Z

Has anyone else started to use twitter instead of SMS on their phone?

I was doing it the other day with Wrisley and accidentally replied instead of Direct-messaged. Thankfully it was nothing embarrassing, but it made me think.

Imagine an SMS function called 'publish to the world'. Scary.

Wossy just made a similar mistake apparently:

back in the frame

2009-05-11T10:04:00.002Z

Campaign showed they have a sense of humour and published some of my Campaign Unframed images. Good for them/you. :)

Strange sensation; photographing the magazine to capture the images I made from photographing the magazine.

wedded to new york

2009-05-10T18:08:00.007Z

We were in New York this last week. It was mostly to plan our wedding, but being a living, breathing human, I also looked at stuff and pondered some of it.

I thought it might be fun to present some of these thoughts in wedding-speak - something old; something new; etc. Let's see if this works:

Something old

Macy's Elevator from Andy Whitlock on Vimeo.

I absolutely love these old, wooden escalators in Macy's. Sorry for the rubbish video clip - I accidentally took a photo during filming. Yes, I was that keen to document it.

My second 'something old' is this painted advertisement for Dewar's White Label Scotch. I presume this is old. Those are children drinking, right? Hmm. Spotted in the LES.

Something new

ok - not new to everyone, but it was to me: In some subway cars there are new-ish digital signs to tell you where you are. The thing I like about them is that the display moves along one place at each stop. This way, you only need to look in one place to see the next few stops, rather than scan and find where you are on a longer display. Who needs to see where you've just been, right?

Also new is this T-shirt I bought.

It's very difficult to explain my reasoning for buying a tee that says "I am awesome". I don't think I am awesome. I think part of the reason I like it is because it reminds me of - and is perhaps an homage to - an Eddie Izzard story about awesome hot dogs:

Something borrowed

Pepsi's brand campaign in NYC is unmissable. Anyone living State-side will have seen this stuff for ages, but I hadn't seen it. To get its new logo in people's heads - and associated with the zeitgeist - the billboard series sees Pepsi borrowing equity from various well-known phrases.

LOL is awful, IMHO, but XOXO is spot on. For anyone that doesn't know, this is the sign-off for Gossip Girl - and a potent shorthand for Upper East Side teenage fabulousness. While also trite and cheap, if the goal is to continue Pepsi's crusade to be the cola for the fashionable new generation, then this is well chosen.

Something blue

Blue 1: Wrisley's dad, Mack, has a Wii Fit. I discovered, much to my sadness that I have a Wii Fit age of 45. Oh dear. Although watching Mack doing virtual ski jumping in the front room was awesome - like a hot dog.

Blue 2: It rained most of the time I was in New York. On the plus side, the mist and gloom enabled me to get this picture, which I like.

As well as containing an iconic NYC water tower and the silhouetted Empire State Building, it also contains a clue that soon, things will be looking up! :)

Fluff vs Meaning

2009-05-01T10:37:00.004Z

I was just reading about Wolfram Alpha, a "computational knowledge engine" due later this year. You can read about it too, or simply accept this synopsis on the BBC by its creator, Stephen Wolfram:

"Wolfram Alpha is like plugging into a vast electronic brain," he wrote earlier this year. "It computes answers - it doesn't merely look them up in a big database."

He goes onto say something that really rubbed me up the wrong way, that the system is really good at "removing linguistic fluff".

!

'Linguistic fluff'? I call that 'meaning'.
As Faris has said, "words are where we live."

Thankfully, someone more intelligent than me - Dr Boris Katz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - speaks up in the same article:

"I believe he is misguided in treating language as a nuisance instead of trying to understand the way it organises concepts into structures that require understanding and harnessing."

Optimisation scares me when it sacrafices meaning. I'm all for better, faster ways of doing things, but we are at risk of losing context. And context is everything.

Lloyd Shepherd, Head of Future Media Solutions at Channel 4 Television seems to agree. For a very different project, he has been spending "more time than is healthy mulling over how to bring local information together effectively" and presenting some findings. One of which was this:

"Wonderful as they are, there's something rather unnourishing about outside.in and Everyblock. And I think that's because they're just not very good at tracking emerging narratives, which is something local newspapers do rather well. Narratives are where aggregation fails, I reckon."

While off the topic of linguistics, I recall a talk the phenomenal Seth Godin, gave - I think at Google some time ago. Someone asked him what he thought about Google maps. He was a little dismissive, saying it was fine and everything, but essentially a gimmick. That he didn't need to be messing about with maps, but instead an application should access his diary and email, know where he needs to go and save the address to his phone. Or something very similar.

Sounds wonderful, but the map isn't just a gimmick, it's context. The application could also just email the address to your driver directly and you'd never have to know where you are at all. But that just doesn't feel right to me.

Is there a happy medium between optimisation and meaning? Or are we in a downward spiral towards having everything but knowing nothing?

campaign unframed unleashed

2009-04-30T17:49:00.002Z

Well, now Mr Tait has talked about it, I guess it's out there.

I've stuck up the slideshow at campaignunframed.co.uk.

But I intend to build a nicer site where you can roll over the images to reveal them.
Like this.

I just need to teach myself some more code. Unless someone else wants to build it for me? :)

I shall keep looking out for people to unframe each week in Campaign. If I get you... please don't sue me.

subscribe to this blog via twitter

2009-04-29T16:37:00.003Z

Lots of people use their twitter accounts to announce new blog posts.

For some reason, I've always felt uneasy about advertising my blog in my personal stream. Maybe because I assume most people don't care. Maybe because my confidence is low about the quality of my posts.

So I've decided to create a twitter account just for my blog: @now_in_colour

This account will only tweet new blog posts. Nothing more.

And I won't promote blog posts in my personal twitter stream.

So if you want to know when a new post appears here - and like me, fail to keep on top of your rss reader - you know what to do.

Oh, and if you're wondering whether I tweeted this post, I didn't. The eternal loop between here and there made my head spin. I feared a black hole might open up.

the texture of digital

2009-04-29T10:35:00.004Z

During my first attempt at designing the I Feel Earth website, I made the sorts of errors that I imagine lots of amateur digital designers make. One class of error was the over-engineering of roll-over states.

In my inexperience and keenness to make the page feel alive, I overdid the rollovers. The result was a very tacky collective experience, everything glowing or jumping off the page under the cursor. Thankfully that particular experience will never see the light of day.

I was thinking about this the other weekend. I was at the Sunday Upmarket, passing a stall with little hand-made bags and accessories. The mixtures of fabrics and surfaces triggered something in me - and like everyone else passing - I reached out and stroked my fingers across the surface of the nearest bag. Like we do.

Our desire to touch things is instinctive. It's a primal exploration our eyes are incapable of performing.

So I started to think about the texture of websites - or rather digital stuff as a whole.

I sometimes find myself waving the cursor across the page in a zigzag, much like I did with that bag in the market - to get a quick sense of the texture of that page. Is that weird?

If someone did the same thing to my early design attempt it would probably have felt a bit like this:

I wonder how many people think about the collective texture of the site/app they're designing. Or rather how consciously they do it. While designers clearly think (constantly) about our eyes' journey across a page, do they think similarly towards the 'low relief' we sense when we roll across it?

Is this kind of thing going to become more relevant as touch-screen experiences become the norm?

I also wish I had some good examples to share. But my new blogging philosophy is to write things down quickly before I get bored of them.

Any thoughts or examples? I'm spent.

Now you can piss off Hasbro too!

2009-04-27T15:52:00.006Z

As a semi-addicted player of Scrabulous, I was more than annoyed when the lawyers came in and closed down the Facebook app, Scrabulous way back when.

My irritation continued when Scrabble announced they would release their own Facebook game. And the final straw was when I tried the Scrabble game and it was really flashy and over the top. Read: annoying.

It had gone off my radar, but this weekend I found out (very, late, apparently) that Scrabulous was back - with a new name - Wordscraper - and some new rules.

I haven't played with it much, but wanted to share one cheeky thing they've done. It not only sticks two fingers up to EA/Hasbro, it's also a reminder of the makers' understanding of digital media over the two corporate giants.

To get around legal issues of making the game feel and look like Scrabble, Wordscraper's default settings are very different. Fort example, there are 8 tiles instead of seven and the board layout is totally different.

The simple-but-genius bit is that you can build your own custom game, with your own layout and your own rules. So anyone that loves Scrabble can simply rebuild the Scrabble board themselves. Recognise the start of this layout?

Clearly it's not a tactic that has beaten Scrabble. The Scrabble app has 575,022 users vs Wordscraper's 158,766. But I love their ingenuity and I for one will be trying it out properly.

I had never really thought about the power of customisation to get past legal issues in this context. Opens up some interesting possibilities.

Update:
I spoke too soon:

the art of obvious

2009-04-24T08:54:00.011Z

Doing things is better than saying things. Agreed.

Thinking about this in the context of embryonic-global-transparent-connectedness (cough), I've recently been giving an internal high-five to something more specific than just doing things: Doing obvious things.

I'd go as far to say that doing obvious things is often better than saying clever things.

'Obvious' has a terrible reputation. It sounds like a name for something without much value. But doing obvious things simply means giving people things you know they'll like.

Overly-clever communications ideas can be cumbersome; unnecessary blockages or distractions between your audience, your offering and their peers.

Agencies and businesses often fail to do obvious things because of an in-built desire for originality. The irony is that this crusade for novelty has turned things around. Obvious things are no longer obvious; they're off the radar for those who are paid to be clever. Very clever things on the other hand have become the new 'obvious'.

Of course there is such a thing as 'bad and obvious'. You have to make it entertaining, interesting, pleasurable or useful. Luckily, if it's obvious in the way I describe above (I.e. Your audience will like it) then you're probably half way there already.

Here are a few excellent examples of good-obvious things I've seen or been reminded of recently:

Red Bull in Venice
After record flooding, Red Bull got some dude to wake-board across St. Marks Square. This might not seem obvious. But think about it: Every ramp, runway or stretch of water is a canvas for celebrating extreme sports and speed. You just have to look for them. This only seems unobvious because people tend to think in terms of billboards rather than experiences; and campaigns, rather than moments. It's good-obvious :)
(Seen in this great list)

Adobe on Delicious
The software giant is bookmarking the most inspiring, interesting uses of Adobe software. I feel the urge to use the word genius. Of course, it isn't genius. It's simple. And almost free to do. So why don't more companies do things like this?

As Adrian says:

This is really smart. They’re driving traffic to these content creators from their 2700 fans (and their networks) and they’re maintaining a master list of the best how-to information on their products.

Blendtec on Youtube:
Yes, this old chestnut. But over-celebrated for good reason. "It's a blender. Let's see what it can do." Cheaper than TV and about a million times more spreadable.

Nikon in Georgetown
People love photos... of themselves and their friends. Nikon simply gave the people of Georgetown a load of awesome cameras, let them go crazy and then displayed all the images in the town hall. Its simplicity and integrity summed up with a gracious: "Thank you for doing this!" from a lady who took part. Every person involved became an instant brand ambassador.
And much cheaper than hiring a hoard of extras and shooting an expensive ad. (Via Faris)

Crisis.org on the streets
A different kind of example.
This is only unobvious if you start your thinking process with traditional advertising. The solution here was simply to remove all obstruction between the audience and the problem they wanted to highlight. It's good-obvious. (And cheap!)

Nike store across the web
How do you promote your store in banners? Put your store in the banners. Let people browse products directly from the ad.

I'm guessing some people will disagree that all of these examples are obvious. But that's probably because it's a crude word that sounds like criticism. I use it with only positive intentions and I think all of the above are excellent.

For me, 'obvious' means ignoring your desire to be clever and focussing on bringing people and the things they want closer together. Then you can think about doing those things with charm, wit and creativity.

What would you do if your budget was £50, instead of £50,000? I think you'd probably do something good. And something obvious.

grid lust

2009-04-21T18:59:00.007Z

Last week, we were invited by our friends at Skype to watch a special screening of Objectified in Soho.

It was quite enjoyable. None of it made me think anything new, but I'm into design enough to enjoy watching designers talk about the stuff they make. So I was happy.

What got me particularly excited (this will annoy some of the future-gazing designers in the movie) was this Grid Compass laptop from 1982; the first commercial laptop computer:

I'll give you a moment to smile at its tiny screen.

One of the nicest details of this beauty is a 'scoop' in the hinge of the lid. Its presence meant that a stray pencil that found its way into the crack would be popped out again as you close the lid down. The simplicity and thought behind that is very lovely indeed.

If you're interested, there's a video about the Grid here. I won't embed it because it's a bit dry and basically features people talking - slowly.

Incidentally, all this got me looking for other vintage laptop stuff like this. Nice:

Anyway, I got wondering - when we're bathing in invisible, hyper-haptic post-hardware devices - do you think we'll long for a big scoop that ejects pencils like pop-tarts?

Peter Funch's Hybrid Manhattan

2009-04-21T18:32:00.004Z

This is simply the best thing I've seen in ages. Photographer, Peter Funch spends weeks on New York street corners and then composites together 'collections' of people.

The results are wonderful:

In some way (Oh dear, I'm going to blurt this out before I've considered it properly) these images are a beautiful, visual metaphor for creativity: bringing together disparate elements to conjure up a new perspective on something familiar.

And the clunkiness of my last sentence goes to show how much lovely visual metaphors are needed!

Brilliant.

Via Kottke

pmsl

2009-04-20T12:09:00.002Z

I swear people make up new acronyms just to make me feel stupid. I've been seeing PMSL appear recently and if you - like me - didn't know what it means, it means 'pissing myself laughing'.

What's more amusing though is that there is PMSL training available. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in those classes.

blogathon

2009-04-20T11:09:00.003Z

I'm blogging a lot more at the moment. It's good. It's getting my brain working. I'm making a promise to myself to continue.

The knock-on effect is actually very motivating. Simply by putting a few thoughts out there - and tweeting one or two of them - has resulted in a lot more interaction with people in a very short space of time. Especially with my Twitter hooked up to my Facebook.

I need to keep this up.

In case you care, I have a new blog design coming soon. Which will appear at nowincolour.com. It's going to be big. Not in terms of popularity. Literally: Big. Awesome. :)

weekend

2009-04-19T11:02:00.001Z

Friday:

Saturday:

how to be social

2009-04-17T13:58:00.001Z

YY

2009-04-17T11:26:00.006Z

Nice things are important. They give us reasons to talk to each other.

So when businesses give away nice things, I feel it a duty to do that whole 'see it, snap it, blog it' routine to spread the love. If enough people do that, then more businesses would create nice things and the happier and more social we'd all be.

So, here's a nice thing:

Attempts at bastardising I [heart] NY are usually tiresome (some can be brilliant, mind).
I like this effort by Thai restaurant Yum Yum in Stoke Newington.

Toothpicks! Fun and useful. Hooray. Not a world-changing idea. But all I wanted was to remove the chicken from my teeth. So I was happy.

Campaign Unframed

2009-04-16T11:39:00.004Z

A couple of years ago, an editor at AdWeek called me asking for a photo to go with an article I had written for them.

I was sitting in my boxer shorts at home. So I threw on a shirt and suit jacket and did what any person in my situation would do: I took a self-portrait, posing in a that ad-rag kind of a way. The sort of pose that says:

'I know some stuff and I should be respected. But not too much respect. I'm human too, just a guy. I'm accessible. But serious. But relaxed. There's a big friendly bear under this cold, academic exterior.. you just gotta peel the layers.. '

You know the sort of thing.
It's amazing how easily you get sucked into posing in that fake ad-land way.

What was more amusing though, was that I didn't put any trousers on. It was a portrait shot. So there I was in our apartment in Brooklyn, posing in this ridiculous way with no trousers but a suit and unironed shirt.

In the spirit of transforming bad things into good things, this gave me a little idea. Only a small one. A bit of fun; mostly forgettable. But in the interest of transient pleasure, I introduce:

Campaign Unframed
It's not just me - lots of ad-folk look very serious and important in their profile pictures in trade magazines. I thought it might be fun to provide a glimpse beyond the borders of the photographs to suggest a different side to them. The proverbial no-trousered look, if you will.

I'm not having a dig. Not really. Like I say, the inspiration came from my own example. But when people are looking a little too serious for their own good, I might just have some fun with their picture.

I've created three examples so far. The Photoshopping isn't great, sorry. Here's one, of Pete Robins:

This and two others can be seen in this Flickr Set: Campaign Unframed.

I might do more at some point. They're quite fun. So next time you're submitting your picture to Campaign, watch out - I might getcha ;)

--

Update: Paul called me out to share the one of me. I (honestly) couldn't find it. But fair's fair. I've produced an artist's impression over here.

tweenbots

2009-04-16T11:08:00.003Z

Tweenbots has been doing the rounds.

It's thoroughly charming and heartwarming at the same time.

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Funny isn't it. If a tourist was bumbling around like that it would just be annoying. Maybe they should wear big smiley cardboard faces.

situations

2009-04-16T08:35:00.003Z

Locale is an Android app that allows the user to create different 'situations' in which their phone behaves differently.

It looks quite clever, but seems to be mostly a semantic evolution because I can do a similar thing on my phone, only they're called 'modes'.

Semantics are everything though. This immediately reminded me of the phrase Woody Allen coined: "We've got a situation here!" A wonderfully meaningless sentiment but its tone doing the real communication leg-work.

I suppose the same is true for Locale situations. The real fun is coming up with them.

zero-tilt gaming

2009-04-15T10:50:00.006Z

So, until the summer release of the next iPhone, I'm stuck with my Blackberry Curve. Meanwhile, friends and colleagues continue to tease me, moving pixels by dragging their fingers across their screens and tilting the handset.

I thought my extended wait might be easier to deal with if I embraced the Blackberry's strengths.

So I've made some 'games' that have been designed to take advantage of non-iPhone features. Specifically, I've focussed on the Blackberry's rigid-ometer. The feature that prevents the tilting of the phone from (annoyingly) affecting the contents on-screen.

Introducing Zero-Tilt Gaming.
Tilt and shake your handset as much as you like - nothing will change at all!

I've made three games so far:

Simply add one of these images as a wallpaper to your phone and you're ready to play. No matter how much you tilt or shake your phone, they will not move or change. That's persistence plus fun, times awesome. App store eat your <3 out.

You can download the images without titles here: Guard, Cat, Protester for a purer gaming experience. They're 320x240 pixels - which is the right size for the Blackberry Curve.

Try them out and make sure you show your slippy-pixelled iPhone-owning friends.

why you should be interested in new technologies

2009-04-09T10:05:00.003Z

Excuse my poor drawing.

(Update: removed the 140 character thing, which was misleading. Anyway..)

bakertweet, made by poke

2009-04-01T15:48:00.003Z

"How? How the f**k did you actually do that?" was my basic line of questioning when Zolty, a Poke colleague showed me this the other week:

This is Bakertweet. It's not an April Fools hoax. If it was it wouldn't be very funny. And Poke are good at being funny.

They're also good at being clever bastards.

I say 'they' because I'm an ideas person. I'm good with concepts, frameworks. You know, charts and pixels and stuff. So I marvel when people can just make really clever stuff. For real.

Bakertweet is a box of electronics that allows our local bakery, Albion (London E1) to tweet when bread is fresh from the oven simply by turning the dial and pressing the button.

You can follow Albion's bakertweet here.

It's clever innit. I can say this because I had nothing to do with it. :)

Iain explains a little more over here.

it's just you and me now

2009-03-30T08:41:00.003Z

Being short of attention and easily distracted, I've always supported the idea of singling out one thing to look at at a time, especially in the context of art. Even in college, I used to prefer to display fewer pieces and give each one room, than attempt to ambush the audience from all sides.

An Observer article on Sunday took this thinking to its natural conclusion, identifying ten pieces of art, each of which "deserves an afternoon of your time. In fact, each deserves a room, if not a whole show, of its own."

Spending an afternoon of your time in front of one painting is something almost no one would be willing to do in 2009. And whether you think it's pretentious or attractive, it certainly gets you thinking.

It got me thinking about websites and specifically about Single Function, a site dedicated to - well, single-function websites. Spotted by Nathan. One of my favourites being sad trombone btw.

Being single-function scares people. Especially when their money's on the line and they want to see that money turn into an equal amount of stuff. The scattergun approach is tempting. But singularity cuts through every time.

Iain was recently discussing the question: Can a website make you cry? Here's another question: What single-function website would you spend an afternoon with?

interesting, useful...

2009-03-29T16:36:00.004Z

Russell's next Interesting event is apparently going to be Useful instead. Which makes a lot of sense to me.

I couldn't help but mentally overlay this onto the emotional spectrum of branding that I've been playing with. Which is self-indulgent, sorry.

I'm working on a new - and aptly - more useful version of this though. The above was a first draft and was more of a thought-piece than anything else. But I think chopping stuff up like this makes a lot of sense.

When I get my new blog up and running I intend to start trying to be interesting and useful myself.

love problems, like ice cream

2009-03-27T15:07:00.002Z

From Dropular.

the skinny on skimmer

2009-03-27T10:02:00.003Z

It was only a couple of weeks ago I sent this email to everyone at Poke:

Subject: Will someone please invent...

Body:
...an app/client that acts as a single inbox for ALL incoming messages in my life:

- email
- twitter
- facebook
- sms

Unless I'm missing something and it already exists??

and......... Go!

Fallon's new Adobe AIR app, Skimmer isn't quite that. But it's a great effort at lassooing (is that a word?) lots of your interactions together in one neat place. Namely, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Blogger and Youtube.

I'm not going to analyse it from a technical point of view. I can't. And I'm lazy.
But I thought I'd do a rundown of my initial thoughts/feelings after playing around with it for a day or two.

If you're a geek, read this instead.
If you like sweeping statements and a more touchy-feely analysis, read on:

As you'd expect, to make use of this aggregator, you need to enter your user name and password for each property. Let's not get into privacy issues here. Let's just enjoy ourselves.
What I really liked was the feeling of locking in each account at a time. It reminded me of what Russell Davies refers to as social docking. Each password that was accepted was like snapping another pipe onto the Skimmer machine. Mmmm, snappy.

It had a similar appeal to completing more of your LinkedIn profile and seeing visual feedback for it. Anyway..

I really like the idea of Skimmer. But I quickly realised its downfall, for me.

It's so beautifully designed; so neat; so swish that all the life is sucked out of each of the properties. All the nuances and energy from Facebook, Twitter etc is lost. It's like getting together a group of interesting, funny, passionate people and filtering their voices through a generic computerised synthesiser.

Context is vital to communication. Not just visual and cultural context, but semantic context too. I.e. Every time I read a message I had to check to see which account it was coming from before I 'got it'. And because Skimmer's design language naturally floods the application, your eyes have a little work to do to locate the right logo to get the full picture.

None of this should take away anything from the intention behind the app. And maybe (although I suspect not) the app will evolve to allow the tone and character of these properties to come through more. But I for one have already returned to the bosom of Twitter et al to marvel and wallow in their unique energies.

If there's a moral - which I suppose would help this post have a point - it would be:
If you're bringing things together, remember that it's those things that people want to engage with. So maybe I don't want that all-in-one inbox after all.

monday decay

2009-03-23T10:39:00.002Z

Quite like this (from BB):

Generation Loss from hadto on Vimeo.you

And it reminded me of this:

That's all.

first impressions

2009-03-20T14:42:00.003Z

I realised earlier that when people follow me on Twitter, I have a ritual to decide if I follow them back: I skim their most recent (say 6 or 7) tweets and make a call based entirely on this shallow analysis of their interests and personality.

This six or seven tweet insight forms a kind of ever-changing first impression. You're only as interesting as your last 7 tweets. Or something.

If you follow me and I didn't return the gesture, don't feel bad. I'm just fickle and just lazy. And look, here are my last seven tweets. They make me look really boring. I wouldn't follow me ;)

in and out

2009-03-18T10:12:00.003Z

I never get bored of slicing up twitter streams. I think these two paint an interesting picture:

Just got laid off (boo!)

Just got a new job (hooray!)

huge url

2009-03-14T13:21:00.002Z

I was just thinking that it would be funny to do the opposite to tiny url and create a site that makes massive ones just to irritate people.

Of course someone's already done it:

Huge Url

Nice.

Here's a link to my blog if you want to annoy someone:

http://www.hugeurl.com/?MzIxNGRiYWVlYjIzMGU4Y2Q5NWE3MWJiYjQz NDRiOGEmMTImVm0wd2QyUXlVWGxXYTJoV1YwZG9WVll3Wkc5alJsWjBUVlpP V0Zac2JETlhhMUpUVmpGYWMySkVUbGhoTWsweFZqQmFTMk15U2tWVWJHaG9U VmhDVVZadGVGWmxSbGw1Vkd0c2FsSnRhRzlVVjNOM1pVWmFkR05GZEZSTlZU VkpWbTEwYTFkSFNrZGpTRUpYVFVad1NGUlVSbUZqVmtaMFVteFNUbUY2UlRG V1ZFb3dWakZhV0ZOcmJGSmlSMmhZV1d4b2IwMHhXbGRYYlVaclVsUkdXbGt3 WkRSVk1rcElaSHBHVjJFeVVYZFpWRVpyVTBaT2NscEhjRlJTVlhCWlZrWldh MVV5VW5OalJtUllZbFZhY1ZscldtRmxWbVJ5VjI1a1YwMUVSa1pWYkZKRFZq QXhkVlZ1V2xaaGExcFlXa1ZhVDJOdFNrZFRiV3hYVWpOb1dGWnRNSGRsUjBs NFUydGthVk5GV2xSWmJHaFRWMVpXY1ZKcmRGUldiRm93V2xWb2ExWXdNVVZT YTFwWFlrZG9jbFpxU2tabFZsWlpXa1prYUdFeGNGbFhhMVpoVkRKT2MyTkZa R2hTTW5odlZGVm9RMWRXV1hoWGJYUk9VakZHTlZaWE5VOWhWazVHVjJ4U1dt SkhhRlJXTUZwVFZqRmtkRkp0ZUZkaVJsa3hWa1phVTFVeFduSk5WVlpUWWtk U1lWUlZXbUZOTVZweFUydDBWMVpyY0ZwWGExcHJZVWRGZUdOR2FGaGlSbkJv VmtSS1QyUkdTbkpoUjJoVFlYcFdkMVp0Y0V0aU1XUlhWMWhvWVZKRlNtOVVW bHBYVFRGU2MyRkZPV2hpUlhCNldUQmFjMWR0U2toaFJsSlhUVlp3YUZreFdr ZFdWa3B6VkdzMVdGSlZjRWxXYlhCTFRrWlJlVkpyWkZoaWF6VnhWVEJvUTFs V1VsWlhhM1JvVW14d2VGVXlkR3RoYlVwV1ZtcGFXbFpXY0hKWlZXUkdaV3hH Y21KR1pHbFhSVXBKVm10U1MxUnRWa2RhU0ZaVllrWmFjRlpxVG05a2JGcEhW bTA1VWsxWFVucFdNV2h2V1ZaS1JsTnRPVlZXTTFKNlZHdGFWbVZYVWtoa1Jt UnBWbGhDTmxaVVNURlVNVnAwVW01S1QxWnNTbGhVVmxwM1YwWnJlRmRyWkZk V2EzQjZWa2R6TVZkR1NsWmpSV3hYWVd0dmQxbFhjekZXTVdSellVWlNhVkp1 UW5oV1YzaHJZakZzVjJKR2FHcGxhMXB4V1d0YWQyVkdWWGxrUjBacFVteHdl bFl5ZUhkWFIwVjRZMFJPV2xaWFVrZGFWV1JQVWpKS1IxcEdaRTVOUlhCS1Zq RmFVMU14VVhsVVdHaHFVbGQ0VmxsclduZGpSbHB4VTIwNWJHSkhVbGxhUldS SFlUQXhjbUpFVWxkTlYyaDJWMVphUzFKc1RuUlNiR1JwVjBkbmVsWkdWbUZa VjFKSVZXdG9hMUp0VW5CV2JHaERVMnhrVjFadE9WVk5WbkI1VkZaV2ExWXha RWhoUjBaVlZteHdNMVpyV21GalZrcDBVbTEwVjJKclNrbFdNblJyWXpGVmQw MUliR0ZsYTFwWVdXeG9RMVJHVWxaYVJWcHNVbTFTV2xscldsTmhSVEZ6VTI1 b1YxWXphR2hhUkVaYVpVWmtkVlZ0ZUZOWFJrcFpWa1phWVZsV1RrZFdiazVX WW1zMVYxWnRlR0ZXYkZKV1ZXNUtVVlZVTURrPQ==

i feel london, nyc and toronto down

2009-03-11T18:53:00.002Z

For anyone trying to access these sites, there's been some sort of 'servergeddon' and it's all a bit buggered.

This means the websites are down and the email addresses aren't working.

Sorry.

In the meantime, have a read about Foursquare, from Dennis and Naveen. Looks interesting.

bad ad

2009-03-09T17:43:00.002Z

What an awful opening line.

Media buy: Spotify - an application that opens you up to infinite music.

Opening line: "Sick of the same old music?"

Eesh.

Moan over.

dropular

2009-03-09T14:44:00.002Z

My new favourite website.

Dropular is like having a magazine that replenishes itself.

The best bit is the navigation, which is simply the arrow keys to go down the page or to the following one.

I could sit here for hours 'flicking' through its pages.

I just bought a T-shirt as a result of doing just that.

I'm done.

give me meat

2009-03-06T15:58:00.002Z

I bought this domain name a year ago. It's about to run out.

Do you think I should renew it?

self-psychiatry through charts

2009-03-06T12:51:00.002Z

Still struggling to stay in the sweet spot after 30 years practicing. I was a bit of a wanker earlier.

Sorry world.

Weapon of War

2009-03-04T10:19:00.001Z

This fell out of my Big Issue this morning. Umm.

urville, the imaginary city

2009-02-25T18:06:00.003Z

I'm reading Embracing the Wide Sky at the moment.

It's good.

Anyway, it pointed me to another autistic savant - a french guy called Gilles Trehin - who has invented (and since 1984 been depicting and documenting) an imaginary city called Urville.

He's drawn hundreds of pictures of Urville and documented its social, cultural and geographical histories. Crikey.

I particularly like this quote:

"I realised that I could expand the city in my mind without necessarily building it in lego"

You can read more about it here.

Manipulation Unit

2009-02-24T09:47:00.003Z

Saw this sign on a door in St. Thomas' hospital yesterday:

Being a manipulation unit though, I'm not sure I trust the danger warning underneath. I think maybe a pacemaker or hearing aid might protect you from manipulation. Perhaps via deafness or deadness.

I think I might try to head up a manipulation unit at work. See how that flies.

on and off

2009-02-19T16:42:00.002Z

Saw this diagram on a hand dryer in a curry house last night.

I found the diagram on the right particularly useful.

sound posters

2009-02-19T11:39:00.003Z

Via

"the music lasts forever"

2009-02-16T12:29:00.008Z

Mike Fox, my old creative writing tutor, told me writing was about 'infecting'; infecting the reader with what's in your head/heart.

I'm going to try and infect you with a wonderful experience I had last night, that revolves mostly around this guy, Lips (aka Steve Kudlow):

Last night Wrisley and I took part in Secret Cinema, a monthly movie screening in London where the film and location are announced at the last moment. They always make an effort to screen films in interesting settings to enhance the experience.

We made our way to the Shepherd's Bush Empire, along with a few hundred others. Inside we would find out that we would be watching the UK premiere of Anvil. You might have seen it advertised. It's being called by some 'the real life Spinal Tap' and the poster certainly paints that picture.

But it's so much more than that. The movie isn't a movie about a hopeless rock band. It's not even just about a rock band. It's a story about passion, friendship, honesty, love and ambition. It's a story about fragility and hope.

Lips is the front man of Anvil but he's the heart of the movie. He is as open, likeable, honest and caring as he is driven and earnest in his ambition. He's my new hero. He represents what it means to be alive. His occasional lack of eloquence and common sense are not faults, they are a testiment to his human, flawed, but wholly honest positivity.

"The music lasts forever"

This wonderfully simple quote from Lips sums the sentiment of the movie for me; both citing Lips' eternal energy source as well as the artefact that will remain after he's gone. If ever there was a casestudy worthy of the phrase 'life is about the journey, not the destination', this is it.

And if I was moved by the movie, then the finale blew my spandex leggings off.

As the film finished, a spotlight flashed across the venue and a frantic guitar solo wailed from a silhouette within its glare. It was Lips, standing tall with one leg up on the rail and that big, crooked grin on his face. The crowd went absolutely mental.

All the emotion from the movie spilled from the screen and into the huge room. All I could do was whoop with the rest of the crowd. And I don't whoop freely that often.
Lips made his way down to the stage where he and the rest of his Band played for the following 25 minutes. We all went crazy, indebted to the band for bearing their souls in the movie and returning the favour with a raw display of appreciation. It was brilliant.

The final twist was finding out how the movie came about.

Turns out the Director, Sacha Gervaisi had befriended the band 20+ years earlier as a kid. He was a fan who showed them around London on their first visit, came to see them in Toronto and even went on tour with them way back when.
Years later Gervaisi called them up. "I'm a screenwriter now. Come to Hollywood."

It's the perfect ending to the story. The fan that Anvil took under their wing all those years ago coming back to return the favour; to give them a gift worthy of everything they gave him.

If you like life, watch this movie.

And vote for Anvil to play at Glastonbury too. I can't think of a better way to put some soul back into the festival.

Update. This great pic from Dogg - who was also there last night:

romantic nyc

2009-02-12T17:03:00.003Z

Valentines day seems like an appropriately commercial occasion to plug I Feel Earth.

Some interesting stats on New Yorkers feeling romantic over at our blog.

Not sure if it feels right plugging that blog here. After all, it's a blog too. hmm.

pay pal calls on its 'pals'

2009-02-05T12:30:00.004Z

Bizarre.
I just received this message form PayPal. It's an email asking me to send a video to my friends to show them how easy it is to use PayPal.

Firstly, if it's easy to use then why did you feel the need to make a video?
Secondly, you can't ask people to send something to their friends. If they like it they'll send it. It's fairly easy to share things these days. Spend your energy focussing on making good shit that people will want to share. And they'll feel smarter for deciding all by themselves that it's worth sharing.

I didn't even watch it. I wrote this instead. So there.

Right, what can I moan about next?...

PSFK Good Ideas Salon

2009-02-02T11:52:00.004Z

I went to this. It made parts of my brain start whirring, which was nice. It also bored the hell out of me at times. Here's some of my notes with links:

Mark Earles did a good talk that resulted in me writing down this:
Book: Why most things fail
Another book: Everything's an offer
A photographer can tell which shot is 'the shot' instinctively. Partly because it feels familiar. Relating to the thinking in Dave Ingvar's Memory of the future.

Good Ideas from London.
Wasn't that many good ideas unfortunately. Although I liked the bit about London having a culture of interested people gathering to discuss ideas. And how we can take for granted how easy it is to reserve a space above a pub for free. Something you don't get in say New York.
Need to check out the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road.

Eva from Troika
She was good and Troika's work is great. Although I had seen most of it before.
I liked the story of a guy selling hot dogs who used a public art installation where you could text messages to be spoken by a computer to advertise his merchandise.

Good ideas in Design
Cameron made me really want to go to Matter. Speakers in the floor so you feel the music around you and in you.
Coralie Bickford-Smith introduced a project to LCC students called 'Stop designing, start playing'. The intention was to change focus from the end product to the process. Which I think is a very smart approach for anyone. Thinking about the end product of something you're just starting is, by definition, impossible, so you therefore think of other end products and already you're thinking unoriginally.
Kate Moross was very smart. No nuggets, but she definitely 'gets it'.
And Nik's beard was looking excellent. He also tried to reframe the discussion, because the word 'design' is fairly leading. His argument was that we tend to think of design as a visual thing, whereas often design is simply problem solving that sometimes manifests itself visually.

Richard Banks form Microsoft was very good. He talked about digital heirlooms, which have ambivalent thoughts towards so won't say anything yet. But I shall follow his blog because I like his brain.

Christian Nold's Biomapping work is great. Mood/emotion mapping basically. But I'd seen it before. A theme in his work was technology's relevant/unnecessary role as a mediator for human emotion. Blurry lines.

The mobile and youth panels were pretty awful. There were some decent, bright people on them, but the 'debates' were framed in completely the wrong way leading to very uninteresting conversations. 'Youth' is a mindset. Technology changes things but we're still driven by the same things we always have been. I wanted to burst during this one. Fortunately Matt Jones was amusing enough to lighten the mobile one and Paul Graham was speaking some sense in challenging the use of the word youth. Eesh.

Colin from Punch Drunk was great. If you haven't seen Punch Drunk's work, you MUST. Not online, in words and flat pictures. But in the flesh. In fact I'm not even going to link to it. You have to work a little to appreciate the experiences they put on. ok, here's one link to something I wrote about one of their things. Also check out Tin Horse theatre.

OK, I'm about done. There was some other stuff too, but my fingers are tired. Simon Waldman showed that the Guardian - who were hosting the event - definitely know what they're talking about. Their plans to introduce 'database journalism', opening their research to the public so we can delve deepr than the article was very interesting.

Man, does anyone even read my long posts?

Thanks for the event, Piers. It was worth going to. I think panel discussions are very hard to do right, but I think maybe they would benefit from having a tighter purpose. Maybe get everyone on it to arrive with an answer to a better defined question. Just my opinion.

p.s. Why does everyone try to look so cool for their picture in the event brochure? It was quite amusing seeing the real versions of everyone while looking at their 'Blue Steel' profiles ;)

there's probably no bus

2009-01-27T10:05:00.002Z

thank you B3ta

anti anti-social media

2009-01-26T12:10:00.004Z

I'll try to say this with suitable brevity.

I hate the term 'social media'. When I hear it (and sometimes, it comes from my mouth too) I want to hold my breath until my cranium explodes.

Other reasons aside, I'll give one explanation of why I think this term is not just annoying but restrictive. And I'll do this in an irritating sound-bitey way, like this:

As Clay Shirky said, humans are social animals. We simply have the tools, finally, to connect in ways we are programmed to do. So social media is really 'anti anti-social media'.

Rather than see our digital tools as adding new channels, it makes more sense to see them liberating us from channels at all. The old tools essentially forced us to cram our full-colour, spirited desire for communication into a a finite number of very limited, black and white outlets.
We - sophisticated, complex beings - were forced to exchange very basic streams of information.

This distinction is really important; between the addition of new options vs the removal of barriers. It's the difference between thinking: 'We can now use channels X, Y and Z to communicate this' and 'we can now say this where we like and how we like'.

We can finally behave and communicate with a fluidity that matches and even exceeds our primal instincts. Just remember that, next time someone says "shall we do a facebook app?"

No pictures, sorry. If it helps, try imagining my cranium exploding and seeing vivid colours falling all around as communication is freed from its shackles :)

hot black desiatio

2009-01-26T09:54:00.002Z

Never before this weekend had I been stopped in my tracks my a 'For Sale' sign. It was black, from edge to edge, with the words "Hot Black Desiato" printed on it.

Intrigued, I popped my head into Google and subsequently Wikipedia to find out what was going on.

From Wikipedia:

"Hotblack Desiato is the ajuitar keyboard player of the rock group Disaster Area, claimed to be the loudest band in the universe, and in fact the loudest sound of any kind, anywhere. So loud is this band that the audience usually listens from the safe distance of thirty seven miles away in a well-built concrete bunker. Disaster Area's lavish performances went so far as to crash a space ship into the sun to create a solar flare."

Wow - so it's a Hitchhiker's Guide thing. But no - it was actually an estate agents first!

"The character is named after an estate agency based in Islington, with branches throughout North London; Adams said he was struggling to find a name for the character and, spotting a Hotblack Desiato sign, liked the name so much he "nearly crashed the car" and eventually telephoned to ask permission to use the firm's name for a character."

Why have I never heard of this before?
I want to sell my house just so I can have one of their 'After Eight-esque' signposts in my garden.

little big jealousy

2009-01-26T09:46:00.003Z

LBP Tips Special: Survival Challenges from Media Molecule on Vimeo.

Why have I still never played this??

kellokult

2009-01-25T21:42:00.003Z

Daniel Tammet is a rather famous and inspiring autistic savant. I had come across him before in a documentary in which he learned Icelandic in 7 days:

He just plopped into my lap for a second time in the form of a New Scientist interview. In it he gives us a teasing glimpse at how he sees the world, makes sense of numbers and information in ways that are both exciting and fascinating. In fact - thank you internet - here is the interview I just read. So I won't bore you by explaining what you can enjoy yourself.

There is one bit I want to extract and drop into my blog though: A word belonging to Tammet's made-up language, Mänti. The word is 'kellokult', as Daniel explains, it "means 'clock debt'. It's a way of emphasising that when you are late for something, it incurs a debt, you owe someone that time." Nice.

I just ordered a copy of his new book Embracing The Wide Sky.

Tammet also has a blog, which I'm going to subscribe to.

One thing's for sure, I don't think any of Tammet's material will result in kellokult. It will all be time very well spent.

when quick isn't quick

2009-01-22T12:36:00.003Z

I just attempted to read an FT article online.

After the first couple of sentences it told me:
To continue reading this article, please register – it’s quick, free and without obligation...

So I tried. And I was shown this:

Perhaps I'm slow. Maybe I'm too lazy to read much, but when I see a page like this, it aint "quick".

It's paralysing. I feel like eating my laptop just to make the noise go away.

It's easy to rationalise that something is quick. But if you're going to put a biblical feast of information between me and wanting to read the next paragraph of your article - you're missing the point a bit.

You could also argue that it took more energy to write this post than it would have done to read that page. But writing this is doing things on my terms.

Effort isn't directly proportional to the amount of work that needs to be done. It also concerns that individual's desires and expectations.

Moan over.

To continue reading this blog, please count the number of vowels in this sentence and email me with your answer.

nearly impossible

2009-01-22T10:12:00.001Z

You should check out The Impossible project.

Even if you don't like it, you might like this:

phone tag brag

2009-01-22T09:38:00.003Z

Phone Tag turns voice mails into text messages on your phone. Which is nice.

But I particularly like this:

Accumulative, distributed benefit isn't really relevant to an individual, but it is a smart way to dramatise the appeal. As well as being loaded with a social backdrop that makes you feel like it's something you should be a part of. Sort of.

Just getting the brain warmed up. Thanks Wris/honey.

I Feel Earth - Meet Nilesh

2009-01-21T11:23:00.003Z

I thought I'd explain a few things about this before we get caught up in the details. That comes later.

First, meet Nilesh and meet our new blog (which will get redesigned at some point, promise)

hobo horror

2009-01-20T09:46:00.003Z

Last night, a friend was saying that the only way to watch a horror movie is on their own in the dark.

I contested, saying it would be much scarier to find a hobo/tramp and get him to sit in the corner of the room looking at you in silence. That would be much scarier.

And he really would have to be quiet. Maybe he could mumble every now and then, but you pretty much want to start wondering if you're imagining him or not.

Reminded me of Bumillionaire too.

All this led me to find this post which could have started the logo design process for this business proposition. Oh and Hobos for Hire is also a band.

Anyway. Much less cruel than hunting hobos down for sport. Not that you were thinking of doing that. Hmm.

double irony attempt

2009-01-19T09:36:00.002Z

It's a brave man that attempts to describe a moment with two layers of (actual) irony. Here goes:

This morning I placed my fresh mug of coffee down on my bedside table. To arm myself for the week ahead I began to gather up the things I needed, including a "get one free" card for my local coffee shop..

My tired fingers fumbled and the card plopped into my mug coffee.

Irony 1: My coffee was ruined by the ink on a card that existed only to provide me with coffee
Irony 2: The card was ruined, by the very beverage it had worked so hard to represent, thus rendering itself incapable of replacing said coffee.

This was not very interesting. I apologise.

durex outtakes

2009-01-16T17:16:00.002Z

Get it on. Awesome.

Some better ones here

found by Nicky

p.s. 400th post. Woo! to me.

Behold the Overnote!

2009-01-07T10:14:00.003Z

Wrisley just sent me this. I quite like it:

damn you words

2009-01-07T09:40:00.003Z

Words are amazing. Once they're set free, they not only retain the thought you intended, they steal it and give it to other people.

At the weekend I put up a note on I Feel London telling people that a new version of the site was coming soon and to click the note to request an email when it goes live.

I decided to pre-populate the email subject with what I imagined people would be thinking. It reads:

"ok, I'm interested - it's about time you improved this thing" (I'm a real card)

What I didn't expect though, is how I felt when the first few emails started coming through. 'How rude', I thought.

Despite rationalising that it was me who wrote the words and these nice people merely clicked the button, my pride took a subconcious hit.

What was I hoping for? That they might change the subject to read:
"Are you kidding? This thing's awesome. You're awesome! I'm going to go and tell my kids that they have to move out so I can turn their bedrooms into I Feel shrines."

After a few more emails this embarrassing angst left me and I returned to being normal human.

I might leave a note by my bed tonight saying: "Don't bother getting up, loser" - see if I take it personally in the morning.

dear me

2009-01-05T09:29:00.004Z

This post is really aimed at me. It will probably bore you to death.

Over the past year I've gone from passionate and opinionated to passive and unengaged. This is down to a few things:

1. I moved from a Creative Director role at a small company and was driving its creative culture and company philosophy (sounds pretentious I know) to a larger company in a less central (comparatively) role.
2. I got engaged and my ambitions and interests started to shift as I peered ahead into my thirties
3. Ifeellondon.com started to become a really exciting prospect (more on this later) and I began to care more about this than other things I was working on (sorry everyone involved)

This is a note to self to re-engage with all the things I used to be passionate about and to start treating this blog as a place to explore ideas that are half-formed at best.

This is my resolution.
Now stop blogging and do some work.

the pics of 2008

2008-12-19T13:52:00.002Z

Amazing collection from the Boston Globe.

expanded faces

2008-12-10T09:35:00.001Z

I love these portraits by Justin Ponmany.

Explained by a less lazy person than me

I Feel guilty

2008-12-09T11:16:00.004Z

When I first mentioned my influence for I Feel London being Musicovery, I totally forgot another important source of inspiration.

I've remembered and forgotten again several times to talk about it - and it's time to give it the credit it deserves.

Your Collection by Tate Britain.

When I saw this I thought it was a brilliant idea. Loved it. And it was definitely a huge influence for I Feel. I even stole the hungover idea from it. It was this, along with Musicovery and probably some other things that triggered off the idea of filtering places by mind-state.

I knew there was a much bigger idea behind this thinking. I never saw these things as a handful of disparate projects, I saw them as a philosophy towards communication.

I think it was made by Fallon. Sorry for the late hat-tip.

P.s. For those of you that are interested, I Feel is soon to become something much better than its current manifestation. Keep your eyes peeled. :)

clever or tasteless?

2008-12-08T10:24:00.003Z

I just had a 2+2 moment.

Yesterday I passed a children's bicycle by liverpool street station. It was painted white and had a sign that said Dead Kids.

I assumed it was a shock-tactic promotion for a Drive Safely initiative.

Then this morning on the way to work I saw a poster for a new band, Dead Kids.

Impactful promotion? Yes. Tasteful? ummm...

Guardian Wrapping Paper project

2008-12-07T17:08:00.002Z

Lovely idea from the Guardian - turning a double page spread into wrapping paper.

Turns out they're celebrity designs and you can bid for the original.

Yesterday's was Victoria Beckham's design:

change

2008-12-04T12:05:00.004Z

A few things that have passed by my eyes or through my mind recently.

Fastened together loosely with the word change.

Obama
I saw this poster on Houston, nyc this week. (btw sorry to those I said I'd try and meet - ran out of time).
I thought it particularly apt that this Obama poster/painting has so quickly been buried under layers of ink and paper. Change, indeed.

The Duracell Bunny

Much embedded in the British subconscious, I saw the Duracell Bunny in an ad yesterday doing Parkour. Which somehow makes perfect sense and yet feels a bit obvious all at the same time. That'll teach me to be too familiar with the ins and outs of the "make our brand relevant again" challenge.

I'm sure I had other things to talk about, but my jet-lag is kicking in - and this presentation isn't going to write itself. Maybe it will. I'll give it a minute.

No. It didn't.

--

update:

I remember now. Wrisley and I bought a travel version of Battleships for the plane. We had been talking about it a few days before. It's EXACTLY as I remembered it. The design hadn't changed since a version I played in a hospital about 25 years ago.
I was thinking it would be perfect for the Nintendo DS. Of course, someone already thought of that.

a me me

2008-11-23T14:23:00.002Z

Lauren just tagged me in a [me me]

I'll keep it brief.
Here are six things about me, if you're interested:

1. I drink girly cocktails
2. I animated a 'virtual' pop band
3. I once got stranded in Reykjavik
4. It annoys me when people misuse apostrophes
5. And when professional footballers can't use both feet
6. I think too much

Let's see if any of these people do this or just tell me to bugger off. Sorry, but I call...

Wrisley, Asi, Cookie, Nicky, Knotty and Neil.

Here are the rules:
* Mention the rules on your blog.
* Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
* Tag six other
* Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they are tagged.

Jeni & Denise

2008-11-21T10:26:00.005Z

This week I witnessed an impressive - and very pleasing - example of how an individual can ignite interest in something.

Jeni
After an initial burst of blog and press coverage a few months ago, my personal side-project I Feel (NYC, London, Toronto) had dried up.

It dried up because although people seem to really love the idea, it's clearly not a great experience at the moment. The site itself only allows you to browse content. All editing must be done from Google Maps. I'm working on a rich version of the concept but more about that later.

I had all but shelved the concept myself, but then a blogger called Jeni found it. Interestingly she found it on Neil's blog - and Neil was the very first blogger to cover it. So we've come full circle.
Jeni's post was seen by Tina (Swiss Miss) and so the snowball started rolling again.
After going a couple of months with no activity I now have dozens more requests to get invited to the maps.

Denise
Coverage is one thing. But due to the clunky experience of the site, lots of people add few or no entries before tiring of it. I learned this the hard way with I Feel Toronto, which despite getting national press coverage in Canada a few months ago, still had no entries until this week.

Step up Denise, a landscape architect from Toronto. She's been on a one-woman mission to fill the maps and she's doing a blinding job.

Not only this, but she's been getting her friends involved. Suddenly I Feel Toronto is alive with activity.

The site's limitations won't go away and the second lull will happen. But thank you Jeni and Denise for showing what affect an individual can make to tip something over into being valuable again.

In fact, I'm so pleased, here's the first public sneak peek at the new site, which will be live... god knows. Not for a while!

i feel - hello you

2008-11-19T14:18:00.003Z

This is an unusual 'topical' post.

I just realised I'm getting a lot of traffic again for my I Feel project. If you've just come across this site from I Feel, hello! So you know, the project as it stands is a little stale at the moment. It's a fairly clunky beta version and I'm currently working on a much richer execution.

So if you like the idea, but think the execution is a bit rubbish. It is. Sort of. But I promise a better one is in development.

If you'd like to be updated when the improved version is ready, you can email me directly from the site and give me your contact details.

But do get involved. All data will be moved form this version to the new one, so no personal investment will be a waste of time. :)

Cheers

Andy

P.s. Thanks to the bloggers that have reignited interest in the project.

untidy autumn

2008-11-18T18:19:00.003Z

I really liked this post about perfection taking away something from experiences.

Early this morning I passed through a part of the financial district where everything is just a little bit too perfect. To make it worse, they were hurriedly sweeping up the autumnal leaves before anyone could see them covering their unblemished walkways.

All those lovely big flakes of orange and brown - in the bin. Back to concrete, steel and glass.

Boooooo.

inanimate stickers

2008-11-12T08:02:00.003Z

Stickers of eyes and mouths to stick on objects!!? I'm going to have a lot of fun with these.

google reader, the book

2008-10-29T12:06:00.006Z

Sort of.

Today, Age of Conversation 2 launched. It features 237 authors/bloggers writing about, you know, bloggy stuff: social media, business, communication, life etc.

Presumably - as is usually the case when words are to become immortalised in ink - the authors will have made a special effort to say something especially valuable or thought-provoking. Imagine a day when every blogger stops rambling and really nails something. That's what I imagine this book to be like.

It feels strange to be promoting the book, because while I am one of the 237 authors, I have also been wallowing in blog-block for quite some time and generally lost my mojo. So don't take my word for it - and don't buy it to read my chapter.

Buy it for these reasons:

1. There are 236 other authors that probably wrote something really good that you won't find anywhere online
2. It'll make you look 'in touch' when people see it on your desk
3. It's for a children's charity
4. It's a sequel. Which means more explosions and a longer car chase

You can buy it at Lulu right now.

The exhausted organisers, Gavin and Drew, along with the people at the Variety charity will very much appreciate it.

As will the authors...

Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

t

2008-10-24T07:16:00.003Z

Sounds like I'm a bit late, but I just caught onto the 'MadMen Twitter craze'. It immediately reminded me of Matt Beaumont's e, where a story is told through the emails of staff at an ad agency, but as you can read here, this story (t?) is inevitably more complex and interactive. Who are the 'real' characters? Who knows. Who cares.

I'm sure the same idea has been played out with other TV shows too(?) but I suppose it works especially well for a show that appeals to ad people that probably use twitter.

I love the idea of a story playing out across these kinds of tools. In fact, I started one myself a while ago but gave up quickly from a lack of time/motivation. My idea was to tell a serial killer's life through a blog, called Killer Blog.

I quickly became uneasy with the idea and decided to make it obviously jokey in case the Feds knocked at my door. Or whoever the dull, understated version of the Feds are in the UK.

Ho hum.

Howard, Howard, Howard

2008-10-22T10:22:00.003Z

Last night I glugged down a disorientating cocktail of authentic and contrived advertising.

I attended a lecture by the very watchable Erik Kessels, presented by paper company, Howard Smith.

Kessels is renowned for his 'authentic' approach to advertising. That is, holding up a mirror to his audience, rather than conjuring up synthesized ad-land gloss.

He looks for the truth in things, for human emotion, mundanity and innocence and it shines through in both his advertising and his penchant for unravelling the stories behind discarded photographs.

The lecture was the seventh annual talk of its kind, presented by Howard Smith papers. It's an initiative the company is obviously committed to, and those of us that enjoyed the show on their credit card are grateful.

It's just a shame the organisers didn't look into Kessel's methodology before the night itself. The way they crowbarred their products into the experience was utterly painful and a masterclass in misunderstanding context.

Before the lecture itself, A Howard Smith representative explained the importance of paper to a person like Kessels. This was a little forced, but just about relevant. Just about.

What followed though, was embarrassing. A shaky, nervous co-presenter went through a ten-minute (which is a very long time!) presentation about Howard Smith and all its different paper stock.

The stock was detailed in huge letters in front of the trapped audience, as the presenter lauded the products as though they were the main attraction itself.

It wasn't done with wit, charm or character. It was like a watching a primary school play, directed by the retired science teacher.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to communicate with an audience you have assembled about a product you have deemed relevant to the event. But this episode displayed an utter lack of respect for the context and a total lack of empathy for the audience. It reminded me of this:

The opportunity was seen as a way to force their products into the eyes and ears of an audience with nowhere to run.

I left wondering what Mr Kessels would have made of it. And how he might have advertised the paper on their behalf.

Oh wait - he did - we all got a book of his work, printed on the stock itself. Wouldn't that have been enough?

i love the future

2008-10-21T11:37:00.001Z

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

monsters of boredom

2008-10-14T13:48:00.008Z

I almost slapped myself in the face yesterday.

The guy in my local newsagent was about to put my yoghurt and milk into a plastic bag, when I raised my hand. "No bag is necessary." I told him, emphasising the word 'bag' unnecessarily.

"No bag is necessary." That convoluted sentence has come out of my mouth several times in the last couple of weeks. It's a shocker. I'm going to try to never say it again.

It got me wondering why this word-cluster popped up from nowhere and got lodged in my brain and I've decided that it's because of boredom. I think I actually got bored of regularly saying "it's ok, I don't need a bag" and out of sheer desperation for variety I started saying it in a new way, despite that new way being hideous.

Andy, stop writing drivel.. go lie down or something.

Ah - but I have a point to make. You see, I was in a meeting the other day in which an idea we had been kicking around for ages started to be dismissed for the first time. Its novelty wore off and we got bored of it before anyone else had even seen it. Something we've all faced, I'm sure.

Lars Svensson, author of A Philosophy of Boredom suggests that humans are notorious for valuing novelty above usefulness and that this is a direct result of boredom's hold on us. The problem is, this attitude of avoiding boredom at all costs leads to making surface changes just to scratch our itch.

Scratch enough and you turn it into a monster.
That makes absolutely no sense. I've decided that I have little patience for the last 10% of a blog post. I make a vague point and then trail off. I'm going to go and have some toast...

unlit with jont, dave, orange, monkey and poke

2008-10-14T09:28:00.005Z

There's always a little hesitation when bloggers poise to promote themselves or their agency.

This (brief) story is a fine example of how such projects tend to span agendas and personal involvement in ways that make 'self-promotion' an unsatisfactory simplification. Or something less wordy.

I only had light professional involvement with this Poke project, The Orange Unlit Tour - a series of gigs played in people's houses across the country.

But by chance I knew personally, the people involved in it. Dave, the director and partner (of sorts) to Jont, is a friend of mine. I've known him for a few years through my friend Tash. The three of us can be seen below. (That's right, I'm pretty 'street' out of office hours)

Bizarrely, I had recommended to Poke that we work with Jont and Dave for a different project a few weeks before I heard about this one, not knowing they were already talking. And I had been to two previous Unlit gigs at Dave's house. (I appear briefly in one of the other YouTube videos)

To make things more interesting, I also know the Producer they subsequently hired: Garfield. I know him through a girl I used to work with. All very strange. I snuck onto the bus just before they left and took a rubbish photo of Dave and Garfield. Then I made a comment about their sleeping arrangement to make them suitably uncomfortable and left them to it.

So here I am with a Poke project involving two people I know separately and based around an event I had been to.

I have bias shooting from every pore. So I won't say toooo much about this.

What I will say is that the tour looked like a lot of fun. And it was put together by a bunch of people that all loosely knew each other. Even the peeps at Poke and Orange get on really well outside work.

If I have a point, it's that probably that there is naturally scepticism when any brand supports an initiative that existed without it and having been to the original Unlits, I was particularly aware of it. But I think this was done very tastefully and Jont and Dave were over the moon with the support of Orange. I think. Dave? Orange has, for me, always been quite an intimate brand and it fits well with the mood of these house-gigs.
From my fairly unique view-point this project looked to have been put together by a bunch of people (agency-side, client-side, production-side and performance-side) that all loosely knew each other and loved what they were doing. That seems to me, the best expression of what Orange are trying to support.

Group hug anyone?

The video is worth a look, especially if seeing interesting bands play in people's houses sounds fun to you. I watched it all the way through, which is rare for me. It starts a little slowly in my opinion, but the last two thirds are great. I really wish I had been there for the Mongolian Throat singers!

Anyhoo, here's the video:

final episode of the Orange Unlit tour
Uploaded by bigbraintv

keane and osang gwon

2008-10-13T11:45:00.001Z

Loving these.

Read about it on the CR blog

ummm..

2008-10-10T09:18:00.001Z

the sleeveface family tree?

2008-10-07T09:06:00.006Z

Just saw yet another sleeveface rip-off. These guys didn't even try to make the copy fit with the image.

I sigh (again), along with Neil, who feels the same pain.

Anyway, it reminded me of two other things. First this - a nice different spin and presumably not a sleeveface rip-off, although I really can't be bothered to research it.

And lastly...

I was watching the awesome Arrested Development recently and saw what could potentially have been the original inspiration for Sleeveface. In the final episode of Season Two, 'Righteous Brothers', GOB is driving in his brother, Michael's car when he finds a mix-tape he had made for Michael.
A photo of Michael's face adorns the tape and as GOB holds it up in front of his own face he gets snapped by a speed camera. The photo is used as legal evidence that it was in fact Michael who was in the car and not GOB.

It's ok. It's a comedy.

This is the only grab I could find:

The moral of the story?
1. This isn't that interesting. I should find something else to write about
2. We get it, it's fun to hold photos up when they blend into their surroundings
3. The next person that rips this off is going to have me and Neil arrive at their door with stern looks and empty threats. You heard.

rubbish blackberry photo observations #402

2008-10-03T09:50:00.003Z

Both pictures taken on my RUBBISH blackberry camera on the way to work two days ago.

1. BAD
Jack Daniels deja vu. Haven't we been told every day for the last five years that it's Jack's birthday?? I'm getting bored of it. The British don't need an excuse to drink. I'll celebrate the tying of my shoelace if it helps get things going.

2. GOOD
Nice sign on the till in Pret. Translation due to rubbish camera: "We're legally required to add on VAT when you eat in. Nightmare."

I love signage like this. (and this and this)
You might say it's contrived, but I like it. When it's done well. Nice.

cowboy jargon

2008-09-24T13:34:00.002Z

I hate industry jargon. We all know it well - I don't need to quote any. What I will do though is link to this list of Old West slang. I think I might start using some of this language in meetings.

That ppt? Just a lick and a promise.

Can we get it done by Friday? All to pieces.

Long day? I need an Arbuckles.

brain bilge water

2008-09-24T08:32:00.003Z

or something.

In Brier-style, I'm going to squeeze out a few bits and pieces from some recent reading and that.

First, this from Cory Doctorow on not judging new media by old rules. It's a simple thought but a great one. I often think that the expected format of something (wrongly) dictates its conception. I.e. brands liking to do big campaigns with certain channels pre-determined. It also reminds me of a rant I had ages ago about simple insights being stretched to fill a book. I'd like to think that instead of publishers asking "can you turn that into a book?" the writer might ask herself: "should I turn this into a book?"

Next up, some eggy thoughts from the excellent Katie Chatfield. I'm firmly behind her thoughts on perfection stifling personality and appeal in brands:

You could never be friends with anyone that doesn’t have doubts, make mistakes, have cracks and the ability to laugh at those moments in life when things have gone significantly broader at the base.

Structure, process and rigour. shudder. It's a tough one though isn't it. I'm all for brands being really experimental, trying stuff, getting it wrong and apologising. The most interesting stuff is such because it didn't come off the tried and tested shelf. Easy to say. Harder to persuade.

Actually that reminds me of a bit of Eddie Izzard when he talks about telling the truth. He says how, as kids we deny everything, but as we get older we realise telling the truth can get us laid:

Then when you're more mature,
you start telling the truth.
              
"I've broken a glass. Is it expensive?
I'll pay for that. I'm sorry."

You do that so people might go,
"What a strong personality.
I like to have sex with people
with strong personalities."

"I broke other things,
I smashed that.
That's gone and I've just
thrown the cat out the window."

Ahem. Here's a few other random bits:

- the Yo-Yo that charges an iPhone.

- Adrian's "influence is the social media equivalent of market share" (I like)

- And a bear on a trampoline (is it me or does he bounce pretty much as high as the tree anyway?):

P.s. Sorry to put you between a trampolining bear and a yo-yo Adrian. Such is the nature of brain bilge ramblings. I also need the loo and I'm trying to wrap this up really quickly.

insects in dew

2008-09-03T13:14:00.001Z

Wow

Great find Asi

tell me what to do

2008-09-03T08:24:00.004Z

I thought maybe I needed a number two, but apparently it was just a blog post rumbling up from beneath. Here it is:

I had dinner last night at the brilliant Paddyfields in Balham with my accomplice in eating stuff, Wrisley. After ordering, we were brought a complimentary dish we hadn't asked for. Our first starter arrived moments later.

"Eat that first. Then eat that." We were told.
So we did.
Then our second starter arrived.
"That first. Then that one. Then that one." Our waiter continued. "That's hot. That's cold."

We did what he said. He was right. It was good.

It reminded me how much fun it was to be told what to do by someone that knows what they're talking about. In terms of food, it frees you from your role as customer and turns you into a pupil. Suddenly you're not just eating, you're learning and you're really tasting.

It reminded me of a guy I work with, Dogg (yes, you read that correctly). He takes part in some kind of military training where an army guy stands on his head and screams at him (amongst other things I hope).

And my old boss, who used to have squash 'lessons' in which his 'instructor' screamed things like "faster you fat cunt" as he shuffled around the court. It was somewhere between a squash lesson and visiting a dominatrix.

Rules are great. Life is boring when we can do anything. So many apps, services, social networks and so on rush around to let us do as much as possible in whichever ways we like.

There are two sides to this (I think - I'm very tired):

1. Relinquishing control means relinquishing responsibility - it frees us to behave in ways we wouldn't normally
2. Being told how to do stuff changes the experience - we're no longer prodding and poking at things in our own way; we're learning and broadening our outlook

What if a community network demanded that you introduce yourself to another member you don't know. Or made a rule that on the first day of every month, everyone had to upload a photo. These are not very inspiring first thoughts, but the sentiment is there. If "they made me do it" then it's ok. I wasn't showing off, or being nosey, or desperate. We are all just playing the game.

I see a vague similarity in this thinking to I'm in like with you, which creates an environment that demands certain behaviour. It frees people from the ugly side of dating and says: We make the rules. You can relax.

Enough. I don't even know what I'm saying any more. Why isn't tea as good as coffee at waking people up? Isn't it supposed to have more caffein.

Here's two rules for you:

1. You must add a comment to this post
2. You must use the word 'teapot' in it

everyone for themselves

2008-08-29T15:39:00.002Z

I just saw this individual slice pan over here.

I instinctively found it quite sad. If anyone ever gives me a slice that has been baked alone I will refuse to eat it. So there.

McCarty rocks

2008-08-29T13:23:00.004Z

I wish Brian McCarty could curate my dreams.

From TSS

real conversations

2008-08-27T13:56:00.003Z

I just saw this over at the ad pit:

There are more entertaining pieces of content out there, but the idea is first class. Instead of sitting in a room thinking about what they could say to people, the folk behind this (W+K, I believe?) decided to actually engage with the fans of the Tiger Woods game.

They simply created a video response to a fan's video on YouTube.

See how easy it is when you strip away all the bollocks and just interact with people.

Imagine the thrill of the person that posted that video. He's a fan for life now.

You could easily imagine a dialogue developing between fans and EA in this environment.

Excellent.

P.s. If it turns out the original fan video was planted, then I retract some of the above and say "Why I oughta..."

scarecrow fesival

2008-08-26T14:41:00.005Z

If you were in the village of Ickwell at the weekend, then I'd be bloody amazed. But, also you would have witnessed their scarecrow festival.

It was actually really fun. And the scarecrows were excellent. Made even better because you imagine a family making them rather than a hipster/hoxtonite. The above surgeon was my favourite.

Villagers each constructed a scarecrow and put it in their front garden and we, the public walked around judging them. Officially judging them, you understand - with bits of paper and pencils and everything. I didn't ridicule any to the point that the children that made it were in tears.

Not satisfied just making a great scarecrow, some people went to amazing lengths to create little stories.

Anyway, I don't have anything interesting to say, other than: Go to a scarecrow festival. Now. n-n-now.