James Billington, the US Librarian of Congress, said recently that the use of electronic communications by young people may be damaging "the basic unit of human thought - the sentence."
The sentence isn't a basic unit of human thought
It isn't even a basic unit of human speech - we don't speak in sentences
It is the basic unit of some forms of human writing
Deal with it James.
I had a coffee with Ron Leagas this morning. Ron who made his name as one of the Saatchi generals in their relentless rise to the top of the 80s ad scence. Went on to found an agency Leagas Delaney which still bears his name. We have worked together several times in the last few years but this mornings session was something of a catch up for each of us on what the other had been up to. Aside from his role as adman, consummate account man and capable communications strategist Ron spends quite a lot of his time coaching. And something he said caught my attention. He was talking about the problem about staying in coaching/mentoring role and avoiding getting pulled into consulting - when you stop asking the client questions which help them to work out what they think and you become tempted to answer the questions yourself! Perhaps the client may even want you to provide the answers rather than them. It led to an exchange about the power questions have to challenge us and to liberate us to think in different ways.
All of which made me think that perhaps it is time we pensioned off the advertising proposition and replaced it with the advertising question. What question could be ask that would bring about the desired change in the mindset of the person who listens to it? It seems to me also that the greatest advertising has always been demanding asking questions of the culture and the category norms and asking people why they aren't doing something else. And the bulk of advertising which for the most part is just ballast - generic clai ms and predictable calls to action - the problem with these is that they don't ask questions - they perpetuate the status quo.
Asking good questions is an art - ask any qualitative researcher. This won't make communicating easier but it might make communications more effective. And if our business is serious about getting out of broadcast mode into engagement and dialogue then brands finding the ability to ask really good questions could be a very good place to start looking.
Thank you Ron - I hope I'm not breaking a confidence by musing out loud here. If I don't write this sort of thing down somewhere then I'm going to forget it! Memo to self. The next half dozen propositions I write I am also going to frame in the form of a question. And see what happens.
A bit of a dust up today - Ruth Gledhill has written a piece in the Times about the Muslims outnumbering Chrsitian churchgoers by 2035. About the time we'll be planting colonies on Mars and driving flying cars. I know I sound facetious but a lot can happen in 30 years. We just had a million immigrants arrive in this country in the last 2-3 years - and their arrival has dented the church decline figures - why? Because a lot of them were more fervent Christians than those already here. There are churches in London with literally thousands of members.
The real story is I believe a little different - for a generation we have had trumpetings about a multifaith society - which basically meant a secular society with room for people to practice their faith privately. Publicly we were supposed to agree that all religions lead to the top of the mountain despite the evidence that aside from Buddhism - no world religion at its core had that axiom. Multifaith is poppycock - there never was a public consensus on this just goodwill and good manners for other religionists who were as passionate about their beliefs as we were. The interesting thing is that religion has invaded the public sphere in its raw and undiluted form. I don't mean fanatics and bigots - I mean that it is OK to express ones faith in public and its not a declaration of war on anyone who happens to disagree with you. What is my basis for this? The same publication used in this article to say that the Muslims are taking over aka the Times was used last December in the Sunday Telegraph to show that the Catholics are taking over. Whose right? You know with a threshold of 30 years I really don't know and I don't care. What interests me much more is that for the last couple of hundred years it didn't make any sense any religious group taking over. Because it didn't matter - secularism ruled. But now it does.
Can the news media just get on with reporting that there has been a cyclone in Burma and a lot of people have died. So we need to help. Can the media stop writing nonsense about the Burmese government which is irrelevant to the story. It is a savage reminder that most of our news stories are constructed as crude morality tales. Let me give you some titbits. The Burmese government is incompetent because they didn't tell anyone that the cyclone was coming so that people could be better prepared - How ? On low lying land close to water with wooden houses and 100mph winds? The Burmese government is 'suspicious' - which is why it didn't ask for aid straight away. They are 'secretive' which is why they can't tell us how many people have died. They are manipulative because they plan to run referendum within a week while the country is still disrupted (haven't we been calling for more democracy in Burma?)
And to cap it all Barbara Bush is has joined the chorus pleading with the Burmese authorities to accept US aid. Two words for you Barbara: New. Orleans.
It was reported today that CCTV is responsible for solving 3% of street crime - which by the admission of the police is pathetic. And even more so since there is more surveillance via CCTV in the UK than any other country in Europe. According to the CANS programme yesterday there is one CCTV camera for every 14 people. Which by my calculation means that there are more CCTV cameras than geodemographic units of households at the highest level. Not only is this supervision useless because police aren't organised and can't be bothered to sit down and look at all that footage. But street crime goes on at the same levels because there is a general assumption that the cameras are not working/not being used so the cameras aren't a deterrent. So how do we measure the background radiation levels of knowing that we are always being watched. And if it isn't making us safer then why have we as a civilised society tolerated this imposition without challenge?
The police of course are embarassed about this. Are they proposing to remove the cameras? Of course not - they are redoubling their efforts and propose to post films of 'suspects' on the internet. Hang on a second I thought you had to be convicted first in a court of law? I leave you with an enduring image from the festival yesterday. Vultures.
On the way out of the CANS festival a hooded masked figure was working. Banksy or an understudy? But we were supposed to think it was the real deal..
Mon 05/05/2008 14:02 05052008025
Queuing to see banksy and all the rest of the show - we were told it would take 90 minutes to queue. In the end they let us in after 45 minutes.
This evening we watched Blazing Saddles. Chock full of laughs - I hadn't seen it for years. One of the highlights is Madeleine Kahn's take off of Dietrich which I attach for your viewing pleasure. Then afterwards while I was browsing youtube I found a wonderful version of an Isaiah Berlin song she did which I have put first for you. I hadn't realised what a great voice she had - she could sing Dietrich off the stage though of course Dietrich wasn't about the singing. And poignant because Kahn died 10 years ago relatively young.
Sold the dinghy today and the bloke came from Norfolk to pick it up. He insisted on paying with cash which is a bit of a no no on Ebay. I did pretty well selling the boat within the week. With this sort of budget people needed to come and see the boat. The second person to see it bought it. He came with a trailer - looked a bit furtive when handing over the dosh though I think he was nervous about handing over a large wodge of cash. And part of me was still wondering how it could go wrong - were the notes counterfeits? I had decided this was more secure than a cheque. Was it? What was his address and so on. I furtively took a couple of photos of his license plates - it would have been rude to have done it obviously - he asked me to write him a receipt by hand. Both of us were trying to trust the other while trying to make sure that there was no funny stuff at the same time. Verry interesting how you go about deciding if you can trust people. A lot of it is providing details about yourself to fill in gaps.
He told me he is planning to store the boat in Salcombe and sail it round Bolt Head - which gave me a bit of a twinge - I'd like to do that! But now he can and I can't. Ah well.
Lunchtime today I was up in the town centre at the annual Mayfair. Hoddesdon Churches together were giving away burgers and sausages in the centre and had managed to field a number of bands. There was a band from the Catholic church with what seemed like a vast number of guitarists. And a band of 14-15 year olds from St Cuthberts - my own son on keyboards. The music was definitely of a 1970s vintage whatever the age of the players - but I was struck by the fact that with the band of older players it felt like a comfortable pair of slippers they were slipping on once again after innumerable times. What grabbed me was the younger band who finished their set with an improvised instrumental after a quip about going into their jazz odyssey phase. But their sound was anything but comfortable - they were playing prog rock ideas which were 30 years old without embarrassment or irony. They knew what they liked and belted it out - and it didn't sound (to my ears at least) like a complete cliche - as it would have been if I had been playing it. They finished with Bowie's Suffragette City which was hilarious. I used to play that song with my band Asmodeus when I was at school. And Bowie was hitting the singles charts. Ahh proud father....
It also got me thinking that churches make an inordinate contribution to music in proportion to their numbners. If church going is running at around 7% of the populatoin and a church of 100 has at least one band maybe two then we are talking perhaps 10 musicians playing regularly. Churches these days have decent sound systems so they are great training grounds with the gear and the space. Getting places to rehearse and to gig is usually a nightmare in these times where every venue needs to have a performing license for more than 2 musicians. Churches are often outpunching their weight. St Cutberts uses 3 bands (not the one featured here) plus a choir and that's not all the musicians - say a third of the members are involved in some kind of music in or out of church.
