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.
I had a presentation to do within hours of the start of the holiday weekend to a bird conservation NGO - I just had to relate that I was trying to explain that I was trying to provide an overview so rather foolishly suggested I was giving a peregrine (falcon's) eye view of the context. But a few slides later I needed an even wider perspective. One client jumped in - well that would be an alpine chough - because they fly higher than peregrines. 'Only in Europe' said another client immediately. We concluded that it WAS indeed the alpine chough slide - and on I went. So here's an alpine chough so you know what i was talking about <sigh!>
Fri 25/04/2008 12:44 25042008013
Not even Nike can get away with this one. I think better to say Sorry We're Closed. The triumph of marketingese over plain English: its not safe to sell to you so run along to the website and buy some trainers. Euww!!
There were 2 great stories on the radio this morning for the Youth Hostel and for Wetherspoons. The head of the Youth Hostel was trying to explain how applying for 24 hour licenses wasn't going to turn the YHA into a national chain of underage drinking dens. And as the rentacritic pointed out - it wasn't about the hours the booze was on sale - it was about the brand - youth hostels aren't supposed to be about sitting inside all evening getting hammered. And the chief exec just couldn't wriggle off a hook he had never intended to be on in the first place. He's messing with the DNA of the YHA - and he needs to - they have had to close loads because the youngsters are getting cheap flights to get hammered in lots of cheap European destination. So this isn't more of the same - the YHA needs to reinvent itself - adding a bar just feels like a loss of nerve.
And onto Witherspoons who had told some outraged Scousers that they wouldn't serve them a 3rd round of drinks. Because they had children with them. They offered to switch to soft drinks. No dice. Nope. Witherspoons welcomes families who come to eat but when you're eaten and had your couple of drinks - take the kiddies and leave. Outrage across Merseyside.
I think its brilliant. What do you mean you should be allowed to walk into a pub and drink as much as you like in it? Why should pubs be customer centred - alcohold is bad for you. So there are a few house rules which involve ensuring you eat -(very profitable for Witherspoons) you have a couple of drinks then because too much alcohol and looking after kids is a bad idea. and having kids racing around a pub is an even worse idea then encourage the whole party to leave. The reason why I think this is brilliant is that it creates a clear point of difference between Witherspoons and other pubs. Some people will love this others will hate it. And having a clear and interesting policy and communicating that policy effectively does a lot more to make Witherspoons famous than telling people that Witherspoons is a great place to go out for a drink and a meal - which isn't news to anybody. I just hope that at the back of al of this there really is a strategist or two planning this sort of thing. I worry that its just one of those admin things that hits the tabloids and goes crazy. Because honest -this is actually good marketing. And once again it doesn't cost a ton of money to get the message across.
I was on the Ship of Fools website - which is devoted to religious satire. And found this gem just in time for those of you thinking of advent calendars or ordering calendars for 2008. A calendar with a difference targeted at lusty Italian morticians. The trouble with fiction (and satire) is that reality is usually a lot funnier. My favourites are February and April - but remember its not about the girls. Which casket titillates you most? Unbelievable. Rush your orders in.
I read a very disturbing piece about the US army in Iraq right before falling asleep and woke up early thinking about network effects. So far 3863 US troops have been killed in Iraq. Worth comparing with 2974 fatalities in 9/11. If you recall the motive for the US invasion was originally the supposed link between El Quaeda and Saddam Hussein. But that's not the most disturbing part.
CBS has reported that in 2005 6256 US veterans killed themselves. Twice the incidence of suicide in the general population. Now there isn't a direct correlation - many of these veterans may have fought in other wars. But it is a reminder that the biggest sources of military fatalities don't come from hostile action but road accidents and suicide. The British army isn't a lot different. If when we commemorate Flag/Remembrance/Armistice day we were to recall that for every soldier dead there is at least one other, possibly two serving soldiers or veterans who have taken their own lives - it demonstrates the pressures we put our armed forces through. Even out of the war zone. And it means our leaders need to be network thinkers calculating collateral effects of their actions. Leaders who think causally are a liability.
Doing a job that may get you killed isn't a job I ever want to do. I'm grateful for those who take it on on my behalf. Doing a job that may make you want to kill yourself seems worse in the scale of things. We need to count the veteran casualties as well as the war casualties (and the civilian casualties) before declaring that military action is the only solution left.
Today I went to the Marketing Society conference to blog it on behalf of WARC - so if the link works for you then here's where to go. I know conferences are supposed to stir things up a bit but I suspect the rate of change in the marcomms and media landscape is such that marketers are already confused. What we need is practical applications. Its a lot easier to remind delegates how confusing everything is. My personal highlight of the day was hearing the new commercial director of Facebook in the UK. There are 12 million Facebookers in the UK and 2 employees in total so don't expect to get him on the phone anytime soon. He chose to focus on the point of facebook as an application rather than flog the rather more dubious benefits to advertisers which let's face it, it would have been very easy for him to do. It was a vivid reminder of the principle much repeated during the day that the value you create for people is much more critical to your success than all the wonderful things you might say about yourself. Which I need to remember as I wield my creds presentation - the question is how do you create value for B2B clients? Without turning into a new business windbag.
What a lovely morning - the net is alive... with the sound of cheering and backslapping after the APG awards. I just thought I'd post the only pic I have of the Burnetts planning department (the lineup has changed a little now). The atmosphere in Burcharest must be close to fever pitch waiting for Elena to touch down and return in triumph to the agency. When they first showed me round the agency I was shown the meeting rooms each named after an advertising award and with a shelf ful of them. The Cannes room was empty until last July but was set up anyway to spur them on. And a great environment in which to present work to clients. Imagine looking over the client's shoulder as he tries to water down the creative idea and look at that award getting further away by the minute. Now it seems they will have to set up another meeting room called the APG to house the 2 APG awards they won last night.
I was on their blog this morning and spotted this series of virals which had been put together to encourage a higher standard of creativity for a creative award competition for students. The creative idea - Send the judges some decent ads please because they don't want to have to wade through a pile of s***. Simple, cheap and quick to make and executed with aplomb - the faces and the location look familiar - the guy hurling the dead lamb is Bogdan the creative director. It's not every creative director you'll find flinging a dead sheep around in front of the office. A nice example of the creative energy I've discovered every time I've visited Bucharest.
Off to John Grant's book launch this evening - the Green Marketing Manifesto. I confess I haven't manage to keep up with his blog where he thrashed out the core structure of the Green Marketing Manifesto - I can't come anywhere near to matching his productivity. I have recorded the interview with the marketing bod from the FT and even posted it in in their own words but don't go and look just yet because I can't get the Flash player to work properly - will tip you off as soon as I have debugged it.
The audience for the event was a curious blend of agency types and NGO types rather staring at each other across an ideological chasm. It was a treat to bump into Elena and Raluca from Burnetts in Bucharest. Elena has come over for the APG awards - she's a finalist. But we'll just have to wait until Monday to see how it all turns out!
I've been doing some work on how to get companies to be more creative. Which has given me a renewed respect for what a company is supposed to do - which is to fly stable. Companies which aren't stable don't as a rule survive very long. The job of the leadership is to create a culture where everyone in the company knows where the company is going and what is expected of them. Trouble is that culture tends to kill ideas it doesn't recognise - that's what culture is for - to protect the organism. The job of meetings and in particular workshops and brainstorms is to ensure that new ideas are explored and survive long enough to impact on the activities of the company and to be accepted by the culture. I show a pic of the Eurofighter which has been designed to be more manoueverable because it flies unstably - I wonder if companies will ever be capable of flying unstably - or shall we stick to the regime of culture forming with occasional brainstorms?
I very much enjoyed attending Making Good, a day conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ethical agency GoodBrand last month. I hadn't realised how sophisticated CSR has become forging partnerships between corporations and NGOs so the big companies stay real and the NGOs get realist. You can see the main presentations from the day here: www.goodbrand.com/en/makinggood/presentations/
I am starting to miss Tony Blair - the current lot just can't cut it. Turns out they've underestimated the number of immigrants coming into the country in the last 10 years - by an amount equivalent to the population of one of our medium sized cities. Is anyone going to resign or apologise? Not at all - its just an oversight. So estimating the number of doctors, school places, housing - that doesn't need accurate data on the number of people needing the services? No not really. Blair would at least have done some handwringing - the minister responsible thought he could get away with saying they had just corrected the figures.
What are they going to do about it? Revisit the guidelines for admitting Bulgarian and Romanian workers and make them even tougher. Commiserations to my Romanian friends - I knew someone was going to have to foot the bill for more government incompetence.
Sat 20/10/2007 15:21 20102007(002)
On one of the busiest routes on the Brecon Beacons a bilingual sign has the English side painted out. Is it info about safety or tourism? Only Welsh speakers are allowed to know. The Welsh tourism agency spends hundreds of thousands every year trying to persuade people to visit Wales. Which is largely wasted if visitors don't feel welcome when they get there and return home with examples like this. Signs written in such a way that most passers-by can understand isn't cultural subserviance. Its good manners. And good tourism too.
The key to making Facebook rock and roll is choosing the right add-ons to forward to your 'friends'. Until now only developers were able to create them. But now the asylum keys have been handed to the inmates. If you've got fed up with receiving bogus drinks, fluffy animals and general nonsense then why not prove that you can outviral the pros. By using Dapper you can make your own add-ons. Off you go then.
Today I was at Mediaedge to interview Steve Hatch and Jim Taylor the authors behind the book This Rigorous Magic - a way of helping clients to decide what kind of idea they are looking for. And by the way what is usually needed is not an advertising idea. There really isn't another book out there about how to brief communicaiton platforms. Provocative stuff and a very helpful read and what nice blokes they are. I will be posting the interview in the next couple of months.
Heard this via a 3rd party - a planning director (who shall remain nameless) has been doing long hours on a big international pitch for the IT giant HP. Coming home late one night said his wife trying to be supportive: 'Well you do need to keep it in perspective. After all its only a sauce.' If you're not from the UK the humour of this is probably untranslateable.
We're in the middle of what seems like an unending series of 48 hour strikes by the local sorting offices striking according to the bosses because they're refusing to modernise. The on off nature of the strikes is of course chaotic because you have no way of knowing if something has got lost or delayed or what. It isn't doing much for their image either. The rest of us are modernising why can't they? Being a postal worked can't be that deskilled and surely those who remained might have more skills and would thereby be more secure in their jobs.
Enough union bashing. What it is reminding us is that these jobs on which small businesses largely depend are protected by statute. And we're learning to find ways around them. The posties aren't securing their future they're destroying it. This wasn't the only communication I got in my (E)mailbox this week. Amazon were saying much the same thing - don't worry - we can do it without using the post. Now THERE'S a why better.
Anybody else spot the woman who quoted the Quorn commercial when her partner nicked her sausages from the fridge? Screaming Take my pork feel my fork she stabbed the hapless thief. I think she has managed to avoid prison on the grounds that she was rather drunk at the time. How Quorn feel about becoming part of the the script in a scene of domestic violence is not easy to say. But it is worth rememembering that the point of advertising is to be useful - just a shame she didn't use it to remember to buy Quorn.
Dunno why I waited until the exhibition had nearly closed before I went but this was the sacred Text exhibition at the British Library which brought together the greatest manuscripts from the Jewish scriptures the Qu'ran and the Christian bible and put them in one room. I just caught it. And it was magnificent. Check out some of the manuscripts here.
Are you thinking that this is a minority interest? Well not really. For better or for worse the monotheistic religions which are dominated by sacred texts are on the rise and the text has never been more influential. You won't find this reflected in media coverage in the west where the image is held to be all important. And anyone who studies a sacred text is written off as a nerd or an extremist. But we have to acknowledge these texts influence the attitudes and behaviours of a significant proportion of the population of the planet. With a very direct channel between what the word says and what you're supposed to do. Furthermore we live in a golden age of scholarship. Because of the cataloguing of manuscripts and the unifying effect of global scholarship more is known about the origins of these texts than at any point since they were written.
I include Eli Wallach here because I love that bit in the Good the Bad and the Ugly where he stumbles out of a sandstorm into a gunsmith and quickly asssembles a bespoke weapon. That is not dissimilar to how I feel when I pick up a bible, check the accuracy of translation and then test the language for speech rhythms - how does the translation breathe? I don't read Hebrew but am perfectly capable of reading in Greek and Latin. So can check the text right back to manuscript level if need be. It is worth remembering that education as defined for Jewish children used to entail the memorising of the entire Torah. When I last traveled in the Middle East a verse of the Qu'ran was put on the video screen before the plane took off and a voce over declaimed it. All of this will be utterly alien to you if you live in a culture dominated by images where all the content is disposable and replaceable. But next time you fret when it takes an hour to get through airport security that you are there because of a particular interpretation of a sacred text.
In the exhibition there was a fabulous crossover of cultures between Islamic and Jewish, betwen Jewish and Christian in how the books were laid out and how they were illustrated. The earliest Qu'ran was 5th century, the earliest New testament manuscript was around 250, and there was even a fragment from the Dead Sea scrolls which would have been around AD40. The Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the greatest works of art ever produced in these islands was tucked in a corner. There was a psalm of Henry VIII which had an illustration of Henry himself in the guise of King David.
This is an aspect of human experience and culture which needs to be taken seriously. Don't make the mistake of confusing those who follow a sacred text with fundamentalists. Fundamentalists attempt to control the interpretation of the text in a single and specific way. But there are many more people than that who don't hold to a literal interpretation who nonetheless take the text very seriously and who attempt to apply the sacred texts to the way they live.
What we are seeing in the Middle East is the seeds of the destruction of Islamic fundamentalism. It won't come soon but it will be here within a century. For every kaafir who is killed several Muslims are killed. The result will be a rejection of fundamentalist Islam. How do I know this? Because this is exactly what happened in Europe after 100 years of Protestants and Catholics killing each other. Look at the constitution of the USA which banishes faith from the republic - and the culture lock we still have in Europe that religious faith is a private matter for the individual. Both came directly from the chaos of 18th century Europe. Fundamentalism will pass. But faith in the sacred texts will remain. Whether we need the illustrations reproduced on fridge magnets I will leave for you to decide!
Enough whingeing - back to business. I enjoyed this rather provocative article by the chief executive of Garlik (and former technical head of Egg) on the BBC site about how to organise for peaks of high processing. He points out that letting the system crash may be a perfectly valid IT strategy. Because if customers put it down to a network failure - the equivalent of a powercut, there won't be lasting damage. By contrast building a system which never falls over is expensive because of all the extra capacity you keep on standby. And no more likely to work on the spike when everyone is trying to withdraw their money at the same time. He also suggests that the hapless IT director may find himself in considerable demand as the only IT director who has lived through a run on a bank in real time. Well there's another way to look at it. I found it a vivid reminder that there is more to a crisis in a service business than reputation management. If you can inhibit behaviour you repress recall and attitudinal shifts - you literally can' make up your mind. I'm sure to be shouted down by those who have been queing all night outside of Northern Rock branches. Oh all right then - that's behaviour with a consequence. But throwing the keyboard at the wall and deciding you'll try to log on again in the morning may be the best thing - if you can't engage with the bank then mebbe you'll calm down - listen to the politicians - and do nothing.
I spotted this on a railway poster - doesn't it seem a tad removed from Camden market et al. It was a litle more familiar to me than that - the jewellery is clearly from Links of London - anything but a market stall. What's on the counter is worth at least £2000. Just a reminder that our billboards are full of photo library material but sometimes the true origin is rather different. (though spotting out of place artwork as a hobby probably makes trainspotting look terribly excciting by comparison!
I'm a bit grumpy today. I've been trying for the best part of a week to get a piece of research using social marketing off the ground finding a digital research partner. And no digital research agency is interested. Too busy building online panels and going to conferences to tell everyone how social marketing is the future. To actually do it. Here's the thing. Social marketing is about tapping into existing networks. Its a bit like raving about how great cars are as long as they're allowed to build the motorways too. I think I'm just going to have to get on and do it myself..
When I worked on Honda I was always mad keen to encourage umbrellas as a free display medium -and the client was always too cheap to do anything about it. Nice to see that these days when you sleep rough you can do so under the power of dreams. Not quite what the marketing manager ordered methinks.
It is clearly a dodgy thing to take photos in loos - but sometimes you can't help it. I saw this poster about athletes foot using nettles as a very effective reminder of how itchy it can be. I thought it was an inspired piece of media placement. Because you are particularly aware of your feet when using such facilitites.... my evidence? Ramachandran the neurologist who has identified the close proximity of feet to genitalia in the brain mapping of the body - so much so that some leg amputees experience orgasms in the missing foot.. which is probably more information than you really wanted to know but still shows that peeing and feet have a strong connection..... dear reader be sure I shall leave no stone unturned...
At Hall and Partners book breakfast this morning I met Howard Wright author of 10 steps to Innovation Heaven which I am reading and will be reviewing shortly. This posting is a straight steal from an idea from his talk - and I haven't even read the relevant chapter on the dance of innovation yet. Its a very practical book soaked in loads of attempts to innovate. You know its for real because he reports the alarming levels of failure - which is also a characteristic of doing new things. One of the key insights is that you have to innovate from the outside in. Top down rarely gets anywhere. And he takes the idea of the bee dancing to show its mates where to find the nectar. Which is so close to what planners do working in teams I thought I'd try to codify the rules of waggle dancing. (this may of course change when I read the relevant chapter!)
1. What matters is not what's in your head but how effectively you can communicate by waggledancing.
2. If you're not a good mover then go and do something else. It doesn't make you a bad person but I'm afraid you'll never cut it as a waggle dancer.
3. Waggle dancing is not an artform - good waggle dancing produces nectar - creative waggle dancing which doesn't get the hive lots more nectar isn't worth squit.
4. Its great if your dancing energises the other bees to go and have a look. But if they can't find the nectar it doesn't count.
5. A lot of waggle dancers are good at pointing in the general direction. The waggle dancers who everyone likes to watch are those who pinpoint the nectar everytime. Having a good waggle dancing average is great - having a perfect 10 is what makes everyone want to watch you when you dance.
6. If you're the sort of bee who likes to stake a claim on the nectar (because you found it) then you're a wanker - not a waggle dancer at all. Waggle dancers help other bees to find the nectar - they don't waste time arguing over whose nectar it is.
7. If you're the sort of bee who likes to rate themselves by how much nectar they can carry then don't waggle dance. Go and become a bodybuilder.
8. If you're the sort of bee who enjoys cataloging nectar locations then become an accountant or an academic.
9. If you're the sort of bee who enjoys reminiscing about all the great nectar you've found then retire from waggle dancing. Become a historian or get a job writing nectar casestudies for your local business school.
10. In summary the reason waggle dancing exists is because there's always more nectar than one bee can carry. So you must must must get other bees to help.
It reminds me of a client of mine who insisted (dammit) on giving me feedback - he told me that he liked working with me because I got him a gem everytime (good)- I played nugget back to him - no not a nugget a real gem. Every time(great). The trouble he said to me - is that I have to go and locate it myself (not so good)
Thank you Howard - who then accompanied me to Russell's coffee morning at the Breakfast Club. That was very useful!!
This exchange has been growing right in front of my desk which is a shared space - and the children have caught on and starting posting - with postit notes. This afternoon I was in Hall and Partners at a rehearsal for an online group using chatrooms - with some willing volunteers who played energetically with what was a new interface for them. I thought I'd show you this because if you let the technologists have their say - they'll pretend that they invented this kind of communication. And of course the postit notes mimic online comms forms. But never forget its the instinct of humans to connect and communicate. Technology aids and abets - but is neither the point or the purpose.
There's feedback mechanisms on everything now - today it was the turn of the napkin which accompanied my lunchtime salad when I was in an agency taking a lunchtime briefing (thanks Sarah!) This kind of communication can be spam-like and intrusive. What I liked about this was the tone - they just want me to know that if I do respond - and I probably won't - then they will listen and talk back - which I like them the better for. Its probably the most they can expect.
I also like the messiness of it - its a napkin which gets marks and which crumples which somehow makes the communication more personal.
I haven't responded to them. But you're reading about it here..
Had lunch today with the chief exec of the Bible Society and wish I could blog some of the things he told me about but it would stray into sensitive areas so I can't. Over our heads by the bar area was this piece of artwork. Which reminded me that too much has been made of making sense - being clear and unambiguous. It's not at all clear what is being said and why. But its fun trying to find out.
