Russell Davies

more hotel TV

I haven't done this for a while. Not been anywhere new. All the channels on the TV at the Hotel 't Sandt, Antwerp.

belgian clarity

Directness in communications - that's what I like. From a shop in Antwerp.

revising music

Just found this lovely minimal music site in Moscow (via warren ellis). It's called Deep Mix and it's perfect for working to. There's something about the textures which keeps your brain alert without distracting. (Like Bach.) And if anyone asks what you're doing you can say you're doing cultural research on Russia. As we should all be doing.

it's the simple things

Very middle-aged of me I know, but I spent quite a lot of the weekend gazing at these two things:

fire and water movie (About 2.8MB)

just realised...

...I've been doing this since August 2003. I know you're only supposed to mention that on some significant anniversary, but I've not spotted one. So never mind.

the manliest shopping list ever

I wish I needed two different sorts of chisel. (Scutch and bolster)

fun with light sabres

Arthur and I were mucking about with his double-ended, Darth Maul-type light-sabre - taking pictures in the dark. We liked some of the patterns.

how frequent?

The parental warning on King Kong seems to describe the average day at work: "contains frightening elements, moderate violence and frequent peril"

for when you're flying a plane

I always like to find mnemonics and heuristics from other industiries and see if I can apply them to planning, because

a) I like typing and saying both heuristic and mnemonic

and

b) other industires tend to be about proper things that actually matter to people in some important way so they tend to have applied decent thought to coming up with some sound advice.

And I was reminded of the thing pilots in trouble are always told the other day - Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. And this seemed very apposite to the life of the planner. Especially in these days of over-communication and too many pointless meetings. (NB: not too many meetings, meetings are a good thing, but too many pointless meetings.)

What it means ( I believe) to a pilot is : first fly the plane, make sure it's level, not going to crash and you know where you are, then figure out where you want to go, and start heading there, then, and only then, get on the radio and start asking for help etc. Otherwise you'll confuse yourself, miss something vital, screw up somehow and your communications will be useless and/or counter-productive.

I think similar advice might be useful for planners approaching a brand problem. First thing: work out where you are, what's going on, do you know the stuff you need to know to 'keep the plane in the air', second thing: work out where you think you need to go and start heading there, start writing that down, start working towards that solution. Then, and only then, do you start asking the world their opinion - whether it be your colleagues or consumers or whatever.

Because (and I'm a huge believer in lots of conversation and lots of collaboration) if you collaborate too soon you'll end up nowhere. You'll spend so much time exploring so many options and opinions that you'll fly the plane into the ground. People will quite happily throw all sorts of ideas at you because they're not flying the plane, they don't really care if it crashes or not. So you've got to go into those conversations knowing where you want to go. You should look for help with how you get there, how you can land succesfully etc. If they've got a better idea then fine, but you should have something in your head to start with.

So there we have a planning lesson - Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. Anyone else got anything we can steal from other industries? Do think there are any valuable shortcuts in the world of Yellow Fats?

phone party

I walked past this ad on a phone box this morning, quite a smart ad for the army based on their campaign about whether you're up to being an officer.

But in my early morning not quite awake state I initially thought that BT were actually suggesting that this was a good phone box for a tough call, which I thought was a really good idea. And actually I still think it might be. As phone boxes get less neccesary most of the time what if they were re-imagined as great places to make specific sorts of calls?

You could have a 'tough calls' box with posters and advice about how to make difficult calls, perhaps with a hot button to a counseling service and free vouchers for a consoling cup of tea once you've made the call.

Or a 'celebration calls' box with balloons and party music and optics and a little video camera that'll record your moment of triumph.

Or. Or. Something else. You get the idea. Maybe not.

I find this is often the way ideas come. (Good or not). You misunderstand something in the real world (I often get ideas from mishearing words), your brain instantly extrapolate something from that misunderstanding and, in doing that, creates a new idea. So hurrah for vagueness.