Russell Davies

this explains a lot

a good definition of a planner

good weekend

It was my birthday on Saturday and Anne organised a weekend in Brighton. I have to say, it was one of the best weekends I ever remember having. Nothing extra-ordinary, just really, really good.

There was time on the pier.

And on the slotties.

There was breakfast at Tiffany's.

Great views from the hotel.

And in the hotel.

There was pebble-throwing with the children of some friends, who were splendidly enthused by everything.

There were dodgems and more pier-based fun.

There was browsing for cool rubbish in Snooper's Paradise. I acquired this strange basketball playing urchin which will be nice at work. And these skateboarding glasses, from when skateboarding was nice and brightly coloured. Not all moany and whiney like it is now.

Plus all these brilliant camping club flags.

And there was high tea in the hotel with old friends, scampi and chips at Harry Ramsden's, excellent birthday presents, a swim in the hotel pool the next morning, a big fat hotel breakfast, Brighton aquarium, a nice cup of tea and a think and a very pleasant drive back home.

All in all one of those weekends to treasure.

starlings

Remember the ducks and the anchovy? Here are the starlings. Off Brighton Pier.

Don't watch if you didn't like 'The Birds'.

Quicktime movie (1.5MB)

VideoPod version(5.5MB)

4th assignment - debrief

Well.

This has been a fascinating exercise. I think the task was really interesting, some answers were brilliant, some weren't quite.

And personally I've learned a lot about admin. I'm going to insist from now on that there's only one format for replies. Managing multiple filetypes just makes it too hard.

Then there was a moment of confusion from Grant - Russell, in my usual madcap way, I forgot the assignment, and read some of the assignments as it they were reporting (not inventing) a lifestyle. This will be especially confusing in the case of Themers. Sorry. Am happy to rewrite my comments on that and other submissions. Let me know. Best (and sorry), Grant Having read through everything I didn't have the heart to make him rewrite, I think the comments are helpful anyway, but perhaps bear this in mind when reading stuff.

And as a special bonus, and as a way of giving overall feedback Grant has given us this pdf here. It was designed as a template for people documenting life in NYC. It represents the kind of thing Grant was looking for and is a good checklist for you to check your stuff against.

My big admin difficulty is that I can only seem to make Grant's comments show up in the word docs, not in the Powerpoint, so I'm only posting the Word submissions for now. I'm going to find out what I'm doing wrong and try and post the Powerpoint stuff tomorrow. And if anything's got lost in my email folders and not got posted let me know and I'll hunt it down and stick it up.

Sorry about that.

And let's all give it up for Grant and show our appreciation in the usual way - by buying some of his books or driving traffic to his blog.

2.doc 4.doc 6.doc 7.doc 9.doc aggregator.ppt new world.ppt nightlighters.ppt rebachelor.ppt

There's also a contribution here. Though being as it's a blog entry it's hard to inject specific comments. But here's what Grant emailled to me -

Russell, had a look at it, and this may be my favorite piece. It doesn't really document the lifestyle, but it captures tone beautifully and this is plenty to illuminate the emotional life and lived experience of the consumer in question. I left a laudatory comment for Amy (is it) on her blog, and there I said something like she has a wonderful ear, and I think that's half the challenge for the ethnographer/planner IMHO. It's a tiny bit repetitive in places, but as I say she has captured very nicely the tone of surprise, disappointment, hopefulness, chagrin. This is the kind of thing I would want to have as my briefing for certain marketing undertakings.

So, well done Amy, but next time - remember the rules.

Thanks everyone. I'll get the powerpoint stuff up as soon as possible.

drinking bubbles

It may be just me, but I love drinking bubbles. I always pour the drink out to maximise the bubbles and then sip them down before they effervesce away. It makes for some burping problems but I love the sensation of drinking a gas. It seems wholly modern. Or something.

I'm always surprised that no-one makes a carbonated drink that emphasises this element. Not since the days of 'It's frothy, man' anyway.

working in a MMOG

Two things sidled up to each other in my head yesterday - this post on the wonderful Wonderland blog yesterday. And a trip out for tea with Arthur.

This is what I mean.

Alice wonders whether you could design a business environment that's explicitly like a MMOG. A business that offers you collectibles, guilds to join and which encourages collaborative competition. I'd argue that kind of stuff exists already in some businesses but it hasn't been made explicit. Though I'd love to work somewhere that did that. Just like I'd love to work somewhere that had cool uniforms with badges of rank.

Anyway, then, this evening Arthur and I went out for tea to a cafe and since he's only 5 and he loves to run we had to run there. But we couldn't just run. He instantly started constructing this elaborate scenario of the challenges we would overcome during the run. And that's the language he was using, the run was about 'completing a challenge', and it was all about having ten lives and avoiding bombs and aliens and stuff. And if you lost ten lives you could still carry on but you wouldn't win. Basically, his imaginative life is informed by the language and grammar of games.

Which is more interesting because he's not really a big gamer. He likes Galaxian on the Namco classics thingy, and we've got a V.Smile machine which he plays a bit, and sometimes he plays some Playstation games at a friends house. But, like I said, he's not a big gamer. (He doesn't seem so to me anyway.)

But the language and thought-structures of gaming are so persuasive and useful that he seems to have incorporated them into his play anyway, already. Through the V.Smile perhaps and through osmosis in the the playground. Which I think I like. I like thinking of a run as a challenge not a chore.

But, anyway, my tiny point is this, maybe when his generation get into the workforce, and perhaps before, maybe businesses will have to be organised like MMOGs, because that'll be the only option, and becuase that'll be how people'll think. Or certainly how they think about organisation and achievement and working together.

Right now most businesses operate on command and control principles inherited from the military, partly because that's not a bad model for running a huge factory, partly because there weren't a lot of other good models available. But a) business has changed (and has to keep changing) and b) MMOGs are probably a much better model anyway.

Phew. I haven't written that much in a while. I must rest.

grimsby pilchards

Now this is a good ad.

blooker prize

Some excitement in our house because egg, bacon, chips and beans has been shortlisted in the non-fiction category for the blooker prize - which is a prize for books based on blogs, sponsored by Lulu. A literary prize. It's very exciting.

It was originally to be announced yesterday, but then they thought it might be overshadowed by the Oscars. Not sure why they should think that.

good advice