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There's so much to admire about this Fox News poll highlighted by Kevin Rothermel. I think though, that my favourite bit is that disclaimer - this is not a scientific poll. Oh right then. I wasn't sure.
(And, if you're wondering, here's some context.)
Scamp points us to Gwen Yip's blog (scroll all the way down and start at the bottom) - the story of her adventures looking for a job in UK advertising. It's fascinating, original, charming and smart. If her works half as good as her blog I can't understand why no-one's snapped her up.
I can't make coffee tomorrow but Richard's undertaken to be there to host etc. So please, everyone, go along and make him feel, er, hosty. 11am. The Breakfast Club.
Here are the nominated entries (had to exclude a couple because they didn't seem to be from November 2006)
1. Beeker - on beauty and being irrational
2. Mr PH Colman - scary? moi?
3. Kathy Sierra - the zone of expendability?
4. Richard Huntington - what do advertising agencies do daddy?
5. Leland Maschmeyer - the perfectly designed office
6. The Amateur Gourmet - chutzpah, truffles and alain ducasse
7. Ben Terrett - inside 50 years of graphic work (and play)
8. Mr PH Colman - low fidelity
9. Mr PH Colman - youtubers
10. Mohammed Iqbal - aphorisms on blogging
Yesterday Ben made a little mistake in his Day In The Life Of A Graphic Designer thingy. He described his 'about page' as being on the right of his blog when actually it's on the left. This is obviously not a huge deal. But it's a mistake I often make too. I'm always getting the sidedness of my blog confused when I'm describing it to people. Does that happen to anyone else?
I'm just wondering if it's because we all have a slight sense that we're looking out from our blogs at the world, i.e. in our heads we're in the screen, facing out and have a reversed handedness because of that. Or not. Obviously. Could be or not.
One of the things you discover when you start working from home is that delivery services are not your friend. When you've got a proper office there's always someone to sign for stuff. But when you work from home you're often out. And you normally return to find a card from some delivery service or other declaring that they attempted to deliver a package three times and that now you need to trek all the way across town in the next three minutes to collect it or they'll blow it up and charge your credit card for any damage that might ensue.
This, of course, gets worse at Christmas, except there's a tantilising possibility that the thing that's being delivered is something you actually want.
So, this year we've decided to have waiting-in-day. We've arranged for as many things as possible to be delivered on this very day. So I'm not allowed out for even five minutes, because if I do go out, however briefly, that's when everything will arrive. So if you're waiting for an email from me, today might be the day it'll finally arrive. And I apologise in advance if my twittering becomes a little repetitive.
Good thing though - I'll be able to watch Ben doing his Day In The Life Of A Graphic Designer.
UPDATE: 10:50am - nothing yet
UPDATE: 11:44am - Christmas Tree's just arrived. In a minicab. Ah, the metropolitan life.
UPDATE: 13:55pm - nothing else here. Just the Christmas Tree. Having a plate of bacon and eggs. Half way through the 'to do' folder on my email. Forwarding most of it to the future.
UPDATE: 14:15pm - Argos have arrived. I'm not supposed to look inside these packages but it's very tempting.
UPDATE: 14.27pm - Postie's just come. Not part of the waiting in scheme but it's always nice to be here when things thud on the mat. It included a splendid little package from covetable curiosities on etsy. Just a little Christmas thing for Anne (don't worry she never reads this). But it was the physicality of the thing I liked, assorted stamps and an Air Mail sticker and a nice smell and some random bits of ephemera. I love mail.
UPDATE: 14:54pm - the big one! The business credit card has arrived. Now I can run up a huge expenses bill and stick it to The Man. Oh, wait, I'm The Man. Never mind.
I left a few of my failed polaroids in my bike basket for a week, just to see what happened if they got rained on, bashed about and mashed up with other pictures. Most of them are clearly rubbish but these two are on that awkward cusp between rubbish and art. Though I like them. And I think that if i declare that they're art, then they are. Not necessarily good art. But art.
I often think that all this marketing 2.0 stuff is all very well, but it's just a new set of tactics. Many of the embedded assumptions are the same as marketing 1.0. It's all about message delivery and new news and imparting information. Don't get me wrong, they're good tactics, very good tactics. But I keep waiting for the thinkers and neuro-scientists and evolutionary psychologists to give us the new theory that will inform the new strategies, based on the way people really think and behave.
John's making great strides in that direction. Mark's new one will contribute mightily. And I suspect a crucial element will come from Robert Heath of low-involvement processing fame (do you think he gets introduced like that at dinner parties?). Jon points out that Mr Heath has a new research paper out, in which he shows that 'Creativity and emotion are what make advertising successful, not the message it is trying to get over'.
Many of us have believed this for a long time. Oh lord how we've believed it. But we've never been able to prove it. Now, maybe, Mr Heath is making a start in doing so. You can get the full release about the research here. Hurrah.
(picture from Cambridge Consultants)
You get the sense that we're on the cusp (in the UK at least, and probably in other places) of a massive surge in the amount of radio we'll all be able to listen to. And that'll mean lots of speech radio, and I suspect that'll mean lots of jobs for bloggers. (Though probably not very lucrative ones.)
Most cool stuff was born because some civil servant somewhere decided to do something or forgot to do something. In this case the Ofcom have decided to sell off a new digital multiplex, which means someone gets to set up a bunch of new radio stations. Channel 4 are leading the race at the moment.
I suspect the most valuable, untapped (i.e. unadvertised to) audience in the UK (if not on the planet) is probably Radio 4's. Exactly the people advertisers want to reach, exactly the people who don't watch much telly or consume much commercial media. And there's no competition. If you want relatively intelligent speech radio what else do you listen to? BBC7 sometimes. 5live sometimes. NPR online sometimes. Oneword very, very occasionally. Channel 4 must be interested in this crowd.
And it seems we're not that far from internet radio being a cheap, practical reality. That means everyone with a microphone's in the race. But media brands with a bit of initiative would seem to have a slight advantage, The Guardian's podcasts add up to a version of speech radio. And there must be plenty of other people thinking of the same opportunities.
So, we'll have lots of radio stations looking for cheap content. Many of them will want smart, speechy stuff. Where are they going to turn for it? Bloggers. Surely. It's a great way to find people who can write. All you have to do is make sure they can talk a bit too. And hey-presto, speech radio. Get your mics out folks and start practising, the commissioning editors are coming and they're bringing tiny, tiny bags of gold.
I've been reminded how polite and friendly the world of planning etc is. In the three and a bit years I've been doing this blog I think there've only been one or two occasions when I've felt uncomfortable about a comment someone's left on here. (And I have a very low uncomfortable threshold, I hate conversational friction). But every now and then I wonder out into the blogosphere and realise what a vitriolic and contentious place it can be.
I'm a big fan of Mr Noodlepie's for instance, so I check out the stuff he does on Comment Is Free. He wrote this thoughtful little thing about farmer's markets a while back. Fairly uncontentious. But look at all the comments. Spleen. Vitriol. Ignorance. Insult. It's bizarre. Graham seems to shrug it off with good grace, he is after all, a professional journalist, but I have to say, it would put me off writing for them. (Not that that's likely.) Comment Is Free is such a splendidly designed site with such noble intentions. And the atmosphere is being ruined by this weird commenting behaviour. I don't know what the answer is, but it's weird and ugly.
And speaking of weird and ugly, you should see what Steve Sailer is doing over at Malcolm Gladwell's blog. Mr Gladwell wrote this really interesting piece about racism, which provoked a burst of comment from Mr Sailer. And has led to some strange sort of comment wars, and much discussion about whether blogs 'should' have comments. Personally I think everyone's entitled to have exactly the blog they want and if they don't want comments fair enough. I have comments because you lot make the whole thing better but I'd turn them off in a second if you weren't all so funny, interesting and helpful.
And Anil Dash has nailed something similar here - the way the web facilitates the angry, self-righteous blogger/commenter/reviewer arse as much as it facilitates all the reasonable, thoughtful reviews people write. It's so easy to vent online, so easy to complain, moan, laugh and point, and there's very little comeback involved. The normal anti-complaining social pressure isn't brought to bear. So I like the way he names and shames the unreasonable complainer. Good work.
This blogging thing is teaching us all some interesting lessons. About how much we're willing to share (more than you might have suspected), how many interesting ideas people have (more than you might have suspected) and how much effort it takes to run a civilised 'commons' (more than you might have suspected). Reflex angry blogging is easy and normally pointless. Angry commenting is easier and even more pointless. I hope it's something we all grow out of. And I'm glad none of it shows up here.