Russell Davies

Important coffee update

There'll be no Coffee Morning on Wednesday 5th of Feb. Also not on the 12th. Life gets in the way. We'll resume on the 19th.

People have been turning up though! Which is excellent. Come along if you fancy. Instructions back down the blog somewhere.

Who invented 'brand x brand' to denote a collaboration?

Don't know why but I suddenly started wondering this today.

Here are some notes, in the hope that answers find their way to me.

Wikipedia says:

"In art or fashion, the use of X indicates a collaboration by two or more artists, e.g. Aaron Koblin x Takashi Kawashima. This application, which originated in Japan, now extends to other kinds of collaboration outside the art world.^"

^{Though the source they cite is Arkitip who say:}

"Tokyo in the 90s was in what seemed to be an eternal funk. As usual, it was the young people that offered hope and creative juice to society, thus a highly entrepreneurial subculture began to discover it own influence. These new creators and designers were born from a tight group of friends, so although they were perhaps competitors, they often joined forces to create new products and identities for the young.

Only in Tokyo does consumerism have such spiritual power. Thus the emergence of double brands, where products were able to take on dual characteristics and unique personalities. Soon the “X” in Japan’s subculture became a symbol of personal collaboration. A good collaboration starts with an inspired idea, a desire for unexpected results and mutual respect or pure love of another’s work."

That's style journalism, which is great. And obviously close to the source. Or a possible source. But, not..history?

Wikipedia then says:

"This usage mimics the use of a similar mark in denoting botanical hybrids, for which scientifically the multiplication × is used, but informally, a lowercase "x" is also used."

I love that. And, somehow, that makes the Japanese street subculture idea seem more likely.

The obvious next step now is to start buying 90s Japanese fashion magazines, trying to find the earliest instance.

Inclusive innovation

Having been adjacent to / on the receiving end of a lot of innovation initiatives in the last 30 years I can testify that they mostly don't work. And that they're mostly good at preserving status quos.

This is a much more promising idea:

"Our hypothesis is that innovation starts with human relationships: with the confidence to have a go, to explore, to make something new or take
something else apart and show it to your friends, or ask for help and support. Social capital is at the heart of innovation, and the recommendations in this Green Paper set out an approach to strengthening that across the UK, creating a network of Networked Neighbourhoods that power a resilient, sustainable innovation future for everyone.

We believe it is possible to rapidly spark a culture of inclusive innovation across the UK, that begins in neighbourhoods and forms a golden network of locally rooted community incubator organisations, supported by long-term investment and clear success measures. As well as creating new innovation potential, this will strengthen social bonds and help build better places to live.

Our aim in sharing these ideas is to offer a call-to-arms; a collaborative opportunity to build a more equitable future for innovation across the UK and a better future for everyone."

Funoffice

Unofficing remains a complete joy. Another fascinating chat today. But I'm going to stop reporting on it every week otherwise one week I'll forget and that person will think it was something to do with them.

But, please sign up, it's such an interesting feeling, waiting to see what the conversation's going to be.

If you fancy a 30 min online chat, about whatever you like, book yourself a slot.

File under cheering

A friend showed me this. Wise words from Zoe (but, obviously, mostly I'm sharing it because she says nice things about me, which is very, something, nice? affirming? flattering, obviously)

(Is embedding instagram wrong now, it probably, is, sorry)

Excellent brackets

(warning: graphic footage of neurosurgery)

Yo dawg, I heard you like Vangelis and Microneurosurgery

Muck about with pens

This is good low-risk advice for journaling.

The beach in Nice

ÉLIANE RADIGUE — "I have a bit of a story about the “Monotone Symphony.” It dates back to 1954. It was a birth for Yves Klein. At that time, I was pregnant with my son. I’m not very tall, but I was very much pregnant. At that time, pregnant women didn’t go swimming during the day — that would have been indecent, carrying things, and all that. We lived very close to the beach in Nice. At night, with the whole crew of us, we’d go swimming. And during that time, Yves was in Spain and other places. He came back that year from Paris, where he went every Monday to visit his mother, Marie Raymond, who was a painter, and his father, Fred Klein, who was a painter as well. At that time, Mondays were for Marie Raymond’s soirées, and people gathered at her place. That year, Yves met the Lettrists in Paris — François Dufrêne and Raymond Hains. And the game was to verbalize on the apostles of Pentecost using the spoken vocabulary of syllables from the “Ursonate,” by Kurt Schwitters. And so we went to the beach, and Yves, when he returned from Paris, had a lot of intellectual and cultural baggage with him. Since Nice was something of a cultural desert, Yves was trying to nourish us with these ideas that he’d brought from afar. And we began to speak in nonsense syllables on the beach. Arman said the idea to make a simple tone was mine, but I’m not so sure. The thing I am sure about is that it was my idea to harmonize the voices — to have everyone in their own register. So, we did the first monotone symphony on the beach, in a certain sense. For me, it was a game — nothing more. But Yves found it very interesting and asked me to write it down for him."

Nightshifting

This blog post from Dai is one of the clearest things you will ever read about the challenges of 'digital transformation'. 

It's good and interesting on the specifics at DVLA but it is, as you'll realise if you ever deal with computers, organisations and people, also UNIVERSAL.

 

Unoffice 1: what a joy

I did my first unoffice hours meeting today. An absolute pleasure. What a lovely way to start the week. (As Matt has said).

If you fancy a 30 min online chat, about whatever you like, book yourself a slot.