Arthur doing the kid's assault course.
Recovering.
A nice thank you for cycling there.
Running. Sleep. Pickles. Politeness. What else could you want?
apologies
We've just got back from an excellent time on the Gower and I've discovered hundreds of emails. Some of which were from people expecting answers. I should have done that 'out of office' email thing but I don't really think of myself as in the office any more so I didn't. Sorry. I'll get back to y'all as soon as I can.
Anyway. So you know, we're back for a couple of days then we're off to Mablethorpe and Robin Hood's Bay, not sure what internet access will be like so, again posting here might be spotty for about 10 days. However, APSotW assignment 8s will be despatched to The Design Conspiracy for judging before I go. And , hopefully Assignment 9 will be set too. But maybe not.
And I'll get the giving back pieces done while I'm away. There's not a lot to do on a campsite once they sun's gone down.
out of office
We're off camping for a few days, so no new posts for a while. This means that if you'd still like to bang an entry in for Assignment 8, you've got until the weekend.
blogerosity II
Just to say, I'm still loving the generosity of the blogiverse. Your suggestions on stuff to do in Miami have made all the difference. Many thanks. Good use of the tubes.
in the drop Bently, ain't no stoppin me
I'm starting to come round to Miami. I've never swum in a warm sea before, it's remarkable. And it's clean, which you don't really expect and the saltiness keeps you nice and buoyant. I almost fell asleep in the sea yesterday. Lovely.
hotel TV
I haven't done one of these for ages: every channel on the TV at the Hotel Chesterfield Miami.
completely open
So I guess we did our first OIA gig today at the Account Planning
Conference. We were supposed to talk about inspiration so we thought
we'd just get people doing stuff, especially doing stuff with their
hands, rather than 'talking about inspiration' which always seems a little
flat.
We played a couple of games, but my favourite was one I'd seen Peter Skillman talk about at TED, which completely fascinated me. (He'd said he was happy for us to do it.) According to our new data, planners are a bit ahead of Business School students, a bit behind engineers and way behind kindergarten kids. (More pictures here if anyone's interested.)
A big thanks to everyone who came along and participated so enthusiastically. We'd never done either of them before so without everyone joining it could all have been a bit shambolic. But I think it went OK.
creative directors are boring
I'm sitting in the conference, a bunch of creative directors making the same speeches that creative directors have made since the dawn of time. Make it simpler. Help us sell the work. Tell me about the audience. And they all claim to be anti-process, but it's very clear that there are deeply rigid processes embedded in their status assumptions. Creatives are in charge. Planners aren't supposed to have ideas, just create space to have ideas. Clients are supposed to pay for it.
When did planning get so deferrential? We're the future, not them.
The encouraging thing is that I think it's mostly a generational thing. Creative Directors like these are going to be grandfathered out by the imminent and inevitable demise of their agencies and the people labouring in their departments don't have the same myopia.
AAAA account planning conference
(Obviously this feeling will be modulated when some interesting creative directors get on stage, I love them)
miami refresh rates
In Miami Beach for the Account Planning Conference. It's a strange place.
It's like some sort of hyperreal version of itself. But an inadequate hyperreal version. Like you're in GTA Miami but it's not refreshing quite fast enough. You keep glancing the reality behind the frame-rate.
I'm too old for Miami. I checked into the hotel, barely able to hear my room number over the music, and wondered where the nearest good book shop was.
The fake real word installation of GTA: Miami does all the cliches. Including neon reflected in puddles. I must get a picture of that.
Anyone else here? Shall we do a coffee morning Wednesday morning?
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