Russell Davies

lightweights are late

I'm increasingly convinced that business (and life) success is incredibly simple. And that the single, simple key to wealth, success and happiness is getting up early.

It's been almost universally true in my experience that the smartest, most interesting, most creative people are the early risers. And that the midnight oil merchants are arses.

I enjoy playing a little game with people who want to have a meeting (especially when I'm not keen to meet them) I always say let's meet 'first thing' and see when they think that is. Anytime after 8 and they're a lightweight. (I did get into a bit of a game of bluff with someone else once, who was clearly also a morning person and we ended up meeting at 5. But it was the best meeting I've ever had.)

Company meetings, management meetings, status meetings should all be at 7. And then you can have an hour's meeting and do an hour's work before the slack bohemians turn up. And you can leave them mystified when you go home at 4 and still achieve way more than they do.

TV has a good idea

I know this isn't particularly new or innovative but I was struck, in these days of bashing TV for being stupid, that QVC's 'Jewellery From The BAFTAs' is a good and clever idea. (The Bafta's are like our Oscar's. In the same kind of way that Acorn is our Microsoft. And that's a cleverer comparison than you might think.)

The BAFTAs were on telly last night, QVC were 'official jewellers' and tonight you can tune in and buy versions of the stuff the stars were wearing. A good, modern, consumer-centric, non-invasive, sensible, respectful but seductive way to do things.

(And I know there are all sorts of clever online versions of this and stuff, but I think the simplicity and old-media-y-ness of this is what makes it good.)

naval repositioning

Just reading this splendid tome and found two good entries for Richard's legendary repositionings competition.

1. Admiral Sir Edward Vernon - from rum as cause of drunkenness to rum as a cause of half-soberness

1700s. Vernon was responsible for some naval operations in 'the Americas'. The navy had always had problems with discipline there due to much shore-leave and easy availablity of rum. He decided that rather than trying to forbid his men rum he would instead give them free grog (half rum, half water). This meant that they would only be half-drunk. Which was better than completely drunk. Strategic genius.

2. William Pitt - the oceans don't divide up the British Empire, they unite it

Again 1700s. The way the British Empire was scattered all over the globe had always been seen as a problem by politicians and strategists. The Empire was connected by thin, fragile supply lines that had to be continually protected by the Navy - as opposed to the more compact Empires of some of our rivals. Pitt simply reimagined the oceans as oppotunities not problems (he should have been an account guy). He made the Empire's spread-outness an advantage - it meant we had bases all over the world from which to operate and the connectedness of the oceans gave the Navy vast playing fields on which to wage war and support British interests.

attentionomics testing and urban spam

You know those racks of free postcards you get in bars and places like that? A mixture of adlike stuff and promtions for clubs and shows and stuff?

I've always thought they're a great medium because they act as an alternative to urban spam, they're not that intrusive, they're part of the background, but they're offering you something of some value, if you want to use it.

But these things are worth paying attention to, because they're a model for the future of most communications. They sit, modestly at the edge of our attention-field and they'll only 'succeed' if they're sufficiently engaging, interesting or useful for us to want to march over and look at them, read them or ideally, use them. That's the way TV is going.

And most of these things, seem to me, to fail this test. Very few of them make you want to read, even fewer to take home, and I've never come close to actually using one as a postcard. But if I wanted to practise creating the CommunicationsStuff (TM) of the future I'd practise on postcards. Get good at these and you're ready for the challenges of the next 30 years.

Likely problems you'll have to solve:

1. You'll have to make something that's simple and captivating at a distance but rewards deeper, more prolonged inspection.
2. You'll have to make something that has actual, intrinsic value of some sort - independent of a brand - whether it's cultural, aesthetic, practical, whatever.
3. You'll have to make something that makes it more likely someone'll buy something, without making them feel like they've been spammed.
4. You'll have to make something that's open enough that someone's like to want to send it to someone else to represent them, not just as a token of a brand.
5. You'll have to do loads of them, all the time, constantly creating new stuff, to keep it interesting.

And then you should start working out how you do that with video.

trend hedge

Grant McCracken has written a splendid post with rules for trend-watching. His number 9 rule is this:

The trend team should be making predictions.

The people in the capital markets routinely go back and try to determine where they went wrong. They scrutinize their assumptions. They ferret out the error. Unless we wish trend watching to be one big cocktail party in which everyone merely shouts opinions at one another, something more substantial is called for.

Which made me think that someone should be building a futures/prediction market exactly like the one that DARPA suggested for security experts. Or like Celebdaq. Because there are all sorts of useful data sources which people who claim to be trend experts ought to be willing to place predictive bets on. Sources like TGI, TRU, or Yankelovich. You could buy futures in the increases or decreases in agreement with statements like 'a real man can down 8 pints in a single sitting' or all those classic TGI statements.

How hard could this be? Why aren't all the quant companies doing this? Surely they could tap into all sorts of Wisdom of Crowds predictive genius and sell it as a product. If only I was more entrepeneurial, I'd be doing it.

And then you'd have a great, objective tool for measuring a Future Lab against a Future Factory.

How much fun would that be? You'd have Trend Hedgers, Global Trend Trading, Slush Trends, Insider Trending. An Alternative Trend Market for emerging trends. TrenDaq. Brilliant.

Or is all this already happening and I've just missed it?

shots forum fragments

I went to the Shots Forum conference. There were some useful moments in amongst the usual startling revelations that things must change.

Gerry Moira suggested that there was a substantial future for Creative Director's inside brands, that brands aren't going to want to outsource that for much longer. Which isn't much a surprise for many of us. But I liked his point that even Kylie Minogue has a Creative Director. (Or did. She's split with William Baker, don't know if she has a new one. Maybe it'll be Gerry Moira.)

Al Young of St Luke's used a great phrase when talking about the future of ad agencies. He said he hoped agencies weren't going to turn into communication hospices, respectfully and tenderly managing the inevitable decline of print and television advertising. I hope so too.

I'm not optimistic though.

There were other good bits but I didn't write them down.

It's probably telling that the most interesting presentations came from Glue, The Viral Factory and Tribal DDB.

meeting perplexcity

If you're lucky like me then you're never, ever, ever in a boring meeting.

But just in case you one day find yourself in a meeting where you can afford to tune out for a few minutes I can recommend carrying a set of Perplexcity cards with you. The puzzles and ideas are the perfect way to distract yourself and keep your mind going in the unfortunate moments when the Powerpoint haze descends.

Only problem is they're too big to fit in the pocket of a standard Moleskine, but I think they'll fit in the bigger ones.

Like I say, just in case.

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.

sprint experiment

So, following this post, the Sprint people sent me an email:

Hi Russell,

The Sprint Ambassador Team recently visited Russelldavies.typepad.com and wants to invite you to participate in our Ambassador Program.

The Sprint Ambassador Program is all about exploring our latest products and services and allows you to give direct feedback to Sprint. We recently launched the Sprint Power Vision (SM) Network and want to provide you with the full experience, at no charge. Sprint Power Vision Network enables customers to download data at faster speeds and experience new data products.

So what’s the deal?
As a qualified participant, we will send you one Sprint Power Vision phone and provide you with six months of all-access service (at no charge). You’ll have access to the Sprint Music Store(SM) live TV broadcasts, gaming and more. Yes, you will also have unlimited free calling and data service. It’s a pretty good deal and all we ask for in return is your candid feedback (you decide how much and how often).

Register at: http://ambassador.sprint.com/
You will need your unique registration code: XXXXX

If you have questions regarding the registration process or the program, please email us at [email protected]

We look forward to receiving your registration!

The Sprint Ambassador Team

Not the most personal email I've ever received but hey, never mind. And I suspect they've also not paid enough attention to the site to realise that I live in the UK. Anyway, I went to the registration site and put in the address of our offices in the US - it seems that they'll send the phone there.

We'll work out what to do next once it gets there.

urban spam

At Ted. Rob Forbes, founder of Design Within Reach is showing lots of great photography of street furniture and random urban stuff. He coined the phrase 'urban spam' to describe the oppresive commercial clutter that sometimes confronts you in a city.

I love that phrase.

'Urban spam' is a perfect way to characterise that horrible communications arms-race that marketing sometimes gets into, the last horrible gasps of interruptive marketing.

I'm going to be collecting pictures of urban spam.

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