For various reasons I've been thinking more about sleep and sleeplessness of late. A couple of articles hoved into view and I realised these are things I'd like to experiment with - different rhythms to a day and a night. Not these days, obviously, but some days, some day.
Went to Kinetica at the weekend. I've been a few times now. I should enjoy it more. There are always some good things - normally the things that are resolutely mechanical and/or funny.
But I always get this sense of aesthetic dead end. I don't know much about the New Aesethic but I know it ain't at Kinetica.
Maybe it's the gloom.
I'm suspect I'm slightly suspicious of art that requires a dark room before you even start.People try and do wit or humour but it doesn't seem to work, it's always too heavy, leaden. Maybe whimsy plus darkness = goth.
I'm enjoying Young Avengers from Keiron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie a lot. (I'm especially pleased because I could see lots that was brilliant in Phonogram but felt just exactly the wrong age to really get into it.)
I've been enjoying them even more because they're surrounded by all this networked stuff that I was going to say felt futurey, but doesn't, it feels resolutely present.
So, you can get the comic, and you can read a sort of director's commentary on each issue. (SPOILERS! - as I believe the young people say.) You can listen along to a spotify playlist of things that inspire the mood of Young Avengers. And you can read reflections from the splendid Tom Ewing on each issue.
It's good. It's got that Invisible Book Club feel, networked reading, something. And it's not some clever publishing initiative with an app and a sponsorship deal. It's because the creators live in the present and know how to use the tools.
I've had this vague thought that I would try and write an APG paper about what we've been doing at GDS. There's a good story there about applying Account Plannery stuff in other circumstances. But, realisitically, I don't think I'll get time. The doing has to take priority over the sharing.
So, I thought plan B should be writing some stuff here, but I've struggled to know where to start.
That problem has now been solved because the first thing you should do, if you're trying to do any kind of digital / culture change / service delivery / hearts and minds / whatever it is we're doing, thing, is get Emer Coleman to help you.
Like everyone else who's properly interesting it's hard to say exactly what Emer does so let's start with what she is:
The first person I've met who really knows about both 'comms' and social media. She knows how to deal authentically with digitally-native journalists. (That sounds horribly jargony but you know what I mean.)
Someone who actually cares what she's talking about. She won't tell you anything to sell anything. She works on stuff that matters.
Someone who can give people confidence - the confidence to open up their organisations and their data, responsibly and well.
We overlapped too often to agree about everything but, looking back, Emer was always right. Curses.
If you're doing big digital things and you want to nudge the world a little better you should start by talking to Emer.
Another fascinating read about the history of government communication.
Unreadable graphs. Always the best thing to stick in an end-paper.
The book was a big surprise to me, I'm a bit of an enthusiast for the graphic style of wartime posters so it hadn't occured to me that most of them didn't work and the Ministry of Information - for most of the war - didn't really know what they were doing. They mostly felt that all they could do to improve morale was "hope that by some miracle we could win a few battles."
"A government department is an organism, not a machine...If I were called upon to create a Ministry, I should select a man, give him an office and a cheque-book and tell him to hire others as the need for them arose."
The Collecting Division - brilliant name. Sounds a bit Dr Who.
Half of you thinks - for gawd's sake what kind of way is this to prepare people for air-raids? And half of you thinks - Lady Grigg's advice is probably as good as any other.
You see, for example, this poster, was universally panned. And when you think about it, you can see why.
Briefs haven't changed. Too much! It's just a poster.
Nor yet the professionals, no understanding of the people they're talking to.
This was another fascinating theme.
Over time it seemed to become clear to the Ministry that they couldn't brow beat and lecture the population into better morale, what they had to do was tell the truth - as much as possible. And give them something positive to fight for. The problem being that the government hadn't really stated any. Just, you know, beat the germans.
As you can see from below, the Ministry devoted a considerable amount of energy to getting some kind of postitive statement about post-war expectations...
And then, suddenly, Beveridge pops out. Almost accidentally, as a propaganda tactic rather than anything else. Interesting.
And, finally, another episode that sums up the themes. The Ministry clearly suspects that it can only really rely on "the propaganda of events" but is persuaded to run another ponderous, well-intentioned, ill-informed campaign.
It did not go down well. The Mass Observation observers hated it.
Sounds familiar. From Ministry of Morale by Ian McLaine. More later.
Been reading this history of the COI. A few good moments:
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"As long as the Newspapers shall continue to be considered as important as they now are...". I wonder when that'll run out.
"A Hint of the Line" would be a good name for a blog.
More organisations should be hiring "a corps of lecturers". F2F! It's the future!
Maybe this is how I should explain what I do. " I, sir or madam, am an Information Officer."
Still the Main Three Types of Campaigns.
