Russell Davies

cable confusion

Many, many years ago I decided that I would, wherever possible, only buy Sony products. I absolutely loved my original Stowaway, perhaps the best product I've ever owned. I adored (and still adore) their industrial design and I thought that a single brand policy would simplify the CE shopping and owning experience. And it has. Kind of.

But there's always been some nagging disatisfaction about the whole experience and this brilliant post today crystalised the problem exactly. You'd think that buying only, or mostly, Sony products would reduce the number and confusion of cables. But oh no. And you'd think that Sony would reward the customers who buy mostly, or only, Sony with simpler cable management. But oh no.

I'd never really thought about that before. That's what makes for a good blog post. And it turns out Martha Stewart's a genius.

hit the north

The serendipity of links and trackbacks led me to one of the simplest, most useful, most common-sensical and human bits of advice I've read for ages. Northern Planner's Top Ten Tips for Working With Suits. Practical genius. And it wins extra points by being Northern. I like the North, I'm not from there, I'm from the Midlands (something that confuses Southerners) but I admire someone who's proud of their geography.

sleephacks

   

       

Since I've suggested you all get up at dawn I thought this fantastic round-up of sleep tips might be useful.

hucksterism

Every meeting I've ever had as a client I've felt tempted to start it like this one. It's a temptation I resist, because it's horrible, but it certainly would be memorable.

(And I always want to end each meeting with a rousing 'go back to your constituencies and prepare for government' but whenever I do everyone in the meeting is either too young or too American so they just look at me blankly.)

Anyway, this is the quintessential ad meeting moment. It's got everything.

1. The account manager type trying to make sure 'the talent' doesn't say anything that might annoy the client.

2. Splendid assortment of junior toady clients (all required to shout CHECK! to affirm their agreement with the big senior client)

3. The best meeting opening moment ever. (I won't spoil it for you)

4. The worst and most pointless visual demonstration ever ('anything else is all wet')

5. The most accurate, chilling and pointed exposition of the worst and most prevalent advertising thinking I've ever come across. (All products are identical. Consumers are there to be duped. Advertising works through mindless, irritating repetition. It would be funny except this seemingly facile view represents how so many practitioners actually behave)

6. The first instance captured on film of 'the Theatre Of Insight' - when the ad hero (clearly a planner) uses overly flowery language to point out that the ads the client so clearly loves (and which seem to be extremely effective) are all wrong. And he gets away with it.

A fantastic movie. And at the risk of inventing youtubevertising, here's where you can buy it. (Including my affiliate number, hurrah)

Assignment 7

Don't forget, assignment seven is here. It needs to be completed by the end of June.

sudeep in byways

Someone suggested that I should combine my two blogging lives and interview planners in cafes. So here's the first one in a series cleverly called Planners In Cafes.

I met up with Sudeep Gohil of Wieden + Kennedy at Byways in Portland. (He's Strategic Planning Director for Portland and the Global Planning Director on Nike.) He's a very nice, very smart man who's worked at interesting agencies all over the world. He talks about adschools, planning on different continents, ad-blogs and planning in a small(ish) city. Very kind of him to talk to me.

Clearly there's a tension inherent in the idea of interviewing people in cafes, ie cafes are noisy. And my mic technique isn't exactly unstoppable yet, so I apologise for the background sounds. But I think he's pretty audible. And he's worth listening to.

MP3

summer fun

Arthur's starting to leave his Star Wars phase (it's been a couple of years) and enter a Justice League phase. His knowledge of the Star Wars oeuvre has been very useful for explaning all kinds of things, you can answer many six-year old questions by referencing the Force, the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. But I've got to admit, all his light-sabre training has done nothing for his cricket stance.

As someone at the park said today, summer is the time for junior cricket and the evocative sound of sponge on sponge.

Back at the flats we discovered that the Stomp Rocket is an unusually effective toy for communal activity, which is normally so hard to manage. Arthur was very excited that lots of the other kids crowded around to play. Stomp Rocketry is nicely egalitarian in that almost everyone can get it to go pretty impressively high, so there's lots of wowing. And the heights are fairly randomly distributed so the bigger kids can't lord it over the others. Plus, there's a high rate of fire so you don't have to wait too long for your turn.

cornelius

A lovely vinyl toy from Dark Horse, Cornelius is here to celebrate 100 years of Kellogg's.

a year of listening

Camiel points us to this fantastic site. 365 bits of odd audio genius. You could spend forever listening to this. And it's from the old web 1.0 world of 2003. Before misplling and podcasts.

collective wisdom

       

If anyone can do a friend of mine a favour I'd be grateful. They're trying to find the one book that y'all would recommend on the following topics:

1. Celebrity in modern culture
2. Prestige, or class
3. Psychology of succes/recognition/status
4. The idea of membership/belonging

Any thoughts please add them to the comments, and if this works I'd be happy to ask questions for other people too.

thanks in advance

nuff respect to spell with flickr