Russell Davies

chat with me

Time for a new School of the Web experiment. I thought we'd try a chat Q&A/teach-in sort of thing.

I've very rarely used any kind of chat stuff so I might need some technical advice. I have iChat on m'mac - will that do? is it interoperable with all the big popular chat things you lot might be using? Or do I need to get some thing off someone else? Hotmail or Google or someone? Any suggestions?

I'm thinking of 6pm (BST) on Tuesday 23rd of May. How does that work for you, where you are?

If this works I think it might be fun to do it regularly, maybe in conjunction with feedback on the assignments, speaking of which, I'll get a new one up soon.

Or maybe we'll move on to that skypecast thing. Or does anyone know how to jaunt?

can I be the first to say it?

May The Fourth be with you.

creative spaces and frames

Been reading this. Rather good. Mr Layard tells of an experiment where a sample of people were asked their social security number and then asked to estimate the number of doctors in California. The higher the social security number people had the higher the estimate that they gave. If a frame like that can shift something in that way, what do we imagine might be the effect of the frame of the space we work in?

the early bird gets the corner office

Ben at The Design Conspiracy pointed me at this article which confirmed something I'd always suspected - successful people get up earlier than the rest of us. It looks at the work habits of the usual corporate success suspects and reveals the time they're getting up:

Carlos Ghosn - Nissan/Renault - 6
Howard Schultz - Starbucks - 5
Bill Gross - Pimco - 4.30
A.G. Lafley - P&G -  5
Amy W. Schulman - DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary - 5
Hank Paulson - Goldman Sachs - 5.30

second podcast, mercifully short

Here it is, number two. Some comments on the best presentation ever. More audio nonsense, an executive fitness record. Thoughts from vinyl on tough-minded mangement. And my, frankly, rather tired thoughts on the skills we'll all need in the future and that.

MP3

the war between happy and clever

I knew I wanted to post about this great piece over at Creating Passionate Users but I couldn't work out what I wanted to say. But now I have.

As Kathy makes clear, it makes a lot of sense to be happy. Being happy, optimistic and open is a productive way to be, especially if you want to be around creative people, and you want them to want you around. They like having those kind of people around.

Unfortunately you're a planner and planners always have this need to be seen as clever and intellectual - which often means cynical, sarcastic and detached. There always seems to be this opposition between clever and happy, we always signal that we have brains by making cutting little asides. I know I do. I have to fight it.

But it doesn't  work. The people other people want to work with are enthusiasts. They're open. They're happy.

Hurray for happiness.

this table brought to you by

More urban spam from coffee republic. It seems part of the experience they're trying to offer you is the feeling of constantly being sold to. Not so much a third space, more an enormous shelf-wobbler.

creative spaces squidoo

I'm getting more and more interested in this 'creative spaces' idea - what kind of environment encourages good creative work?

So I've built a little squidoo to round up some thinking and links and stuff. Let me know if you have anything to contribute.

(Picture taken from the creativespaces flickr tag, contributed by vandys. Hope that's OK)

undercover economist

This is well worth getting. In the tradition of Freakonomics and Blink etc, but a bit more about the real world of life and brands we all deal with, rather than rarified worlds of art or drug-dealing.

Mr Harford's site is well worth visiting too. There are lots of great links on there and a fantastic piece on presentations the easy way.

lunch through a child's eyes

Sorry, this post is a bit sappy. Normal cynicism will be restored as soon as possible.

One advantage of working close to home is that every now and then Anne or I can take Arthur out for lunch from school. Of course I'd never actually done it before today, but what a laugh it was.

He said he wanted to go to 'the place where they have everything' which stumped me for a bit, until Anne said he meant the food court at the Plaza on Oxford Street. Of course, that's what a food court is, not a dumping ground for every global food franchise, it's the place where they have everything.

Walking along Oxford Street was brilliant too.

He took a leaflet/flyer from every leaflet/flyer person we passed becuase he said how boring it must be standing there, with people not taking your stuff. Which is true. And he made each one of them smile. As an adult you're trained to avoid eye contact, stay in your bubble, ignore the streets incase they're troubling. Not a five year-old. Not Arthur. He walks around with his eyes, head and heart wide open.

Told you it was sappy.