Russell Davies

flow games

Arthur and I were playing soldiers at the weekend. Actually, he was playing, I was taking photos, and doing that not quite playing properly thing that parents tend to do. (Well, I do, Anne is much better at whole-heartedly joining in.)

And I realised how much I envied Arthur's ability to really embrace his game, to dive in, to believe in it and to get into a flow state, really quickly and easily.

I go through life being really pleased with my ironic detachment (carefully cultivated as a teenager) but it stops me having this kind of fun. I've got to get the naive fun back.

another great alternative to reading an actual book

Everyone in the world has mentioned that Malcolm Gladwell is blogging. Which is great. But I'm equally delighted to find that Steven Johnson (author of Everything Bad Is Good For You and Mind Wide Open and Emergence and Interface Culture all of which are good) is doing it too. And has been for a while. Here's a lovely post about the unintended consequences of alphabetising your books.

windowlickin' good

Apparently the French idiom for window shopping is 'window licking' which is much better. And instantly makes you think about retail design and window displays differently. That's the power of language.

And I guess it explains the Aphex Twin thing, which I thought was just a random made up name.

simplicity, complexity, etc

OK. Last week was a bit weak, but I think this is better. (And at some point I'm going to revisit last week's effort and improve it.) This week I bang on about simplicity and complexity a lot. And how we need to embrace complexity if we're going to make branded stuff that actually engages people. I talk about that a lot to be honest, but since I've stopped being in an agency full time I've realised how naive this sometimes is. So here's a slightly revised view.

I experimented with an iSight camera which made the sound a lot better, but the video quite a lot worse. Frankly, my smiling face doesn't add a lot to the whole thing so you might be better off just with the audio.

Simplicity.mp3 (Audio. About 10MB)

Simplicity.mov (Quicktime. About 6MB)

Simplicity.m4v (Videopod version. About 40MB)

wisdom

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.

sympathy for the hotel

I feel sorry for hotels.

They're always getting stick from bloggers - especially from brand strategists or anyone who thinks about service or the relationships between brands/companies and people. They're perfect testing grounds for pet theories. And these kind of people are always in hotels. And every tiny, petty annoyance becomes a late-night, nothing-better-to-do blog entry. Exacerbated by jetlag, loneliness and miserable ennui.

So here's my contribution.

Stop personalising

This is the screen I was greeted with when I got to my room yesterday. I've stayed here at least a dozen times in the past year. I'm a member of their frequent stayer club and they greet me like this. Welcome Dear Davies. Not very friendly.

But that made me think. What would I prefer? Welcome Dear Russell - too friendly (depending how grumpy I'm feeling). Welcome Dear Russell Davies - just doesn't read right, if I'm Dear why are you using my whole name. Anyway, why are you using a greeting style from a letter? this isn't a letter it's a TV screen. Welcome Dear Mr Davies - OK I guess but a little formal.

Which makes me think - why bother? There are so many ways this can go wrong and bug people, compared to such little value if you get it right. Does anyone really feel a warm thrill of human connection from seeing their name on a screen like this? I don't think so.

Why not do away with the fake welcome and put something useful or interesting on the screen instead. Like what's happening in town that evening or something. This onscreen personalisation is a great example of one of those things that technology lets you do, but that you probably shouldn't.

Luxurious vs Expensive

We had a treat at the weekend and stayed in a rather expensive hotel - The Grand in Brighton. One night cost a lot. And it was great, a proper treat, it felt luxurious, comfortable, pampering, premium. And then I noticed that they were charging £10 an hour for a wifi connection. And I suddenly felt like the whole place was a rip-off. £10 an hour. For something that way cheaper hotels will do for free, that costs them virtually nothing. And that there's no way they can deliver in some luxurious way. (I presume £10 an hour doesn't get you an IT butler or a concierege who'll type your mail for you.)

And that's the difference between luxurious and expensive. Luxury costs money but feels worth it. Expensive feels like a rip-off. The thin bubble of luxury is incredibly easy to prick with the wrong move, the wrong moment, it's all in the mind of the buyer and a tiny mis-step can ruin it.

I have to say that overall, the Grand felt worth it (if you don't think about it too much) but that little moment could have undermined it.

You see what I mean about petty annoyances? I feel sorry for hotels.

4th assignment - debrief news

In case you missed it, I've posted some of the 4th assignment debriefs here.

But we could Grant and I couldn't get the comments field in the Powerpoint versions to work between us. He put them in there, I couldn't get them to show up. So, our plan is now for Grant to email those decks straight to the people who did them.

Sorry about that. Sorry, not everyone could read them. But we're only a few weeks away from assignment 5 now so get your thinking shoes on.

And once again, thanks to Grant.

good journalist

I've met a bunch of journalists on doing the publicity rounds for the book and the blooker prize. But no-one who seemed to get things like Chris Vallance of BBC 5 Live. His obvious enthusiasm and smarts also got me looking at his podcast Pocket Planet Radio, which is well worth checking out.

He actually seemed to understand the idea that there's not some natural progression from blog to book, that one is not naturally of a higher order than the other. And that the two can feed off and reinforce each other. Obviously it's nice to have done a book, but if I'd had to choose, I think I'd choose blog over book.

Anyway, for the record, here's the interview he did with me for Pods and Blogs on 5 Live - lulublooker.mp3 4.6MB

josie, the pussycats and continuous partial attention

Rummaging around an old hard drive the other day I found a movie clip I used in a few presentations a while back. It's a little sequence from the movie remake of Josie And The Pussycats and it's here (about 4MB). It was the perfect way to illustrate the way a particular generation of consumers assumed large corporations behaved. And it's funny. I'm not so sure if it does that anymore but it's still probably useful.

(And if you imagine Piers in a strange blue dress this is probably exactly what PFSK looks like behind the scenes.)

But the point is, people kept asking me - how did you find this? why are you watching unsuccesful, teen girl movies and using them in your presentations? (Though I'd argue that it's a rather succesful unsuccesful teen girl movie, quite sharp and clever and with a great cast).

And I think the answer is a key planning skill - half-watching lots of things. A variation on Linda Stone's continuous partial attention. Or what my son would call flicking around. Or the habit that Anne hates - me always having lots of media on at once.

But I think it's about more than just my bad media/work habits.

It's about being culturally omnivorous.

It's about monitoring as much media as possible, always read to snap up an unconsidered trifle that will give you an idea, illustrate a point, bring something to life, or lead you somwhere else. So I read books with the TV on, semi-flicking around, so I never read a book very well, but there's always a chance that something provocative or useful will turn up on the telly. I work with the radio on, because something might show up. I download 1000s of podcasts and shuffle through them rapidly, looking for the occasional gem. Probably while doing something else. IT Conversations is a particularly fruitful place to do this. (Their tagline says it all - new ideas through your headphones).

Planning is about the density of ideas, the number of ideas, not the quality of ideas. Or at least my version is. (Kind of. Because I think density gets you quality.) And being open to media, or to people, this is why I like cafes, always half-listening, is a crucial source of idea density.

Anyway, I've been distracted now. Something on the radio. More anon.