Russell Davies

23 channels

More hotel telly. Every channel in the 5th Avenue Suites, Portland, Oregon.

good day at work

We've been having loads of meetings. Lots of interesting stuff, but the two stand-out bits have been kind of surprising.

Yesterday we had a quick but great session with On Your Feet (Improv For Business). I've always been really skeptical about the idea (doesn't Improv For Business sound like a terrible idea? Like the worst kind of business/creativity nonsense) But they were actually really good. Funny. Thoughtful. Quick. Worth checking out.

And then today we had a speechy thing from Biz Stone. He was really good. Funny. Modest. Insightful. Said clever and true things about blogging. Made me think I should maybe abandon typepad and reactivate my blogger account. And I was surprised, because I read his blogging book and I didn't get the same sense of affability and brains as I did in person. Also made me think I shoud read the other one.

portland things

If you want a globe slicing; these are the guys.

If you want a Disaster Restoring; these are the guys.

Adliterate

When I first started this site I imagined it would be a repository of smart thinking, intellectual rigour and provocative ideas - all focused on the discipline and practise of account planning. Instead, of course, it became a random bunch of disconnected observations, apostrophe errors and photos from hotel windows.

But if you were looking for such a site you could do no better than visit adliterate; Richard Huntington's brilliant new blog.

He's a top planner and he writes like a charm. I'd especially recommend scrolling down to the 'the ads are as good as the programmes' entry and downloading the accompanying chart.

The UK ad business should be ashamed.

hard work

I'm staying in a hotel in Portland right now. And everything morning I get up and look out the window and this woman's at work in the building opposite - all on her own. I think she's single-handedly keeping the Oregon economy going.

brief pause

apologies for the recent inactivity. new job, travel, all that. normal service will be resumed next week. (if not sooner)

good destruction

Apparently (according to engadget) Griffin (who make accessories for ipods and stuff) have an extremely quibble-free replacement policy. If you have a problem they immediately replace the thing and ask you to 'destroy the non-functioning device in a creative manner - and send photographic evidence'. This is someone doing just that with an itrip.

What an excellent thing for a company to do. Just the kind of idea that wins a bit of loyalty in a crowded market - demonstrate that you trust your customers, encourage them to have some fun and get yourself some PR at the same time. Brilliant.

transparency

This is lovely. Sent by Robin and via boingboing.

I did something slightly similar once, not as good though, you have to peer at it a bit too much:

(That's a bit sad isn't it - blogging about things you've put on your blog in the past)

more digital to real fun

Here's a birthday cake based on the original Myst island.

via boingboing.

smelly briefs

This is a great example of a bad brief.

It comes from a fascinating article in the New Yorker, by Chandler Burr; about the creation of a new scent for Hermes.

This a French perfume executive describing the typical brief that marketing give to the perfumiers:

"Basically, it's 'We want something for women.' OK, which women? 'Women! All women! It should make the feel more feminine, but strong, and competent, but not too much, and should work well in Europe and the US and especially in the Asian market, and it should be new but it should be classic, and young women should love it, but older women should love it, too.' If it's a French house, the brief will also say, 'And it should be a great and uncompromised work of art,' and if it's an American brief it will say, 'And it should smell like that Armani thing two years ago that did four million dollars in the first two months in Europe but also like the Givenchy that sold so well in China.'"