Russell Davies

fun with maps

Been thinking a lot about Mind Mapping recently. Partly because it's been a popular meme. Started by Jeremy Deller winning the Turner Prize.

But then picked up by journalists very quickly, because they're always looking for ways to add something visual to dry, complex stories. And MindMaps do it very well.

So here's the Times explaining relationships inside the Labour Party:

And here's the FT trying to make an engaging visual out of the broadcasting industry:

My favourite MindMapping tool is Inspiration. They think about the learning needs of kids and I find that anything designed for kids works well with advertising people. (Kidpix is a great example. Remember KidPix? - used to be much better than PowerPoint).

I use Inspiration for thinking and presenting. And it's great for making a brainstorming appear productive.

And I've just downloaded The Brain and started playing with that. Looks interesting, if a little high-powered.

There's a great resource here which links to all kinds of thinking tools like these.

And over at City Of Sound, there's a great post about mapping music. Fascinating stuff.

high-culture/hi-rez

Various video games stuff lined up this week...

On the BBC's Front Row on 3rd Jan there was an interview with four of the UK's culture barons. (The people who run the big UK arts establishments). The talk at one point turned to the conflict between live, high-art and video games. The talk began predictably enough - with dismay over diminishing attention spans - but then Michael Boyd of the RSC actually said something interesting:

"I think the attention span required to really get a sense of satisfaction from a Final Fantasy computer game, or San Andreas, or GTA...the dedication, the concentration required by that...I think equips kids really well to cope with the complications of narrative and actually makes them an awful lot less naive than maybe our generation was when we were that age, about interpreting Shakespeare...much more skeptical, much more used to intervening and making choices."

Which reminded me of the little article posted above from Wired. Orchestral performances of the Final Fantasy soundtrack are popping up in concert halls all over the world.

And I was reading Icon magazine - reviewing GTA: San Andreas as a design/architecture exercise. Which reminded me of this fantastic post over at thingsmagazine.

walking down madison

This is a man after my own heart. (Though all I've managed is Up The Edgeware Road and Around The Congestion Charging Zone.) And here's a great little New Yorker piece about him.

presentation dilemma

Sometimes I look at this and think it's a picture of the worst presentation ever. And sometimes it looks absolutely perfect.

calories

Well, I've lost some weight and run the 10K (and seem to have buggared my knee) so it feels I can reward myself with some egg, bacon, chips and beans. And a cup of tea. So there are new entries here and here. It's been a good weekend.

the next olivier

Arthur displays the gamut of emotions in the School Christmas play. From mildly interested...

...to mildly uninterested.

egregious empowerment

'Empowers' is one of those words that you see too often. An especially bad example from AdAge's website :

"Welcome to Adage.com.
For access to our website, please login or register. Registration is free and empowers you with up-to-the-minute breaking news from the most authoritive source covering the Advertising Industry"

british hairways

If I was going to embark on another long and pointless project then this would be it - collecting punny hair-dresser names. Because this is a classic. From Sheffield.

dear bbc

I'm sure Steve's already blogged about this but it's worth saying again. Hurrah for the BBC and their listen again stuff and even more hurrahs for the In Our Time site and the huge wealth of incredible material they're making available for free. Particular favourites are youth, politeness, pi and bohemia.

fun with demography

I know it's geeky but I'm really enjoying the IT Conversations website. There's a lot of very arcane, very technical audio. But there are also some real nuggets in there - like this audio presentation from Joseph Chamie, the UN's head demographer. Firstly, it's just interesting; demography is such powerful stuff, most trend stuff is so wishy-washy while demography feels both inevitable and important. Secondly, he presents it really well. It's a great example of someone making technical stuff really personal and compelling.