I'm sitting outside Bar Italia in Soho's fashionable Soho. According to Swarm this is the 600th time I've been here. It's more though, obviously. I first came here in the 80s. I still like 'checking into' places. I like counting things like that. I like the sense of scale and tempo it gives me. I know we're all more and more aware of the pernicious effects of digital tools but I, at least, still like the tally-stick capabilities of the little pocket databases we carry around. I like that I can count things. I use Streak to monitor occasional minor medical occurrences and to remind me to take my statins. And to nudge me into writing every day.
My mother-in-law is visiting at the moment. She loves her newly acquired Fitbit. We were comparing notes about steps this morning over cereal and we agreed that counting steps occasionally nudges us both out of the sofa, but it never occurred to either of us to 'become friends' on Fitbit. That's not the point. Somewhere along the way all this counting, these notches on sticks, got intermingled with community and connection and competition and gamification. Counting became sharing became sousveillance. Now, rightly, we're running from that. But that doesn't make the counting worthless. It reminds me of what Nat and Dan wrote about Bulletin. I want a device that's smart but not connected. For counting.
10 years ago, 5 years ago
Ten years ago this week my boss at Nike said this to the New York Times:
“We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive,” Mr. Edwards says he tells many media executives. “We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.”
I used that a lot in presentations over the following few years, trying to make the point that a company had been historically very good at advertising was very willing to walk away from it. It's the moment that really convinced me that smart corporate attention would eventually but inevitably move from a relationship via marketing to a relationship via services.
This is not happening quickly. I suspect it's happening in the way that Hemingway describes how one goes bankrupt: "Gradually, then suddenly".
Five years ago this week GOV.UK launched.
My only real contribution was to make sure we didn't spend any money on advertising it. That seems to be going OK.
(I am also quietly proud that they're still saying Simpler, Clearer, Faster)
City Snacks
City Snacks closed over the summer. For a long time it was a place I walked past occasionally. I popped in to cover it for A Good Place for a Cup of Tea and A Think. But when I was working at GDS it was just around the corner, 10 minutes walk, just the right distance to be a bolt-hole, a retreat. I came to love it. The people, the atmosphere, the food. We gossiped here, we made plans, we cursed the system and marvelled at the determination of our colleagues.
I think this was us designing these.
This was probably Matt making them better.
Oddly, just a few weeks ago it popped back to life on the telly, as a location in The Cuckoo's Calling. I hope they got a last bit of decent money from the fee. Used it to have a proper holiday. When I'd first seen the place was closed I wasn't that worried, they always used to close for quite a long time over the summer, go back to Italy. I admired that. I thought that was happening again until that dry-cleaning sign appeared.
Mostly though I just remember sitting here, writing optimistic notes about work that mattered, for stuff that had a chance of actually happening. That's proven to be rare in the world of 'digital transformation'.
Those red tables were gorgeous. Highly instagrammy.
And there was always a little odd thing to notice.
Ah well. City Snacks is now on EBCBrevisited and will be in tomorrow's Afternoon Slow.
I need to find another cafe.
