Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Love, Queen, Social Commentary
So good news, this might be the last post for 2 weeks.
TWO.
Though don’t get too excited because it might only be one.
Either way, you have lucked in as it’s definitely the last post of the week because today I’m in Paris and then on Wednesday, I’m off to Lisbon so I can speak at a conference.
Hahahahahahahaha.
I must admit, I still find it hysterical that people want to hear me talk about anything. Especially given all my ‘material’ is available for absolutely nothing on this blog.
Well, if ‘loss of brain cells’ is absolutely nothing.
And yet I do enjoy talking at conferences …
I like the process of trying to think of something interesting to talk about for the audience.
Working out the best way to get the message across without falling into the deadly presentation paralysis.
Then adding the stories that will either make the audience semi-like me, think I’m a cheeky bastard or just plain hate me.
I say all this but I bet the only reason I do get invited is to be the court jester to the audience – and given the wonderful Mr Weigel will also be at the same conference – I’m even more sure of this fact.
But what it means is I’m away till Monday so with that I want to leave you with a delightful story I’ve just heard about.
In the early 80’s, Queen worked with a German producer called Mack.
He was quite revolutionary for the band – helping change their sound and way of recording – which meant they were one of the few artists who went into the 80’s stronger than when they were in the 70’s, culminating in some of their biggest ever hits.
Another One Bites The Dust.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
Under Pressure.
Radio Gaga.
I Want To Break Free.
Unsurprisingly, Mack got very close to the band and asked Freddie Mercury to be his eldest sons godfather. And it’s to this background I read this story from Mack about what happened on his sons birthday.
Have a read, see you Monday and here’s a link to the video being talked about below.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Content, Context, Culture, Embarrassing Moments, Loyalty
A few weeks ago I woke up to find my instagram followers had gone up over 1500 in a night.
A NIGHT.
Given it had been years for me to break 1000 followers, something seemed up.
I checked this blog to see if this rise was reflected on here?
Nope.
I checked twitter.
Nothing.
I couldn’t explain it so in the end I just accepted it must be a weird event and carried on with my day.
Except it happened the next day and then the next.
When it reached 10,000 – yes, TEN THOUSAND – instagram contacted me to say I now could access their tools to further enhance my influencer status, including adding a descriptor of what I do.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Because their list of options didn’t feature ‘annoying prick’, I decided to screw with their algorithm and describe myself as a fashion model.
But why was this all happening?
Well a few days later I found out which is why I write this …
To the [literally] thousands of people who started following me because a very famous rock band [accidentally/stupidly/mischieviously] featured my instagram in one of their stories … prepare to be massively underwhelmed with countless photos of my cat, kid and colleagues.
But on behalf of said cat, kid and colleagues, may I take this opportunity to thank you for letting us all feel momentarily popular until you come to your senses and unfollow the hell out of us.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Childhood, Confidence, Content, Context, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Education, Entertainment, Fatherhood, Insight
So this is the last post until next Thursday as I’m traveling for work.
I know you all think this means I’m going on a ‘free holiday’, but I am going to take the high road.Ahem.
Yesterday I wrote a post about media helping kids grow up too fast in ways that drives complicity and pressure not independence and individuality.
It’s a subject close to my heart now I have Otis.
Protecting your child is a weird thing.
You know you want to, but you know there’s only so much you can do.
That’s part of the reason I never felt comfortable living in America.
Despite having our house in an incredibly privileged area – the reality that gun crime is everywhere there – never made me comfortable. I would feel uncomfortable going to the cinema. I would look for exists every time I went to the shopping malls. And while you may think I was being over-the-top, the reality is these things happen … in fact, the week after we left LA, there was a shooting at the mall we used to go.
Anywhere where you get a leaflet through the door warning you about violence and guns in schools needs to take a long hard look at itself in terms of what it values more than a life … which is why this video from the Sandy Hook Promise organization makes sure everyone knows that the best way yo protect your child in America is teaching them how to deal with the environment that surrounds them.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Authenticity, Comment, Context, Creativity, Culture, Relevance, Resonance
There are 2 reasons for the title of this post.
The main one is that I’m ending the week on a nice story.
And when I say ‘nice’, I mean it … it’s not me ranting about some revenge I’ve finally unleashed on someone after 30 years.
I know … who the hell am I?!
The other reason is that I’m having a little break so you get a ‘long weekend’ of blog post freedom as I’m not back till Tuesday.
Enjoy it, it might not happen again for a long time.
But back to the main reason for this being nice …
England has a terrible history in terms of inclusion.
Hell, it has a terrible history in a lot of things.
And while the World is a massive, massive shit-show right now, there are moments where faith is restored.
Case in point is what the Bank of England have done with the design of the new £50 note …
For those of you who don’t know who Turing was, read this.
Put simply, he not only was a brilliantly clever man, he played a huge role in the Allies victory in World War 2.
And yet despite all this, he was treated despicably simply for being gay.
And while you could argue this gesture of acknowledgement is too little, too late – and it is – the way they did it is the perfect tribute to the man.
An act that shows how he did things, not just what he did.
A gesture of beautiful nerd resonance.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Context, Creativity, Culture, Devious Strategy, Emotion, Empathy, England, Experience, Imagination, Innocence, Perspective, Prejudice, Relationships, Relevance, Research, Resonance
I went to Brighton recently and I have to say, I quite liked it in a try-hard-to-be-cool kind of way.
And while there was a bunch of things to see and explore, one thing stood out from all of them.
This …
I have to be honest, while I am all for sorting out your rubbish, a public bin just for BBQ food is pretty spectacular.
Especially as I didn’t spot a single place selling BBQ food anywhere near it.
But as I wrote about the bins in LAX airport, by not labeling it simply as ‘rubbish’, it did stop me in my tracks.
Made me look more closely.
Made me think.
Which begs the question, for all the logic we are approaching the challenges of the environment – maybe the best way to get people to actually think and reconsider is not to bathe them in facts about our self-created, impending apocalypse, but to use language and imagery that cracks the firewalls we have put up around ourselves to manage this sort of information on our own terms.
It might be counter-intuitive, but as the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Doncaster County Council grit machine campaign showed, sometimes the most sensible thing we can do to create change is to embark on utter madness.
Just like my Boaty McBoatface argument that I am absolutely not bitter about in any way, even thought they completely ignored it and dismissed it out of hand.
Oh no.
When will authorities appreciate that humans are hypocritical.
That common sense is often in the eye of the beholder rather than their being some uniform fire of how everything should be.
This is why we have rubbish ads, rubbish politicians and rubbish products … because while I appreciate we need certain benchmarks to move forward, so many of the things we rely on are as fake as the Emperors New Clothes.
Designed to hide our truth rather than to reveal it.
That doesn’t mean you should stop talking to people, far from it, it actually means you need to spend even more time with them so you can get even closer to them. Understand their realities, their contexts, their truths and dramas and all the nuances and personal rabbit holes they go down to manage what they think and decide to do.
People are fascinating, but it needs more than a fucking focus group or poll to discover it.
As I’ve said before, if you want them to respect your clients brand, start respecting them~.