The Empire Strikes Back

Big week ahead.

I have agreed to spend half my time working for BrandWorld, the company I formed in 1996, at which I created the hugely successful Family Health Diary format. I kind of made myself redundant when the FHD property took over the focus of the business like khudzu. Given that I focus on concept, prototype and initial implementation and that the product is something of a template there wasn't much productive work to be done. All of our energy and resources were directed to selling and producing the TV and magazine properties. I sold my stake in 2000. I've come back now that there are more resources and much bigger set of goals to achieve. SInce I left I have remained in touch with the company, developing other properties like Eating Well and IN2IT as a consultant- with many more in the pipeline.

I have also agreed to lecture at Massey University in the design faculty. I'll be covering marketing communications design and design research. I'm looking forward to working with students and hope to bring the topics alive for them (and me in the process).

I have been working with Vincent Heeringa and Martin Bell of HB Media (and formerly of the successful business magazine Unlimited) to develop and launch a magazine and media brand that I am hoping will connect with the Intellectual Capital community - people who think for a living and create wealth. I was reading some treasury papers that utterly clicked with my thoughts in this area about the importance of geting ideas realised that will make a difference on the the world stage.

And then, there are my pet projects Personal Best - an online resource for men and WellSpring, both in various stages of development.

I'm also signed on to learn how to be a creative coach through a network in the States formed by the author and specialist creative catalyst Eric Maisel.

Busy times. But I have bought a bike and intent to balance my work with some activity. I know you're all worried that all work and no play makes David a dull blogger.

Comments

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

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