ThoughtSpurs

Ok, sad admission. When I was a kid I liked Jethro Tull. Maybe you've heard of them? Flutes, Olde Englishe sensibility, slightly potty. The singer (and flautist) would prance energetically around the stage in tights and codpiece (flauntist?). Well, I was looking for a Pussycat Dolls Clip (I had my reasons and they are not what you might think);YouTube threw up Pussy Willow and Jack in the Green played in concert in 1982. I watched it and felt unusually glad that I had moved on (to Punk rock, as it happens). Watching the Sex Pistols I had a similar feeling. Sometimes you just have to move on. I didn't embed Pussy Willow , but Skating Away because, well, actually it's because I can't remember the last time a rock band included a glockenspiel riff in a live number. The vocal reverb at the then end must have been something special in 1977. Had a coffee with Jason Kemp this morning, Jason is a regular contributor to the Idealog blog and one of life's big thinkers. We...

I enjoy Graham Reid's blog Random Play . I read today's post with interest. He describes visiting the place where the iconic JFK was assassinated and in his prose made reference to 'Conspiracy Theorists'. It kind of grated on me as I feel the term is entering into the UnSpeak vocabulary. So I posted this reply: Conspiracy theory/theorist has emerged into the language in a dangerous way. It is a form of UnSpeak (as described by Stephen Poole in his excellent (and frightening) book of the same name: Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality To paraphrase one reviewer: "…ubiquitous terms such as war on terror, pro-life, and Operation Just Cause, are examples of Unspeak. They attempt to silence any possible opposing viewpoint by casting an issue in only one light. Unspeak phrases are not neutral but "smuggle in political opinion in a remarkably efficient way. The implications of an ongoing effort by polit...

I'm looking forward to seeing how the blogging community is going to self organise for the next election in New Zealand. My bet is that the party that is able to adapt best to the new media landscape is going to be the one that will be the most closely scrutinised after the election; i.e. the winner ...

I am reminded, yet again, of the remark about Ginger Rogers: She danced as well as Fred Astaire, but she did it backwards and in high heels. The prompt was this video: I discovered it on the site of Cedric Chambaz a French blogger, living in London (whom I discovered in turn through my Ziki . The movie was created by a young American artist, Phil Hansen , who, like Banksy , challenges the notion of what art is, where it begins and ends and where it simply bleeds into a cultural fabric. He his clearly talented. I am fascinated that his work plainly references the digital world, some of the images reflect filters in Adobe Illustrator or the pixelation of images on a computer screen...and yet, when you watch in real time he seems to create extemporaneously. Fantastic images and concepts. There is art in everything - including peanut butter and jelly.

I've never actually heard the original recording of War of the Worlds by Orson Wells before. When it was first broadcast in 1938 it caused panic across the United States (WMD 1938?) Now you can hear it and watch it in amazing stop-motion animation starring actors only slightly more lifelike than Tom Cruise's acting in the 2005 movie version . Worth watching,...ah, simpler times.

The daily deluge can now be put to good use. Actually I am not sure that this has any more use than its raw material but it is interesting; you enter the content of a spam email and the site reconstitutes it into a work of art . Jackson Pollock meets Spiragraph, meets the skies over Baghdad (Gulf War 1), they all drop a tab of acid and we watch the madness that follows. It is a collaboration between a design firm and EnBW, one of Germany's industrial giants which is promoting its real-world recycling endeavors. From a google search: EnBW ('our name says it all'...ummm, ooookaaaaay...) With some six million customers, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG with its headquarters in Karlsruhe is the third largest energy company in Germany. In 2006, EnBW generated annual revenue in excess of € 13 billion with more than 20,000 employees. Our core activities focus on the segments electricity, gas as well as energy and environmental services. Can't help but wonder if the real inco...

I find a few things about Telecom (New Zealand) curious. The first is their automated phone system. I called the help desk of their XTRA Internet business to find out why my web access suddenly didn't work. Before I got to speak to a human being I had to go through the usual tree of menu options. I don't know about you, but I get annoyed when I have to wait through a sales pitch ("If you would like to know about XTRA products and services,…press 1") before I am addressed as a customer ("If you are already an XTRA customer, press 2"). In a very obvious sense it says that customers come second. For some reason the username and password on my broadband modem had to be reset. I had made no changes, so I wondered why that would be necessary and have to say I felt some concern for the level of security in their system. Today the telephone account came in. I had changed the broadband account because I have moved from my city apartment to the North Shore. I had chos...

The 2007 Massey University calendar has begun. I showed up bright and early - to an empty classroom. It helps to read your timetable properly. No harm done, I realised my mistake and made a dramatic entrance to the five fourth year students in my Design Business class. This contrasted with the bulging Advertising class a couple of hours later. It should be an interesting year. Huge emphasis on creativity this year. Less theory. Hope to see some exciting work. My feeling is that an educational context should leave plenty of wriggle room for 'out there' ideas.

Here is something a little different. Ok, a lot different. But that's a good thing; isn't it? Also, for those of you who just like looking at the ads - without all the annoying soap operas and sitcoms getting the way - Ads of the World . And on the subject of 'who needs English' to be understood: ( Thanks to Acejet170 )

And there you have it. A few extra years onto your life. 'Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.' that is the synthesis of the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I had heard an interview on Radio New Zealand National between Pollan and the very strange, but often amusing Kim Hill and made a mental note to buy the book. Haven't done so yet, but I will as I was reminded reading a blog entry by UK advertising planner Philip Slade (whom I discovered in a link from my Ziki.com page ). Mr Slade's entry linked to an excellent essay in the The New York Times by Pollan . To read it you must register, but it is free and well worth the effort. Or you could simply adopt the mantra...Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants...and wonder how the Atkins diet got so much traction.

While I am riffing on the subjects of getting ahead and advertising, here is a little gem from the late 80's featuring Richard E Grant ( Withnail & I , Spice World... Wah Wah ...). The first part is amusing but the second part is uncomfortably prescient. If it doesn't make practitioners in advertising squirm, just a little...you're in the right job!

Remember old Spice? You must, surely...? Or maybe you are too young and it is just old codgers like me who recall the commercials with images of crashing waves and manly, jutting chins? Or the one from America that suggests you should wear it because that's what women like? Well, things have changed for Old Spice. It got, well..., old. So the clever marketing brains at Proctor & Gamble have relaunched and repositioned it for us. Somewhere in the archive of the ThoughtSpurs blog I posted a video clip of the old Spice introduction to their new site, touting the theme of 'Experience'. The script is: If you have it, you don’t need it. If you need it, you don’t have it If you have it, you need more of it If you have more of it, you don’t need less of it You need it to get it And you certainly need it to get more of it But if you don’t already have any of it to begin with You can’t get any of it to get started Which means you really have no idea how to get it in the first pla...

I never really know what is going to happen next. Life is unscripted. I suppose that makes it an improvisation. You just have to roll with it and see where it goes. Of course I realise that some of you plan every moment. You may have scheduled your visit here (for which I am grateful) and in that case I'm on the clock, so I'll keep this brief. I read a story in the New Yorker magazine about the (apparently) legendary improv comedian Del Close . I have to 'fess that I had never heard of the guy; though I had seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off in which he plays the deadpan English teacher..."Bueller?…Bueller?......Bueller?. He taught improv to an impressive list of comedians including: John Belushi, John Candy, Andy Dick, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner and Harold Ramis (some of whom are still alive). When he died he asked his longtime creative collaborator, Charna Halpern, that his skull be donated to the Goodman Theatre in New York, so that he could ...

Motorcycling is more important now than it ever has been. And not just to me. Though to me it is up there with an up there thing. I know, that's not a terribly mature thing to say, but I just can't think of anything that matters more to me than motorbikes. Not just any motorcycle though. I like the kind that idle slowly and make a thunka, thunka, thunka sound. In my riding life I have had a Triumph, a Norton, a BMW, a Sunbeam, a Ducati and a Vespa (I have left out the japanese bike - because it was a two stroke Yamaha racer and it didn't count), and left the Vespa in because it was a four stroke and make a thunka, thunka, thunka sound at idle - there may have been something wrong with it but we'll never know because it was killed by a Nissan Patrol... Which brings me to my point. Here is the spectrum. Sustainable - Unsustainable. Ducati 600SS - NIssan Patrol. The argument for motorcycles is completely sustainable. They use little fuel They use little space (how many ...

Auckland's iconic Metro magazine has had its ups and downs recently. Some in the bitchy and somewhat inbred publishing industry gleefully prophesised its pending downfall as it passed the 20 year waypoint. I'm not sure what its circulation figures are or how the advertising revenues are holding up, but I am sure that, like all pulp based media, it is experiencing a great deal more competition from internet advertising; as are newspapers and television. But I will leave that media analysis for another time. I have just picked up the latest edition. While its cover lacks some of the sass and sex appeal of others it has commisioned recently the content looks brilliant. The design and art direction are far and away the best of any publication in New Zealand. Its generous size and gigantic spreads make it a genuinely luxe experience. It is easy to see why fashion and luxury goods are so attracted to it. They just fit and make other titles look pinched and stingy - even the likes of...

One of the curious aspects of blogging is the complete familiarity of it all. You are free to explore my innermost thoughts (or perhaps those that are more inner than the usual business outing) and yet, for the most part, I don't know who you are. I assume more than the few people who have left comments are visiting because, tucked away in the bowels of the source code I have attached a counter that tells me how many people have visited, how many pages they have viewed and the duration of the visit. It makes an interesting snapshot and answers the bear in the woods question . However statistics are just that - numbers; aggregations. And I am quite pleased with the numbers. They are not large, but they are trending up (as they say). But it reminds me of the Bill Bryson story about a bad flight he took. When he describes it his friend asks who he flew with and he replies, “I don’t know, they were all complete strangers to me.” So, you may have noticed that I have added some technolog...

When I was young and annoyingly lean I read a book by Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, which equipped me with an equally slender and shallow interest in the topic that I have never really sought to plumb much further. The book by Russell that I should have read is the delighfully obscure, forgotten and illustrated The Good Citizen's Alphabet . It is literally an A-Z of ThoughtSpurs. Russell's introduction to the otherwise spartan text goes like this: This book, it is felt, will supply a lacuna which has long disgraced our educational system. Those who have had the largest amount of experience in the earlier stages of the pedagogical process have in a very large number of cases been compelled to conclude that much unnecessary difficulty and much avoidable expenditure of school hours is due to the fact that the ABC, that gateway to all wisdom, is not made sufficiently attractive to the immature minds whom it is our misfortune to have to address. This book, small a...

Get this widget! I keep encountering very cool things on the web. Not all are conducive to productivity, but who knows when one idea will spark another. I rather like this game - it reminds me of computer games when I was a kid. One step up from Chinese chequers I guess (but you never lost any of the pieces and didn't need your older brother to condescend to playing...)

This may be a hoary old chestnut for those of us who've been around since single minded propositions were orthodoxy de jour - but I think is a very succinct expression of the difference between brands and 'branding'. Thanks to the blog of Colombian ad planner Daniel Meija for the images.

Last night there were a series of small earthquakes in Auckland. The biggest was 4.5 on the Richter Scale . Not big tremors in the grand scheme of things, but enough to remind one of the fact that the city is squarely within a volcanic ring. Rangitoto, the landmark island in the Hauraki Gulf is quite recent and is considered dormant rather than extinct. It struck me as slightly strange that such a potentially destructive force of nature could seem to be a minor thrill; in the same way that throwing oneself off a bridge, tethered by a bungy cord isn't the indicator of mental illness it might once have been. I realise that feel mildly excited by a shake might sound weird, but it reminds me of the concept of creative inflation that I wrote about in my latest column for Idealog magazine (referring to remarks made by UK planner Richard Huntington to Russell Davies). Things that were once the cutting edge of excitement become dull and we need a bigger fix. Perhaps it is related to the co...

I hope you will forgive the hybridisation of the award winning Adidas ad campaign 'Runners, yeah, we're different'. I came across this via a random link and thought it was a nice embodiment of the Lovemark idea. I don't think PC users feel the emotional attachment to their brand of choice - though admittedly Sony Vaio users probably like their equipment. Apple really does have an edge through its integration of interface and hardware. Many commentators believe Apple's choice to ringfence their MacOS consigned them to a bit-player in the world of computing. Perhaps; in volume terms. But great stories are not made by compliance and agreement - there must be a protagoniost and an antagonist. Someone who wants something and someone/something that wants to prevent that from happening. If Frodo and Sam had hopped on the number 9 bus to Mount Doom, tossed the ring into the fire, then had a refreshing pint at the Mordor Arms Inn it owuld have hardly been a gripping epic. W...

...and if you don't like those...I have others. Here's an interesting fragment from Australian advertising consultancy The Principals. They have a monthly conceptual mailout called Moving Minds. It is one of the few newsletter type signups I don't regret agreeing to receive. It is always interesting. Always well executed and short. A bonus in the attention economy. A few years ago the Mini production line in England was stopped each week so that every car worker could brainstorm new ideas. Each worker was asked to generate three small ideas a year. This resulted in 14,000 new ideas, 11,000 of which were implemented. Not bad. Except that over in Japan Toyota’s employee suggestion scheme generates 2,000,000 ideas a year of which around 85% are implemented. As we’ve said before, the best way to have a good idea is to have car loads of them. You should sign up and visit their archive

The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit. If you want to visit Banksy's own site bypass the home page and go directly here . The home page has a picture but no links inside the site.

I flipped open a paperback copy of the Moby Dick which was heavily annotated by its previous owner. On the title page was a link to chapter 79, The Prarie - where this remark resides: "I will do my endeavor. I try all things; I achieve what I can." What do you call a hyperlink in a paperback? And did you know the name of Starbucks (a well known chain of coffeeshops) comes from Moby Dick? Or that Starbucks was originally called Il Giornallo ? And finally, the title of this post was taken from a New Zealand TV show fronted by the mayor of Invercargill, Tim Shadbolt called: That's Fairly Interesting - a parody of the American show: That's Incredible - fronted by Lee Majors - The Six Million Dollar Man. I wonder what six million dollars would be in current currency?

Now you can have some appreciation of why Iraqi people don't like Americans - it's road rage. Reminds me of the flake who wrote off my Vespa with his Nissan Patrol. After we get Billboards off the streets - SUVs are next. They seem like reasonable, achievable goals. Getting the US to stop starting wars might be more difficult.

The twenty happiest countries are: 1.Denmark 2.Switzerland 3.Austria 4.Iceland 5.The Bahamas 6.Finland 7.Sweden 8.Bhutan 9.Brunei 10.Canada 11.Ireland 12.Luxembourg 13.Costa Rica 14.Malta 15.The Netherlands 16.Antigua and Barbuda 17.Malaysia 18.New Zealand 19.Norway 20.The Seychelles Antigua and Barbuda I can understand. But Iceland?

I recently moved from my funky apartment in the city to a rather ordinary house in the suburbs. I packed away my furniture and possesions in a storage facility - the excercise reminding me of the the game Tetris. Everything is so tightly packed that any hope of finding anything (like passports) requires unloading the lot. Check out the documentary from the BBC about the story of Tetris. It's packing them in all over the world. City living has much to commend it...but, sadly noise and parking dramas won out in the end, not to mention self defeating commutes to drop my son off at golf, school etc...

Ever feel like having a tiger by the tail might end very badly indeed? I am feeling a little ignorant. The number of readers of this blog is increasing and I don't really know anything about tools like RSS to make it more easily accessible. I need to do some boot camp learning. Fast.

Since I wrote about Al Hirschfeld I have been resuscitating my drawing habit. I find it quite relaxing to put the computer aside for a few minutes every now and then. This is a sketch of Stanley Kubrick from an old Vanity Fair magazine. I bought myself a new dip pen and some ink from Liz at the Albany Art Shop - great little store - if you are just starting out talk your needs through with Liz, she's knowledgeable and patient.

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...

It's 11.28pm (now), from where I live I can hear sound of fireworks exploding over Auckland Harbour. Given that I recently moved from my apartment down on the water to a suburb a little further inland means that, given the speed of sound, it happened a little while ago. The occasion was the departure of the Queen Mary 2. The biggest ocean liner in the world. It arrived this morning. A whistle stop tour of the world I guess? But that's a distraction. The real purpose of this note is to honour Russell Davies . He's a top advertising planner in England (somewhere south of Scotland?). I saw the clip I've posted last year and thought it was the most courageous business decision I had ever encountered. Russell chose to express his feelings for his wife in a forum where he knew full well that it would bleed into business life. In his blog he has recently expressed regret for having been so open. I understand his point of view but I also feel that his strength is that he is aut...

The latest edition of Idealog has hit the streets. Now that I am not involved in the day to day production I find it fascinating to see what the team have come up with. Like any other contributor I am subject to editing and sub-editing (unlike blogging). In this issue I reviewed Mavericks at Work. Here is the unexpurgated version. Mavericks at Work : Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win William C Taylor & Polly Labarre I read a lot of business books. Three in a good week (or a very, very dull one, depending on your point of view). Every now and then I read one that makes my palms sweat…Tom Peters’ In Search of Excellence; Gonzo Marketing by Chris Locke, John Grant’s After Image and New Marketing Manifesto all come easily to mind. I can trace shifts in my thinking to each of those books – and associate them with things I invented after reading. Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win is very nearly one of those books. Its authors shouldn’t feel too ba...

This afternoon I bought a copy of a book I have been coveting for some time from the dangerously excellent Unity Bookshop in High Street. Banksy's Wall and Piece (now with 10% more crap). You may not have heard of Banksy, though his fame is legend in street culture around the world and is growing in the art-literate mainstream. Banksy is a stencil artist. He creates his work on the street. Like graffiti, but different. Some would say he is a vandal. One of the measures of his work is how long it lasts before it is painted over or cleaned away by the authorities (buffed). He is more than an artist though. His work drips with ironic, anarchic narratives. He has something to say and the message is as clear as any advertising campaign. At the start of the book - which only has a spare amount of copy, the work speaks largely for itself - Banksy says: I'm going to speak my mind, so this won't take Long. Despite what they say graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Although you m...

I once wrote a column in the New Zealand Herald about Stella Artois' advertising . In it I referred to Belgium's finest moments. There haven't been many: Tin Tin, Stella Artois, colonising the Congo...Well, now they have the honour of being the country whose legal system upheld the case against Google by the publishing consortium Copiepresse, who alleged that Google's linking to their websites breached their copyright. In his excellent blog Allan Jenkins has this to say: It's clear Boribon's (head of Copiepresse) problem with Google has nothing to do with copyright and everything to do with resentment of -- and fear of -- Google's success. But not just Google's success. This is fear -- and again, sadly, it is so deeply rooted in many parts of European academia and public administration that it will take a generational shift to root it out -- this is fear of technology, decentralization, business in general, globalization and free information. According...

I think you will relate to this - it is somewhat universal. As a footnote... I tried to learn some Swedish once. I was dating a Swedish girl and have always felt it was the least I could do to butcher my friend's language. Watching this I realise the Swedish language was technology I would never master.

The first book I ever bought from Amazon was The 500 Year Delta by Watts Wacker. In fact, I would have to say it was my first experience of ecommerce, and a pretty good one at that. I learned about Wacker from an article What Comes After What Comes Next in Fast Company magazine , my magazine of choice in 1996. It seems like ancient history now. I recall being impressed with the idea of being a 'futurist'. Prior to that a futurist was an Italian artist between the world wars who was in love with technology and speed. Ok, I guess the difference isn't that great. I came across W.Wacker again through Jack Yan's blog. Like him I was fascinated by this quote from an interview published on the media (radio) blog Hear 2.0 "Perhaps the biggest trend that I would pay attention to in the short run is that while consuming is never going to go away, consuming as the defining criteria for individuals is. We are now using our media consumption as opposed to our physical consum...

I created a survey form a little while ago. The results have been interesting so far. But I need a bigger base to get some statistical validity. There are 4 questions. It will take you about a minute and is anonymous - let 'er rip! Click here to take survey

Do you ever go into the attic or garage to tidy up or make some space but find yourself distracted by your junk? I have been going through some old digital files in an external hard drive to make some room for space hungry video. Came across some randomly named folders ('cleanup'-what kind of name is that?). I found a concept I had done for a carpet manufacturer - Cavalier Bremworth - that I never presented. Rather like it...feel free to use it if you have a carpet client (or maybe Birkenstock type shoes?). A rejected image from my second (failed) marriage. In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum in the first Jurassic Park movie - I am currently looking for the future-ex Mrs MacGregor... I can only imagine what I was saying - but it looks like fun. And what looks like a doodle I did based on David's iconic image of The Little General crossing the St Bernard pass . The text, for those of you who find my writing as difficult to read as I do says: ...first door on the left, tu...

Some things just defy belief. McDonalds (brand)...plus heart tick (endorser brand)...equals ignore heart tick - useless information. How are we (as 'consumers') supposed to make any kind of informed choice? Another triumph of epidemiology over common sense. There goes the neighbourhood.

I bought a book yesterday called Doubt - a history (the great doubters and their legacy of innovation). It introduced me to the zen philosopher Alan Watts. Intrigued, I turned, as I do, to YouTube and found these clips. Had your thoughts provoked yet?

First Al Gore invented the Internet, then he was first with dire warnings of Global Warming. Yeah right… Check this clip out from the 1950's. Don't say we didn't tell ya. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SURVEY TIME - YOUR THOUGHTS... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I've created a quick survey: what do you think of this blog. I know, I'm putting myself out there…but I guess, with blogging we all do. Click here to take survey It is anonymous…what do you have to lose?…

"Every man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds." Mark Twain "The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next." Helen Keller "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." Pablo Picasso "Most of the change we think we see in life - Is due to truths being in and out of favor." Robert Frost ...Prompted by watching the Dragon's Den (TV1, Monday, 8.30)

It is easy to imagine that the value of design is simply as part of the process of generating value through brands and user experiences for consumers. It seems that the very idea of consuming is becoming something to be reconsidered in the context of, well, …survival really. Not just survival or marmosets of cute, fluffy dolphins. The survival of humans. Green issues have become centre party political staples, rather than being marginal, slightly loony, end is nigh, sorts of things. Which could be either good news for the greens or a death knell as they become indistinguishable from other parties. With the shift in attitudes it means that the role of designers is going to be dramatically changed and more important. The spectrum will range from choosing sustainable materials, inventing new solutions (including manufacturing) that consume fewer resources and create less waste. Designers will, in many cases lead the debate: is a project worth embarking upon? Questions of ethics will repla...

I'm really intrigued by the serial image blogs that I've been encountering. The latest is from photographer Bill Wadman, who is based in New York. He has committed to take a portrait a day for a year . That seems to be quite some undertaking when you think about it; selecting subjects, negotiating…then shooting. I assume he has a day job too. I like the images, they are accomplished but have an easy quality to them that suggests a personable manner with the subject as well as a talent with the equipment.