Herd - the hidden truth about who we are

Hugh and the Rabbi (2)

pic c/o gapingvoid.com

He's done us proud again.

The latest Hugh and the Rabbi podcast is up here. With Johnnie and me getting overexcited also. And the content guide is here

Hope you enjoy as much as we did

It could be you...

The Observer tells us that Exactitudes is coming to the UK...showing at Selfridges shortly. Nice talk here where the artist Arie Versluis describes the project and the UK version...

Regular readers will know I've referenced this ongoing documentary project on how we dress but if you haven't come across this or if you're memory's slipping then go here to learn why this reveals our herd nature (or even herewhere I explain the Monty Python gag). Of course, you could just buy one of these.. for the longhand version of the explanation.

Or of course you could pop down to store itself - undoubtedly one of the best retail marketing organisations in Europe IMHO

Playtime for anyone?

A couple of weeks ago, I had this idea which I mentioned to the very playful Johnnie that a few of us might get together in London one weekend to play some of the improv games we find useful in our different versions of "work".

Not really much more to the idea than that: we get together, play a bit, have some fun and er...that's it. Of course, there might well be tea and biscuits involved!

A few hours maybe one Saturday...anyone interested (apart from Johnnie and I)?

Vive la difference!

2 nice things in one this morning.

My oldest mate has another great piece on R4 on French 'toons (curiously while France is bemoaning the demise of its high culture, it's comics or BD's are alive and well) NB listen to the Saturday show for the next 7 days by going here or just subscribe to the podcast version here

Hugh's piece from a couple of years ago on the French obsession with acronyms is still one of my faves of a radio genre and format I really love: intelligent analysis about both small and big stuff in a particular culture, brought to life in a tangible, accessible and memorable way.

God bless you, From Our Own Correspondent. Like the best blogs, ain't it?

The Thing, The Other and That Momentum Thing

One of the most interesting things about watching coverage of this year's US presidential campaigns is observing how important The Other (other people) really is and how - relatively - unimportant The Thing (the candidates).

Most of the conversation by the pundits (on- and offline) is about Things - as if the candidates were being rationally evaluated by millions of individual party electors on some (as yet unclear) tangible dimensions.

But the truth is glimpsed in a number of ways: the participative and iterative shape of the process for choosing candidates is clearly a social one - I for one love the curiously olde worlde grassroots caucuas mechanism. And let's be honest, something other than rational evaluation is being used to sort out would-be candidates. Indeed, the widely referenced notion of Momentum (see here here and here) is all about sensing what the Other (what other around you folk think). Whatever the value of his candidacy or the tactics he deployed, Rudy Giuliani discovered how difficult it is to compete as a Thing when The Other is so public and well articulated: when what other people think and do is the main show, Things just don't cut it.

This makes the rise and rise of Obama less about the man himself than about Americans and America:

"The reason Obama is winning and will win is so simple. Americans want to believe in themselves again."

Now a fan of rationalist democracy might object to all of this - as if the social side I'm higlighting here was some aberrent, twisted version of our fine democratic institutions. Indeed in certain countries Opinion polls are banned during elections as the information they contain about The Other is believed to have an unfair influence on each individual voter - I'm sure it must have been this way even in the Ancient demos's deliberations.

Implications:

1. Politicos take note: if you win, it's about them and not about you so use your power wisely. Ditto, Marketers: if your brand is successful it's likely to be more because of the Other (people being ready to interact around something and take up your brand for their interactions) than it is about your Thing. Be humble.

2. So whether you're campaigning or marketing, don't focus on the Thing: it's largely not about the product or the ad or what you do but about them and how they interact with each other. It's about how they see themselves: how they see the other folk in the perpetual dance that is human life. Help them do so.

3. So what else do you do? Understand that the dance was going on before you arrived and will go on long after you've disappeared, so try to understand the dance they're dancing, how they see each other and then try to enhance it...

The Other

"You can never escape the Other" Freud. Other people shape our lives, from the moment we're born to the day we die.

That's why this sings to the heart. Or the live version. IMHO the best lovesong ever. EVER

"I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms"

Post Valentine Special: tell me the real truth about love

Curious thing, love.

"Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love..."

Found this interesting interview with the original stimulus for Wystan's longings...

"When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love."

Good things come in 3s

pic c/o Picasa

...like buses.

1. Great post from Adriana laying out how the VRM concept she and others have been slaving away on is taking shape. Maybe soon the idea of "brand relationships" will start to be a bit more equal. Even if you - like me - are a civilian rather than someone working in this area, it's well worth getting your head around this concept (and being grateful for the collective collaborative effort that has got it this far) because if it (or something adjacent) works out like we hope, it's going to change how we use the web (as individuals and corporations) because of how it makes our data our own (and not the corporation's)

2. Russell's brilliant piece on the two ways to start a creative business. Like him, my money's on the Double Decker solution (the Expert tag always scares me). And I think there's something important about our desire to hang out with folk we like in workland: at once a fundamental need to shelter together and at the same time the basis of guilds and other means to share and transfer knowledge and skills. Seem to spend a lot of my time at the moment drinking tea or eating noodles withlikeminded folk, as we rethink the silly, enfuriating and downright brilliant business we're all in. God bless, you all...

God, I used to love those kids and really wanted to be one(the hand through the door sequence is here)

3. And last but not least, might be doing a project with my old chum Jay. One of the many things we share is a love of old Jamaican music. This week on the playlist is a re-release of the classic early Lee Scratch Perry collection, Chicken Scratch. Get your dancing shoes on, my son...

More Slippy-slippy

Nice post from Valeria on Nickelodeon and the Slippy vs. Sticky thought that I was on about t'other day

Do share any more you come across...

The Galifreians are coming

Funny how people gather together around things they see that other folk love or love doing.

It seems that some at least of our transatlantic cousins are beginning (together) to embrace all things Whovian (or is that Galifreian?)

And we Brits might just find ourselves later today enjoying that human-human contact thing that other cultures are more open to

Wonder what these two things'll do for world peace, eh??