Herd - the hidden truth about who we are

Back with a vengeance

pic c/o werner forman archive

Back renewed, refreshed and reborn - almost. Hardly any internet, lots of omega-3 type fish and a good dose of Spanish sunshine seem to have done the trick.

It's given me the chance to chew over what's happened in the last few months - the new stuff and some new angles on old debates. Feel full to bursting with lots of new thoughts for what might come next.

There's some more stuff on what emerged in San Diego; there's further developments on the Age of Conversation book; the Planning for Good initiative (more of which anon); why the Long Tail is only half the story and happiness human-shaped; how "I" is a handicap to much of our thinking about humans, human behaviour and what to do about it. And probably some more stuff on the Diana-fest I missed out on while I was in Spain. And why cricket is the most taxing of games...

Also and this is for you, Trems - if I can find the photos I took of it - my gadget of the year: a fishing bait dispensing machine. Yesireebob! You pays your money and makes your choice...

Exciting and busy few weeks coming up also: I'm at NESTA with a personal hero of mine, Howard Rheingold, a week Tuesday (11th) talking about what underpins mass collaboration and then at IDEO's Big Wednesday talking about Perception on the (12th) and hopefully a trip down to Pimlico to see Matthew's gang before a little trip out to Berlin for ESOMAR 07 to explain the HERD paradigm in market and social research to the peeps. And that's just the first half of the month...

Oh, yes and some paid work to do somehow

Who wants some, eh?

Beach reading?

Pic c/o Beachstore.com

Ok so I got the rest of my vacation stuff sorted - what about the reading material?

Social Atom - tick
End of Zimbardo's Satanic thingy - tick
The Gift (again) tick
And...

On Chesil beach - tick

Any other suggestions from the collective intelligence?

Te

Meet the author...(pt 2)

That video thing is up on Amazon.co.uk but not yet on .com....

Boy, I look knackered....

Herd: hard left/right/up/down

Nice piece again by Mark Buchanan in NS which suggests that it's going to be possible to predict the significant and sudden changes that characterise complex systems such as human groups and societies and to do so just without mass observation.

Thanks to work by physicist Robert Wicks at Warwick University, it seems possible that simply by sampling a handful of flock/HERD members we'll be able to spot the big changes of direction that are about to happen.

The point being that in a disordered state, an individual particle/agent's behaviour gives little or no information about the behaviour of other particles; however, as a system approaches a phase transition, the information that one particle reveals about the others around it increases.

As Buchanan points out,

"In crowds, the precursors to a transformation from ordinary, regular movement to a dangerous, turbulent state or stampede can be detected mathematically by video analysis, but only with extensive computation on the movements of many people. The new technique could make practical detection much easier...perhaps with cameras tracking only a few individuals....in a crowd of say 1000 people, observations on as few as five people might be sufficient"

But don't get Gladwellian about this: it's not that the ones sampled are more influential or important than the others, it's just something which all/most particles/agents within the system will experience as a phase transition approaches.

War between the sexes explained

If you're interested, most things can be interesting.

And it's certainly true that we could do with more study of our daily lives through the lens of the Super Social Ape.

But let's not get carried away: there are some social phenomena which probably don't need quite this much explanation.

Planners will note.

Thank you very much.

Me and you against the world

There is undoubtedly something important happening here.

Whether it's a movement or a tendency, a manifesto or an emerging new agenda (as Adrian puts it), it's quite clear that a group of likeminded planning folk is gathering around a few central shared thoughts of where marketing and account planning in particular need to go next.

I think it's really important that
1. while a number of us are Brits, by no means all are
2. while many folk work in the US, not all of us do
3. while some are working within existing agencies, many of us are not
4. while all of us are rooted in traditional thinking and practice all of us are working out the thinking and practice hand-in-hand, using each other's thinking in a very open and collaborative manner, going much faster than we might do on our own
5. while some of us had met before, all of us had some kind of interaction through the internet prior to this conference - the internet being the medium which is primarily responsible for making us rethink the game.

40 years ago, Stephen King and Stanley Pollitt both simultaneously came up with the same innovation in the structure of advertising agencies in response to the pressures in the environment in which they were then operating. Wierder still, they both called it account planning and while it took quite some time to get established outside the UK (and some snobs will tell you it can't be done by non-brits...), it's now a standard function within most agencies.

So is this week in San Diego, the equivalent when everything changes with sweet synchronicity? It would be neat, wouldn't it?

And the ol' fella would be pleased, wouldn't he? The first time I met him - at the 30th anniversary of Planning, he mentioned how surprised (and dissappointed) he was "that no-one had since come up with a better idea (than planning)"

Stop me and buy one

Another interesting day in SD but not in the way perhaps the agenda imagined. First up was an cute little case study about XS energy drinks and disruption of market norms in a crowded category. Whilst the thinking wasn't particularly revolutionary, what is useful is to hear the practical story of what to do to make the thinking happen - all too often we stop short, with a handful of theory and no practical use for it.

Things less interesting on the mainstage for my tastes subsequently but the afternoon's breakouts again the hotspot for me. Did a repeat of mine which continued to be loud and raucus (one of my messages is that we're in the circus business not in healthcare so we should enjoy it), much to Rob and Adrian's amusement next door. Think I know understand what I wanted to say and would be happy to do it all again tomorrow.

Then caught Gareth and Mark's piece on the 7 deadly sins of the modern planner. They know their stuff really well and put it across in an engaging stylee and I buy what they say entirely: our assumptions about how things work are wrong and this is leading us to unhelpful and downright irrelevant processes and practices. In place of these false assumptions, they encourage us to really focus on complexity and doing lots of little things.

That said, I sensed that some of the more interesting (to me?) evidence to support their argument is less interesting to the audience they had today than it is to them, but that doesn't mean it should be packed away. Maybe you have to give the impression you've done your homework...?(Which I know they have). As Mark later put it, "perhaps we need to break down into a few headlines of what you DO differently".
But there was some Blackadder Goes Forth which is always nice (preens Melchitt moustache and purrs in a Stephen Fry manner)

Afterwords got into a really interesting conversation/debate with Mark and Jason Oke about the consilience in the industry right now which was so absorbing that I missed the Axe Click case study entirely (although having judged it, I am already a big fan (more tomorrow maybe, when they announce the Jay Chiat Award results...) and think it should be richly rewarded.

Less interest it much be said in the Liveearth piece at the end of the day. Not quite sure what we were supposed to engage with here. More useful and valuable as ever were the human interactions (not just with Jason and Mark) but with old chums like Tash who's a founding partner in Another Anomaly or Saipele whose initial planning footsteps I witnessed (what is the man from the UK's ITV doing in San Diego?) or Luc (sorry, I promise to come over to Paris before next year...)

Along the way, I also managed to sell a few Herd books (my publisher has sent a few over here which I am keen to not return to the Uk with) and there are a few more here left.

Stop me and buy one, as the ice cream ads used to say

I heart....

Great piece by Piers on how the US and many other parts of the world differ on how they see the natural device for mobile computing. Over here (the USA) it tends to be a mobile/laptop computer; many other places, it turns out to be cell/mobile phones (I remember doing a project with one of the big search companies in Europe a few years ago which stumbled over this issue: unless the apps are going to be brilliant on Nokia/Sony Ericsson's finest, just don't bother launching in Italy, Spain etc...)

Funny how - as Sir Ken reminded all the US planners thismorning - easily we skip past the stuff that's too obvious to comment on or think about...

Mobile computing clearly needs to involve a computer of sorts, doesn't it? (So what is an iPod then, you might ask if you wanted to be tricksy)

PS have seen Piers 4 times this evening with a beer glass exactly 3/5ths full - no more, no less. Does he know something the rest of us here visiting SD don't? Or is this what we'll all be doing next year?

Parallel Lines

Some more stuff from San Diego.

Great - impassioned - breakout from Domenico Vitale of Lowe built around the idea of belief. As a good catholic boy, he pointed out how the Roman church has again and again framed itself around a purpose (although he didn't go into the theological arguments around papal infallibility...). Also, a plea to planners to find the purpose behind products, brands and companies:

"I don't believe there is a category that can't be made interesting"

Suspect that Lowe NY might turn out to be rather more interesting than it has been for a long-time if Domenico and Mr Wnek get their way...

Equally cool stuff from Robert and Adrian (next door to Domenico) with lessons from their fascinating start-up, Zeus Jones. I really like their idea that marketing shouldn't be a bolt on but rather a service (something useful and valuable in its own right). Again more thoughts around the limits of the old model...and the importance of collaboration.

Lots of interesting and fresh thoughts but thoughts pointing in the same direction. Can't wait to hear what Adam and Mark of Eatbigfish had to say (was in parallel today with them). Or Ed Cotton or Mark/Gareth but think this conference is pointing out the way forward.

MEanwhile I was talking about being stupid (as opposed to clever) and how planners could be as much part of the problem as part of the solution.

We'll save that for tomorrow...

Sir Ken shapes the agenda

First up in the AAAAs San Diego gig is a surprise success for the committee. Sir Ken Robinson - educationalist and creativity expert - gave the first talk (and yes it was a talk and not a pitch or a powerpoint show) from the mainstage (as a last minute replacement for the scheduled speaker. What a talk it was...

Along the way he challenged us to rethink how many senses we have, how diverse and distributed our intelligence(s) is/are and - just as he did on his TED talk - how creativity is our most important skill going forward (even though our organisations and ways of thinking about them do their best to squeeze it out).

Perhaps his most memorable thought was this: just as Al Gore plots the external change in our climate, so we need to acknowledge the underlying change in our cultures and economy that is going on (thanks to a combination of technology and demographics) and start shaping oru response to it for good or ill. We've got to look at our human assets and capabilities as a priority in the future and not just throught the existing mechanistic frames we use now:

"the problem is not that we've set the bar too high and failed but that we've set the bar too low and succeeded"

Creating possibilities, he said, is what it's all about. Harnessing our ability to reinvent continuously and systematically (not just once a decade or an an annualised strat planning basis). All very HERD, I must say.

Think this thought chimes very closely with the new emerging agenda I noted in my previous post. I hope so.... could make for very interesting times. Made me think again of what one old chum mentioned to me last night: there are probably only 25 folk in the country who could really rethink a brand and turn it around and more and more of them are now living outside the agency world.

Final thought on Ken: it's very humbling to those of us who have to speak after him to watch him perform. How could any one match up to Sir Ken's urbane, witty and yet self-deprecating style? (Answers on a postcard please).

M

Schooling together

Here in San Diego for the start of the AAAA Planning conference and a tangible sense of change is in the air.
While the format of the next 2 1/2 days follows the same, successful format of previous years (mainstage for key presentations from industry outsiders and early afternoon breakouts from industry insiders) what strikes me is how strongly aligned much of the insider thinking is likely to be. Chatting to some of the other presenters last night a new-ish agenda emerged, which makes a sharp

- behaviour not attitudes
- participation not transmission/persuasion
- enthusiasms, passions and beliefs vs. analytics and "needs"
- marketing as a service vs. marketing as an add-on

And thus a very different requirement from planners and planning. I wonder what those left in London might think? Probably poo-pooing it - nothing good ever came out of the US did it? Oh, apart from advertising and marketing and most of the ideas held dear by UK planners and researchers...

I'll be checking to see what the breakouts actually say but this little fella's quite excited by what seems to be happening here. Think the game might be about to move....

Take me out to the Ballgame

Ideal prep for 3 days of intensive discussion about the future of brands, planning and planners: a trip to Petco park to watch the Padres wrestle with the Giants...well done, Gareth for organising us!

And in the company of some the US's finest planning brains: Gareth (pic) of course, Mark, Domenico, Tom, Ed et al.

Which reminds me: I'm talking tomorrow at about being less clever and more stupid (not just an argumentia pro sua, honest)

Check the other boys and girls out. Will pop in to as many other breakouts as I can. Think it might be a bumper year. Here's the programme to download

Download 2002266.jpg

Oh, and if you're here, do come and say hello, why don't you?

How Alice's tears are for you, as well as for her

Sitting here jetlagged to hell in San Diego (more later) looking at the heavy grey sky, I've decided it's time to talk tears.

While many mammals and most primates have tear ducts and use them to heal, salve or clean the delicate surfaces of their eyes only Humans cry tears of emotion.

Somewhere in the last hundred or so millenia, we have developed this ability to amplify our ability to communicate what our body reveals of our sensations and internal experiences (primates also howl or skulk when in pain or scared etc) so that it is visible on our streaky faces.

Crying is both a sign to the cryer that things are past the worst (they deliver certain emotional/physiological benefits for the cryer which heal and soothe - ref when I get home) and also a sign to the observer that things are as bad as they seem for the crier. It adds another layer of sophistication to the body- (and other) language which can't help but reveal information about those arounds. In other words, crying is a social or Herd function, enabling more accurate information about what is going on in the primary context of our lives.

It also has a behavioural imperative contained within: it tends to encourage us to respond with empathy, sympathy and comfort. We all know the experience of feeling the necessity to dry and wipe away a child's tears and so it is with adult ones. Of course, just as with small children, we learn that some individuals get tearful at lower levels of pain/distress while others almost never get to big wet salty tears; some again, try to manipulate us with their tearfulness...

However good we are at telling real from crocodile tears, the interesting thing about the salty secretion dripping down your cheeks is its primarily Social - or HERD - Function