I'm trying to think

10 things I learnt at Interesting 2007

1) Build it and they will come. It’s not only true of baseball grounds, it’s also true of homespun conferences built on nothing more than interesting things. (I think it all started here for Russell, this post got something like 5 times the hits of his usual stuff.)This is also a principal demonstrated by many people who write for wikipedia, blogs and set up organisations like We are what we do, one of the first speakers. They went on to sell tons of their books 'Change the world' and we all know the story about 'I'm not a plastic bag.' They made a difference because they had a go, they built it.

2) Real things count more in the digital age. According to Tim at Artomatic, just as painting stopped being a record with the arrival of photography, so print and film should become liberated with the arrival of digital. I think you can already see this with the films of Michel Gondry and commercials like Sony Bravia and Skoda Cake where doing it for real takes the place of CGI. This gives the brands an emotional resonance that only the best digital work can achieve and an authenticity that people crave. Very much like the Interesting conference itself.

3) TV is like advertising, but harder. Richard Wilson, producer of ‘Have I got news for you’ and ‘Room 101’ describes commissioning editors as people who are paid to say no. This may sound like advertising, but remember that at some point the client will need a campaign, so they can’t say no for ever. Whereas TV is awash with hackneyed formulas, repeats and people peddling the next ‘Wife Swap’ so they’re never going to be short of content. (Apparently you can only make the next ‘Wife Swap’ if you make Wife Swap type programs already. There’s a lot of pigeon holing in TV.) And what was also interesting is that whereas digital and advertising is full of bloggers and people who want to share their ideas and opinions, TV is full of people who are extremely protective of their ideas. I guess you’re only going to come up with one ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ every ten years. By the same token, if everyone shared their ideas, maybe TV would end up much more diverse and risky and not full of the formulaic nonsense that fills our screens (although not Richard Wilson’s stuff of course even if his ‘sitcom about a reality tv star trying to make a sitcom about his reality’ starring Paul Torrisi from the Apprentice, will never see the light of day.)

4) Opinion always wins over reportage but not always over anecdote. The speakers who stuck their necks out and tried to make a new connection like Beeker did with the Muppets and Ibsen were the most interesting. However, you can never beat a good story and Grant McCraken told a whopping tale about going on Oprah.

5) People love to share. There was a particular loveliness to the sharing that went on at Interesting 2007. It was a very open, smugness free, soul bearing sort of stuff. The amount of ideas pinging around the room by the end of the day was testament to the have a go attitude of so many of the crowd (including Mathew Ancona’s Al Pacino impression, not the kind of thing you expect from the editor of the Spectator.)

6) Richard Dawkins is one of the most referenced men in marketing, and for good reason. Matt Black Belt Jones referenced his Ted Talks talk on ‘the middle world’ and how our view of the universe is ultimately confined to what we are evolutionally designed to understand – i.e. our middle view of the world rather than the very small quantum level and the macro big bang level. He applied this to marketing and how we should try and look beyond the immediate problem at much bigger or smaller concerns. I’m inclined to agree.

7) Don’t bootstrap products. Another one from Matt who I think may have borrowed from Ray Kurzweil. His example of Nike+ was a good one. Yes, it’s a great product but it doesn’t let you ‘play’ with it beyond its intended use. For example, you can’t walk with it or it stops working. Look at Google maps, it’s not just a boxed product, it’s a shared resource that people have already thought up thousands of previously unimagined uses.

8) If you do something well, do it more. A perfect 5 minutes from a lovely guy who described himself as Cluso on land and Fred Astaire in the water. He’s since worked out why he’s so good at swimming and it’s due to anatomy. His point was that everyone has at least one thing they can do well. So do it.

9) Om is the sound of the Universe. Red is the colour of his pants.

10) You can get a great tune out of a household saw. If you don’t believe, watch this fantastic performance from Rhodri Marsden.

11) Lists are good. Ann at I like

VIP Brands

(This weeks top 10 is called 'let's see how far we get.')

I had the misfortune of going to a Gumball 3000 party last week at Koko, which was all in aid of Maximillion Cooper's latest feature film about some Jackass, skateboarder types (as well as the usual Jet Set) driving around the world in fast cars. Whilst I was waiting for the bar to open once the ridiculously long, indulgent travelogue-disguised-as-a-movie had finished, a realisation struck me. Gumball is a bizarre brand built on the exploits of an elite few, then sold through merchandise to, on the whole, the lower middle class and working class masses. Which got me thinking...

In this age of brands that seem to stand for something like Howies and Innocent Smoothies, how many brands are going the other way and cashing in on the lifestyles of the super-rich and selling them back to the rest of us in small affordable but ultimately meaningless bite sized chunks? I'm not really talking your Armanis and Calvin Kleins here, because those brands grew out of real clothing companies, plus you still get a pair of jeans, a well cut suit or even a pair of overpriced sunglasses. I mean the brands that really do offer nothing more than a passing affinity with an elite group of multi-millionaires.

1) Gumball 3000. Apparently the Rally makes very little money these days - it's a marketing event that leverages the lives of the rich and 'famous' allowing the Gumball owners to sell it back to the rest of us in the form of key rings, playstation games, hats, t-shirts and dull films.

2) Celebrity perfume. If you can't live like Jade Goody, Britney, Paris etc. you can at least smell like them. Nice!

3) Ferrari. They now have the full clothing range for all the Mondeo drivers out there.

4) Manchester United. Not the real fans, but rather the Japanese girls who buy David Beckham shirts. (All football may go this way as we become more concerned with off the pitch than on it.)

5) Oxbridge. An outsider this one, but how many tourists leave Oxford and Cambridge with scarves, rugby shirts and the rest dreaming of being clever enough to have gone there.

Coming soon:

6) Kensington and Chelsea. Can't afford to live there? Never mind, now you can own one of these K & C key rings or even a fake congestion zone waiver that says to the casual observer - wow, they must be loaded.

7) Merchant Banks. Only a few thousand people have what it takes to turn money into yet more money. But you too can imagine receiving a bonus bigger than most people earn in a lifetime with these genuine embossed business cards.

8) Lear Jet. It's the ultimate VIP accessory but you too can own a small slice of celebrity sky with a bottle of Cabin Air. "Pressurised by Fame."

9) The old school tie. Can't afford to send your kids to Eton, never mind. This collection builds week by week into a complete bluffers guide. Learn all about fagging, rugger, matrons and bumming. Part 1 comes with a binder and an old school tie.

10) Private Islands - Can't afford one in real life, own one in Second Life. Commerce and real estate is already playing a big part in Second Life. How long until virtual Marxism? I may get a t-shirt that says "All virtual property is real theft." Do we think it will catch on?

Yes, it's all a bit of a stretch, but let me know what you think in the comments section and please add to it if you can think of anymore. I know there's the obvious ones like music, magazines and films - but that's what they are. Newspapers started as court circulars, so when you buy Hello and the rest of those magazines you still get a magazine experience. The same with CDs and Films, you're paying to be entertained. All the VIP brand offers is a strange insubstantial affinity and not much else.

The theory of unevolution

Creationism is on the rise, this anti-science is being taught in more and more schools – which got me thinking along a Darwinian theme. If the teaching of science is unevolving (the real word is dysgenics) I wonder what else is unevolving - i.e. standing still or going backwards? Here’s my top 10.

1. Religion. Whether it’s the Middle East or middle America, everyone is getting more fundamental and more literal in their beliefs. You can’t draw Mohammad Cartoons , you can’t teach evolution but it’s okay to teach creationism – the scientific equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5. Isn’t believing in God enough? Is your faith that fragile that you have to believe every single word in the Bible too? It’s a metaphor! It’s the only way ancient people could explain complex systems – a bit like explaining email to your Nan – there isn’t really a small man who runs around in a pipe delivering small letters to your computer.

2. Food packaging. It doesn’t work. Plastic ring pulls on the top of milk cartons don’t work if the plastic holding the cap onto the carton is stronger than the plastic used to make the ring pull! This is a step backwards in civilisation – I’d rather get my milk in a clay pot. And condiment sachets – at the risk of breaking into an unfunny Seinfeld routine – whoever thought they were a good idea? If you manage to get into a sachet of ketchup, it contains enough sauce for one chip. What was the matter with a bottle of Ketchup? It didn’t need unevolving. (Not to be confused with putting cheap sauce in expensive bottles.)

3. Transport. Unless you’re walking or cycling, it’s impossible to get anywhere in London these days. I heard a stat once that the circle line averages 13 miles an hour – that’s slower than a horse and cart. We are still using a Victorian tube network, flying used to be fun and cool – now it’s a harrowing experience where you spend more time in the airport than you do in the air. And roads. Blocking residential side roads in cities is not a great way to get people moving. See number 4 for cars.

4. Cars. Remember when Mini was the people’s car, VW made small affordable cars that took up no more space than was necessary. Cars may have evolved in terms of technology, but in terms of survival of the fittest (the best fitted to it’s environment) they’ve unevolved. If you are hit by a 4 x 4 – you die. 4x4’s use up more resource than they need to in time of resource shortage. In evolutionary terms, cars should be tiny, single person capsules that run on religious wrath or some other abundant resource.

5. Food. “The mineral content of milk and popular meats has fallen significantly in the past 60 years.” Portoins are getting bigger whilst nutritional value is going down. A McDonalds/Burger King/Kentucky is the culinary equivalent of a 4x4.

6. Bottled water. We have taps! Turn them on and water comes out. Why all the trips to the lifestyle well? It’s a step backwards. What next, people carrying water around in large pots on their heads?

7. Films. Is it just me or are most films rubbish? The bar is lower than ever and the industry seems ever more driven by profit and marketing rather than content. Does the world need 3 Pirates films, another Vince Vaughn film, another remake of a 70s movie or TV show? The technology and spectacle might be evolving but the ideas and content that drive the movies are increasingly lame. Let's take Jerry Bruckheimer round the back of the barn and put him out of his misery (metaphorically speaking of course.)

8. Society. We all hear about the growing gap between rich and poor. Whatever happened to a sense of fairplay and equality? It seems morally acceptable to own 5 houses, 3 yachts and a helicopter - especially if you've "worked" for it (built a company and sold it.) What about all the cleaners who work 14 hours a day? Does society exist or are we just a bunch of individuals clambering over each other to get a bigger slice of the 'me pie'?

9. Environmentalism. CO2 is still rising in spite of everything we know about global warming. What next, force feeding obese people with lard or maybe fire fighters should start using petrol to fight fires? You know what they say, if you don't laugh, you'll boil alive in your in own 4x4/executive saloon emissions.

10. Blogging. I remember when people had something to say. It wasn’t just random snips of what they did today or saw on the way to work. Perish the thought that people just start putting up lists of stuff. Give people technology and they’ll find a way to make it ordinary…

10 ways to improve London Transport

Rather than just rant and complain about Meltdown Monday as the papers dubbed it, I thought I’d come up with 10 ways to improve London Transport and make getting to work, and getting around at the weekend, easier.

1) Hold a design competition for a new Route Master which people can still hop on and off the back of, in much the same way that the Mini and the Beetle were redesigned. It would be great to end up with something modern and classic to replace the awful buses that clog up London.

2) Have a Public Manager for each tube line whose job depends on weekly results, like a foot ball team manager. Plus it will also give us a focus for our wrath when it all goes wrong.

3) Make going across the outside of London easier. At the moment, if I want to go from Finsbury Park to Hampstead, I have to go into London, to come back out. At the weekend, I will hop in my car or get on my bike to do this because it’s so much easier than trying to go around the outside. Run more buses, make the Silver Link (aka the Silver Stink) run properly, or have a network of walks like the Parkland Walk.

4) Have a service where I can sign up for text messages alerts that give me a rundown on my regular journey. So at 7.45 every morning I get a text telling me about all 4 sections of my journey to work. If there are problems, I can plan ahead, or maybe work from home for the morning until it calms down.

5) Sort out the cycling in this city. Take a leaf out of New York’s book and have a nicely paved cycle paths running right through London and if anyone parks in them, tow them away. Currently bikes share lanes with buses half the time – if ever there were two vehicles that weren’t meant to share the same space…

6) Trams are making a come back finally. I’m still not convinced that white vans won’t park in their way, but it’s a great start.

7) Make people stagger their travel times. Obviously in office life people need to start at similar times, but having everyone on the move between 8 and 9 in the morning is nuts. How about making half of us travel between 9 and 10 every other day, and visa versa. Maybe it could be run on surname system where A-Ms travel early one day, whilst N-Zs all go after 9am.

8) Make the River buses a real part of London life. At the moment, they have a novelty value, but how many people really use the river buses.

9) Enforce car pooling where you can’t bring a car into a city unless it has at least 3 people in it. I’m trying to introduce this at my office. Currently only the directors are given parking spaces which means driving is seen as a right rather than a privilege. How about this, you’re only allowed a parking space if you have at least 3 people in the car. No passengers, no space!

10) Redefine what our roads are for. Are they just for cars and traffic or should they be extended public spaces which people can use for recreation, markets, or just walking – without being harassed by cars and fumes. Like when Battersea bridge was closed outside our office - there was a lovely social vibe as people walked across it in a quiet carnival of street reclamation.