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johnny be good: insights, condoms and comedy

22 Dec

I love the Condom08 campaign – the perfect marriage of real insight, a creative idea and seamless cross platform execution driven by data and user stories. And it’s about sex, and everyone loves talking about sex. Particularly Swedish people having sex.

I’ve been having a bit of discussion about this with perennial provocateur Mister Corbett. His view is that it’s a great idea but it’s not founded on an insight.

“The only disappointment for me is that only 4 out of 10 people felt more positive about condoms. The campaign deserved better than that I think. However the truth is though that, while it is great, it actually doesn’t in anyway actually address the real issues with condoms – that being that they interrupt the experience. It is wonderful creative thinking – but not based around any true insight.  I love the campaign – I just don’t think it is based on an insight, I think it is based on a great idea. That’s not a crime – far from it, it’s fucking great”

I disagree – I think it’s genuinely insightful; it comes from the idea that yes, condom use is interruptive, but if you flip it,  make that moment of interruption positive (you stop to put on a condom and load the app, perhaps while boasting about how great your graphs are going to look, baby) you change it from being an awkward moment to a fun and possibly sexy one.

That, coupled with the insight that people are desperately curious to know what other people get up to in bed – for all we have access to more porn and sex blogs than can possibly be consumed in a lifetime, there’s a little part of every adult that still wonders on some level  ”am I normal...?”* And nothing tells you what’s normal like some mathmatically vague graphs and stats.

(*FYI: you’re a freak. Embrace it. Life is short.) 

So is using the disruption of putting a condom on to feed our prurient interest in what other people do in bed – and secret desire to brag about our own prowess – genuinely insightful?

Is that truly an insight, or is it rather just an observation?

I think a handy way of checking if what you’ve got your hands on is an insight, or rather, a glibly stated fact is to imagine you’re a stand up comedian.

Will what you’re saying make people gasp, turn to their friend and say sotto voce with a delighted squeal   “I do that!”, or “my mum always…”, or are you more like that awkward stand-up whose set is a series of banal observations prefaced with “Have you ever noticed the way that…?”

An insight is the “oh em gee, that’s so me!” moment, the prod to the solar plexus, not the intellectually driven head nod. As Simon Law says,

An insight is a revelation that produces great work
(there should be a degree of “Fuck me. I never thought of it like that!”)

Peter Kay is a fine example. If you’re from the UK and have seen him talking about “the big light”, you’ll know what I mean. He presents the everyday in a way that feels like you’ve never seen it before, but with that telling jolt of recognition.

I’m here all week. Try the veal.

a day in the life: on gratitude

19 Dec

It’s the coldest start to summer in Sydney for fifty years. People are complaining. I’ve been complaining. And I’ve been thinking about that; my expectations and satisfaction with the life I have. This is something of a letter to my future self and a resetting of perspective. This is a day in my life, circa Deceember 2011.

Today I got up, attempted to meditate in my peaceful flat, then went to work at my climate-controlled office where I sit at a clean desk on a comfortable chair, talk to clever and interesting people and do work that, while occasionally stressful, is never life-threatening or dangerous. Most of the time it’s pretty enjoyable, in fact.
Kim Jong Il
I watched the news of Kim Jong Il’s death spread across the internet and discussed what it might mean for world affairs and  the people of North Korea. My colleagues and I cracked some jokes.
Then I got on with some work. When I felt like it, I got up and bought a coffee, ate a sandwich…

After work I caught a bus home while listening to music and exchanging messages with friends, thanks to a remarkable device that allows me to talk to people thousands of miles away for very little cost. My friend Damana sent me a text that made me laugh so hard I drew quizzical looks from the person sitting next to me. Then I decided what I wanted to eat, went to the local shop, picked up my groceries and paid for them.

It was raining too hard to go running, so I went for an evening surf. The waves were small but glassy, breaking gently under the pewter sky. The water was clear despite the storm, and I lay warmly wrapped in a wetsuit, feeling the rain playing on the soles of my feet. I caught a couple of little waves and as I rode to shore, the sun split through the clouds and bathed the sky in a honeyed peach glow. I stood for a while on the beach and thought about how grateful I am for this life.

Sometimes you don’t get what you want. Sometimes life holds heartbreak, sickness and loss. I’m not wealthy by our society’s standards. There have been times that were hard.

But I am so fucking privileged. A happenstance of birth means I – and probably you, too, gentle reader, can delight in our freedom and wealth.

Freedom from poverty, terror, malnutrition and preventable disease. Freedom to go where you like, laugh, shout, wear, say what you will, write trite and sentimental blog posts just like this one.

You can buy a loaf of bread, feed yourself, your family. Sometimes you can’t afford bananas, but you can buy something else instead.
Though my life and yours are doubtless not identical, think about the luxury of choice implicit in so much of what you do and how you think.

I’m not saying terrible things don’t happen in this country; I’m not saying everything is fine, but sometimes we really need to appreciate quite what an embarrassment of riches we have. Without becoming complacent or being smug, I hope, I want to acknowledge I am fortunate.

I have so much, and I am grateful.

If you’re not feeling happy with your lot, perhaps just be thankful you’re not here: – images from North Korea by Reuters’ photographer Damir Sagolj.

talented photographer Mark Halliday

Photo thanks to the talented Mark Halliday.

There goes the fear: on feeling it, and doing it anyway

15 Nov

As part of my year (lifetime) of doing absurd and untried things, I’m attending an acting course.

My acting tutor, the lovely Jamie Irvine, frequently stresses the importance of overcoming one’s inhibitions and fears. He says there are three main causes of fear: the fear of looking foolish, the fear of saying or doing something crass, and the fear of, well, I forget what the other one is.

He’s fond of referring to the seminal self-help text Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway (apparently, you may just as well read the cover a few hundred times, as the book largely restates that message over and over. I just saved you a tenner. You’re welcome) – and we’ve discussed, my acting group and I, how irrational many of our fears are, baseless and restrictive.

Bertrand Russell says

those who fear life are already three parts dead

But it’s a hard lesson to learn. “Don’t be afraid. Be bold. Take risks. Just do it” are all noble calls to action, but they don’t answer that small internal deeply primal voice that says “what if…what if I screw up, look stupid, get fired, lose my love, fall down, fail, get eaten by bears…”

So when I found this wonderful manifesto that talks not about just doing it, taking leaps into the unknown, but rather a view of life as perpetual beta, I thought I’d share it. Baby steps…

The Cult of Done Manifesto

  1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
  2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
  3. There is no editing stage.
  4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
  5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
  6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
  7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
  8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
  9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
  10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
  11. Destruction is a variant of done.
  12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
  13. Done is the engine of more.

Thanks to Damana who prodded me to blog more this week. Consider it done. Or half done.

all human life is here: reasons not to discuss writing with your friends, part seventy in an ongoing series

30 Oct

My mate, “Are you going to put (alludes to recent date) in your book?”

Me (huffily): “No. I told you; it’s not an autobiography. And anyway, it’s supposed to be a black comedy.”

Him: “Well, I thought it was pretty funny that you went out with him.”

say yes: a small thought for a sunny day

21 Oct

A while ago I taught a stranger to surf. (In the land of the blind, the one -eyed rookie truly is king).

He stood up on his first time out. Not bad going for a two hour stint with small-ish messy waves.

At the end, he said “I’m really glad I did this. Normally I’m a “no” person.”

I asked what he meant, and he explained that as a general rule, he said no to trying new things, figuring, I suppose, that as an adult, you would have developed a fairly good idea of what you liked and did not.

But it isn’t so. How can you possibly have tried even a fraction of the incredible experiences the world has to offer?

As Uncle Monty asks Marwood in Withnail & I,Uncle Monty

are you a sponge or a stone?

At an ungodly hour this morning I was wrenched from sleep by the piercing wail of my my alarm. I had a five minute battle with myself about whether I should crawl back beneath the sheets. It was a pretty one sided battle; my bed is extremely comfortable and I love sleep above most things, while plunging into chilly waters to swim laps is very low down on the list.

Just as I was preparing for another two hours’ kip, the thought occurred to me that I was being a “no person”. It stung me into action.
So I trotted off to Icebergs to do squad training, and had the joyous experience of watching the sunrise over Ben Buckler through the spray of the surf breaking around me. It looked a little like this:

Aquabumps morning glory

Sunrise over Ben Buckler - Aquabumps

Pretty glad I got out of bed.

(This photograph was taken by the talented Uge at Aquabumps. If you don’t already know his work, you must check it out – the site is good,  but the shop is better.  The aluminium backed prints are really luminous.)

if language were liquid: on new words and ways of writing

13 Oct

The keen eyed amongst you may have observed that it’s been a while since I regularly updated this site.

I can’t pretend anyone’s been begging me to get back on the horse, but by way of an unasked-for explanation, I’d been trying to focus on writing my novel, as though I had a small allocation of words per day, and what remained after the day job must be hoarded.

A last-minute request from Mumbrella (write a piece on Steve Jobs’ contribution to marketing in less than two hours) coincided with another bit of parry and thrust with strategy whiz and occasional internet sparring partner Mark Pollard, and made me realise I’m not taking my own advice.

To become a better writer, one must write. More, and often, in different forms.  So I’m here again with a new approach. Less polish, more speed, more open to discussion. Bang out a post, see what you think.

Let’s dance…

Words. An easy fallback, maybe. I’ve written about this before, but it’s still a rich seam to me. I love the mutability of language and the egalitarian fact that it can be re-imagined and reworked by anyone. Mark Pollard reminded me that Shakespeare invented nearly 2000 words in his lifetime (in a frankly half-hearted attempt to justify his use of “perspectful”) – coining “dictionarians” to imply, I think, fussy rule-makers who seek to collect and legislate language. Language is a shark – it needs to be in motion to stay alive. The OED added 400 words to its last edition, but they tended to be fairly basic, describing simple acts or adjectives, not abstract concepts. And it’s these that I think we’re lacking.

This is definitely a moment in time where our language can’t always cope with the task of describing the world.

There’s a famous story of three learned European theorists who visited the U.S in the thirties. I like to think of them as whitebearded and clad in three piece woollen suits, anachronistic in the land of nylon. They became lost in the endless identically featureless corridors of a brand new skyscraper, and, distressed, remarked that no words in any of the many European or ancient languages they knew could describe this uniquely modern experience.

We are at a similar point of tension between old and new, and this moment cries out for another Shakespeare to help us navigate it. But while Shakespeare’s additions were crisp, juicy and often playful, we’re being swamped with ugly portmanteaus like “phygital”, “wantrepreneur” and “futuretainment’*.

This is a plea for linguists, scholars, people cleverer than I: help us fill these gaps with beautiful and useful neologisms, or the crude and tedious will take over by default.

Where are the needful spaces? Of course, there are ton of gaps around the shifts between on- and offline experience.

In True Blood, (good ideas can come from anywhere, ok?) Eric muses on,

“the strange sensation when reality matches what you pictured in your mind so precisely”.

This could describe meeting someone you’ve formed an online relationship with IRL for the first time, but what would that word be? And its inverse…?

Anyone who’s had dealings with, say, Telstra, or certain government departments may agree that we need a word for the experience of being trapped within the mechanism of a seemingly limitless corporate machine, the rules and logic of which are unknowable and arcane. Kafka-esque feels a tad elitist.

It’s not just the mechanical or virtual; our relationships are changing – the sheer places and number of people we encounter have probably increased a hundredfold compared to a century ago. We’re waiting for language to catch up.

How do we describe, for example, that feeling of intense tenderness and love one has for a person or place moments before leaving it, or them, forever?

If you’re over thirty, you may find the term boy- or girlfriend an unacceptably trivial way of referring to your significant other, while “partner” is too stuffy and businesslike, and “lover” smacks of sexual boasting. Paramour? Mate?

And what about the love of devices we seem to be developing – a friend recently put her iPhone at the top of the list things she’d save from a house fire, and I don’t think she’s alone.  Have humans ever fetishised objects to this extent before? What should we call it? Mobilophila? Objectsession?

Some strong contenders: Forbes offered “Millibillitrilli,” to define the incomprehensibly large numbers touted by governments and in bailout plans.  Edward de Bono suggests there’s a need for the word  ”ebne” which means ‘Excellent But Not Enough‘.

But my favourite neologism belongs to Señor Richardson: “hippopotaneuse”- the fattest person in a threesome.

What do you think language is lacking?

*For more of this atrociousness, visit Words Douchebags Say.

stone, cold, sober: abstinence for altruism

5 Oct

This October, I’m giving up booze for a whole month to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation, in memory of my friend Tui.

I’m aiming to raise a thousand dollars. It’s a big target, but even if you can only spare a few dollars, together I believe we can reach it.

Sponsor my dry October and fund research to help the 45,000 Australians who will be diagnosed with leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma and related blood cancers in the next five years. The Leukaemia Foundation funds research and also support services for patients and their families.

Five excellent reasons to donate to the Leukaemia Foundation:

  • Around 11,500 Australians are expected to be newly diagnosed this year —equivalent to 31 people each day
  • Not everyone survives – blood cancer is the second biggest cause of cancer death in Australia, claiming more lives each year than more well-known cancers, like breast cancer and melanoma
  • The Leukaemia Foundation is the only national organisation dedicated to the care and cure of patients and families living with leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood disorders
  • The Leukaemia Findation invests millions of dollars in the work of Australia’s leading researchers to develop better treatments and cures and provide free services to support patients and their families.
  • Treatment for blood cancer can range from months, to several years in duration and generally lasts longer than treatment for other cancers – the financial impact on patients and their families can be crippling.
Five excellent reasons to support my month of abstinence:
  • I won’t inflict karaoke on you for over 30 days.
  • Mobile phone loss, and subsequent demands for your phone number will be reduced by an estimated 95%
  • The value of your  Christmas gift may increase due to my reduced monthly expenditure
  •  The marked increase in free time will speed the completion of my painfully autobiographical first novel – and I know you’re just itching to read it!
  •  Come November, I will be a charmingly cheap date…
Thank you.

Here’s a song about sobriety by the lovely Paloma Faith:

Telling Lies to Idiots? Advertising, ethics and corporate responsibility

7 Jun

This week, I’m curating a session at day two of Mumbrella 360. When I proposed the topic for inclusion in the crowd sourced part of the conference, I expected a couple of votes, but apparently it had a flood of response. So even us jaded industry types seem to feel that it’s an issue we all face – how to behave ethically in an industry generally regarded as having the worst reputation for trustworthiness after used car salesmen.

I’m delighted to have a panel of some of the industry’s finest minds who have, it’s fair to say, very different approaches to ethics.

  • Joe Talcott, Chairman, AANA
  • Peter Biggs, MD, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne
  • Max Markson, Markson Sparks
  • Andrew Varasdi, managing partner, Banjo Advertising

I’ll be asking them for their responses to a series of hypothetical scenarios.

We’ll be examining issues that might include: advertising to children, online privacy and transparency, green or pink washing, planting phony stories in the media, the treatment of staff in agencies, what responsibility bosses have to their teams, whether there’s a difference between ethics and the law as far as advertising is concerned…

Is there a single critical ethical issue in marketing you think must be addressed, or a dilemma you’d like to hear a response to?

Is the business of causing people to want things they arguably don’t need fundamentally unethical? Is seeking to manipulate behaviour to increase product sales in effect treating consumers like idiots..?

I hope to see you on Wednesday, where you can ask the question in person, or alternatively, leave your comments here.

like a boss: five ways to be a better one

8 Apr like a boss

like a boss
Some of us seek out management; most have management thrust upon us.
It’s a curious assumption, when you examine it, that being good at something automatically means you’ll be good at inspiring, organising and leading others to do it too. People are often too busy to think about how their management style shapes their environment and corporate culture. But it’s worth considering. A great start comes from the lovely Kim McKay, who recently said simply that she tries to “create the kind of place I want to work in.”

Here are few of the things I’ve learned – from my own mistakes and those of others – along the way. Oh, and I’ve labelled them neatly with song lyrics for easier recall my own amusement. (Ten internet points if you can identify the songs).

1) too much information
Yes, knowledge is power, but withholding knowledge to retain power speaks of weak leadership. Giving your team as much context as they need to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing encourages them to be proactive (sorry) in solving problems, and to feel empowered. They probably don’t need to know the intricacies of board politics, P&L or whatever else it’s your job to shoulder, decipher and make actionable.
There’s also a fine balance between encouraging staff to seek support for personal problems which affect them at work and becoming their best mate.  Or, as a former boss of mine demonstrated, trying to bond with your team by sharing way, way, way too much information about your personal life (I’m still scarred by her revelations). Your staff have got friends of their own. That’s not what they come to work for.

2) promise you will remember / that promises last forever
As an employee, you’re contracting to make good on what you said you could do in your job application. As a manager, you’re contracting to do what you say you’ll do. If your staffer isn’t performing as you’d anticipated and your workload is heavier as a result, that’s a problem you have to manage: that’s your job. It doesn’t mean all the things you’d contracted to deliver can be postponed or axed. Lead by example, not negative reinforcement. Delivering training, reviews and so on are not performance dependent.
A corporate culture in which management routinely fail to honour agreements to staff (from turning up to scheduled meetings to OT bonuses) is one in which everyone breaks promises. And the knock-on effect is that that will include those made to clients.

3) do you have to let it linger?
We all make bad decisions from time to time. And everyone deserves the opportunity to put things right. That goes for your staff and for you – if you’ve hired someone you think isn’t right, or they’ve screwed up, give them, and yourself a chance to try again. But if it’s still not working, do everyone a favour and put a decisive end to the situation. People don’t perform well in an environment where they feel they’re almost expected to under-deliver, and disgruntled unhappy people spread toxicity much faster than the shiniest happiest person can share positivity.
Be firm, be fair and let everyone go their separate ways without rancour. The only regret I have ever had about firing someone is letting it drag on for far too long, affecting other people in the team. The person in question went on to be much happier in a role far better suited to their skills, and my team flourished without the continual voice of negativity in their midst.

4) wanna walk like you, talk like you
The best managers I’ve had have been mentors too. Mentoring is about trying to empower someone to bring forth the best of her/himself. It’s not about creating a replicant Army of Me. There’s a difference between helping someone develop the skills they need to do their job brilliantly and helping them become brilliant in whatever way they wish. If you can’t accept that your mentee’s strengths or approach may be different to your own, or if they need to develop in an area that’s not your strong suit, the best way you can help is by resigning the post and helping them find someone who can.

5) don’t fear the reaper
Hire people who are smarter than you are. Give them the support, tools, resources and belief they need to excel. Trust them to do their job to the best of their ability (otherwise why did you hire them?) Then you can spend hours in the endless meetings which dog management, safe in the knowledge that they’ve got your back. Trust earns loyalty. People who respect, learn from and admire their bosses are seldom gunning for their job – and if you’re mentoring as well as managing them, you’ll know when they’re ready for a new challenge or a step up. Then you can delight in their success, and be all the happier in the fact it’s not at the expense of your own.

What are your top management skills? Do you agree with my five, and if so, which do you think is most important?

pop nerd quiz results:
1) Kasabian – Empire
2) Badly Drawn Boy – Promise
3) The Cranberries (ugh) – Linger
4) The Jungle Book – Wanna Be Like You
5) Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear the Reaper

the dead social media practitioners society

9 Mar

I’m at Ad:Tech today and I just learned a valuable lesson. Not, in fact, from any of the speakers, though a few have had interesting things to say.carpe diem adland

Last night I went to the AdTech sponsored Social Media Club, and this morning I presented at a session called “next generation social media strategy.”

Thinking about what that might really mean, I settled on what seemed to me a fairly conceptual, challenging (but ultimately rooted in common sense) combination of things I’ve learned over the past year or two. I thought about what the audience might already know, and tried to build upon that.

Admittedly in a 45 minutes session comprising six speakers, there was limited scope, but I thought I might have have shared some ideas that might spark debate and other ideas in turn. I had a solid case study with some excellent results to talk about, and I was feeling alright.

Then I wandered about the expo with the post-presentation adrenalin crash blues and realised I was utterly, utterly sick to the back teeth of the words “social media” and conversations about what might be done with it. And then I confess, dear reader, I fell into a bit of a funk.

Luckily I’m such a Zen-like hepcat these days it didn’t last too long.

I had the revelation -and this comes, Sheen-like – directly from the power of my mind, that I had committed the cardinal sin of believing things about my users (the Adtech audience) based on pure assumption, not data.

I sat in a couple of sessions and listened to the questions from the audience and came to the understanding that actually very few people here seem to have any real world professional experience of using social media. Even now, even after several years, and successive presentations and millions of blog posts, there seem to be a small cabal of practitioners, a still smaller cabal of decent practitioners,  a massive gulf and then  – everybody else*.

And I think it’s our fault. At a session this afternoon, an audience member asked what kind of agency social media belonged in. There was dissent.  We’re still talking about one platform versus another and how to measure stuff, and whether engagement is more important than the number of people on your social database (does anyone recognise this exact scenario from, say, email marketing?) and all the kinds of conversations that nobody has about other disciplines or channels…. and all this simply makes it seems like a difficult and arcane business and somehow exempt from the rules that apply to every other aspect of marketing activity.

Let’s stop fucking talking about it and just build it, from the outset, into the way we communicate. Let’s do it well, let’s do it creatively and effectively and in a way that seizes the immense opportunity the social web offers us all, but let’s, please, stop talking about it and just fucking do it.

Think of the children. If for no other reason than that they’ll be massively contemptuous of all this dithering.

*everyone who works in media, advertising, publishing etc. Not normal people. They don’t care; they’d just like you to delight or inspire them, or at least not to waste their time.

Thanks Erdogan for the photo.

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