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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.

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.

it’s the little things…

12 Jan

We talk a lot about the big idea. I think 2011 might just be about the small stuff, and here are some of the small things that will make a big difference this year.
I copped some flak, reasonably enough, for not having articulated the importance of microfinance as a key trend for 2011.
This is a small way of making it up to you…

microvolunteering This may sound a little like the way that you never meet a fisherman who’s only caught small fish, and gaols are full of the innocent, but I had an idea a couple of years ago to create an online portal to connect marketing and advertising professionals with charity projects in need of their expertise.

How could I
resist…?

Luckily I never got around to doing anything to develop it, because The Extraordinaries have taken my big idea and made it…smaller, leaner and much cleverer.
Sparked combines two of the big motivators for marketing, techie and creative types: showing off, and showing off on our iPhones. Whenever you have a spare moment, contribute your brain power, offer advice, strategy, and micro-consultancy, as well as commenting on other people’s work – all this from the palm of your hand. The morning commute might just leave you feeling good for once. At present the database is largely US not-for-profits, but I am sure the net will widen as word spreads across the world.

micropayment for creators I heard about Flattr about six months ago, and I think I’m right in saying that the reason I’d entirely forgotten about it until Beaney reminded me today is because, like various other ventures with the utopian dream of paying people for the things they create and we enjoy, it hasn’t really taken off yet.

Perhaps we need to embrace the idea of the blogger as online busker. While Murdoch’s Times paywall may not have solved the issue of how we pay for online content, there are other avenues in need of exploration.
Shakespeare got to get paid, son. *shakes tin*

small kindnesses
A stranger smiles at you without agenda; you pay for the coffee of the person behind you in the queue; a teenager offers his seat on the bus to a shopper laden with bags; a kid takes an old man’s arm as he stumbles: these acts weave together to form community.
Cynics may argue that these are acts of self-interest, a long game of investments in the bank of society to be drawn against in the future, but I’d rather live pseudo-altruistically than the elbow-in-the-face, everyone for himself alternative.
The “social surprise” campaign by KLM is a neat demonstration of the return on investment from random acts of (marketing) kindness.  The campaign reached a million impressions – it’s clear that small gestures can get big results.

(Thanks to the Digital Buzz chaps).

micromeditation
Regular readers will know that I abhor the hackneyed, so please don’t attribute my conversion to the practice of meditation to my recent backpacking trip to a Buddhist country. That’d be a terrible cliché.
But if you consider that three minutes of inner peace might just be the biggest gift you could give yourself (and those poor sods who must endure your company), you might be able to get past it.  Find a quiet space, close your eyes and focus on the ebb and flow of your breath for a few minutes. Thoughts will clamour for your attention like a greedy toddler with ADHD, but try to simply acknowledge their presence and let them be.  Even three minutes of tranquillity can help.
Health warning: I’ve heard a tale of a Buddhist marketing person being counselled for substance abuse after her boss became suspicious of her disappearing to a toilet cubicle at times of intense stress and reappearing moments later radiating zen-like calm.

microfinance for not for profits
Depressingly enough, the dream of microfinancing seems to have lost some of its shine. Muhammad Yunus, one of the originators of the microfinance movement suggested that running these schemes to benefit the investers, rather than as a charity, would inevitably “turn do-gooders into loan-sharks”. Kiva and other NFP funds continue to do good work, but there’s an emerging school of thought that using technology in small ways could help more effectively – Gates’ Foundation is working on making access to banking systems affordable for all; other projects are recycling technical equipment for use in developing businesses, in an attempt to solve both the issue of landfill and deprivation.

It’s what happens at the micro level that shapes the macro, and these are the changes that are easiest to make.  Which is lucky if you’re shiny-eyed and idealistic but pretty bloody busy, actually, and somewhat inclined to laziness on your days off…

It’s a small world, after all.

are you ok?

4 Oct who

It’s the nineties. It’s a crisp autumn day, pale sunshine breaking through the wisps of cirrus clouds as we make our way along the road. I resist the urge to kick one of the freshly swept piles of orange and russet leaves into the air just to see them swirl and flutter on the breeze.  We’re all dressed impeccably, these good-looking skinny kids and me; we look like we’re in a band or some stylish cult, on our way to a photo shoot or a goth flash mob.
We’re not, though. We’re all wearing black because we’re going to our friend’s funeral, because a week ago he jumped off a bridge to his messy, violent death.

He had a huge, beautiful smile that could light up a room, light up your day. The clown of the group, but gentle, without malice. And he could be a terrible pain in the arse, because he was a teenager, and teenagers tend to be. I think he would have been a lovely man, had he grown up. I remember dancing with him once, a joke waltz; we were too cool to dance in couples, then, and I can still remember the warmth of him, the life. He tried to kiss me and made a joke about it. I wish I’d let him. I would give him a million kisses to have him back. He was happiest making other people laugh. The world needs people like that.
My heart aches to think of his mother missing him, missing those incredible bearhugs, missing nagging him about his revolting smelly bedroom.
It still makes me sad, even though it was many years ago and I’ve lost several people to suicide since, but he was the first, and the youngest, and there is still, even now, that voice that haunts me, because I never knew he was in such pain, and I never asked him if he was ok. It’s the not knowing, thinking of him walking around with all this pain and keeping it inside, hidden. I can only assume, and I’ll never know, that he must have had howling torment in his soul for some time before he took that last step. How many chances did I have to try to let him know that he wasn’t alone, that I cared?
I didn’t know that he wasn’t ok because I never asked.
I was young too, and self-obsessed as young people are, and I thought all the misery of the world was only on my shoulders until I got that phone call. I’ll never know if there was anything I could have done, if one single question would have changed the course of events. I don’t know whether it would have changed anything, really, but I’ll always regret not reaching out.

I’m writing this post for RU OK? Day. On the 7th of October, ask someone you care about if they’re ok. Reach out. You never know what difference that simple gesture might make.

Find out about getting your workplace involved and other ways of taking part in RU OK? Day here.

we could be heroes…just for one day

15 Sep Coventry

I’m neither English nor a patriot. I’m the daughter of a Scottish man who has a genetic memory of rage against the Highland Clearances, and an English woman who lost her father after he suffered shellshock in WWII and “went Doollally,” in the parlance of the time. He abandoned my mother just after she was born and she never saw him again. I’m from Coventry, a forever ruined city which serves to remind anyone how truly Pyrrhic victory can be. Coventry

So it’s hard for me to identify with the patriotism of the English, and the fervent martial pride people often display on the anniversaries of wars.

Working on the 1940 Chronicle with RAFBF has been surprisingly transformative; I love the campaign, and it’s part of my job to promote it. But as we’ve been planning and strategising to help the wonderfully written words reach their audience, I’ve found that the stories have started to seep into my soul as much as the audience have begun to connect with these fictional characters and their very real situations.

The campaign was created around the idea of bringing historical events to life using new technologies, using the contemporary to make the past relevant; the characters blog and tweet the events of this day in 1940 as though they’d had access to iPhones and pcs and the like.

I’m almost ashamed to admit it’s the tech stuff that’s made these stories so real to me; I’ve heard eyewitness accounts from so many sources, but suddenly pieces fell into place. How very connected we are now, how very fortunate we are to live in a time when it’s both physically and culturally possible for us reach out to one another.

It’s helped me think differently about my grandfather, how terrifying he must have found it being tormented by dreams of explosions and screaming, feeling as though he was alone in the world with those horrors. My grandmother, keeping a stiff upper lip, knowing nothing, unable to imagine the things he’d seen. And my great aunt, tirelessly nursing the wounded, keeping cheerful and busy and waiting all the while for a letter delivered by boat, months late, to tell her he wasn’t coming back from the front.

I’m struck by the realisation of how very lonely I would find a life where my only possible human interactions were face to face; as much as I treasure solitude, it’s always a choice.

Even I draw the line at the idea of social media bringing about world peace, but maybe it’s not so outrageous. I found myself asking if World War Two could even have happened if there had been the possibility of sharing knowledge so widely and so fast? For example, Wikileaks genuinely seems to be affecting the direction of the war in Afghanistan, and a growing diversity of information sources certainly shifts popular opinion on the subject. Forgive my reducing something so large and complex to a dumb question, but can you remain in ignorance of the humanity of your fellow man when you’re connected to him, when you’ve seen what his house looks like, know you share a love of music or making people laugh? Is it simplistic to think that when we connect with something real and meaningful, constructs like nation and religion will begin to seem irrelevant?*

Language constraints and internet snark aside, could you really go to war with and be instructed to kill someone you follow on Twitter?  Could social technologies make conscientious objectors of us all?

Primo Levi said

Meditate che questo è stato Vi comando queste parole. Scolpitele nel vostro cuore
- Never forget that this has happened. Remember these words. Engrave them in your hearts.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. As part of the Day of Action, we’ve asked people to do one small thing to commemorate those heroes. This post is for everyone whose lives were touched by that war, with deepest gratitude and respect to those men and women who fought and suffered and died so that we could be free. And perhaps being a hero for a day will be the catalyst we need to become heroic every day.

*I know it is. But a girl can dream…

you know you are a dreamer…

31 Aug

I had a funny dream last night.

I know this is a socially unacceptable opening gambit (unless the dreamer reveals they dreamt of having sex with their interlocutor), but it illustrates a point, so be patient.

In my dream I was tasked with teaching an alien about the idiosyncrasies of modern life. It’s not clear whether this was an alien in a cultural or planetary sense, but in any case, I was explaining how various colloquialisms were used. At the point when the alien asked why there were two instances of the word “epic” to refer to a situation that seemed anything but, I woke up laughing.

epic comment thread is epic

I’m obsessive about language, the way it shapes our thinking, the way it transmits meaning first and a rich set of semiotic data second and the way it changes and evolves.

But when marketing people get a hold of it, bad things seem to happen. I think it’s time to say that we are losing touch with those with whom we seek to communicate.
Watching 4chan founder Christopher Poole painfully and painstakingly articulate the in-jokes and slang that make up the fabric of a world built in text,

“It’s a joke?”

“Yes.”

…I’m reminded of my own attempts to explain my own work to my parents and friends.  To say “I work in digital” is as meaningless as “I work in analogue,” unless you’re a watch maker.
We’re privileged to work in this industry, but we need to reconnect with reality: in the real world, barely anyone has read the Cluetrain Manifesto; Cory Doctorow is not famed for his bedtime stories;  people watch a funny video their mate sent them, not “a viral”.

You’re dreaming if you think your preoccupation with Insanity Wolf or Julia Gillard’s belatedly conversational use of Twitter is shared by your non- industry peers.  My non-digital industry friends are architects, film makers, journalists, teachers and rocket surgeons; they spend plenty of time on the internet for business and pleasure but online meta-subcultures pass them by, and what’s more, they’re not wishing they were in on the joke; they find it – brace yourselves, Digerati - faintly risible.

All tribes need their own language to define themselves, particularly those nascent groups who seek to firm up their identity; people who work in what’s ultimately still an emerging industry gain strength and a sense of belonging through shared slang.  So what?

So perhaps we need other ways to define ourselves: a code of conduct, agreed-upon professional standards of practice…? Just a thought.

By describing the work we do with jargon and obscure terminology, we’ll lose the ability to reach the people it’s our job to talk to.

By that I mean clients and punters alike: if we don’t talk human, we can’t talk to humans. And if we refer to our professional practice in arcane buzzwords, we can’t expect the true value to be understood.

A client said jokingly in a meeting recently “can we have all that Web 2.0 shit?” He was making an astute observation; piling on buzzwords for their own sake does no one any favours.  Flogging  mechanisms and tactics that aren’t relevant and won’t achieve specific objectives inevitably discredits the whole industry.  You can forgive people for thinking social media is a magic bullet when we obfuscate its meaning.  But it’s our job as communications professionals to create clarity.

At times it seems as though the whole industry is in the grip of a shared hallucination. Just because a conference your boss went to impressed upon her the need to have a corporate blog, a YouTube channel and a set of the finest vestments cut from fabric only very clever people can see doesn’t mean we shouldn’t challenge that. Your responsibility is to advise and consult on the best course of action for your clients’ needs.  Regardless of whether other chartered accountants give tax advice via Plurk, your professionalism requires you do what is needful and effective.

It’s time to wake up.  Let’s restore some perspective, stop using gibberish and call what we do what it is. We communicate. Do that. 
Better still, do it brilliantly.

Alternative ending: In the 1972 film Death Line, an inbred tribe of mutants roam the London underground croaking the last vestiges of human speech they’re capable of. “Mind the gap” they gasp in a hideous mockery of the words they had once mastered. Let’s not be those guys…

with friends like these…

30 Jul

Twitter. Its detractors are fond of painting a picture of an echo chamber; all narcissism and no real value. I had a slightly bleak moment earlier which I immediately bruited on Twitter:

Oh god. The realisation that it’s my thirty third birthday tomorrow has just hit me like a truck. Console me, Twitter.

Out of the thirty-ish replies, twelve of them contained sage counsel, I got one piece of bad advice, five generous and charming compliments, three insults, the possibility of a marital spat and a birthday card from a robot. I couldn’t have asked for anything more…I may be bidding my youth a fond farewell, but as usual, Twitter serves to remind  me that I’m not alone; all human experience is understood and shared in a way that’s really quite humbling. Thanks, chaps.

I’ll be taking the bad advice, naturally.

@acatinatree you’re not dead. yet. (happy birthday x)

Lyndon Sharp lyndons
.@franksting @acatinatree If you cope with your “Album” birthday (33-and-a-third), great! …but wait for your “Single” birthday at 45 :)
Sarah Peacock SarahPea @acatinatree didn’t ya hear that in 2010, u get to minus 10? Happy 23rd birthday!!

William S. Burroughs BurroughsBot RT @bimyou_bimyou @acatinatree you’ll be the same age as William S. Burroughs when he died? (I was never very good at the consolation …

franksting franksting @acatinatree wait until you hit thirty three and a third (I had a birthday party for that), btw ;)

Mel hopeinhell @acatinatree i’m 38. so shut up. do you feel consoled? :D

Helen Perris helenperris @smperris And you say you don’t know how to flirt. (cc @acatinatree)

Mick Attard MetalheadMick @acatinatree Hey, we share a birthday(tomorrow’s my 23rd) It’s a proven fact people born on 31st of July in a year ending with 7 are awesome

bimyou_bimyou bimyou_bimyou @acatinatree you’ll be the same age as William S. Burroughs when he died? (I was never very good at the consolation game…)

Shane Perris smperris @acatinatree 33? Pretty young thing like you? Surely not.

Karalee Evans karalee_ @acatinatree oh sweetie, was going to cheer you up with this: http://bit.ly/aXIeN6 but then realised you’re 2 years past your peak ;)

Lucie Snape LucieSnape @acatinatree it will be a good 364 days until you have to think about it again! ;) Hope u have a wonderful day! Embrace being 33 yrs young!

Kate Taylor shoes_off @acatinatree you’re hotter than Jesus.

Andrew Barnett andrewbarnett @acatinatree When you’re my age, you won’t remember your 33rd birthday…

Joel Pearson JoelyRighteous @acatinatree There, there, would a walking frame help?

TheOtherBernardK bernardk @acatinatree if it’s any consolation, you’ve just made me feel old!

Tom Voirol voirol @acatinatree Spring chicken!

Mandi mab397 @acatinatree when you feel 84 on Sunday, 33 won’t seem so bad

Nathan Burman Bruman7 @acatinatree Haha you’re a day older than me ya old boiler!

rambn rambn @acatinatree technically, I think you can’t be upset until you hit 40 :-P

Mana damana @acatinatree My god! I am 33 and 11 months and wish i was as fabulous as you on my 33rd. You are brilliant, witty, articulate and gorgeous!

Nick Spurway nickspurway @acatinatree QUICK. TO THE VODKA

Mijanou Zigane Opheli8 @acatinatree I’m older than you!

stranger in a strange land

5 Jul IMG_1266

Feeling like a stranger in one’s motherland is a discomfitting experience, but like more or less anything that disrupts the way you ordinarily view the world, you can learn a lot from getting a new perspective…

It’s been nearly a decade since I lived in Britain in a permanent, full time sort of way, and much has changed since then. Like any interesting and passionate relationship, we’ve had some shining golden moments and some ghastly ones, but things have moved on and we’re now cordial and tender of one another; trying to juggle the familiar and the foreign.  It’s awkward yet charming; like drinking tea with an old lover.

It’s hard to tell, now, whether it’s me or it that’s changed most.   Probably both.  It does make being here somewhat tense and surreal but rich in possibility and education.

London is wonderful in summer – say what you will about the absurdity of  British people in hot weather, but we have such gratitude for these dog days; you’d never see an Aussie dancing in a municipal fountain to celebrate the simple joy of a day that’s not grey.

My interaction with the city is charged; the fact I’m home for such a short time imbues this encounter with the feverish flush of a holiday romance. And the odds are good that it’ll leave me broken at the finish.  But falling in love with a city anew is a lovely thing (to stretch the metaphor to breaking point); London’s quick to share its well-worn erogenous zones and discover new ones with all and any comers.  Successive lovers have left their mark upon it and it always has some unexpected tricks up its sleeve.

One of the most intoxicating parts of a new relationship is the part when you tell each other the stories of who you are, the moment when you see yourself in an entirely new light through the eyes of your lover.  I’m hungry to explore, to hear these stories and add my own.  It’s greedy and unsustainable but by christ it’s fun while it lasts. It’s extraordinary, exhausting, turbulent, fabulous…but by being curious and putting aside convention and expectation, I have lived and learned much.

While you’re in it, London feels like the centre of the world – and Soho’s its heart (though its heart’s broken, albeit temporarily, by the recent loss of Soho gadabout and dandy Sebastian Horsley). There’s so much to see, do, be.  As there is anywhere; the difference is motivation and inclination. The world is infinite in variation, and yet we cling to the familiar, narrow definitions and habits we’ve formed – and of course that’s sensible and necessary – how could anyone function if you had to re-imagine everything every day? but it also risks complacency and predictability. Maybe once a year we should all throw off the trappings of our former lives and let ourselves start afresh…

I’m starting small. I’m going to let myself be a tourist.  Be open. Explore, discover, without agenda. I’m resolved that when I get back to Sydney I’m going to pick up a map and a copy of Time Out and go forth with my eyes wide open, let it tell me who it is all over again.

how to understand what women want

15 Jun know thyself

My response to Mark Pollard’s piece on getting a man to open up – apologies for the crass generalisations and largely hetero bias.

highly scientific Venn diagram

highly scientific Venn diagram

Some of my best friends are men, clever and inspiring fellows all, but even they sometimes struggle with what might seem very simple: communicating with the women they love. The specious logic of the “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” hypothesis starts to seem seductive – why should something this fundamental be so difficult unless we are, in fact, speaking different languages…?  Men, this post is for you…

He said, she said…

Women, by and large, are operating on a higher emotional plane than men; we’ve long since accepted complexities that you men are still grappling with. We don’t mind too much; we’re waiting patiently for you to catch up, and then what a joyous world it will be.

We’ve skipped lightly over the blatantly obvious and are dealing with the abstract.  Unfortunately, what this looks like to your average man is that we are saying one thing while meaning something completely different.  It leads to what can appear bewildering semantic hair-splitting.

“it’s not that I want you to do the laundry / watch this Balkan arthouse film with me / call your mum, I want you to want to do it”.

To which you may reasonably enough reply “but of course I don’t – I’ll do it because it must be done, but don’t expect me to be overjoyed about it.”  On a practical level, this is fine, because the outcome has been achieved, the problem solved. But then why is she sulking, sobbing or zipping off down the street with an ominously loud clickingclacking of the high heeled shoe?

Now hear this…

What’s wrong with this picture? You’ve tried to solve an emotional issue with a practical outcome. You haven’t listened to what’s really being said.

We’re speaking in poetry while you’re more prosaic; it’s a high art form where the spaces in between are as important as the words.

I heard a story about a woman married to an autistic man; she was tired and exasperated beyond measure by his inability to read her emotional responses. Having to rationally explain during the heat of the moment that she was upset or angry was proving difficult, and she feared that it would ultimately lead to a cooling of both negative and positive sentiment, leaving her an automaton in a marriage without passion.

Her solution was to hold up cards with the name of the emotion on them; this seemed less disruptive than vocalising and she was able to express herself and be understood.

Women need to give clearer cue cards; men need to work harder at reading them.

We understand intuitively that things (events, tasks, objects) often represent deeper concepts. You’re confused because we asked a friend’s advice about that thing at work and you can’t figure out why you’re annoyed about something which has ultimately nothing to do with you; we already know that you’re hurt because by not asking you, we seemed not to trust you.
Incidentally, the reason we didn’t ask you is because we just wanted to vent, and you have this insistence on solving problems; we need the space to be heard more than we need the answer: listening shows you believe the speaker to be worth hearing.

When we ask you to do something, spend five seconds figuring out what that thing might stand for. Is it demonstrating how much you value us? Is it your commitment to our family, the kids, the dog?

Essentially, this is the blueprint to get out of any onerous task. Figure out what the deeper issue is and solve it in a way that makes you happy too.  Demonstrate that you love the home you share and you’ll never have to go shopping for soft furnishings again (unless you want to).

I’m not saying it’s easy; I’m saying it’s an effort worth making. And you might just find it helps with other stuff too.  Whether you prefer this wisdom to come from the Matrix or from Plato, above all things, know thyself.

Notes I made on my iPhone whilst drunk or discombobulated

3 May

Thanks entirely to Matt Granfield for the inspiration… (All art is theft).

This is the stuff and nonsense I’ve recorded of late:

  • Old timey radio
  • Bootlace  – Elliot
  • Peter Watts – blindside – hardcore scifi
  • being in heaven – wtf?
  • the internet as domestic battleground – poor code of conduct, divulgence, boundaries. How can privacy, the right to own virtual space be re-imagined?
  • 11299912&11
  • Contagious
  • Karma chameleon: on integrity and consistency in brands

My, but my brain just whizzes and pops like a cerebral wee firecracker, doesn’t it?
I am already so forgetful now I fear by the time I’m legitimately senile, there will be nothing left but hand clapping and keyboard cat.

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