Surprise and Delight

I was running today(I don't do it so much nowadays due to a dodgy knee), and apart from thinking how brilliant Nike + is, I found myself clicking through some of my favourite ever songs on the Ipod; "Uptight" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" by Stevie Wonder, and "Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. It occured to me that with the download culture I had listened to them so often I have become too familiar with them. This is in marked contrast from when I was a kid and the songs would appear on the radio when you didn't expect them and they were all the more brilliant becuase of that element of surprise. I am not quite old enough to remember them in the charts (ok, perhaps just the last one) but there was genuine, spontaneous excitement when they came up on golden oldie slots, and I would wait with my old flat tape recorder, fingers poised over the 'play' and 'record' buttons, hoping the DJ didn't talk for too long over the intro of the song I was going to record onto my C60 Cassette. Now I can get the song when I want on youtube, my Ipod, my phone. Even the 'I can't wait to get home and play the record' feeling has pretty much gone.

It is way more efficient - I get my music when I want rather than waste hours waiting for it to come on the radio or save up and go down the shops for it- but boy does it take away that sense of surprise and delight.

Perhaps that is why we need to do what we can to put the surprise and delight back into what people are buying.

Pressure

"You have to learn how to use the pressure".

Gianluca Vialli, the great Italian football player said this, or something very like this, when interviewed on Radio 5 Live this afternoon about the pressures of managing in the Premier League.

It made me think of a manager, of any kind, being able to take on significant pressure that the team is facing and be a vessel for and yet somehow transforming it into positive energy for everyone around. Perhaps Obama has been able to do that. I wish I could.

Pork Chops at $4.99 or Brand Anthem?

There are clients who want to sell pork chops for $4.99, and are only ever going to creative work that sells pork chops for $4.99.

But of course the agency decide it is an excellent opportunity to create an amazing new brand campaign.

99.9% of the time , this scenario is going to end in a mess; too much time wasted, too much agency resource pointed needlessly in the wrong direction, too much course correction needed. It all smacks of irresponsible fiscal management and ends up with demotivated staff who don't feel confidence in what they are being asked to do ("here we go again").

Why not just recognise that this client wants to sell pork chops at $4.99? Wouldn't be better for the agency to devote its resources to answering the brief spectacularly well? Selling $4.99 pork chops can be done very creatively. Save the big brand anthem effort for the client who wants it.

Agencies are usually to blame for the mess. They really should know better. But clients aren't exempt from blame. By pandering to the agency's desires or not being clear about the task they are quite capable of bluring what should be a simple brief.

There is a very powerful lesson in this. Understand what the client is asking for, and what they are going to buy.

I mean if you asked a shop assistant for a yoghurt you wouldn't expect her to come back with some broccoli, would you?

Moon

After the post about long shadows it didn't feel wrong to post a night shot. This shot of the moon was taken almost a month ago (11/11) with my 'real' camera, not the trusty blackberry. The definition in this shot is a nice complement to the 'inexactness' of my previous moon post, here. Another time I shall take two shots of moon at same time with different cameras and post both for a true comparison.

Long Shadows

This picture was taken at 12.24 p.m yesterday (with trusty blackberry camera). The long shadows - and low sun - so soon after noon got me thinking about the the length of the day at various latitudes. Here are some comparisons (for 6th Dec):

Reykjavik: 64 Lat, Sunrise 11.06 am, Sunset 3.30 pm, Daylight 4hrs 24 mins
London: 51 Lat, Sunrise 7.53 am, Sunset 3.49 pm, Daylight 7 hrs 56 mins
New York: 41 Lat, Sunrise 07.07 am, Sunset 4.26 pm, Daylight 9 hrs 19 mins
Singapore: 1 Lat, Sunrise 05.54 am, Sunset 5.57 pm, Daylight 12 hrs 3 mins

Hammerfest, at 70 Latitude, in Norway, didn't have sunrise and sunset times for 6th December. I can only presume the sun didn't officially rise yesterday.

DEMOS

DEMOS is a think tank. It was launched in 1993 by Geoff Mulgan and Martin Jacques as an independent and fresh thinking anditidote to short-term, aligned, dull and Whitehall-centric think tank culture prevelant at the time. At the time, I read an article about DEMOS' intentions , got excited, got myself invited to the launch, and became a paid up member, receiving articles and going to meetings but staying perpherial and anonymous.

My involvement changed in 2002/3 when I saw colleague at RKCR/Y&R involved in DEMOS work. It transpired that my boss at the time, MT Rainey, was one of DEMOS' trustees. I waded in and took the work on. Work that culminated in presenting a strategy document to DEMOS at their annual weekend offsite.

I have tried to retain links with the organisation, offering insight where I can and providing a base in the US for visitors from the UK.

Yesterday evening DEMOS held a meeting for its Assoicates. I am lucky enough to be included as one, I presume for my work five years ago, and I am keen to contribute to such an excellent and inspirational organisation.

DEMOS have a new director, Richard Reeves, his website is here. He was excellent yesterday evening; thoughtful, authoritative, and eloquent. After a couple of difficult years including changing management and financial concerns, DEMOS seems rejuvenated and back on track. I look forward to being a playing a part.

Don't Be A Snippy Chimp

I had the good fortune of going to a brilliant 'inspiration' talk from Dave Brailsford, the Performance Director of British Cycling. It was anything but the charicature motivational speaker thing event. Brailsford established his credentials by comparing the 1 Gold medal won in the 76 years to 2004 by British cyclists with the haul gained in 2008, that would have put British Cycling, if it were a country, ahead of France in the medals table; 8 golds and 14 medals in total.

He put his success down to three key points (plus a huge increase in lottery funding).

1. Focus. Taking only cyclists with podium potential. Brailsford was offered 46 places by the British Olympic authorities, but they took only 23. The rest weren't good enough. They set goals; not goals of beating others, but of being the best they could be, identifying a time as the goal. The times were audacious but were not unrealistic. They had been carefully worked out.

2. People. Brailsford got in the right people. The one he talked about most is Steve Peters, the only psychiatrist working in the top echleons of sports apparently (mostly, it is sports psychologists). In essence Peters talks about the emotional 'chimp mode' that if left uncontrolled, can take over, just when you don't need it. You can't change your chimp, but you can learn how to manage it so it doesn't impair performance.

Brailsford also doesn't believe in 'fear' coaching. Only positive coaching. It was part of a value system that on the team had to buy into. One very senior coach was fired for not buying into the vlaues, and others didn't last. Podium potential riders needed podium coaching.

3. Aggregated Marginal Gains. When the prepartion for the 2008 games began Brailsford gave everyone on the pursuit team, including all backroom staff, a short film for inspiration. It essentially showed their 2004 Athens defeat by the Australian team with a dramatic voice over from a movie, by Al Pacino I think, about winning one inch at a time. This laid out the philosophy to the team. They were ruthless and ingenious about breaking down every tiny element of performance. For example, McClaren F1 team did modelling on aerodynamics (helmets, body position) and race strategy. One resulting change, that defied conventional wisdom, was the start 0ff man switching from 3/4 lap to 1 and 1/4 first leg. They also got the team to 'feel' the right speed so that riders could change when they wanted to keep the speed up, rather than everything being pre-set (ie one lap per rider). In the final this resulted in one of the riders riding an unheard of 2 and 1/4 laps without a change. But it also took in learning how to wash hands properly, so avoiding the main source of passing bugs. They went to such lengths that team members were employed in Bejing to keep door handles clean. Brailsford even 'joked' about taking an inch out of riders collar bones to lessen the wind resistance. It was a joke, but I bet he had the figures!

One other comment Brailsford made was the importance of removing all stresses from the race itself which meant the performers were then freed up, as far as possible, to perform to their best. In essence it was all about preparation and leaving as little to chance.

There are some good implications for individuals and for organisations alike:

Focus

Audacious but realistic goals carefully worked out

Best people

Best people on side

Don't focus on the competition, focus on your own performance

There are improvements to be made in many many areas.

There are improvements to be made in many areas you don't even know about.

Every area should be looked at from scratch - conventional wisdom needs to be challenged.

Get rid of as much stress before the event so you can focus on performance during the event (not the stress of it).

Understand the chimp inside and work on it.

A Different Perspective On An Orc

This is an Orc. It is from Warhammer, a fantasty strategy game that George has got into. The Orc is only about an inch in height but this picture makes it look bigger. And angry.

It minds me of some really good work we did for LEGO company a few years ago. Initially, we couldn't find an interesting way to present the LEGO models. Then Phil and Graham got involved. They started thinking about the models from a kids perspective, namely lying down with head on the floor, playing at the same level as the toys themselves. It was brilliant insight. Whilst adults are looking from a vantage point five or six feet up in air, the kids who play with the things see them much more eye to eye level. Everything flowed from that.

The ads we did, and I don't know if I can find them a few years on, had a sense of dynamism and scale that just couldn't have been achieved it we had looked the issue from our adult vantage point. It was one of the best examples I know of, literally, understanding the perspective of your target.

Brussels Building

This is a cool building in Brussels, opposite the Sheraton hotel. Click to see the light show.

It is the lights moving, not the camera! There were also had multicolour displays as well. But by then I was off in a cab. This was filmed with trusty old blackberryvision.

Brand Architecture

It's always good to have access to Aaker's brand relationship model. There are many different architecture models. This one is one of the more comprehensive. It is from the 'Brand Leadership' book. It looks like a picture taken from my trusty blackberry camera. Unfortunately it wasn't. I had to play around with scanners and proportion. Apologies for the final result. You may have to peer a little. I will try to find a better, more legible version.