You'll Never Know What You'll Find In The Park

Demonstration of the Roman army's tortoise formation during the Roman Museum's 70th birthday celebration in Verulamium Park.  We also saw Roman surgeons, potters, surveyors, gladiators, weavers, and some fearsome cavalry:

The point is, if there needs to be one, similar to my previous post about the power of getting out and experiencing stuff first hand being such a good thing, especially for kids. 

Authentic Aircraft

In an increasingly viral, on-line, digital world, it was great to see our boy's reactions to a trip to the Hendon air museum. We could have left them there for weeks. There is something so imposing and impressive about seeing the real thing.  Especially the big planes like the Sutherland, the Lancaster (above) and the Vulcan. But also the fighter planes like the Lightening and the Phantom which resemble a man sitting on top of an almighty rocket with a load of explosives hanging from the wings and fuselage. The pictures below feature the ME 262, the world's first turbojet plane used in WWII.

It sounds a cliche to say it is 'living history' but that is a pretty good description.

Foot and Cycle Paths

One of the good things about Britain is the amount of public paths, short cuts and through ways. Invariably they are a function of history, whether the paths mark ancient cattle tracks or disused railway lines. Even when they go over private property, English law gives a right to use the pathway, which makes for some lovely walks over farmland. In towns and cities it has resulted in lots of short cuts, back alleys and a maze of little discoveries. And St. Albans, as a town with at least a couple of thousand years history, has many of these little paths. Generally towns which grew up before the car have more of them than planned towns or towns that have grown after the car. The one above is a little backcut which gets me to Ramsbury Rd much quicker than going around the roads. 

The one below, is called the Alban Way. It is a cycle path that runs from the Roman site at Verulamium to Hatfield along the route of an old railway line. More details, here. I cycled to Hatfield on it yesterday. The photo below is when the path runs through open countryside.

It also runs through St. Albans very close to where we live. In fact Charlie and Ollie use it everyday to get to school, here. 

I also found some lovely pictures of the Alban Way on flickr, courtesy of phatcontroller: 

I also took a couple of pictures of the flora. This is a bluebell, I think! 

This time of year is lovely in Britain. Spring doesn't exist in quite the same way in the States, where it seems to go from winter to summer remarkably quickly. The English spring looks lovely as everything becomes green and the flowers bloom. Birdsong fills the air and the days are getting longer. 

Pitching

I was recently asked to put down some thoughts about pitching. It has been before, and better than I could do, notably here, by Jon Steel, and here, by Mavity and Bayley. However, I thought I would post thoughts on the subject. 

1. If you have a good chance pitch it
2. If you are not suitable, or don’t want to do it, don’t pitch it
3. Small tight team
4. Team leader crucial
5. Clear the diary
6. Get info early.
7. Be obsessive about it. Know most. Learn most.
8. Build hypothesis fast.
9. Dip in an out of research during the process if you need. Best pitch based on real insight.
10. Develop a clear and simple point of view
11. Build a simple argument based around a SINGLE pivotal point. Everything should related to that.
12. Problem – solution is never a bad way to go. Definition of problem is half way to a solution
13. Don’t be scared to say what is ‘right’ as opposed to what you think client wants to hear
14. time spent approx 30% strat 30% creative 30% presentation
15. Different functions lead different parts of process but pitching is where functional divisions are at their most blurred (for the good)
16. Cut people out who don’t need to be there but use ‘outsiders’ when needed
17. Have one person own the deck. Different people can write/present different bits, but the deck should be owed by one person.
18. Have an outside POV who doesn’t know too much about there are a couple of key points in the process (with enough time for their input to be reflected upon and included)
19. Can you win the pitch without a meeting/before the meeting: relationship, showing thinking? Work?
20. Rehearse, esp the links between speakers
21. Never plan to fill the meeting timewise. Plan to go well under time. Everything takes longer than you think.
22. The pitch meeting is about theatre and simplicity
23. Don’t let ppt control you. Try to avoid it.
24. One thought per slide (audience can’t read and listen at the same time)
25. Think about audience all the time
26. You need to be tightly rehearsed but loose in presentation (if you see what I mean)
27. Winning the pitch and winning the business are two very different things

It's the Cricket Season

When I was a teenager summer meant the cricket season and the cricket season meant summer. I played a lot. It is a wonderful game. I cannot think of a game that is better. It is subtle yet explosive, incredibly physical yet idle for long periods, it has endless stats (always good for geeky teens), is exclusive for those who understand its laws and rituals yet open to all. Some of the best moments of my life have been towards the end of a game, fielding on the boundary, after a long spell of bowling, chewing on a long blade of grass, as the shadows cast by the local village church spire stretch further across the ground and the wheat in a near by field sways in the gentle wind. It is like nothing else. It wouldn't be invented today. It takes too long. And that is part of its charm.

Hungry Cravings

I came across this food blog today. I haven't really thought about blogs as a great source for cooking inspiration (or recipes as I would usually call them). But having a little scroll through this one has already got me thinking again. And there are load of links to other foodie blogs. Yummy.
So click here, to visit.

Global Issues

I chanced upon www.globalissues.org during a search about child poverty for work. It is a great site, and worth bookmarking just for its coverage of big issues. However, when I was working my way around the site, I realised that it had been built and maintained by one guy, Anup Shah, in his spare time, and it is a fabulous acheivement. Anup has Indian and East African roots though grew up in Britain. He lived in America in the late 90's/early 2000's and it was his perceived lack of quality mainstream news media that led him to start the site. It is definitely worth a look, here.

Over Empowered?

Image: tonync. From the 1972 Red China Children's Story Book

An article on the BBC about the lack of respect in the classroom got me thinking that perhaps this is one the dark sides of consumer empowerment.

There are situations where the establishment of law and order is useful; the interviewee this morning - I didn't catch her name - cited the need for it in the classroom for example. And whilst the need for law and order may be putting it a little strongly for a classroom situation - 'respect' might do just fine - the point is well made. 

Another dark side of consumer empowerment is companies poses as activist sites in an attempt to 'sell' consumers off a certain choice. We would feel duped if we found out that an anti- McDonalds site that appeared to be run by activities complaining about everything we don't like about McDonalds was actually run by say, Burger King or Wendy's.  

Crowdsurfing

Martin Thomas, author of the book “Crowd Surfing”, paid a visit to Coley Porter Bell last week and spoke about how brands are dealing with the age of consumer empowerment.

His thesis is that, though it has become something of a marketing cliche that consumers own brands whilst brand owners merely control trademarks, in reality the way that companies and agencies talk about brand development and management is largely predicated on the notion of absolute control, a notion that runs counter to what is really happening in a consumer empowered and expressive world.

If you want proof, says Martin, try an Google image search for ‘MasterCard priceless’ or ‘McDonald’s.’ 

All to often the trademark owners don’t really know how to navigate this changed world and come down disproportionately heavily on consumers messing with their brands. Sure, there will be cases where empowered and creative consumers have crossed the line, but all too often the corporate giant gets too defensive too quickly.

My personal favourite is computer programmer, Jose Avila, when short of money and furniture when he moved to a new town, starting to create tables, chairs, a desk, shelves, and even a bed out of used FedEx boxes. 
He posted pictures of what he had done on www.fedexfurniture.com This could have been a brilliant story for FedEx. It is a very creative. And it is a recycling story par excellence. FedEx could have fanned this story and started a whole new strand of interesting PR coverage, stunts, events, etc. But instead of embracing what Jose was doing, the company brought a lawsuit to have the site taken down. The case seems to have gone back and forth, with Stanford lawyers working pro bono with Jose. As of January 2009, the site is down.

But there are people who are beginning to embrace the crowd. People such as Proctor & Gamble’s former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, A.G. Lafley, who describes how business leaders: “are operating in what is very much a ‘let go’ world”, Alex Marks at Microsoft Advertising who talks about “allowing your work to get ‘messed up’”, by which he means allowing consumers to get involved in the creation and dissemination of a brand message, suggesting that “You’ll not only save yourself money but you just might increase your share of voice.” Go to www.ideastorm.com and see how Dell are embracing the crowd and their ideas. Doritos has run a competition for people to send in their ideas for superbowl ads (the winner gets to make theirs and it is aired).

I wonder how long it will be before we create a ‘logo of parts’ and allow people to create their own versions of it, or have an open source brief with a global call for logo submissions for a new identity?

For more details on the book, the blog, Martin or to enroll for surf school, click here .

Lasting Value

Reading a review of Martin Wolf's lastest book, 'Fixing Global Finance', in the Business Spectator, I was struck by the thesis that the huge excess in production from the Far East had to be offset by huge consumption in the West, funded of course, by our binging on mortgages.

I have recently been clearing out my Dad's house and have been struck by how many things he had kept from when we were kids. Things that still worked; tools, kitchen implements, etc.

Why is it we have become seemingly addicted to the new, the novel, the disposable? We in marketing talk about value, but real value is the stuff that we buy today and will still be working in 20years time.

This was blackberry posted.