Northern Planner

The weakness of Empires and the power of words

I watched part one of Jeremy Paxman's BBC series on the British Empire the other day and found I loved it. Reminded me how much of where and who we are is shaped  by where and who we came from.

Two lessons also:

1. Massive Empire's are essentially confidence tricks. They always overeach themselves and end up as massive confidence tricks - doing eveything they can to appear stronger and more untouchable than they really are to the conquered,who collectively outgun the conquerers, so they don't realise how easily they could blow them away.

They make sure they have lots of massive displays of power therefore.

Reminds me how the whole Cold War was based on the fabrication of, not only what Stalin's intentions were, but how powerful the Soviets really were (not nearly as much as the warmongers would have everyone believe).

Also reminds me of the 'Empires' in the advertising business. With notable exceptions, they're not very good mostly, just very big and very good at 'displays of power' - the amazing buildings, the great suits and the fantastic props. 

2. Great writing is timeless. Forget all the blather over to  long copy or not. Great writing cuts through. The most memorable moments of the programme to me were the recitals of Rudyard Kipling's IF..

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

And Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Este

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4) 
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12) 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13) 
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Both just skewer you straight away.

Anyway

 

Do Lectures, the next big thing and why we'll still want things we can't do ourselves

I really enjoyed this Do Lecture from Alan Moore, about how changes in technology are fundamentally changing our behaviour, like movable type did. You might have heard this argument before, but basically; top down organisations are going through their last throes of success, the future will be communities doing it for themselves (it's more nuanced than that of course, but..well, just watch it)

 

I don't know if he's totally right, but I'm not so sure and I think that's my point: no one does. History is littered with little flags placed in moments in time where someone has pronounced 'The Age is this' 'The death of that' but usually, it's nothing of the sort, it's a little wobble or a bit tacking in the general direction of getting a little better.

I agree that we're all getting more bolshy when told what to do and suspect kids are even worse at accepting hierarchyy than they've always been, but just because our penchant for community is being freed up a little again, but surely that doesn't mean that how we live in communities per se will change?

All communities have hierarchy and leaders - it doesn't matter if that's human communities, chimps or Lions. The strongest stag earns his right to be at the top of the pecking order, the male with the most impressive plumage gets first pick of the females,  think we're going back to that...we still want leaders, we still want organisations and institutions to help us live our lives, they'll still guide and soemtimes even tell, but they have to earn our respect, love and adulation, it's no longer theirs by right or due to size, money or whatever.

For brands and stuff, that just means there's no excuse for crap products or marketing that's boring or insults the intelligence. But while we want to partcipate, we still want things that surpise and delight us, things we can't do for ourselves. Yes, we'll enjoy noodling around and making and sharing our own stuff, but we can't be arsed to do the great stuff ourselves.

In other words, make something great and then let me join in.

That's why 'brand as verb' 'brands as conversations' is so much hot air - the good ones always were, it's just that now, no one has to put up with the bad ones.

Wabi Sabi, when words are not enough and good wrongness

After months and months languishing on Sky + I finally watced Marcel Theroux's 'In Search of Wabi Sabi'.

 

In case you can't be bothered to watch or follow the links, Wabi Sabi is a japanese theory to aesthetics and transience as the touchstone of beauty. Now I think the basics of that are worth whole series of posts, how flaws and wrongness are much more attractive than elaborate or even pristine, minimalist design. I personally dislike the design directions of Apple, I know it taps into human needs to simplicity etc, but to me it's too hard, too obviously 'designed' too hard.

Aaanywaaay....

That's not really the point. Wabi Sabi is actually a much more complex ideas than that. Even though most of the people Theroux meets in Japan know what Wabi Sabi is, they find it difficult to describe. It has all sorts of roots and expressions. From the tea ceremony to Haiku. From Zen Buddhism to rugged potter - it's so rooted in culture, they're so used to it, you might as well ask what red looks like.

I think there's a number of themes in this:

Sometimes language simply isn't enough, you can only get to some sort of approximation to describe whole load of fuzzy associations, feelings and experiences - you need to find other ways to express it. That's the problem with brand onions etc, that can be the problem with single minded propositions for multi-touchpoint campaigns...and trying to describe why you love someone.

Rituals are terribly important in our lives, they civilise us, they help us get in touch with each other, with ourselves, and can be a constant in an ever transient world - we all need some ballast.

Perfection isn't necessary, and maybe shouldn't be sought after, but being a purist about things is no bad thing in a world (our industry in particular) chase other's approval and fall for fads all the time.

There's a world of difference between admiring something and feeling genuine affection for it. I really admire some films, like Zodiac, but didn't really enjoy it. The same can be said for lots of clever advertising that's very impressive, but doesn't make you FEEL. Baking in warmth and depth to all sorts of stuff is really important.

Complexity is important, but I like the idea of stripping out what isn't necessary. There are about 20 buttons on my DVD remote I never use for example. So many presentations are really boring because some git wants to show off rather than tell me something interesting. And so many pieces of design, music or film just look like they're trying too hard - sometimes trying to be simple.

The japanese are more like the English than I thought -we both have a deep love for tea and gardening.

 

Personally, I'd go with Carousel

Which Sterling Cooper idea would you rate the highest?

New Lost, old Twin Peaks

I'm not sure it's the done thing to admit to, but I'm really looking forward to the final series of Lost. It begins on Friday. It's gone a little bonkers at times, but I've grown to love the characters, the maddening twists and the endless sub-plots.

Multi -stranded, multi-platform entertainment feels like the norm these days, and that's a good thing as explained here.

It's not that new though. At the start of the 90's before things got all clever, there were true pioneers.

I point you towards David Lynch and Twin Peaks, my favourite telly series ever. It was just so bonkers new and different. Multiple plot lines, working things out for yourself, group debates and conversations..it was all here.

Anyway, all this is just an excuse to present to you the man in the red suit.......

 

What the X factor can teach planners

This is a really thoughtful, insightful post on the X-Factor v Rage Against the Machine thing (and a good excuse to put up a picture of Saint Cheryl) and what it really means for music, popular culture and planning campaigns that genuinely capture the public imagination.

As a person I hate the X-Factor, as a planner I admire it...too many people self combust with hatred at its success rather asking what they can learn from it....

(found thanks to John Griffiths)