Wednesday, March 30, 2011
faith
'People don’t want more information. They are up to their eyeballs in information.
They want faith — faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell…
Once people make your story their story, you have tapped into the powerful force of faith.'
—Annette Simmons
Author, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and
Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling
In a curious case of synchronicity I said the first line of this quotation in a talk I gave recently about branding and advertising. It wasn't planned, it just popped into my head as i was talking.
Afterwards I wrote it down, it seemed like a good one.
One I would use again.
I thought i'd made it up. Turns out I hadn't.
Annette Simmons coined it some time ago.
I noted to a colleague 'I wish I'd said that'
He replied 'You will..'
Monday, March 28, 2011
soundtracking
If we agree that Facebook is fast becoming the new clutter then it's not surprising to see more and more take up of almost single-purpose niche social networking tools, as has been an emerging trend in recent times.
The scene goes small, kinda thing.
The one I'm liking at the moment is Soundtracking.
Yes, it's another check-in style tool, you check-in with the music you are listening to or experiencing.
With features that allow you to:
- check-in to the tune playing on your ipod/iphone
- identify and find the music you are hearing with search and auto-ID if it's playing somewhere ambiently
- tag your soundtrack at a location
- integration with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.
As I write this i'm #soundtracking 'Coma Girl' by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
a really useful engine
In his new tome Poke The Box, Seth Godin includes some more riffs on what he describes as the forces for mediocrity, a recurrent theme if you are familiar with the last few books.
By way of a recap...
'Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths... whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over.'
In Poke The Box Seth points out that it is often quite easy to rally the toops or get a task-force together to fix things that are clearly broken.
What's not so easy is to get people to fix things that are mediocre.
Because mediocre things are basically ok, functional, and there's nothing fundamentally obviously broken it's easy to let them go.
But obviously it's a massive missed opportunity to settle for ok.
And this applies to any business or endeavour big or small.
Here's a real-life example.
Last weekend they had a Family Festival near where we live, down the bay, south-east of Melbourne.
It was pretty good overall, I'm not complaining.
Bands played, food stalls, wine, salsa dancing, you know the drill.
It took over the whole park area by the beach. The sun was out, a nice close to the summer.
For the kids there were a number of fairground type rides, one of which was a little steam train ride in the style of Thomas the Tank Engine.
On around my 4th circuit (my wee boy is Thomas daft so it was a big draw) I started thinking about the experience. I couldn't help it, sorry.
The engine part of the train was vaguely Thomas-like. It was tatty, but blue with the number 1 on the side. Enough to be basically recognisable.
It pulled four basic carriages which the kids sat on, and did several rounds of a circular track.
There was a bored looking fella 'driving' wearing jeans and a jacket with his official festival worker pass.
If he could be arsed he rang the bell occasionally.
For the 2-3 year olds this was probable an acceptable experience.
How much better it would have been though if the bored driver had looked interested.
If he had worn an engineers uniform. A hat.
If he had rung the bell and shouted 'all aboard'?
If the ticket guy had been dressed like the Fat Controller?
A few props from Sodor Island?
How about a lick of paint on the engine, and a proper Thomas style face (It had a vague face dribbled on in paint that must have taken 2 minutes).
The parents were all happy enough to pay $4 a pop for the kids to go on it but I guarantee not one person went away from the Festival saying what a great ride the Thomas train was.
Not one parent will be calling them up to book the train ride for their own kids party.
(They had no business cards, leaflet or even a sign with their website address anyway, so it's moot)
A massive missed opportunity. All that attention but doing nothing with it.
There's a difference between the notion of minimum viable product and just mediocre.
MVP strips away the unnecessary, the superfluous stuff that doesn't add any value.
Mediocre looks for the minimum you can get away with.
Better to be a really useful engine.
Friday, March 18, 2011
book club: Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment
From time to time I meet students, first jobbers and the like looking to make their way into the advertising world.
Why they come to me me for career advice is probably questionable, bearing in mind my chequered history but if there's anything I can impart of value it's along the lines of 'look at what i did, NOW DON'T DO THAT'.
Thankfully, I now have a get out of jail card to hand, in the form of Guy Kawasaki's new book Enchantment.
If you are familiar with Guy's previous works, Art of The Start and Reality Check in particular, then the concepts are broadly similar.
In typical GK self depreciation style he once remarked that he had written 9 business books, or perhaps written one business book nine times...
Enchantment is a kind of Greatest Hits, if you like.
But with exclusive bonus tracks and remixes.
Obviously Guy's key area of experience and expertise is in the Silicon Valley tech thing but Enchantment is the rare case of a 'business' book that's relevant for just about any person in any business anywhere.
In a nutshell the book is structured around ten or so key take-aways, each with a chapter, essential nuggets for anyone who wants to influence others, win them over and get them to buy in to an idea or project.
Likability, trustworthiness, having a cause, how to overcome resistance, enchanting your boss, enchanting your employees and, of course, the obilgatory practical application of social technologies to achieve those goals, are among them.
I was fortunate enough to receive a draft copy of the original manuscript a few months back to hack and return. Suffice to say there was very little I would have changed. I made the sum total of one edit and returned it.
It must have been a good edit though as he left it in...
There's no bull-shitake in the text, it's highly readable and entertaining, infused with Guy's own personality and wit, and peppered with other real-life examples of Enchantment in practice from other guest contributors.
In essence it's simply a tome of uncommon sense. One gets an experience of almost remembering things that have been buried away in the back of your mind that are brought back to the surface as the pages turn.
A must-read.
Thanks Guy.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
in search of the lost tweet
In musicianly quarters the search for the lost chord is the mythological, and often narcotic-fuelled mystic mission into the rock'n'roll void in search of the trancendental moment of infinite oneness between man/woman and instrument.
In fact, one of the first known recordings of any music was the song 'The Lost Chord' by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) - composed in 1877 - and recorded in 1888 for Thomas Edison in order that he could demonstrate his invention, the Phonograph (nowadays known as an ipod).
Sullivan himself was invited to one of these early playbacks and was reported to have remarked:
'I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the result of this evening's experiments: astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much *hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. But all the same I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery.'
*Not only a great composor but also a great visionary, predicting there the emergence of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber many years hence.
A long winded introduction to Greplin, a personal search engine that will index your personal streams (gmail, facebook, twitter, linkedin etc) and allow you to search for long forgotten nuggets from your own social canon.
So the lost tweet from 2007 is lost no more.
It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost [tweet] divine,
Which came from the soul of the [twitter],
And entered into mine.
adapted from The Lost Chord, Arthur Sullivan 1877
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
your strategy is showing?
Call me old fashioned, but this put-down line often heard in the halls of advertising makes no no sense to me.
Your strategy is showing?
So what?
Surely that's the point of the communication.
Showing the strategy shows the reason why.
The strategy should be clear to see.
What if we changed the word strategy to purpose or philosophy?
If the brand has nothing of value to impart, stands for nothing, and nothing to say about anything other than itself then there probably is a case for not showing your strategy.
Principally because there is no strategy.
In that case you probably are relying on hoodwinking your customer or some other subterfuge.
In all other cases, i would suggest your strategy/philosophy/purpose is your STORY.
And that's the idea being advertised.
So show it.
Friday, March 11, 2011
appointment to tweet part 4 #twelevision
Back in August, we discussed the notion of appointment to tweet, and how tools like Twitter were turning out to be an unlikely savior of live scheduled broadcast television.
- Enhancing the ‘scheduled’ viewing experience making it more entertaining to watch ‘live’
- Making it interactive and social on a many-to-many basis
- Connecting fans with other fans
So...
Imagine if there was an app that helped you choose which channel and programme to watch based on the conversations happening around it?
A twitter based TV guide which showed you what was on right now, and who was talking about it?
While there are numerous apps that let you check-in to shows or movies, imagine if it worked on a hyper-local basis, using the actual TV guide for your area based on what was being talked about right now.
Channel surfing then becomes about finding the conversations not just the content.
Well, very soon you will.
Twelevision is coming to an app store near you in the next few weeks.
Australia only for the first wee while, then everywhere.
For updates from SXSW, where we have representatives pimping, follow @twelevision on Twitter.
You can also join us on Facebook, please do.
Or have a look at the demo vid in super HD on the Twelevision website.
The revolution will be twelevised.
Please let me know what you think.
I'll be pimping this to death, and telling the story over the next few weeks.
cheers.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
one insight to rule them all
There's an old post on the @madebymany blog which discusses the possibilities of applying elements of Agile Software Development Methodology to 'agency' process.
Or un-process, if you like.
Their bent is obviously towards the more digital end of the spectrum but the thinking happily applies across the whole communications agency caboodle.
[Planning gets it in the neck]
'The obsession that so many planners have with identifying those 1-2"insights" is a constant source of bemusement. I don't know where the practice of boiling down sacred diamonds (almost mystical in nature) stems from, but it seems ridiculous..'
I've pondered this too for some time. Probably trying to boil my own sacred diamond.
In fact, they have distilled the thinking into a four step 'manifesto' a la the Agile Software development creed.
1 - Collaboration & conversation over strategy decks & documentation
2 - Simplicity of purpose over 'sacred' consumer insights
3 - Testing hypotheses over long-winded research & deduction
4 - Responding to change over following a plan
I'm buying all of the above but would probably argue that there is one insight that definitely does matter.
And one which benefits from remaining un-changed and un-iterated.
This is the brand insight.
And it alludes to, and expands upon point 2 of the above.
What is this brand for?
The following paraphrases Umair Haque in chapter 6 of The New Capitalist Manifesto.
[note: jeez, how many manifesto's can i have in one post?]
How does this brand/company and their product/service have a tangible, meaningful and eduring positive impact on people, communities and society?
How does it make us fitter, healthier, smarter and better connected?
What value does it create?
What is the dramatic difference it makes?
Crack that insight and decisions about what to DO and COMMUNICATE are easy.
One insight to rule them all?
That's the diamond that needs boiling down.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
art wank
It's more often than not that those micro-interactions - the small details - are the things that add the flavour to an experience.
The tiny bits. The nice-to-haves. The little hidden extras.
The extra 1% that makes it different and/or remarkable.
The extra 1% that the others don't do.
The personality.
The sparkle that separates the merely very good from the awesome.
The things you are likely to pass along.
That's why this little function on the ipod (the O) that you are given to guide you round the awesome MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart tickled me.
Want the full critic-friendly details on a particular exhibit?
Hit the ArtWank button, obviously.
It could have just read 'info' and been ok.
[note: Delicate flowers who are likely to be offended by colourful language would be advised to steer clear of the subterranean underworld that is MONA.
There's plenty more and bigger confrontational material contained within.
Wee-wee and poo being recurring themes to name but two.]
MONA is the pet project of Tasmanian businessman David Walsh who commissioned architects Fender Katsalidis to design the museum, then filled the space with his own personal collection.
A mathematician by trade, Walsh made part of his fortune gambling (he cracked a formula that worked over and over) and built MONA on the site of the Moorilla Winery, which he also owns.
His fingerprints are all over that too, Moorilla also produce there own craft beers with the tagline 'not for bogans'.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
keynote day round-up #circusfest part 2
So after an action packed first session where would it go from here?
Enter Marvin Chow from Google.
The bulk of his hour was rather predictably a creds/pitch for Google Chrome.
Why did Google make Chrome?
According to their research people didn't recognize the difference between browser and search engine, and despite the rapid changes in the type of content being delivered down the pipe, browsers were essentially unchanged in 10 years.
You had to feel for him when all his technology went tits-up in mid pitch (laptop not plugged in, Chrome crashed)
He did have a few good soundbites.
- Ideas can come from anywhere - check.
- Focus on the problem you are trying to solve - check.
- Iterate, test, fail, launch fast, repeat - check.
- Get to market fast then iterate on the fly and react fast - check.
Next up Erik Vervroegen.
The worlds most awarded Creative Director, currently at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners in San Francisco.
Another creds pitch, really.
While his examples were all beautifully crafted ads, after the early sessions forward looking focus this really seemed like a step back in time.
In almost total opposite extreme, was token social media brat, Josh Spear.
An opening half hour consisting of Cat videos, LOLcats, Rick-rolling and the economy of virtual facebook goods and Farmville was not a great start.
I started to come around when he dropped a Henry Jenkins-ism on why we share.
The old holy trinity of Bond + identity + status.
Always goes down well.
He pulled it together in the end with the thought around 'what if' everyone who is mobilised and motivated to share pointless, if amusing, shite online could be mobilised to share stuff with value and meaning.
Wikileaks is just the same as 4chan but with purpose? - agreed.
Next up, Charles Wigley, Chairman of BBH Asia, but a planner by trade.
His pres, titled Anti-wind tunnel marketing summised that much of the insdustry talk differentiation but produce sameness.
In the trifecta of True + Relevant + Different - he argued that as an industry are we only doing relevant - hence the sameness.
Question number one should be 'Is it different?'.
He also had some good soundbites..
Brand leadership rather than followship - [me - yep, like it]
Look for brand, product, category as well as 'c*nsumer' insights - [me - for sure]
Take ownership of a point of view - [me - most important]
Look at the customers - there's leaders, followers and the rest. Focus on the leaders.
By this part of the day there were some tired eyes and ears, so it was probably the ideal time to wheel out the indefatigable, Rob Campbell.
I've already forgiven him for dissing a bit of our work in almost his first sentence.
If he bothers to look a bit deeper he'll realise this was both rash and WRONG ;)
In between pimping of WK, the nuggets were sprayed round the room scattergun style, all of them repeatworthy.
Here's the one's I managed to collect
- Our job is to attract people to brands
- Not everything about digital is positive
- Make products not just communication
- You can't solve business problems if you just do ads
- Dream bigger than campaigns
- Create culture not category
- Focus on prize not the medium
- Be culturally provocative
- Collaborate
- Take responsiblity for stuff
- It's not just about awareness
- Be brilliant
- Aim for the highest common denominator.
- People know what they want they just don't know how to say sometimes.
- Create fate not ads.
That was it for me. I missed most of Jose Cabaco of Nike who finished the day.
The key takeaways for me were around this notion of the middle way that seems to be emerging.
New media is not replacing old media, they are all transforming.
There's a place for all types of media in the advertising future, as long as each does what it does best.
By media I mean film, pictures, words.
On the question of ROI, it was a commercial creativity conference after all, I'll leave it to Agnello Dias, from Taproot to explain.
Did The Times of India sell more newspapers because they took a stand for something that mattered?
Maybe, maybe not.
But...
Doing what they did gave them the credibility to ensure they always would be the first invited into the room when something of importance needed reporting.
That's worth something.
keynote day round-up #circusfest part 1
Billed as the Festival of Commercial Creativity, Circus kicked off yesterday in Sydney, day one of a 3 day extravaganza culminating in the AWARD Awards on Friday evening.
There's a fair amount to cover so I'll cut to the chase.
Firstly, the lack of Australian voices (ie none) on keynote day was surprising.
I wonder if that was accident or design?
First up was Jeffrey Cole, from the Centre of Digital Future USC.
Jeffrey described how the lack of behavior tracking in the early days of TV has left big holes in our understanding of how big that disruption was.
His work with USC began around 1998 (correct?) to ensure the same mistake wouldn't happened when the next big communication revolution that came along, the internet, and to spot those trends and transformations early.
Jeffrey's research confirms the likely end of landline phones, newspapers and the current model of pay cable/satellite tv in the very near future, when internet penetration in any territory gets above 30% newspaper circulation declines.
And readers that die do not get replaced.
[Note: I remember the same conundrum may years ago when I worked on the Football Pools...]
Nothing new there but he had some other interesting observations around the things youth think then rethink as they get a bit older.
- They think they are not affected by brands and advertising (but try giving a kid a generic mp3 player vs Apple)
- They think unknown peers are trustworthy.
- They think email is for old people (vs Twitter FB SMS etc).
- They think UGC is better than professionaly produced content.
- They think they will stick with communities (but what ever happened to Friendster?)
- They think there is no more privacy so we should get over it.
[Note: Perhaps there's some social media experts well out of their teens (20's/30's/40's...) who still think this way?]
Over time he reports that these views are reappraised and some abandoned
Some stick forever.
- They do exercise total control over their media
- They don't see news coming from a newspaper
- They will never wear a watch
- They watch TV in places other than the living room
- They take gaming very seriously
- Mobile WILL SOON BE everything (smartphones are already outselling PC, tablets will soon follow)
- They are demanding real vs perceived empowerment
[Note: This is the convergence idea, in principle. New media doesn't simply replace old media, but transforms it]
All good stuff.
Next up was Agnello Dias the ex JWT Mumbai CD now running his own operation Taproot.
This was the highlight of the day for me.
I had honestly never heard of the work he did with The Times of India newspaper.
But hearing him tell the story of how a last minute pre-holiday brief for a minor press ad literally DEVELOPED into a mass movement for social change, that's still rolling was AWE INSPIRING.
If I'm going to be picky then there were one or two layers of cheese on top that could have been left off, but overall it was dynamite.
Won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 08 to boot.
Talk about stand for something your customers care about, this is it personified.
Jess Greenwood from Contagious was great as always.
Lots of examples that back up the convergence/crossmedia notion and the idea of continuous momentum, getting outside of the 'campaign' mindset.
Ina nutshell her pitch was:
Broadcast + internet + location + realworld = bingo
And think about projects not campaigns.
Exaples included Mini Getaway from Sweden (see below) plus Levi’s Braddock workshops, a great example of purpose-driven marketing.
All looking good up to the first coffee break of the day.
But what would follow?..
More in part 2, including a geezer from Google, Rob Campbell and some other stuff.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
bumpy johnson
'This is the problem. This is what's wrong with [America]. It's gotten so big, you just can't find your way. The grocery store on the corner is now a supermarket. The candy store is a MacDonald's. And this place, a super fucking discount store. Where's the pride of ownership? Where's the personal service?'
Bumpy Johnson, from American Gangster 2007
Monday, February 21, 2011
the customers are revolting : part 2 junior edition
...and as if by magic, this video nasty from PHD appeared on Charlie's blog, this morning, and is duly reproduced here.
I also offered that these 'children' would be far better off engaged in sensible teen pursuits, such as smashing windows and sniffing glue, than participating in this waffle.
They missed out the part about us wearing clothes made of bacofoil.
the customers are revolting
That's right. They stink.
For some time there's been the question around what the value of a facebook 'like' is for a brand.
Some would argue the case for zero, it takes pretty much zero effort or commitment for a person to click 'like'.
Tell that to the revolting customer though.
The notion in VRM circles around 'everyone is making money off consumer data except the consumer' may be coming up to bite sooner than you think.
And it's not just a theory rattling round academic corridors.
Take this comment from a brand 'fan' page.
'Your Fan page really sucks! you giving nothing & no reason why l will or others will want to click the [BRAND X] like button, just like any relationship eg. man meets girl, he would offer her may be a invitation for a free meal at a restaurant, in Your case [BRAND X] you should offer something like for eg. a % discount on your [PRODUCT A] or [PRODUCT B] that you cant get else where other than clicking your like button it dont have to be a big discount it just needs to be something to give reason for me and others to want to build any type of relationship with you..'
Marry that to this tweet nugget:
"Facebook is rapidly becoming the new Second Life for brands, a wasteland of shattered hopes and dreams"
But who killed Bambi?
Who made these revolting customers?
With facebook promotions and giveaways, bribery and coertion.
marketing took the view that we could buy fans and buy loyalty.
But it was never sustainable, and now, inconveniently, the revolting customers are demanding it.
The question now is; what is a 'like' worth to THEM.
That's right. They stink.
And now so does Facebook, as any kind of viable marketing opportunity.
Next.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
picking a fight: the NAB breakup
Know which side of the bed you are lying on.
Decide what you are FOR and AGAINST.
Stand for something your customers care about.
Find out who's IN and who's OUT.
Have a philosophy first, strategy second.
Have a mission not a proposition
Use each piece of media to do what it does best.
Make media slippy not sticky.
Be informal, entertaining but still serious.
Agitate.
Create situations.
Pick a fight with someone.
NAB have done all of the above as they call out the other Aussie Banks
with a multi-platform, cross media onslaught.
While not a social media campaign per se - in fact in terms of media executions it could be described as traditional - it's disruptive, provocative nature was designed to be a highly social experience.
Especially on Twitter, where we were number 1 and 2 trending topics simultaneously, for @nab and #breakup.
If somethings interesting it will get talked about. End of story.
Sample tweet..
@nab its childish, its immature, and I LOVE IT. this is why i bank with NAB #breakup
Like channeling Malcolm almost...
And my favourite bit of commentary so far, from Laurel Papworth:
'The challenge is, I don’t think even NAB understand how deep this campaign will go [me - yes, they do], it could change the face of marketing for some time to come. Viral ads, leaked tweets, developing story lines, we’ve seen before. But siding with the customer against their own industry was the smartest move they made. Let’s see what they do with it.'
See the rest of the stuff - piano players, helicopters, chalk drawings, spoof videos, public break-ups etc at the breakup.
For fact fans, Mumbrella did a decent roundup of the nuts and bolts.
Photo credits Nick Johnson and Aki Kimono via Monty Hamilton.
Monday, February 14, 2011
in praise of *suits (more on the future of advertising)
For the purposes of this musing, let’s just take it as read that everyone in the agency is a ‘suit*’ (we all talk to clients and represent the agency in some shape or form) to a greater or lesser degree.
As the future-of-advertising debate continues amid much huffing and puffing of hot air the odd flash of sensible thinking pops up here and there.
In Amelia Torode's recent article 'future of advertising" is utterly depressing' (don't be put off by the title, it's a reasonably positive assesment), she identifies 5 key pointers to a better way.
1. Smaller units
2. Madder people
3. People who don't know (or dare I say, care) about Snow Plough or Saatchi & Saatchi in the 80s
4. People who can find stories in numbers
5. People who don't work in the office
2 and 5 I could take or leave but 3 and 4 are the nuggets.
Also point 1 'smaller units' is probably open to misinterpretation.
One could summise that the traditional two person creative team is a small unit, however smaller units means bigger units in this case.
I'm a believer in the everything-happens-at-once method.
As in planning, data, technology, creative, production are all working from the get-go.
Each of the 5 points describes the attributes of people rather than of an organisation.
It matters not whether we talk about the ad agency/social media agency/digital agency.
All of the above, and other incarnations, are simply groups of people of various disciplines banded together to get things done in the realm of communications of one form or another (or many forms).
So, each of us ‘*suits’ has a some of the traits , as described in the 3 circles of the venn diagram below, which appeared to me in a dream the other night...
The sweet spot is right in the middle.
That intersection of creative (the ability to understand or make a creative idea, something of value) combined with the ability to understand why it matters (strategist) and then how it is made (geek).
The ‘geek’ part is loosely formed to include all aspects of production of a thing (be that film, code, origami whatever)
The other intersections are also good
a geek-strategist is valuable, they understand how and why.
the creative-geek knows what and how.
The creative-strategist has got the why and what down.
All good.
What’s not good is when people are one dimensional.
The one dimentional strategist gets lost in verbs.
A hermit geek gets lost in the mechanics, counting pixels or whatever.
The silo’d creative ends up sending biscuits into space or suchlike.
A place to start in disrupting ourselves may be to look at those intersections and see who lives there - and who lives in their own silo.
It's only interesting or useful when everything is connected to everything else.
What do you reckon?
Thursday, February 03, 2011
eTech magazine comes to the ipad #eTechApp
eTEch have been publishing an free online 'magazine' that rounds-up technology news, principally for the design engineer/tech community, for a wee while now, but have kicked up a gear with their, also free, ipad edition just released last week.
Makes much more sense to deliver this kind of content in a more interactive way, especially for non-geeky types like myself for whom getting my geek on is an occupational requirement yet not the thing I wake up in the morning champing at the bit about.
Get the app here, but for the content, at 200mb a pop it's a hefty download so 3Ging it is probably not advisable ;)
Good effort.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
the sum total of all interactions part 325 #metlink
In another case of syncronicity, I firstly read this short sharp post from Doddsy on Making Things Better...
'Making good stuff from scratch is really difficult.
Removing bad stuff is relatively simple.
The former is to be encouraged, the latter is compulsory.'
Then shortly after, in an unrelated incident, the Metro breaks down in Melbourne leaving families with young kids stranded on Moorabin Station in 40 degrees with no staff on hand, no info, no replacement transport or taxis for more than an hour and no human beings to answer the phone on their 'service' line.
And here's what you get when you submit a customer service enquiry to their website.
'You will recieve a response within 7 business days, as each case IS CATEGORISED AND PRIORITISED'
Then this, 7 has turned into 10.
Useless.
They can, however, produce a fancy-dan iphone app.
the great cut'n'paste swindle - thx @zeroinfluencer
'Banksy’s work now reportedly changes hands for millions.
But he puts up his street art for free. Have you ever wondered
what would happen if you got your hands on one of these?
Does it mean you’ve found a winning lottery ticket or just
scraped some worthless crap off a wall?
Going up against the Art Establishment, Critics, Auction Houses,
Gallery Owners and Authentication Boards in a quest for the
elusive meal ticket, two filmmakers unwittingly gatecrash the
murky and protective world of Banksy.
“HOW TO SELL A BANKSY” raises questions of ownership,
authentication and the true value of art itself. Through all the
chaos and incompetence comes a modern-day, true-story,
crime-theft, comedy-caper.'
howtosellabanksy.com/
I'm a sucker for a bit of detournement, or at least gratuitous mischief making.
Thanks to @zeroinfluencer for the tip, and the post title.
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