Monthly Archive for February, 2009

At Christmas along with “Presentation Zen” and Andy Clarke’s “Transcending CSS” book I got Seth Godin’s “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us“. Now ‘Tribes’ sets out at full pace to sway you to the idea that there are tribes out there that are succeeding due to a leader etc. If you compare this to twitter you start seeing the full potential of twitter. Godin’s idea of tribe power fits perfectly with twitter. I don’t really agree with Godin’s idea of not asking permission. His principal of asking for forgiveness later, just doesn’t work for me, but there are some interesting points and examples. The passion of a leader plus the efficiency of twitter for communicating to the ‘tribe’ and you have a powerful combination that can be really successful.

Funnily enough this idea comes across in the article written by David Pogue about Twitter. The article is nice starting point for people that have not used twitter before. I only signed up recently although had used it on a friends blackberry to ask his followers a question. But there were things I learned about this now trendy system called twitter, notably that it is just dead simple.

If you have a passion and need to communicate with your followers quickly and efficiently, then twitter may well be your answer. Check out the ‘tribes’ approach while you’re at it…

Note: interesting article here about how twitter seems to be past the days of really needing to find a business model !

Just had the pleasure of seeing the second version of Coldplay’s song from the Viva la Vida album, “Life in Technicolour”. Its part of the following album from Coldplay called “Prospekt’s March” (remixes and a few new songs).

The well known song Viva la Vida (it is the second song below) is the 7th title on the album with the same name. But the first song on the Viva la Vida album is called “Life in Technicolour” and is a song I really like a lot.

Coldplay released “Prospekt’s March” at the end of November
The first song on this album is called Life in Technicolour II, similar to the first version from the previous album but longer and unlike the first version Coldplay are singing. The videoclip however is just great: the way the blond kid looks at the girl next to him when the music starts, the look on peoples faces, the explosions, hair blowing in the wind, reading ‘****ing hell’ on the lips of the guy filming. The whole Punch and Judy approach is clever, with the devil that was often removed from such shows as it was seen as being inappropriate for children. Coldplay is obviously far worse than the devil in this version in view of the looks from the audience I’m happy to have purchased and as I have listened to it so many times going to work I’ve lost count…

Life in Technicolour II

Viva La Vida

A really impressive piece about the Arnell Group’s redesign of the Pepsi logo. It doesn’t seem clear at the moment whether this is a really well worked hoax and/or viral piece or whether it is simply the real thing. Take a look if you are interested in logos just like I was (to create the UbiKann logo linked into the slogan) and still am…

OK so the other day when buying some ready made meals the lady on the till says to me “So doesn’t your wife cook” and I say (not really thinking of the consequences) “I’m single actually”. This leads to her standing up and shouting across the supermarket to her friend “Hey Geraldine, guess what he’s single”. While I’m starting to immitate a tomatoe as the heat is on, I hear Geraldine shout “What did you say?”. This is where I was thinking OK tomatoe, beetroot there’s not that much difference when you want to hide under a rock…
Thank god her response was “It’s OK I’ll tell you later”…

This advert kind of reminded me that other people go through situations that are way worse:

And this other won is well funny:

OK I just finished reading the “A Bigger Idea”: A Manifesto on Interactive Advertising Creativity and yes it’s long but since I received the link from a friend this morning I had been intrigued by the intro.

Well it’s worth the read. Not all of it is going to be relevant to everybody but if you work in an interactive agency and I happen to work at Ogilvy that comes up a few times then you will find the manifesto full of logic as a colleague of mone likes to say when something makes sense. Logic though it may be, it is a breath of fresh air because logic is always obvious after the fact.

Although DM is pinned as being behind the disdain for creativity that is lacking in alot of ineractive ads at the moment, you do feel that the first 4 points hit home hard when you’ve been working several years in an interactive ad agencies…

Anyway go check it out it is well worth the read…