Russell Davies

it's been a funny week...

...started on Saturday in Derbyshire with another trip to see Rocester.

Their non-wining streak is now up to about 53 games. (I think). But thre's a new spirit about them. New manager. Some new players. They went a goal down early and then battled back fro a draw, which felt like a victory. A very good way to spend a couple of hours.

Since then I've done two trips to Amsterdam, which has been a pain, but one of them included a chance to see Ajax v Arsenal which was splendid. Another good game. Great atmosphere.

One of the things I enjoyed at both games was my favourite crowd noise - the post-outrage murmur - that few seconds of grumbling mutter you get after the shouts of outrage about a refereeing decision or a potential handball. I love that sound.

I think I'll be seeing more of Rocester than Ajax in my life though. Better chips at Rocester.

Right down there on the touchline. That's Johan Cruyff. But you probably can't see him very well.

hello future

Months and months ago I foolishly agreed to speak at the IPA Strategy group conference.

(I imagine there's something there to promote the conference but since I'm not a member of the IPA I can't get in to see. How dumb.)

The conference is all about how communications strategy will have changed by 2015. They originally wanted me to talk about demographics and cultural change and how anglo-saxon or not the world will be by then, but since that seems to require actual knowledge and work I said I couldn't do that.

Instead I've offered to talk about how planning practise might change, what tools we'll be using, what skills we'll need, where we might be working, what life as a planner might be like. Obviously, I have no idea about this either. But I've found these three illustrations of where planning life might be going. And I'm going to post some speculations on here. If anyone has anything to chuck in, I'd love to hear it.

My first thought is that blogging (or whatever it evolves into) is going to be a core planning skill very soon. I think I'd be very reluctant to hire anyone who didn't have a blog. (If I was hiring. And I'm not so don't ask.) It teaches you all sorts of good stuff - precis, collaboration, generousity. And it's a really useful communications skill for the kind of distributed businesses we're all likely to be living in.

 

account planning brands
advertising

ego moment

I wrote this essay for Campaign (which is to advertising what The Grocer is to grocery). It was intended to publicise the APG awards tonight but they neglected to mention them. Oh well.

They didn't tweak it much before they put it in - but I prefer my subheads, so here's the original. Warning - only likely to be of interest to planners, and frankly, not many of them.

(It's a word document.)

Click here to download.

account planning brands advertising

slightly amusing coincidence

I saw these new Mighty World toys at the weekend. They're intrigingly specific to modern culture. And I share a workspace with Jenny who does trends and culture and stuff and Seb who does skate and that. So this seemed like a slightly amusing coincidence.

I'm going to call them Chris and Minnie from now on.

dismal glory

I went to see Rocester again. Things had got no better. They've lost every game this season. The manager's quit, they have no replacement and if they'd lost on Saturday that would have been 50 consecutive league games without a win. They lost their last two games 5-0 and 6-0.

They are my new heroes. You have to be so committed and so brave to keep turning up when you haven't won a game for 50 games. They looked like they were going to hang on for a draw (which would have been a victory of sorts - their first points of the season) but conceeded a scrappy goal from a corner in the 85th minute. Very sad. But they'll play on.

picture for patty

I've not taken any pictures myself but Arthur has been slightly obsessed with these since our Italian trip. Every vending machine in town was selling Winnie The Pooh Animal Wear. (He's particularly fond of the ocean edition.) It's an ingenius attempt to capitalise on Winnie's popularity by dressing him up as other things - thereby extending the number of Pooh things you can sell.

On the way back from Italy we were speculating as to wear this could go next. Because Pooh could dress as anything really. Our favourites were:

19th Century Statesmen
Serial Killers and Axemen
Deadly Bacteria
The Nottingham Forest 1978 Squad
Other Famous Bears
Great Physicists (I'm very keen to see a Niels Bohr Pooh)

(And I know this is a dolphin not a fish, but I couldn't find a picture of a fish. You can dress him as Nemo you know.)

site of the millenium

In Microserfs, Douglas Coupland talks about the idea of 'Male Shopping Calories' and suggests that Fry's is designed to burn them all up in one quick session.

Music thing burns all my 'Male Attention / Wishlist Calories' every time I look at it. It's a perfectly written, splendidly conceived conpendium of everything I've ever wanted to own. Even if I wasn't previously aware that they existed. Ebay Of The Day is particularly useful. And it's full of splendid features like Tiny Music Makers.

If any of my friends or family are reading this and they're ever stuck for birthday present ideas - get me anything from Music Thing.

I thankyou

bikes, ice-cream and winnie the pooh dressed as a fish

felicitous phrase

Arthur starts back at school today. There was a real back to work/school feeling in the flat yesterday. We were tipping out suitcases and tidying away flip-flops - which left sand all over the floor. Anne said she'd deal with it today and 'vacuum away the summer'. She's a poet.

event thingy

Those nice people at ihaveanidea asked me to post this. So here it is:

A Night with Neil French

On Thursday October 6, 2005 ihaveanidea, in partnership with FirstLight and Ogilvy, are inviting you to a night of awe and inspiration as international advertising stars, Rick Boyko and Mark Fenske interview Neil French live on stage and pin down the source of his unique talent and never-ending inspiration. No question will be spared and no topic will be taboo as we reveal the source of Neil's gift for advertising.

Thursday, October 6th, 2005

$125 - on sale on September 15 (however, you can pre-register for tickets right now)

John Bassett Theatre, Toronto, ON

full details here