Russell Davies

giving back

Hello. You lot have been very good to me recently, with all your thoughts and suggestions in response to my questions, so here's a giving back plan. I'll undertake to write 500 words in response to the first question posted in the comments on here, after a certain arbritary time each week. (And I'm planning on a decent 500 words; words strung together in an argument, not just 500 words from a random word generator.) Is that worth having? I don't know, but it's what I have to give.

This week it's the firsts question posted after 10am British Summer Time on Tuesday 1st August, which I know gives an advantage to the Europeans in the house, but hey, those are my peeps.

big thinking

Boy I need your help now. I've signed up to be a speaker for the APG Battle Of Big Thinking which sounds like it might be great - some of the stuff we've been asking for from the AAAA conference.  But I think I've got to debate Jim Carroll of BBH and then the audience is going to vote who's best. Jeez. Have you seen Jim speak? He's fantastic.  So, my only topic seems to be Big Planning Thinking, any ideas what I should talk about?

kevin smith inspiration

American Copywriter points to this fantastic bit of 'An Evening With Kevin Smith' which immediately makes me want to tell you about a great bit from one of the 'evening' DVDs that kind of inspired me to talk to jeffre et al about OIA. But I don't want to misquote it so now I have to watch all three hours of Kevin Smith to find it. Which is no chore. So watch this and give me a little time to find it. Because find it I will.

moscow anyone?

We're trying to find some thoughts/guidance on Russia for a friend of ours.  Someone they can chat with a bit and get a feeling for a particular category there and maybe meet up with on a couple of trips to Moscow. So I guess anyone in the planning/research/brand/marketing world. Is there anyone out there who might be able to help? Please email me if you can.

(How many of these favours do you think I can ask before it starts to irritate the hell out of you all?)

eastbourne

the grammar and rhythm of roads

Just got back from seeing Cars with Arthur. Very good. Not quite as good as the Toy Stories, drags a bit in a couple of places, but still better than most of the films you'll see this year.

But the most affecting bit for me was the way they captured some of the grammar and language of American roads. No-one things of roads having grammar but they do, it's one of the things you notice if you drive a lot in two languages. Signs appear in different places, merging has a different quality, juntions have different accents and sweeps. And, when you're a passenger there's a beautiful rhythm to the interstates that this film captures in a lovely sequence early on, when Lightning's being driven across country on the back of a big Mack truck. You see the ways your car's shadow stretches, receedes and then looms up at you as the landscape changes, you see the whipping rhythm of trees giving way to crops and back to trees. You see the mountains that seem to be just ahead of you, for hours, the long lines stretching to infinity. It's really quite lovely and evocative. It made me nostalgic for the drives Anne and I used to do, up and down the US listening to NPR and baseball commentary.

Michel Gondry played with some of the same feeling in this video.

Anyway, go and see Cars, it's good.

afternoon tea

Had a splendid afternoon tea on Friday. Our first sighting of the famous Rob Mortimer.

Enoch and Henry.

Paul.

Seb and Karen. The conversation roamed wild and free which Henry's detailed here.

No coffee mornings for three weeks I'm afraid, unless you're in Glamorganshire next week, Mablethorpe the week after, or Robin Hood's Bay the week after that. Next one will be August 25th. Probably in the afternoon.

hello london

goodbye chicago

AAAA thoughts - the perfect conference

We were trying to imagine what the best planning conference ever would be like. Here are some of the ideas:

1. It should be like a festival. Three days, in some fields somewhere warm (Not hot, warm). There'd be a main stage. A quant tent. And some beat-up vans selling dubious insights parked around the edges.

2. Costs would be kept low by making everyone bring their own tent. Ad students would be allowed in for free but they'd have to chop wood and do laundry for everyone else.

3. 20 minutes per speaker. Only exception, Paul Feldwick.

4. No Powerpoint, but speakers would be encouraged to create data presentations using rock show style lighting and lasers.

5. No planning prize, but agencies would be awarded fabulous trophies for superior BBQing.

6. Compulsory - frisbee golf, fry-ups, teams of people reenacting 'scenes from the great spreadsheets'

7. Banned - croissants, ethnography, pads and pens with hotel logos

8. Every evening the planning flag would be reverently lowered while the whole of Testing To Destruction is intoned by a male voice choir.

9. At dawn every day basic planning techniques would be taught by wise old planners doing Tai Chi.

10. Everyone would take home their version of the perfect creative brief, carved in whale bone.

AAAA account planning conference