Russell Davies

George Perec, quoted in Queuing for Beginners

sums it all up really

"The secret to happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and personas that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile"

Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

on the value of specificity

how to be a planner

Just found a brilliant quote over at Creative Generalist. This will now become my standard advice for everyone who wants to get good at planning.

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." - Thomas H. Huxley

what? and masses

The always watchful Freelance Fred points at this Coke job ad. Which makes you go; what?

Whatever that job is (and the description doesn't make it a whole lot clearer) I want it. I want that title on a business card. But it reminded me of a splendid quote I found in The Long Tail (more of which later) :

"There are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses" - Raymond Williams.

Brilliant. There should be more Marxist critiques of quant methodologies.

blogging

philippe starck

The Rules Of Management

Just finished reading The Rules Of Management by Richard Templar. Very good round-up of common sense management thinking. And readable.

He had a good selection of quotes which seemed to relate to brands and planning so I thought I'd talk about them here.

“It is amazing how much you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” - Harry Truman.

This is the best and hardest thing to learn about being a planner. If you want to work effectively with creative teams (and with clients), if you want to get your ideas into the mix you have to surrender the credit. You have to let your ideas become their ideas (without them knowing your doing it). It's just human nature. The best way to be influential is to be generous.

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” - Thomas Jefferson

This is the other great truth about planning. It's not actually that hard. Not intellectually hard anyway. Anyone who likes reading a bit, understands something of human nature, likes thinking about brands and is prepared to ritually abase themselves infront of everyone they meet can do it. My single observation about the most succesful planners is that they just work harder than everyone else. They might hide it well, but they do the work.

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.” - Henry Clay

This is a truth that brands often forget. It's not the big things that count, the big initiatives and the huge programmes, it's the little moments of thought, concern and imagination.

“It is happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.” - Samuel Johnson

Another thing that brands would do well to remember. If you spend your whole time making life difficult for the customers who might try to 'cheat' you, you'll give completely the wrong signals to everyone else. Trust the people sending you returns, or using the minibar or something. Trrust builds relationships and has to be two-way. Look at the debate here in the comments for more.

should be a planner

Robin sent me a great Arsene Wenger word usement:

“…you have to have courage, footballistically and mentally”.

two quotes in one day

"you do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into"

Jonathan Swift

quote of the day

"I think that you've got to be prepared to write a load of nonsense to start with and then you can tart it up. The business of getting going, getting started, is enormously important, and this can be physical. Solvitur Ambulando as the Romans used to say, which means the solution comes through walking."

Colin Dexter