Waiting for Ponyo

Originally uploaded by jamesbyford.

Few films capture my imagination enough to watch them over and over again. The Studio Ghibli collection has changed all that. Over the last couple of years I’ve seen all of them officially released in the UK through Optima Releasing bar one, Princess Mononoke. My girls at three and six are avid fans. On holiday in Marseille earlier in the year we discovered a new addition to the series, the sixteenth, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

It was hard to explain to Flo the eldest why it wasn’t available at home. Unfortunately we have to wait until February 2010 for it to be released at the cinemas and at present it looks like mid-summer 2010 for DVD release.

In the meantime, here’s a great list of ten classic animes to watch before you die.. worth checking out the hundreds of comments for lots more suggestions. My top three from Studio Ghibli are:

My Neighbour Totoro – great to watch with really young children
Nausicaa – the first and current favourite in our house
Pom Poko – the most wacko environmental story I’ve seen..

Bonus link – GhibliWiki for all things Ghibli.

At anfield

Originally uploaded by jamesbyford.

Last night I was fortunate to visit Liverpool and Anfield for the first time. Anticipating that Liverpool would struggle after three consecutive defeats, I was however, optimistic that they would summon the resources to make for a classic Anfield European night.

En route to the match I enjoyed a bit of local banter with a taxi driver, recalling my team, Brighton and Hove Albion’s great encounters and wins (yes they beat Liverpool on their way to the FA Cup Final in 1983). I got to see the largely boarded up area of Toxteth – soon to see a new hospital I was informed.

On arrival at the ground I sought out the Hillsborough memorial, stood and observed the Shankly gates with “You’ll never walk alone”, wandered through the club shop and generally soaked up the atmosphere.

On entering the ground I was star-struck when walking in and seeing Kenny Dalglish – complete with brown overcoat.. took me right back to my youth.. Wow – there he was! He was my first football hero and remains so. His ability to read the game, create space for himself and team-mates, score delicate goals, has been an inspiration that has transcended football into other areas of my life.

I was chuffed to bits to enjoy corporate hospitality – not exactly standing on the Kop, but hey – when friends and colleagues make such opportunities available every moment was to be savoured.

David Johnson – former Liverpool and England striker warmed us up and was a good host. I loved the whole occasion. When we took our seats, the sheer sound of the crowd was awesome.. Most of it was coming from the travelling supporters of Olympique Lyonnais (enormous team coach I noted – so must have driven all the way rather than fly) who were in really high spirits.. So much so that I could barely hear the Kop who to be fair were pretty muted throughout.

Liverpool – shorn of a modern hero of mine, Stevie Gerrard, were struggling from early on. Their midfield combination of Lucas and Mascherano, were creating little and the salvation was the increasing confidence of young Martin Kelly at right-back who did himself proud on a difficult night. His crosses constituted a large part of Liverpool’s attacking threat.

Lyon managed to get the ball out wide often and Sidney Govou was seriously impressive on the right. Lyon were solid, organised and really deserved to be ahead whilst Liverpool, gaining more possession as the first-half unfolded, took the lead just before half-time.

At the break 42,000 fans and I were relieved that Liverpool were ahead. Without Gerrard, penetration was lacking and Kuyt and Ngog barely established an understanding up front. Aurelio, Gerrard’s replacement, was more effective in the first part of the second half and but for an outstanding save by Lyon’s keeper, Lloris, would have scored a great header. That would have made the game safer, but alas the attacking threat was sporadic but belonging to Lyon.

Govou and the attacking midfielders always looked dangerous on the break and their movement to the flanks was to bring an equaliser and eventually their late winner.

The loudest noise from Liverpool fans came on Benitez’s inexplicable substitution of Yossi Benayoun, by far Liverpool’s most creative threat. His replacement, Voronin did little but knock the ball out of play when in possession crucially, with 5 minutes to go. This disrupted the flow and within minutes, Liverpool suffered the classic sucker punch.

Liverpool fans dispersed and those that remained applauded the Lyon supporters who were delirious with their deserved victory. It was an impressive performance and they’ll be confident of handing Liverpool similar difficulties in a couple of weeks time, a game the Reds must win to keep their competitive European hopes alive.

After the match, David Johnson recalled a great story from the Bob Paisley era. I got to see a bit of Liverpool from a taxi again and hope to return sometime. I recently read about Fernando Torres (shame I didn’t get to see him play) and was struck by his love of the city because he was actually freer than in Madrid to live amongst the working people that he identifies closely with. Easy to see why he and his goals have made him a modern hero.

A great night and having thought a bit about heroes of late – seeing Kenny Dalglish was magical. The picture with this post – reminded me how much he, Stevie Gerrard are natural European winners – I just hope that another hero, Fernando Torres gets to pick up that elegant trophy wearing the red shirt before his career is out.

Loved it. A hundred years ago, the theme of speed defined the art movement that became futurism. There’s a corollary, or at least a parallel with Google and everything now in digital. Against that, the works focused on the street, the relationship with Cubism, and the joyful nature of the cabaret below still make it human despite the harsh technological focus and fascist connections.

Gino Severini, The Dance of the Pan-Pan at the "Monico", 1909-1911 / 1959-1960

Found this which attempts to define futurism:

The Futurists loved speed, noise, machines, pollution, and cities; they embraced the exciting new world that was then upon them rather than hypocritically enjoying the modern world’s comforts while loudly denouncing the forces that made them possible. Fearing and attacking technology has become almost second nature to many people today; the Futurist manifestos show us an alternative philosophy.

Too bad they were all Fascists.

It’s also interesting for the manifestos, particularly on gender and how the movement emerged and was challenged by Vorticism. Go see it before it finishes on the 20th of Sept.

Synopsis that grabbed me on Marinetti:

“Marinetti was a master of publicity, and his writings and dealings with the public and press set the tone for the controversies surrounding Futurism. The movement was defined by the manifestoes and books that he published, which were distributed in many languages. As well as art, Marinetti wanted to revolutionise writing itself. He promoted the idea of ‘words-in-freedom’, liberating language through radical poetic and typographical techniques: ‘Condensed metaphors. Telegraphic images. Maximum vibrations. Nodes of thought.’

I became a member of Tate earlier in the month and it’s a great thing if you’re in London a chunk of the time, need somewhere to hang out, snack, eat, meet friends, use members room (closed in Sept; prefer walking about chatting personally most of the time). Great value as an alternative to a membership of a private club.

Heading to Liverpool in November for Reds v Man City so hoping to check out Joyous Machines and Mark Rothko’s The Seagram Murals at Tate Liverpool.

My good friend and collaborator Pete Burden, writes a great blog on Conscious Business. Always well considered and challenging, he recently posed the question “What’s so good about growth?”

It’s a great post and with intelligent, considered comments from Tom Nixon, Duncan Walker and Justin Hunt,  Pete and the others discuss some of the fundamental issues about personal and systemic motivations that fuel what I think is a misunderstanding about ‘human nature’ and ‘growth’.

Business growth, of the profit’s first type being ‘natural’ is about (economic) cycles of behaviour with negative outcomes recently: with consequences felt and experienced personally, socially, economically and politically.  Therefore the idea of good growth is as Pete says open to challenge, particularly when we consider the short-term existence of so many businesses more generally.

Tom’s perspective in the comments is sound although I challenge one point.  “..being greedy animals and growth feeds us” I paused.. Whilst I respect his opinion, I differ fundamentally on this. Being greedy is just an extreme behaviour.

This raises the question of what we understand growth to really mean. Googling ‘define:growth’ brings up growing organically, emergence, from simple to complex, people seeking stimulation, an increase whether planned or not amongst many others including one that is specifically financial from the Motley Fool: “Funds or stocks that carry relatively high valuations, because rapid growth is expected.” All of these are defintions are interesting – an increase planned (expected) or not, the latter or not sums it up for me.

That’s very freerange, and thus ‘natural’. On personal, social and political-economic levels we’re beginning to understand the implications of extreme behaviour and are individually and socially challenging and realigning our values towards more natural and holistic ideas and behaviours. There’s evidence all around us – from the more progressive approaches emerging in business, from social design to social enterprises, fairtrade cooperatives to microbusinesses and groups and (ungroups) forming networks in barcamp style all over the world, including castbrighton.com (which I recently enjoyed participating in the opening meeting) potentially driving all sorts of new movements.

Natural growth is worthy of further exploration because it is about emergence: allowing what comes naturally, to grow. That’s certainly freerange – embracing the planned or unplanned personally, socially, economically, politically whilst being self-aware of learning how to work with extreme behaviours.

UPDATE: thanks to Pete (via Simon Conroy) for sending me this excellent perspective from James Gustave Speth in HBR.. Doing business in a postgrowth society.

A friend mentioned del.icio.us the other day and I remembered it.. Truth is I’ve been more into bookmarking real books this year. Via Mocoloco blog comes this simple device..

As seen on mocoloco.com - Bookmark II by Propaganda

In the spirit of my emerging Make, do and mend strategy I might just scribe an ‘X’ on a rubber band however..

Big day today, something important has happened in the online/digital services sector. I’ve been involved in it for the best part of 15 years now and periodically something happens close to me that I believe will have an important and potentially significant impact.

My pals at Headshift have announced today that they are becoming part of the Dachis group. In the emerging field of social business design, this is really big news. As Lee and Livio, the founders of Headshift,  have compellingly demonstrated over the last six years, collaborative tools, enterprise 2.0, social media and a whole host of other related emergent activities, such as user-centred and network-centric design, agile programming and project management methods – all innovative ingredients, are generating new design and service frameworks that are now legitimate. To me, they’re at the forefront of a business movement that is as they say moving beyond early stage experimentation.

What I’ve experienced first-hand and continue to admire about Headshift is their commitment to principles and practices that are congruent and represent a vision. Headshift’s readme.doc from 2003 continues to resonate. It’s not often easy engaging in pioneering activity and committing to innovation is something that’s vital for most businesses in order to evolve, but few have the bravery and long-term vision to embrace in my experience to date.

There’s lots more to do to realise the group’s vision of smarter, simpler, social businesses but that’s the whole point. Social Business Design as Headshift and Dachis group call it, sums up the learnings and the potential – from the early stages of the journey, from the birth of the accessible internet, through it’s recent social awakening, to how this continues to evolve into the everyday system and lifeworld.

Good luck my friends

What are the 5 things I do on a good day to keep my head in check? 

I’ve been inspired by the challenge laid down by Andy, (a fellow free-ranger and former client) who is running an interesting project called Mindapples to gather up mental health hints from the blogosphere.

Here’s mine:

1. Stimulus and learning: Podcasts on way to work – Harvard Ideacast, BBC’s In Business; BusinessWeek cover stories
2. Giving and receiving positive strokes: Cuddles with and kids, reading bedtime stories, jamming at work with clients and colleagues
3. Colour and light: experiencing light, simple as getting out for a walk in the occasional winter sun inBrighton
4. Cooking and eating: for relaxation, creativity and being with my wife Sarah
5. Music: Playing Ukulele for learning and relaxation, particularly catching new chords and tabs from UkuleleHunt.com

Andy’s listed some useful resources to which and I’d add the following: Dr Paddy Lund’s Building the Happiness Centred Business and How to be Free by Tom Hodgkinson.

The challenge is passed on to friends and colleagues: Nilhan, Antony, Tamsin, Farhan and Pete.

With the daily stream of news about governments forcing banks to rethink some fundamentals about their role in society, it would seem a good time to revisit the idea of social investment banks. I while back I posted about the moves in the UK to establish such a vehicle which would tap into dormant funds in UK commercial banks to open up a finance channel for social initiatives such as social enterprises. The establishment of Social Finance in the UK, tasked with opening up such a market is a concrete step.

Given that the governments in most western nations now own substantial equity stakes in the major commercial banks, surely it’s time to focus the executive teams on longer-term social responsibilities that now lie well beyond short-term shareholder interests? Research by Triodos Bank which appears to have weathered the recent crisis, shows that survey respondents would certainly welcome and support such a move if only the government were brave enough to direct it.