Seemingly Unconnected // Katy Lindemann

Tale Torrent – Ye Olde Days of Weblogging

Katy Lindemann — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:13:08 +0000

On Thursday 10th November, as part of Internet Week Europe, the awesome James Mitchell organised an event to celebrate individual stories about the web, called Tale Torrent: a night of true stories about the internet.

It was ace. It reminded me of the truly awesome Fray Day. We heard a variety of wonderful and deeply personal stories about the internet – a 25-year friendship from analogue to digital (entitled “Postcards ‘n’ mix-tapes, Skype ‘n’ status updates”) from Simon Sanders, to the joy of serendipity from Claire Burge; why Christian Payne (aka Documentally) treausres his network; to how World of Warcraft brought J Nicholas Geist’s friend out of his shell and onto a zombie pub crawl, amongst others.

I shared a story about ye olde days of weblogging – sparked by a post I wrote here last year.

And cos it’s about blogging, and this is my blog, I thought I’d share it here too:

I’d created my first webpage in Geocities c. 1997. I was putting off GCSE revision and noodled around with Microsoft Frontpage, then got curious about how the page was actually made, so started delving into HTML to see what that was all about.

(My first sites were everything you’d expect from 90s web design and more. Tiled backgrounds, scrolling marquees, animated gif under construction signs – the lot. Oh yes)

I started my blog in 2000. My friend Tom had been weblogging for a little while, and I kept sending him links and little nuggets for his blog. He suggested I just get on with it and start my own blog. So I did. Buying a domain back then was a pretty big deal. You deliberated over the name, and as I recall had to go through a fair bit of paperwork to get there. Not like today when most of us have domains coming out of our ears and you can get them for a few quid. And so, I bought kitschbitch.com, because I liked the name and it sounded snappy, bought some hosting and whacked together my new blog homepage.

Blogger really made the basic blog format possible. The above screencap is from the Wayback Machine – which turned out to be invaluable when prepping this story, as much of the references simply don’t exist any more. Or at least, don’t exist in the form I used to know them as.

I remember one of Blogger’s straplines – ‘Push Button Publishing for the People’. And it really was. You had to be able to code your own basic page, and insert the Blogger code in your template, input your FTP details etc. But then you were off. You wrote the blog post and hit publish and you were off – the WYSIWYG interface making links and basic formatting a doddle. Comments, permalinks, image upload and the like were all still to come – if you wanted to include an image in your blog post you had to upload it somewhere (usually to your own domain via an FTP client) and then insert the link manually. But you could publish a dated blog post, and the tool would create archives for you and everything. Magic.

On the date the Wayback captured the Blogger.com homepage in the screencap above, there’s a post from Ev thanking Blogger users for contributing to the Blogger server drive to keep the service going. Yep, this was before Blogger was acquired by Google, when they still needed a whip-round to keep it up and running as more and more users came on board. How times change, no?

Back when I started blogging, blogs weren’t usually ‘about’ anything in particular – they didn’t tend to follow a theme or specific area of focus. They were very personal – often a mix of links, stream of consciousness thoughts (much like Twitter updates nowadays) and diary based entries. Though I’ve since imported all my old Blogger posts into WordPress, I took a little walk down memory lane to look at some past posts in their original context. Sadly the images weren’t captured so you can’t see this post in all its hideous web design glory (the black and orange colour scheme was particularly vile, as I recall). It’s funny the things you remember. I remember writing this post, ‘You can’t be a hot bitch in a car with safety features‘, so very clearly. I’d still argue that cupholders and being a hot bitch are largely incompatible. The point was, that as weblogging was still a pretty underground activity, insofar as although it was completely public, the only people likely to see whatever you’d written were other bloggers. So it was very freeing – it felt like a really lovely place for idle musings, to find your own personal voice.

A later design.

Another one. This is from Oct 31 2002, the day after my 21st birthday. I blogged about being ‘officially grown up‘. I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago – and I still don’t feel anywhere near grown up. Oh, the things I would tell my younger self…

The UK blogging community was super small, super tight-knit – we all kept track of each other through the UK Weblogs updater and the Gblogs Gateway, created & curated by Darren Shrubsole & Jen Bolton respectively. A new UK blog being created was a Big Deal, as we all clamoured to know who’d joined our little club.

We’d keep track of blogs worldwide using Brig Eaton’s Eatonweb portal (which still exists, but now it’s on steroids). On the day captured (12th Mar 2000), there were a total of 1378 weblogs from across the globe listed. Can you imagine trying to list all the weblogs in the world alphabetically today?

In the absence of comments or permalinks, the way we responded to someone else’s blog post was to write our own blog post, and link to said person’s blog. And as ever, inclusion on someone else’s blogroll was very flattering. We didn’t have Klout or PeerIndex or Technorati, but we did track popularity using the Beebo Metalog. Slightly obsessively in fact. Updated by hand, and with love, this was the ultimate weblogging popularity contest of the time.

Because you didn’t want to lose momentum (and possibly your ranking on the Metalog), if you went away, you’d hand over the keys to your blog to someone else to guest blog for you. A lovely American blogger called Mark Olynciw who blogged at Riothero.com gave Tom & I access rights to blog there when he was on holiday. And we had a bit of fun – totally redesigning the whole page. I seem to remember a ripped male torso was the background image, and blog posts remarking on the distraction posed by one of the nipples following suit. It even made the front page of Metafilter, such was the small community of webloggers.

I think my favourite plaudit however was this one:

Goddamn those two are witty, smutty and vile. I love them. Like a stream of bat’s piss, they shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark

Never again will I reach such lofty heights. Might even put that on my CV.

It wasn’t that long however before the mainstream media started to pick up on this weblogging thing. This was a piece in CMJ music monthly (which I understood to be like the US equivalent of NME), which mentioned ‘the frequently hilarious kitschbitch.com’. Look Mum! I’m in a proper magazine in print and everything!

The Guardian did a piece a month or so later. No word of a lie, the day this came out was one of my first days settling in at university. I went into a meeting where our tutors welcomed the new crop of history students, to be met by an exclamation from one of them of ‘You were in the Guardian this morning’. Somewhat nervous as to why, it was a relief to find it out it was ‘just’ because of my blog – although by the same token this weblogging thing was starting to feel a bit more public than it had been. But as they’ve shown consistently, the Guardian got what blogging was all about from the beginning, and recognised the value in the different styles different bloggers adopted:

A weblog is, literally, a log of the web – a sort of frequently updated portal, where new entries go to the top and old ones drift to the bottom. It usually consists of the take of one editor – the weblogger or “blogger” – on the gems he or she has found online, either generally or on a theme. It sounds simple, and it is. Find one who shares your taste, and you have a surfing companion for life.

This Evening Standard piece gave us a bit of a laugh, given how they presented this blogging lark as strangely self indulgent and a fad that they couldn’t see would take off. I’m not sure they weren’t entirely wrong on the former, but as for the latter – well…

Though it was taking off as an ever growing phenomenon, in those early days, it felt like we all knew each other. The esteemed Dan Hon, then a Cambridge student and blogger of ‘The Daily Doozer’ had some cheeky fun creating ‘Blog Trumps‘, a kind of Top Trumps amongst bloggers. The original page is gone (thanks again, Wayback machine), but Tom’s post about the full set of Blog Trumps is still alive…

Here’s my card. My stock options were zero but my drinking abilities were duly recognised. As I recall whilst Ev beat most of us on the stock options front (somewhat prescient, given he’d later sell to Google & go on to found Twitter), and I didn’t even beat him on flair, my card highlighted my prowess in drinking. Ahem. I might not have your millions, Williams, but I can drink you under the table!

If the Metalog wasn’t enough, we started to get competitive in 2001 with the first annual Bloggies. Tom won the first of several Bloggies for Best European weblog. I was nominated, but apparently the ‘bitch’ part of my blog name was too controversial to be listed in full. Nowadays it’s big, professionally run blogs like Boing Boing and Lifehacker taking the prizes in the Bloggies, but back then it was just personal blogs, lovingly crafted and tended by individuals in their spare time.

The best bit about my blogging adventures, by a country mile, was the people I met as a result. On 11th June 2000, a few UK webloggers met in a pub in Kings Cross. It was still considered very weird to be meeting people from off the internet, and most non-bloggers thought we were nuts and clearly off to certain death at the hands of axe-wielding nutcases. We might have been a bit nutty but there were definitely no axes as far as I could see. It was quite weird, meeting people whose blogs we read. We weren’t used to talking to people in real life who’d read our online wibblings. We’d be chatting about something we’d done recently, or planning to do, and be met with ‘yes, I know’ and remembered that actually yes, although we’d never ‘met’ before, we all knew each other pretty well indeed already. Again, now we all have a collection of people we know ‘from the web’ and it’s totally standard to feel we ‘know’ someone we might not yet have met face to face through their digital presence. But not on that day. A bunch of bloggers met, in a pub, and had a jolly nice time – all photos courtesy of the awesome Giles Turnbull (full set here):

Dan, then of the Daily Doozer, now of Extenuating Circumstances, and now a Creative Director at Wieden & Kennedy in Portland

Tom, then of Barbelith, now of Plasticbag.org and general all round web dude

Jen & I. Oh dear lord – how young we look. I was 18. A wee young scamp!

There was a lovely photographic project from Heather Champ called The Mirror Project – featuring submitted photos of people taking pictures of themselves in mirrors of various shapes and sizes – its tag line was ‘Adventures in reflective surfaces’, so it became quite a fun challenge to take your picture in as weird and wonderful a mirrored object as possible.

Following in the US bloggers mirror photo in Bruce Sterling’s loo earlier that year at SXSW, we trooped off to the loo to take our own UK bloggers loo mirror photo. Et voila.

The UK blogging community grew and we made more wonderful friends. And continued to meet up in various pubs and the like. We had a 5th anniversary blogmeet to commemorate that first encounter:

Tom, before he moved to San Francisco

Dan, before he left for Portland (with a slightly older, although not much wiser, me)

Group shot! As well as great friendships, deeper bonds had formed. Meg and Paul got together – I think by this point they were married. They’re now expecting their first child. There are loads of other blogger couples and babies too. Tom grumbles he’s the only one who hasn’t got laid because of his blog. I say he’s not trying hard enough…

Obviously we had to follow it up with a follow up mirror shot – note the quality of the photography has declined as we moved on from ‘proper’ cameras to these brand new inventions called camera phones. Proper sophisticated we were.

I left the final word with Meg, who as ever says it more eloquently than I could

And you know the best thing?

I’m still in touch with all the people above, and I count many of them among my closest friends. Plus most are still blogging in some shape or form. The itch never goes away.

We still meet up occasionally for drinks in various bits of the world, even after all this time. That’s the effect of blogging community. Long may it last!

My story about the internet is partly about the early days of this emerging phenomenon that would turn out to change the media landscape more than we could ever have predicted – but mainly, it’s about people. As it always is. It’s the ‘social’ in social media. My story is about the wonderful people that blogging has brought into my life (including my beloved partner Simon, who 8 and a half years later I share a home and a life with).

And for all these wonderful joys, I say, thank you internet.

Week 61

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:13:44 +0000

[ photo courtesy ]

Blimey it’s been a while since my last weeknote/monthnote – given their consistent irregularity perhaps I should adopt Matt’s approach and just call them worknotes?

It’s been a busy few months since my last note, in Week 41. It’s Week 61, which not only means I’ve been really slack at updating weeknotes, but that I’ve been running my own business for well over a year now. It’s gone by mega quickly, but it’s been absolutely brilliant and I’m a total convert to the freelance way of working.

In the last year I’ve worked with fantastic clients like Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Profero, Branded, Vodafone Ireland and We Are Friday, wearing a a variety of different planning hats and getting the chance to tackle some incredibly varied challenges. I’ve gone from dipping my toe into the world of freelancing to setting up the company and getting to grips with the joys of being a small business owner and employer. All of which has been, I have to say, awesome.

I went into this adventure with an open mind, using the analogy of dating. I’d been in two very satisfying long-term relationships (spending a few years each in permanent roles at two terrific agencies), but I wasn’t sure I wanted to jump into another long-term relationship again – I fancied playing the field, so to speak. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to date around until I found someone I wanted to settle down with again, and freelance would be a stopgap until I worked out what and where I wanted to take a permanent role. As its turned out, I’m completely loving the range of opportunities that going solo has afforded me – the chance to work with a tremendous variety of people and organisations, with a mix of consulting and freelancing in-house, on a wonderfully stimulating range of clients and challenges. So much so that for the time being, I can’t see myself wanting to settle down – I’m enjoying being a planning sponge, and the amount I’m learning and soaking up in the process, far too much to want to take on a permanent role any time soon. But, just as I went into this adventure with an open mind, so I want to keep thus on this journey – so who knows what’s round the corner?

But back to the present, since my last note, it’s been busy busy round Seemingly Unconnected towers. I finished the Vodafone Ireland consumer digital project, helping them develop an overarching digital strategy, encompassing really fascinating challenges such as how best to manage and scale customer service in social channels, and the operational changes needed to deliver on the agreed strategic direction. They were really happy with the work delivered, and I’m very happy to be working with Vodafone Ireland again, this time with the enterprise team on a similar project, which is now currently well underway.

Work with Friday on HSBC continues apace – such is the nature of global business banking clients that I can’t say much about the work itself, but I can definitely say that it’s really exciting to be concentrating on the experience planning and product strategy side.

Other bits and pieces since my last note:

A few days strategy work with the lovely chaps at Branded

A couple of days planning on a rather exciting brand for Citizen Bay

A week of total digital detox, relaxation and getting rather bendier with my good friend Dr Jo Twist on a week’s yoga retreat at Yoga Rocks in Crete

A phenomenal day’s brain candy in Brighton at dConstruct, followed by tinkering and being chased by Daleks at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire

Meeting some incredible women working in digital and tech at the first (of hopefully many more) Women In A Room meetup

Onwards and forwards!

Content strategy isn’t a nice to have (or why I don’t want your brand to be my friend)

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:28:03 +0000

The planning and discussing and repeated rounds of debate and review and re-working to the nth degree of copy for the typical ad campaign often seems never-ending. Ensuring that work meets brand guidelines, is in keeping with the brand values, brand pyramid, brand molecule or what have you, yada yada yada.

As with any decent media strategy. The role for channels should be carefully thought-through, with a clear definition of the comms task and the role that each channel should play, and so on.

But when it comes to brand content in social channels like Twitter and Facebook, or even sometimes on their blogs and brand sites, carefully considered comms and content strategy appears to be falling by the wayside for more and more brands. Consideration for tone of voice – which would be so rigorously scrutinised in an advert – appears to be totally ignored.

It’s lazy. It shows a lack of thought, and a lack of understanding of the people they’re seeking to engage and consideration for the user.

Take Rightmove. Their service is about helping people buy, sell, rent or let their home. It’s one of the biggest life decisions you’ll make. Property’s serious business. The market’s changing, it’s tough whichever side of the fence you’re on. If you’re in the property market, what you really need is reliable info, help & guidance. You want a trusted partner to help you make the right decision.

From a content strategy point of view, how could a brand like Rightmove add value? What do customers and prospects most need and want? Expert advice, market insight, the latest news & updates before anyone else, perhaps? Maybe with an authoritative but friendly tone of voice?

Or maybe the brand could just throw random stuff at Twitter to show how TOTALLY AWESOME they are!!!!

Like pointing out (admittedly very cute, but unsure what it has to do with Rightmove) a video of Elmo from Sesame St cooking paella with Philip Schofield & Holly Willoughby on This Morning:

Or chatting about what people got up to over the bank holiday weekend:

Or moaning about how rubbish the weather is:

It’s partly the Innocentification of cutesy, zany copy where it’s just not plausible or appropriate for the brand (for more on the Innocentification of copy and brand authenticity, see the most excellent Shift Run Stop episode with the lovely & talented Denise Wilton – lovely friend, co-founder of B3ta, currently creative director at BERG, and formerly creative director at Moo).

But it’s also suggestive of a complete lack of content strategy – of thinking how the brand can really add value, what kind of content will be most appropriate, within which channels, and what tone of voice will communicate this most effectively. Of not really understanding what kind of relationship the people they’re trying to engage want to have with their brand. Whether they want a brand to be useful, helpful and deliver against their brand promise – or whether they want a brand to be their mate.

We strategists & planners are partly to blame. We’ve tried to encourage our clients to communicate more humanly and less like faceless corporations. But without a clear and well-defined content strategy, it appears we’ve opened Pandora’s box.

Content should engender trust.

Brands should use their content – digital or otherwise – to communicate the values and associations they want to convey.

They should use their content to deliver on their brand promise. To be useful. Helpful. Yes, be friendly, but be appropriate:

Content strategy isn’t a nice to have, brands. What you do, what you say, and how you say it, what relationship you want to have with the people you’re trying to engage, matters. Really it does. Give it some proper care and attention, why don’t you?

Addendum: Bobbie Johnson has written a fab article on GigaOm which articulates his frustration with what he terms the hypercasual far more eloquently – def worth checking out: Hypercasual : when the web gets a little too friendly

(HT @simonth for pointing out Rightmove to me)

Week 41

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:03:26 +0000

[ photo courtesy ]

Week 41 and life continues apace. It’s been a disjointed month with so many bank holidays and short weeks, but the weather’s been glorious and whilst I love my work, the chance to enjoy long weekends and London in the sunshine never goes amiss.

Vodafone is storming ahead, mainly working remotely but with a couple of trips to Dublin – I’ve been there several times for business, but only ever been to the airport, the client offices and the cab between the airport and the office. I know Dublin is meant to be awesome – I hope to find an excuse to go back and actually get to see something of the city at some point! The project is progressing nicely, and I’ve actually got a couple of proposals to write for some more potential work with them, so…so far so good.

The rest of my weeks are spent with the marvellous chaps at Friday: lots of awesome super-secret innovation work for HSBC, thinking about exciting digital futures for business banking. Plus some thinking about getting the nation gardening for the RHS. Workshopping, sketching, keynoting a-go-go.

As well as working with a truly brilliant bunch of people, I get to enjoy the fabulous Friday decor – last week the office was festooned with some awesomely hideous royal wedding tat:

[ photo courtesy Matthew ]

As well as some delightful fresh flowers:

[ photo courtesy Matthew ]

And the new agency Trophy Wall*

* these may or may have previously been the contents of a Croydon golf club’s trophy cabinet that was purchased on eBay

[ yes this photo is courtesy Matthew as well ]

In other news:

I started my Introduction to Product Design evening course at Central St Martin’s. All super interesting and stretching a v. different part of my brain. I am still appalling at drawing, but having lots of fun.

Did my first VAT return. Yes the life of a freelancer is truly rock ‘n’ roll. Well I say I did it, actually FreeAgent did it for me. Praise be for web apps that just work.

Had fun beta-testing Bloom Studio’s utterly gorgeous new iPad app Planetary – which is now in the App store, free to download, and getting coverage all over the place. Highly recommended.

Got very meta reading about the ‘inside out’ movement of weeknotes (the brainchild of my friends at BERG) in the Evening Standard: The ‘inside outers’ are a London design firm changing the world of business.

Giving as your business model

Katy Lindemann — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:41:19 +0000

Willsh’s latest post on ‘Advertising is not the thing that you do. It’s the story of the things you’ve done‘ reminded me of one of the most inspirational moments of this year’s SXSW – hearing Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes, tell the story of founding & growing the business, and revealing that from June 2011 it would no longer be just a shoe company, but a wider one-for-one business. His keynote was incredibly moving (quite a few moist eyes in the audience, I may have had some grit in mine too!) and it was absolutely inspirational to hear someone speak with such passion, and equally thrilling to hear about the success of his business given the one-for-one model that everyone thought would never succeed. For the uninitiated, TOMS is not a charity, but a for-profit company which (currently) sells shoes – whereby for every pair purchased, TOMS give a new pair to a child in need:

So far, TOMS have given away over 1m shoes to children all over the world. It’s pretty awe-inspiring stuff (their 2010 giving report is worth a look, as it’s totally full of win).

Mycoskie made it absolutely clear that it wasn’t the shoes that made the company such a success. It was the story behind the shoes. People weren’t just buying any old shoe, but they were buying into a movement. And the word-of-mouth generated as the company started to grow was incredibly powerful, and there’s no doubt whatsoever that this was because the purpose and story of giving was at the very heart of the company. People believed in its mission, and wanted to share it with others.

Putting giving at the heart of the business didn’t doom it to failure, as many naysayers said when it launched. It’s what made it is today. Firstly, because customers become your greatest marketers, because they have a story to tell, and secondly because it’s better for attracting and retaining employees, because people want to be part of something.

I also saw another lovely example of giving as central to a company’s business model, weirdly while randomly channel-hopping, and stumbling across a BBC3 programme called Working Girls, which happened to feature one of my earliest kindergarten friends, a girl called Priya Lakhani who I shared Sticklebrix with when I was 3. She’s now a very successful businesswoman, who jacked in a career in the law to set up her own company selling fresh curry sauces. Yes it’s great curry sauce, but it’s curry sauce with a difference. For every sale of a Masala Masala pot, a hot meal is given to a homeless person in India. This little startup has given away over 50,000 hot meals to people in need and business is booming.

Masala Masala has a four point charter about how the company intends to support people in India:

On the ground by giving away free meals, providing education to slum children, ensuring healthcare is available in the slums and supporting sustainability projects by lobbying governments

“I think it’s really important we mix corporate social responsibility with commercial enterprise. If I ever start up any more companies, which I hope to do, I’ll do the same thing,” Lakhani insists. “I won’t start up a business without an ethical arm attached to it,” she adds, defiantly.

People aren’t just buying the curry sauce, they’re buying the story behind the curry sauce, and the difference that can make. It’s a genuine point of difference, in a world where we’re bombarded with choices.

So many brands spend aeons trying to devise campaigns to create a sense of differentiation where there is in fact little to no difference between them and their competitors. I know, I’ve worked on them. It’s really not very satisfying.

Conversely it’s so delightful to see examples of brands which really do have genuine ‘reasons to believe’. What’s brilliant is that these are hugely successful, for-profit businesses. Giving as your business model isn’t just some naive happy-clappy ideal. It’s also not a token nod to CSR. It’s fundamental to the brand and business and something that provides true market differentiation. It gives people a reason to buy your product. It creates a story – a genuine story rooted in a fundamental truth, not a brand story created for an ad campaign – which people want to buy into, and share.

Good business is good for business. And how much more successful would brands’ campaigns be if there was a genuine story at the heart?

Week 35

Katy Lindemann — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:41:53 +0000

[ image courtesy ]

Week 35 – and 2011 is just flying by.

Over the last month, it’s all been go, with two juicy projects underway. Three days a week I’m working on a digital strategy project for Vodafone Ireland, mostly based at home in London with the odd visit to Dublin – it’s a cracking strategic brief, and really enjoying the opportunity to work really closely with a terrific client team across all aspects of their communication – not just brand comms but the really interesting questions around how best to deliver customer service via social channels.

The remaining two days, rather confusingly Wednesday and Thursday, are my Friday days. Friday being the marvellous We Are Friday team, a super smart and thoroughly lovely bunch of people, with whom I’m lucky enough to be working on a wonderfully meaty brief for HSBC. It’s getting me out of my comfort zone and getting me right in the thick of deep experience planning, working with a kick-ass UX planner and content strategist, involving lots of sketching, planning & prototyping which is both scary and awesome. One of the major motivations for going freelance was wanting to get stuck into really different kinds of planning – to be a planning sponge, soaking up different styles and ways of applying strategic and creative thinking to different kinds of problems (and developing different kinds of solutions). It’s absolutely wonderful to be thinking about designing experiences that will offer genuine utility and delight – giving people something they really want, instead of designing campaigns to sell them things they don’t. It’s great to have two days in the office with all the fun of office banter and the like – although as Friday towers is in the midst of deepest darkest Hoxton I’m seriously going to have to up my hipster game, though I fear the obligatory Shoreditch asymmetric hairdo & legwarmers may not be my best look….

The focus for the last 10 days has been the annual pilgrimage to SXSWi, which should probably be the subject of a separate post, but needless to say my mind has been truly boggled, my liver put through its paces and I’m still having meat sweats from an insane amount of incredible BBQ. I then had a fantastic few days holiday in San Francisco cheekily tacked on the end of my trip, with much fun and frolics with wonderful friends. And as it’s physically impossible for me to leave the US without a new pair of trainers, a rather spanking new pair of silver hi-tops as well.

In other news:

A project I worked on last year with the lovely folks at Rattle, originally codenamed Project Southwold, has soft launched in beta – and can now be revealed as Mr Fante’s House of Judgement. I know how hard the team have been working on it, so I’m really excited to see how it unfolds.

I also acquired a thoroughly delightful 11″ Macbook Air, which makes lugging a laptop round so much easier, it’s just a dream – though my 13″ Macbook Pro now seems enormous by comparison! Cloud-based services make working across two computers and keeping everything in sync totally seamless: thanks to all my documents syncing automatically via Dropbox; my contacts, calendars & local bookmarks syncing automatically across both machines & my iPhone via MobileMe, and all my email living in the cloud courtesy of Google Apps.

And finally, my attempt at a contribution to the rather marvellous Playlist Club went live – A Discoaholic’s 70s Guilty Pleasures

Drawing lives through magic

Katy Lindemann — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:58:47 +0000

Well, according to Keith Haring, who was a bit good at drawing:

Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.

I wrote a post a couple of years back singing the praises of good old fashioned pen and paper. And it seems the more advanced our technology the more we still continue to crave the lo-fi. We’re drowning under an onslaught of words, pixels and bytes, torrents of bits of digital information cascading through our lifestream every day. And so it seems we seek solace in the comfort of the old-fashioned, always reliable, analogue drawing lovingly crafted with paper and pen.

One of my favourite sessions at last year’s SXSWi was Visual Notetaking where such luminaries as Sunni Brown, Mike Rohde, Dave Gray and Austin Kleon shared their tips on the whys and hows of sketchnotes to capture and visualise information:

Visual Note-Taking 101 from SXSW 2010

I’m seething with envy and bursting with admiration for those talented individuals who can put this into practice. You’ve got professional outfits like Scriberia, who did a phenomenal job capturing everything at Good for Nothing:

And it’s an utter delight to see beautiful sketchnotes appear which capture events you’ve been to, like Eva Lottchen’s notes from The Story 2011:

The charm of hand-drawings is everywhere. Of course it never went away, but the more we embrace screens and gestural interfaces the more stark the contrast with good old pen and paper.

Also from The Story were some of my favouritest slides EVER, from Mary Hamilton on Zombie LARPs. If there’s ever a way to un-PowerPoint PowerPoint it’s hand drawn cartoons of zombies, surely?

Zombie LARP – a story machine

xkcd is one of the most successful webcomics around mainly because it’s fucking funny. But there’s no denying the stick figure drawings add no small degree of charm to the whole shebang.

Music videos too. I’m biased because it’s a video from one of my absolute most-loved musicians, and one of my favourite tracks from 2010, but I find the video for From Above (a collaboration, like the rest of the brilliant album Lonely Avenue, with Nick Hornby, who wrote the lyrics)

It might be bordering on twee, in fact, a lot of this might be unequivocally slap bang in the midst of twee, but I find it utterly charming and a really refreshing antidote to the rest of my highly rendered and pixellated life. They feel genuine, personal and real. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but more often than not I’d take a scribbled, lovingly crafted hand-drawing over a relentlessly over-optimised Photoshopped picture…

Week 30

Katy Lindemann — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:47:54 +0000

[ photo courtesy ]

Following other notes-ers, I think I’m going to switch from Weeknotes to Monthnotes as it’s what I seem to be ending up with mostly anyway. That said in the interests of keeping up the same numbering, because I’m a pedant, I’ll still be tracking time in weeks, just aiming to write up every month. Nothing like a cop-out, eh?

January ended up being not quite the month it was originally shaping up to be, as the digital strategy consulting project that was due to kick off at the start of the month ended up being delayed due to the joys of admin that needs to be processed to consult for a big multinational corporation based in another EU country. Although all the work is being done in the UK so no tax liability abroad, to tick the compliance box they require all contractors to go via a 3rd party – though being big global brand they also have big global brand standard payment terms of 90 days, so whilst the 3rd party contractor solution is necessary from their end, being able to operate under standard 30 days payment terms is invaluable from the standalone consultant point of view.

As wise sage Phil Gyford pointed out in his ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Freelancing‘ blog post (from a few years back but still v. much true today and exceptionally useful for anyone starting out), as a freelancer you are your own account manager, finance department, new business department, HR department and so on – and managing your cashflow is obviously hugely important. You definitely learn a lot, fast, but as it’s all for your own benefit I actually find it all pretty satisfying. Being an anal-retentive sort who is slightly obsessed with organisation, I really don’t find the book-keeping and general paperwork side of things too much of a chore, I’m actually quite enjoying learning the ins and outs of running my own business, especially as I made things official and set myself up as a Ltd company, and very recently needed to become a VAT registered business as well. The whole process is made infinitely smoother as a result of using the terrific FreeAgent for bookkeeping – it’s absolutely fantastic for the freelancer who’s after an accounting package that just works. Xero was recommended by several people but seems to be suited more to people running small businesses, and as FreeAgent is designed specifically for freelancers, it seemed to fit the bill exactly, and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. The UI is simple and elegant, it’s UK-native, it’s got really great time-tracking integration, the support (so far) has been clear and helpful – the only niggle is that unlike Xero, it doesn’t (yet) have direct bank account integration so you have to export your statements and upload them manually, but not a huge dealbreaker.

On the business side of things things are feeling even more ‘official’ with the development of a visual identity on the site, my business cards, invoices, letterhead and so on. All credit must go to the wonderfully talented David Lowbridge who developed a look and feel that I absolutely love, and which far exceeds anything I could have hoped for. My favourite part is the little logo which you can see in the footer of this page, the little ‘Seemingly Unconnected’ smiley: the name of the business (and this blog) comes from one of my favourite quotes, a William Plomer quote which I think is a lovely encapsulation of what we try to do as planners:

Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected

I adore ‘Faces in Places‘ (or charmingly, ‘little fellas‘) – joining together seemingly unconnected elements to spot faces in everyday objects – and the logo is very obviously inspired by these pictures, only in this case it’s the initials of the company that when you connect them together form a little fella. This site’s undergone a little bit of a fresh paint job to reflect the new colours, logos and so on, and I’m rather enjoying feeling like a ‘proper’ company with my beautifully designed (I can say this, as I didn’t design it!) matching branded bits and bobs.

So, admin aside, on the work front, the slightly late kickoff of aforementioned big global brand project was actually a blessing in disguise, as I’d also taken on a couple of other bits and pieces and had a horrible realisation that I thought I’d made a slight cock-up by over-committing myself. One of those was the development of a one-day course on ‘Understanding Social Media’ for the IPA with my co-pilot and partner in crime Jamie Coomber. It was intended as a basic primer to help account directors respond confidently with the right questions when clients do the ‘I want a Facebook / Twitter / insert latest shiny thing’ thing. We ran it on 9th Feb and the feedback from the attendees was really positive, so looks like we’ll be running it again later in the year, Rather gratifyingly, so the IPA tell us, the following day there was a request from an HR director who’d sent one of her flock on the course, asking when it would be run again as she wanted to send more people on it as the feedback had been so good. W00t!

Other ‘other thing’ was a rather nice little project helping out the very lovely folks from Addidi – a wealth management / financial services boutique who specialise in helping women create, invest and enjoy their money – with some brand strategy work to help them refine their proposition, to help inform the overhaul of their comms and marketing materials. Short and sweet, but a lovely brand to work on, run by very smart and inspirational people. Happy days.

Also on the plate as of this coming week, in addition to aforementioned strategy project, I’m going to be doing 2 days a week with the brilliant guys at Friday, doing some experience planning work on a really juice big financial services brand. One of my aims of going freelance was to broaden my experience by getting stuck into a wider variety of projects, learning new & different skills and being a bit of a planning magpie, so I’m really excited about getting my teeth into a more service-design orientated project.

In other news:

This Friday it’s the return of The Story (yes, another Conway Hall conference), which promises to be fantastic

I can’t believe it but it’s now less than a month to SXSWi. Judging by how quickly accommodation got snapped up, it sounds like it’s going to be even bigger than last year, which is nuts, as it was massive last year, even overtaking the music festival in terms of attendance numbers. An awful lot to do before then, but really looking forward to the Austin pilgramage, followed by a visit to San Francisco for a few days of chilling out and seeing friends.

Joined Playlist Club, a fab new initiative from Greg Povey and Marie Foulston – which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s open to all, so check it out and do sign up as a contributor if lovingly choosing and sharing a delightful selection of music is your bag. It’s my turn to curate a playlist in a few weeks time, and already getting playlist anxiety, especially as I’m in such esteemed company….

The It Gets Better Project

Katy Lindemann — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:54:45 +0000

There’s a lot of hype about the transformative power of social tools in driving political and societal change, and equal amounts of discourse busting some of the prevailing myths (Evgeny Morozov in particular, most stuff in one place at his Net Effect blog).

But regime change apart, what’s undeniable is how the ease of creating, sharing and remixing is making a real tangible difference to people’s lives on an individual level. And when that’s a lot of indviduals, it adds up to a whole lot more.

One of my favourite initiatives of last year, which continues to flourish, is the It Gets Better Project. I wish the project didn’t have a reason for being – it was started by columnist Dan Savage as a response to the suicide of teenager Billy Lucas, which had followed a tragic number of suicides by other teenagers who were bullied because they were gay, or because their peers suspected that they were gay.

Savage explained about the founding of the project:

“I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.”

And so, he and his partner of 16 years Terry Miller kicked things off with a video message to share their own experiences and their own message of hope to bullied teens, that it gets better:

It grew. Quickly. Over 200 videos were uploaded in the first week, and the project’s YouTube channel reached the 650 video limit in the next week. It’s now housed on its own website aggregating thousands of videos from users’ own channels, and includes more than 5,000 entries from people of all sexual orientations. A book is due to be published in March.

Scores of celebrities shared their stories of growing up LGBT and how it got better for them. Like Gareth Thomas, Jake Shears, Chris Colfer, Jane Lynch, Ellen Degeneres, Neil Patrick Harris.

Equally, tonnes of non-LGBT videos have been posted in solidarity – because bullying, prejudice and discrimination are issues that concern us all. Yes, this includes such luminaries as Janet Jackson, Ke$ha, Kim Kardashian, Jason Derulo, Eve, Joel Madden, – but whatever you may think of their ‘art’, these stars are popular and rightly or wrongly they have a lot of influence insofar as a lot of people listen to what they have to say. And so if they’re promoting a positive message like this, well, more power to them, frankly.

It was picked up in the UK by Stonewall and localised – It Gets Better Today – We Can Make It Happen. There’s a tonne of campaigning activity being led by Stonewall, including all the grassroots outreach and policy work you’d expect, but also rallying leading UK figures to support the campaign with their own video messages – including Theresa May MP, Diane Abbott MP, Lynne Featherstone MP, Ben Bradshaw MP, Lance Corporal James Wharton (member of the Household Cavalry who married his husband at his military barracks), Clare Balding, Rhona Cameron, Sue Perkins, Stella Duffy and Sarah Waters.

And yes, there’s a bit of bandwagon-jumping. But nevertheless, video messages from the likes of Barack Obama and David Cameron, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg (NY City Mayor) and Neelie Kroes (Vice President of the European Commission), amongst others, publicly stating their support for the campaign and the message it’s promoting, speaks volumes and in my mind can only be a good thing.

Same for companies. Google employees, Facebook employees and Pixar employees, amongst many others, shared their own experiences. (And obviously, the ad industry got involved too, with Razorfish employees making their own video too).

But there are also incredibly heartwrenching and deeply moving videos in support of the project – I’d urge you to watch this impassioned speech from Fort Worth City Councillor Joel Burns at a city council meeting – it’s a phenomenally inspiring message from a politician in a state not known for its tolerance, and has rightly earned a huge amount of media attention across the US:

And hundreds and hundreds of videos from people all over the world, sharing their own stories & messages of hope & inspiration.

And of course the idea gets remixed. And shared.

Like Rebecca Drysdale’s It Gets Better Music Video (this rocks):

And so it goes. And grows.

It’s not regime change, it’s not a Twitter revolution, but it’s real life. If it helps prevent one more needless suicide from a bullied teen, it’ll be pretty immense. Hopefully it will achieve much much more.

The web may just be a series of tubes, but those tubes connect real people. And that’s pretty awesome.

2010 Yearnote

Katy Lindemann — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:50:22 +0000

So, I got a bit behind on weeknotes. But as some of my esteemed weeknotes-ers (and non weeknotes-ers) have published yearnotes for 2010, I thought I’d wrap things up by doing the same. And in the spirit of being behind, I’m publishing this 2010 wrapup (and look forward to the year ahead) in 2011.

Blimey. 2010 was quite a year.

Last January, I wrote about a few things I wanted to try and achieve in the coming year.

I’ve not really done fantastically on the taking more pictures front. I’d need to check my Flickr stats: I reckon I’ve probably done better in 2010 than in previous years (thanks to my iPhone and the ease of uploading to Flickr) but definitely a ‘could do better’. I don’t know if I’d want to try and set myself the goal of a photo a day as I’d doubtless fail and then feel crap about it, but maybe a goal of a certain number of photos a week might be a good one to aim for. Anyway, ‘take more pictures’ still stands for 2011.

[ photo courtesy ]

Taking back control of my health. This was a biggy. I’d say this was probably the biggest of the year, and made for a lot of changes. The year started well, work was pretty quiet so I was going to the gym loads and not sitting too much, taking care of my back and taking less pain medication as a result. Then from about mid-Feb onwards it all got crazy busy again and the cycle started. Longer hours, more sitting on a broken bit of spine I’m not supposed to sit on for long periods of time, not going to the gym or physio or pilates or yoga or all the stuff I’m supposed to for better spinal health to help compensate for having had several vertebrae chopped out, more pain, more pain medication, generally feeling exhausted and utterly drained. By May, when I went away on a gruelling month of travelling round the world (5 countries in 4 continents in 3.5 weeks) running workshops for Coke, the pain and exhaustion came to a head and the wheels came off. Fainting due to low blood pressure because I was maxed out on pain medication was a wakeup call. I needed to make some changes. I couldn’t carry on like this. In trying to fight against the medical issues I wanted to pretend I didn’t have, I only made things worse.

So I made some changes. I’d been coming to the conclusion, somewhat independently of these goings-on, that it was time to move on from Naked – I’d had a phenomenal time there, working with some truly brilliant people, doing some fantastic work, but the time had come to move on. But whilst I’d assumed my next move would be another agency job, this wakeup call made me appraise things differently. I questioned what I wanted out of my work and my life.

I knew I wanted to be challenged and stimulated and creative and solve interesting problems and develop great strategic thinking to make awesome stuff. But I also wanted to get a better work/life balance and try to get my back condition more under control, so I was managing it, rather than it managing me.

[ photo courtesy ]

And lo, I went freelance. To use an analogy I’m quite fond of, instead of getting married again, I decided I wanted to date around, try out different people and places, rather than jump into another long-term relationship. To try out different stuff, broaden my experiences, learn new skills – and work more flexibly in doing so.

I can honestly say it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And huge credit must go to my incredible other half, who’s been my rock, always there, always supportive and I owe him a massive debt of gratitude for giving me the kick up the arse I absolutely needed to take the plunge and go for it. I’m so very glad I did. So thank you Simon, for helping me to open my eyes and realise what I really wanted, and for helping me to summon the courage to do it.

I’ve only been going 6 months but in that time I’ve worked with terrific agencies (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Profero) awesome studios (Rattle and Hypergame), and helped to launch a sustainability brand & service offering (Slow Home Studio). I’ve worked on a rich & rewarding variety of projects, been exposed to and worked with people with very different skillsets from whom I’ve been able to learn a tonne, and I very much hope to have started to make some good work.

When I set out on this freelance adventure, I did so with an open mind. I didn’t know if I’d try it for a few months or maybe even a few years, and ‘date around’ (to continue the very laboured analogy) until I worked out where I wanted to settle down again – or if this would be the way I worked from hereon in. I still don’t. But I do know that I’m thoroughly enjoying working freelance, and certainly I can’t see myself going permanent again any time in the foreseeable future – though who knows, that could of course change. All part of the adventure, right?

But it’s all got quite exciting. I’ve got some really awesome stuff coming together for 2011. Really diverse stuff I’d never have got the chance to do in one permanent job. Stuff where I’ll get to get excited and make things. I’ve set myself up as a company – so I now trade as Seemingly Unconnected Ltd. Which all seems terribly grown up. I’ve got branding and everything. Well, nearly. It’s just being finalised and will be getting rolled out pretty imminently, which I’m very chuffed about.

[ photo courtesy ]

And the rewards of going freelance haven’t just been work related. It’s had a huge impact on my health and the rest of my life. I broke my back and what’s left after surgery is buggered and the surgeons can’t fix it so the pain’s unlikely to ever go away but through better lifestyle choices I can learn to manage it better. And it really is better. Much better. I still have bad days but they’re a lot less frequent. And the bad days aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be. And I’ve able to manage my time to do all the stuff I’m supposed to do to look after my back -so my gym membership is finally getting used and my yoga’s coming on a treat.

Last year I posted this quote, from the School of Life’s How to Live Well in 2010:

Work to live, don’t live to work. Cleanthes, who was a Stoic philosopher and also known as the water-carrier, worked by night so that he could do philosophy by day. He was clear that he would work enough, and only enough, to support his real passion, the thinking and writing. His story is timely, for in a year that will be marked by more job insecurity and credit crises, it will be even easier to work so hard that you miss what you want.

I reckon that’s still pretty sage advice and something I want to work towards in 2011. Though I failed utterly miserably at this in the first half of 2010 – if anything, I went backwards – I made some really great strides forward from July onwards. Onwards and upwards for 2011, I hope.

[ photo courtesy ]

And the other stuff? I talked about wanting to do more of the stuff I wanted to do – whether that was fixing up our new house, going to interesting talks or visiting exhibitions. I made some progress on this in 2010, but I’m hoping to kick things up a gear in 2011 – but with the proviso that instead of trying to do everything, I try to be more selective and do the things I really want to do.

On the event front I’m really looking forward to The Story in Feb and SXSWi in Mar. And on the learning front, I’m really excited about signing up for an ‘Introduction to Product Design‘ evening course at Central St Martins – something totally new and different for me, and very much in the spirit of wanting to make more stuff. You have to bring felt tip pens and a craft knife and everything!

[ photo courtesy ]

Finally, for 2011, I definitely want to try and make more of an effort to listen to new music. It’s really quite shameful how little new music I listened to in 2010. I listen to the same old stuff, and I can’t even claim that I bought so few albums in 2010 because I was listening to everything on Spotify, because I wasn’t. Admittedly, I really got into podcasts (regular faves include Shift Run Stop, This American Life, TED talks, Savage Love, Guardian Tech Weekly, Desert Island Discs and In Our Time) so I’ve been listening to hardly any music full stop – but that which I did listen to was the same old stuff I’ve had for years. It’s not like I can’t find great recommendations for new music through Last.fm or Soundcloud or Spotify. I just need to actually listen to ‘em!

So, all in all, 2010 was a game of two halves. With the second half being a rather thrilling ride.

Here’s to 2011. Bring it on!

The Love-In of Big Doing

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:06:28 +0000

Bit late writing up, but wanted to give a shout out to the fantastic guys at Pipeline for their truly wonderful Good For Nothing creative collaboration hack day type shindig last weekend.

Last Saturday a group of planners, designers, writers, developers and other assorted smart folks got together for a day of doing.

The idea for the event was prompted by last year’s APG Battle of Big Thinking (link is to this year’s event, no archive for the 09 event). Tickets for the event are pricey. As I recall, they’re around the £600-700 mark. A room chock full of some of the biggest brains in the industry all gathered together in one room. And yes, there’s a lot of clever thinking shared. But the observation was made that thousands of pounds were spent to bring together all these super smart people and the result was quite a lot of hot air, a fair amount of navel gazing, and even more PowerPoint. It’s called the Battle of Big Thinking so we shouldn’t be really surprised. But the Pipeline guys couldn’t help but think this seemed like a missed opportunity. Imagine if all the people in the room had put their collective brain power to actually trying to solve some real problems, instead of just talking about it. And learn a lot by doing instead of just talking. And imagine if it didn’t cost the earth to do this.

Instead of just talking about it, they thought they’d do something about it. And so they dreamed up Good For Nothing. A “think/hack/do/creative collaboration challenge event thing”, bringing together a “large diverse group of talented people to work with grass-roots, cause-led social innovators in a playful, competitive, experiential experience”.

As a counterpoint to the Battle of Big Thinking, I thought it was more like a ‘Love In of Big Doing’.

And it was awesome. Really really ace. A fantastic way to spend a Saturday.

Three inspiring briefs: Global Generation, The Great Football Giveaway and The Good Gym.

(You don’t have to be a cause with a lot of Gs but it obviously seems to help)

I was on the team working on The Good Gym brief. Which was particularly lovely as I’d blogged about the Good Gym being a fantastic idea a few months ago, so was chuffed to bits to be working with the team on it.

We started the day with a bracing 3 mile round-trip run to an old folks daycare centre to go and put up their Xmas decorations. (I should add here that I don’t run. The last time I went running was cross country at school. And I was crap at it then. Add in a cracking hangover from the Profero Xmas party the night before and I was obviously primed for a Usain Bolt-style performance). We put up lots of tinsel and left their main hall looking a lot more festive than when we arrived.

Then we ran back to start the real work. We divided and conquered to try and tackle the brief from several fronts.

Some of the team looked at the website design and layout, and how this could be improved to create a better experience for the different groups the Good Gym’s seeking to engage. Designs were produced, we didn’t have time to implement it all in the time we had but we’re planning to pull together to help make this all go live.

Others looked at the leaflets they had and how they could be improved – and fully completed redesigns were worked up. When they next do a print run, they’ve got brand new designs ready to go.

Some incredibly smart developers worked on drafting a web app to enable runners to track their runs. There’s a tonne more work needed in this area, the guys did a brilliant job but we just didn’t have enough technical types to do the kind of work everyone wanted to do, but we’re really hoping the next event will have more developers, as there’s doubtless tonnes that can be done with existing run tracking apps and similar. So, all very exciting stuff.

I worked with a few people on the user experience and how we could try and improve the user journey. From the email signup process to the content on the site making the process simpler and clearer (e.g. they’ve now got FAQs) to thinking about ways we could keep momentum while the torturous CRB process was completed, including ideas for purposeful things like working with the guys at FixMyStreet so that runners waiting for their CRB to be processed could still have something ‘good’ to do.

We had a really great day. Everyone bonded, we felt like we’d accomplished a lot in a short space of time.

The whole day was also beautifully scribed:

[ photo courtesy ]

Huge thanks to the Pipeline crew for organising the whole thing. I love the philosophy behind Good for Nothing, which isn’t just going to be one-off event, it’s the start of a whole lot more, guided by the following principles:

1. Doing not talking

It’s not that hard to talk clever and think big and there’s an oversupply of that in our world. Too often big thinking doesn’t lead to big doing. We look around and see so much that needs doing. Roll up your sleeves and ‘fail gloriously’. Good for Nothing stands for the permission to have a go, get involved, participate and to try stuff.

2. Collaborate and experiment
Words we all hear a lot but true collaboration, where real diversity and openness is welcomed, where we let go of power and control, where we self organise and allow ideas and energy to emerge more naturally and where we prototype and develop them rapidly. We want to do more of that.

3. Support the true innovators
Give creative energy to the real innovators trying to make positive change happen. When we look around for social, environmental and human innovation, a lot of the most exciting stuff is happening at the grass-roots. We provide creative support to those pioneers. We think that can help accelerate positive change and impact.

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about how important it is for planners to make stuff. See Mark Pollard’s Why strategists should make stuff and Willsh’s The Planners Book of Things To Make for starters.

I couldn’t agree more – thinking is great, but only in so far as it informs great do-ing.

A little less talk and a little more action. Bring it on.

Week 18

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:57:55 +0000

[ photo courtesy ]

Just a short one, mainly because as is the nature of weeknotes, there’s lots of stuff going on I can’t really talk about (yet).

Work at Profero continues apace, the big pitch-esque workshop we were prepping didn’t end up happening, but as the client decided to appoint Profero to lead digital strategy, we’re able to just crack on with the work. Which is nice.

On a sadder note, however. Kahlua, Profero’s Head Reptile, who I mentioned in my last weeknote, passed on very quietly – he’ll be much missed by everyone in the office.

It’s nearly December – where the hell has 2010 gone? So, being conscious of the fact that I’m at Profero till Xmas, I’m starting to have lots of meetings & discussion with various people & organisations about work for January onwards. And because I don’t want to jinx anything, I don’t want to say anything until they’re respectively confirmed, but all super interesting stuff and pretty stoked about how 2011 is starting to shape up if they come off. Not very interesting for you, dear reader, but, er, watch this space. Exciting times!

Style over Substance

Katy Lindemann — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:41:06 +0000

[ photo (c) CaptureInfinityPhotos ]

Last week was Internet Week Europe and it was a pretty full-on week of various events and talks, lots of brain fodder and food for thought. One of the events was the Creative Social’s The Future of Advertising, featuring several members of Creative Social musing on their vision of the future of advertising.

The very talented Flo Heiss discussed how he was getting fed up of the relentless focus on participation and that actually he wanted to get back to making beautiful stuff.

I’m all for beauty. Beauty is great. But whilst making beautiful stuff is the purpose of art, I’m not sure that’s what the purpose of advertising is supposed to be (or what I actually think everyone really meant when they talked about ‘advertising’, ‘brand communication’ – which is I think much bigger than the world of advertising.) I think when it’s done well, making something beautiful can be a very desirable and wonderful by-product. But surely it shouldn’t be the goal. Making something that solves the client’s problem should be the goal, surely?.

I’m sure that this was intended to be absolutely implicit in what Flo was saying, and the reason he didn’t spell it out was that he took it as read, because he’s a smart fella. But form over function, and style over substance, is something we see all too often in brand communication, and I’m not sure that the industry is set up to value work that works over work that’s beautiful.

Whilst winning an IPA Effectiveness Award rightfully carries massive kudos, it still doesn’t seem to have the same prestige within the industry as a Cannes Lion or D&AD pencil. Effectiveness isn’t yet as sexy as creativity. At least, that’s my take on how they appear to be perceived by the industry as a whole (although I’m sure amongst clients and planners it’s unsurprisingly valued the other way around).

Creativity is the lifeblood of our industry. Great ideas that excite and engage are what it’s all about. And it’s right to reward that.

But making something beautiful shouldn’t be the end goal. And if it’s beautiful but doesn’t actually work towards achieving a given brand or business objective, if the work doesn’t actually work, I don’t think it’s right to fetishise it. And yet the industry does.

Take Cadbury’s Gorilla, which cleaned up at the awards. It was the industry’s obsession of 2008. You couldn’t move for plaudits lauding the work. It’s reported that it did a great job in driving brand engagement. And it apparently helped to sell more chocolate bars in the immediate period following the campaign. But ultimately, brand perceptions are only really valuable insofar as they ultimately make a difference to the business and the bottom line. And Cadbury’s Dairy Milk lost market share to Galaxy. I don’t know the full details but from what I can tell from the details published, Gorilla was fantastically fun, a great piece of creative work, but the work didn’t ultimately work as well as Galaxy’s. It might have Gorilla might have got the creative community wetting themselves, but it didn’t translate into business success.

I’m all for making beautiful things, and I want our industry to be a hive of creativity and brilliant ideas. But if these ideas aren’t helping to solve the given problem, whilst they might be absolutely stunning examples of artistic and creative expression, they’re fundamentally not doing their job as a means of brand communication.

I hope the future of brand communication is chock full of beautiful work. But I’m much more interested in really effective work that happens to be beautiful – and personally I’m much more excited by elegant and beautifully designed services and products that DO rather than beautiful ads that simply SAY.

No one but you marks this exam

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:13:14 +0000

[ photo courtesy ]

My younger brother passed his professional exams last week and is now officially a chartered surveyor. He is by far the most academically qualified member of the family which is a source of great amusement to us all because until he got to finals of his undergraduate degree he would be the first to admit he was the laziest bugger around, scraping Bs, Cs and Ds when he was actually capable of much more (whilst I was the anally-retentive over-achiever who wouldn’t get anything less than an A*)

Anyway, he went on to prove us all wrong and got his BA (Hons), went on to get an MSc in his chosen field, and has just added his MRICS professional qualification to his long list of letters. Well done David, you done good.

We are also not a very sentimental family. We don’t go in for schmaltz and fluff. Gallows humour and merciless pisstaking is more our style.

But my dad sent a lovely bit of fatherly advice to my brother, and then to me, which I thought was pretty sage wisdom and generally useful words to live by. Brought a bit of much-needed perspective:

GCSEs pass
A Levels pass
Undergraduate degree pass
Masters degree pass
MRICS pass

Now only one more thing but it actually is the most important

LIFE. PASS

Sure you will continue to make your parents very proud and have a fantastic life ahead

Enjoy the next 50 years

No one but you marks this exam

Some wisdom from my darling dad that I thought was pretty good stuff – hope it’s useful to you.

No one but you marks this exam.

Metaphwoar! How Great Planning is like Cooking

Katy Lindemann — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:36:30 +0000

So it’s Internet Week Europe and boy is it a busy one. I’m being a total event slut and have got something every evening. I’ve just got back from Canvas8′s Hacking Innovation event with Josh Klein & Bill Jensen, authors of Hacking Work; tomorrow it’s The Future of Advertising from Creative Social, then Friday it’s Speedboats & Supertankers at W+K, exploring how digital artists can work with advertising agencies; followed by Protein Forum 7 about Data Visualisation. Phew.

Last night was Metaphwoar!, a fantastic event conceived by the brilliant Andy Whitlock and hosted by Poke, which was all about celebrating metaphors as a way of changing perspectives. Andy got a terrific bunch of people to speak, but let himself down by asking me if I wanted to join them – still, no-one’s perfect. I decided to spend my 10 mins exploring how and why I reckoned great planning is like cooking. Which is a bit ironic considering one of my opening remarks was the confession that I’m a really crap cook. But I’m fascinated by what makes people good cooks, and thought there were lots of similarities with what we try to do as planners – the evening was filmed and I think videos should be up next week, but in the mean time I’ve popped the talk up on Slideshare (embedded below) but it’ll make loads more sense with the v/o so I’ve also posted up the full talk with notes

Katy Lindemann – Metaphwoar! – Why great planning is like cooking

View more presentations from Katy Lindemann.

Week 15

Katy Lindemann — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:36:20 +0000

[ image courtesy ]

Week 15 and playing catchup.

Work at Profero continues apace, working on a mix of stuff, including Change4Life, prepping a global strategy workshop for a big FMCG brand, and some brand planning work for a large global financial services new launch. Lots of different stuff, variety is good.

I mentioned before how much I’m enjoying working with a really mixed bunch of people with different skills, and how much I’m learning from working alongside UX designers, creatives, developers, search specialists, media planner/buyers, account managers, producers etc. And in fact the last two are particularly interesting from a very practical point of view – at both PHD and Naked although my role was as a planner/strategist, by the same token we also managed client relationships, ran our respective pieces of business, managed projects we were working on etc. I’ve not worked in teams with account managers and / or project managers & producers, and I have to say it’s a really awesome change! I’m able to spend my time planning, and whilst I work really closely with them, it’s absolutely fantastic to not have to juggle several different roles, and to focus on the bit I really enjoy (and what ultimately my job is supposed to be about). It still feels like quite a luxury to be able to be ‘just’ a planner and not have to worry about writing a scope of work or going through an hours analysis reconciliation to discuss a fee negotiation with a client. I’m really glad I’ve got some experience of partially wearing these different hats, but the one I really want to wear is the planning & strategy hat, so I feel pretty spoiled at the moment!

Another very valued member of the team at Profero is Kahlua, Head Reptile (his official agency headshot, done in the house style):

Yep, he’s the office gecko. He lives in a tank in the office and mostly spends his days sleeping, occasionally grabbing one of the locusts wandering around his tank when he decides it’s dinner time. He does come out for the occasional mooch around the desks and is very friendly. He’s shedding at the moment and got his brand new season’s outfit on:

His last creative brief was so-so, but we’ll bring it up in his next appraisal.

Profero work is Mon-Thu and Fridays are my ‘other stuff’ day, which recently has been more work with the Rattle guys on Southwold, and also a spot of comms strategy for James Wallis’ new company Hypergame, for their v exciting new game that’s in development. All good stuff. Been thinking about future stuff for Jan onwards as well, got some bits hopefully lined up and some most excellent plotting and plan-hatching with the brilliant Thayer Prime, which should all be v. interesting…

So, been busy, but a good busy – feeling stimulated and inspired by the work I’m doing, but also getting a healthy balance and enjoying a life outside work. Which was one of the aims of going freelance, to be able to strike a better balance – and so far, so good.

Since my last weeknote, I attended the really fantastic 2Screen, which explored the wonderful stuff that happens when you mash up telly and the web, featuring Matt Locke talking about Attention Shapes, Margaret Robertson talking about designing for attention, Tim Morgan & Utku Can in a face-off over Picklive & LivePitch and Kevin Slavin introducing Starling.tv. A thoroughly excellent evening, and the fact that the ticket purchases raised £2,540 for Pakistan Flood relief was icing on the cake. Last week I also went to The Future of Mobile at the RSA – usually the RSA events are really good brain-fodder, but this one was a (fortunately rare) real disappointment, being mediocre at best. Simon Kendrick’s written up his thoughts on the evening – I’d say his account was much more useful than the hour or so spent at the RSA!

In other news, it was my birthday, and Simon got me some terrific books he knew I wanted – I’ve had Edward Tufte’s Envisioning Information and Bill Moggridge’s Designing Interactions on my ‘must-read’ list for ages. And I’m hoping that Nancy Duarte’s Slide:ology will help me continue to wage the war against bad Powerpoint & Keynote.

We also saw A Town Called Panic which is the most insanely bonkers crazynuts film I’ve ever seen. I totally bloody loved it. I slightly worry that I might have hallucinated it, but even if I did, it was awesome.

Looking forwards, the fantastic chaps at Pipeline, including my old Naked mucker Dan Burgess, have organised Good for Nothing, a fantastic idea which I’d urge you to support if you can:

We wondered what if there was an event which invited people to do stuff together?

With people who really need some help with live challenges.

And don’t have money.

It’s called good for nothing.

One day.

Some awesome causes.

An open space in EC1.

And hopefully a room full of lovely people.

Doing stuff.

Together.

For nothing.

3 live briefs.

They include running, kids, urban gardening, city business, elderly people, christmas, football and more.

8 hours.

We shall be posting the briefs and more details shortly.

Right now we’re looking for people to attend.

We need strategists, developers, designers, creative sorts, hackers, photographers, writers, film makers, bloggers, getting stuff done folk and that’s just for starters – basically anyone that wants to get stuck in is welcome.

We’ll feed and water everyone.

There’ll be music

And laughter.

Maybe some dancing

You can register here

Hoping lots of you smart folks decide to join in too.

Promises Promises

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:39:17 +0000

So NatWest have been making a big song and dance of late about their new Customer Charter

You see, they take the notion of their ‘brand promise’ very seriously, and want to make sure they actually deliver on this. Oh yes. They say so themselves, so it must be true:

You see when we say ‘Helpful Banking’, we want to make sure it really is.

They say the charter’s a public promise to become Britain’s most helpful bank. It’s got lovely-sounding promises- and my, don’t they sound sincere?

We are committed to making banking easy
We are committed to helping when you need us
We are committed to supporting the communities we work in
We are committed to listening

Except that it’s all well and good to promise something, but if you’re going to make a song and dance about how much you want to BE helpful, instead of just saying you’re helpful, you might do well to see if you can actually deliver on the promises you’re making.

I’m a NatWest customer. Like most people, I’ve never bothered moving my current account – I got my first bank account at NatWest (yes, I wanted the pig-shaped piggy banks they gave out, my loyalties were easily-bought back then) and it always seemed too much hassle to move.

I personally don’t find them the most helpful bank. In fact, I keep coming up against fairly simple things I’d like them to do that other UK high street banks offer their customers, and they seem not to be able to do anything about it.

Take travelling abroad. Earlier this year I was travelling a lot for work. Lots of countries I’d never been to before, so fair enough a withdrawal in Buenos Aires out of the blue probably looks a bit dodgy. So they block my card. We’re running late, we need to get in a cab to get to the meeting, and I can’t get cash out. Luckily my colleague’s able to help out, and we make it in time.

So I call NatWest to unblock the card, and say, OK I’m going to be travelling a lot over the next few weeks, if I tell you where I’m going to be, can you log it on the system so when I do try and use the card in these places, you don’t block me and I then have to spend a fortune calling your call centre to get it unblocked. You know, like other card providers do. No, they say, there’s nothing they can do. Even if they put it on the system, it’ll still block the card – nothing they can do, it’s just the way it works. So every country I go to, the card’s blocked, and I have to call them again. Racking up a whopping phone bill in the process.

Ah, they say, it’s for your own protection. To stop fraud, they say. It’s for your own good. But, I say, Lloyds don’t automatically block you. If you use your card abroad which triggers the system to think there’s some kind of ‘abnormal activity’ on your card, it sends you a text and asks you to respond if that transaction was in fact you, or if it was some shady fraudster. If you say it wasn’t you, the card’s blocked. If you don’t respond, they block it as a precautionary measure. But if it is you, you simply send back a text, they don’t block your card, and you can carry on using it.

Ah, well, sorry we don’t offer that. Would you consider it, I say – it’s a lot more customer friendly, and it only costs me the price of a text instead of the time and expense of trying to get my card unblocked, as well as actually letting me withdraw cash, which is, y’know, its intended purpose. I don’t know, they say, it’s really not my decision.

So bouncing round the world, my card kept getting blocked. Hoorah. Thanks NatWest – who very helpfully said ‘yes we know it’s annoying but it’s the system, there’s just nothing we can do, it’s the fraud protection, you see’. Very helpful banking indeed.

Or getting a new card. Like most people I go to work, when they send out a new card NatWest require it to be signed for, usually via a courier company. For ‘security reasons’ they won’t send it to my work. They can only send to my home. But I won’t be there, I say. Sorry, they say, it’s the rules. So they deliver the card to my home, leave a card that says ‘Sorry you weren’t in’ and I can have the delivery redelivered to my work – as long as I have photo ID when I sign (in fact, I can even give the receptionist my driving licence and she’s allowed to sign on my behalf). So it ends up at my work, where I wanted it to be, but it’s had to go through two courier journeys, instead of one, which is a waste of time, money, and petrol. If NatWest let me just skip step 1 and go straight to step 2, which shows it patently IS possible to get it delivered to my work as long as I have the right ID to ensure security, I would get my card quicker, it would cost them less and it would reduce emissions of a courier driving around town for a journey we’ve established up front will be unnecessary.

But they can’t do that. Sorry madam, it’s just the rules. So very very helpful.

So I ask about other options. Could I have the card delivered to a branch, and I’ll collect it there? Oh yes madam, we can do that – but it has to be your ‘home’ branch. My home branch is still back in Manchester, because I never bothered to change the ‘home’ branch as there never seemed any need to do so, as I do all my banking online. I offer to bring in photo ID, name signed in blood, first born child, whatever it takes to get the sodding card, but no, they can’t do this. But Lloyds let you collect a card from a branch that isn’t your home branch, I say, why can they do this but you can’t? Er, we don’t know madam, I’m afraid your options are to have the card delivered to your home or your home branch – oh and while you’re on the line, would you be interested in hearing about any of our other products we’d love to sell you.

So, NatWest you’re far from the most helpful bank. It’s lovely that you’re giving time to community projects and offering MoneySense classes to schools, really it is. But you’re my bank. I want you to get the banking bit right. And my experience of you is that you really aren’t very helpful at all. And especially not the most helpful bank when you refuse to offer services that would make my banking experience unquestionably better, that other high street banks appear to be able to offer without any real problems. So not really doing too well on that ‘Britain’s most helpful bank’ bit, are you?

And it’s not just me:

Natwest, one of two banks that taxpayers rescued in the credit crunch, is turning over a new leaf with its customer charter and it is making sure that everyone knows it is committed to becoming ‘Britain’s most helpful bank’.

But helpful isn’t the word that some critics are using to describe Natwest, part of Royal Bank of Scotland.

Instead, they accuse the bank of using its new customer charter as a smokescreen to hide bad news.

Although the charter pledges to extend opening hours at Natwest’s busiest branches and maintain ‘banking services’ where it is the only bank left in a community, the critics say it omits to mention that simultaneously it is axing small branches while reducing hours in other, mainly rural, branches.

[ Critics turn on NatWest's customer charter ]

And it’s all well and good spending millions on flashy ad campaigns pledging your commitment to working towards Britain’s most helpful bank, but it’s ever so slightly undermined if this doesn’t come from the heart of your business and developed from the inside out (Justin Basini wrote a fantastic post about this a while ago, which I’d heartily recommend).

Yes, I know I really should get off my arse and change my current account if I’m so unhappy with NatWest (hello inertia!).

We all know that a brand promise is usually that and we’re used to brands failing to deliver against it. And this is probably more of a rant than a particularly enlightening post, as should we really be surprised that NatWest’s grand claims are just that?

But wouldn’t it be nice, wouldn’t it be just awesome, if a brand actually did what it said it would, eh?

Week 12

Katy Lindemann — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:47:38 +0000

[ image courtesy ]

Week 12 and the time is flying by. But in a good way. I’m into my third week at Profero, and really enjoying the variety of different briefs and particularly getting the chance to work with great people who I’m learning loads from. It’s really different to be applying strategic insights much closer to the executional process rather than the very high level, more conceptual work I was doing at Naked. Not that one is better than the other mind, just different. And different is good. The ASOS iPhone/iPad brief has been really challenging as we’ve been wrangling between the vision for the kind of interactions and experience we want to develop – and we know the user (and client) would want – and the realities of what’s going to be technically possible in the shorter term, and building upon existing legacy systems. But that’s all part of the process, and just means we have to think about how we phase these ideas, balancing pragmatism with more visionary concepts. I’ve been learning tonnes from brilliant UX designers and an incredible content strategist who’s got a fantastic background in both print and digital publishing and experience design, so it’s all very rewarding.

Andy Whitlock very kindly asked me if I’d be up for speaking at an event he’s curating for Poke as part of Internet Week Europe. It’s called Metaphwoarh! – because metaphors – and changing perspectives through metaphors – are sexy. Really looking forward to seeing the other speakers do their thing, although this does mean I actually have to prep my bit. It’s going to be held on 7th November, and it’s free, so if you fancy some beers and some food for thought from some cracking speakers (and me), it’d be lovely to see you (RSVP details on the site).

Last week also saw a lovely catchup with Toby about Chromaroma and other bits ‘n’ bobs, and a cracking afternoon of brain fodder at CityCamp. Project Southwold with Rattle is forging on, and really looking forward to seeing the results of this week’s game testing.

[ image courtesy ]

In summary – getting excited and (being part of a team that) makes things – not quite as snappy as Mr Jones’ lovely design & slogan, but it’s where I’m at. Good times.

Stack – Magazines that Matter

Katy Lindemann — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:08:25 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write about the wondrousness that is Stack for ages, and because I’m rubbish I’m only just getting around to it now.

Stack rocks. Fact. It’s really awesome, and one of those ideas that is so brilliant you wonder why no one thought of it before (as is always the way with the very best ideas).

In their own words:

Stack is a unique service that brings together the best independent English language magazines from around the world and delivers them direct to your home. Beautifully made and offering an intelligent, alternative view of films, music, art and whatever else crosses their pages, they guarantee a fresh perspective on the world. Every Stack delivery is a surprise – you never know what you’re going to get next, but you do know that it will be an excellent independent magazine that you probably wouldn’t otherwise have found.

As Mr Terrett observed, it exposes you to things you wouldn’t necessarily have come across, or chosen for yourself. As I mused in a blog post a while ago, the double edged sword of our increasingly on-demand and personalised media world is that we end up being exposed to only the things we’re already interested in, and as a result often lose the magic of serendipity.

Discovering things you wouldn’t otherwise have stumbled across – and actually in many cases probably wouldn’t have actively chosen – is essential. If we only read, watch or experience the things we know, it’s safe, and comfortable, and you don’t really learn about new stuff. Froma planner’s perspective, as Mr Davies pointed out, it’s massively important to be interested in order to be interesting (and arguably just as important to be an interesting person, planner or not).

Stack makes discovery easy. It quite literally brings it to your doorstep – it doesn’t get much easier than that. It’s a cracking idea and one I’d heartily recommend. Here are just some of the cracking publications that have come to my doorstep over the last few months – which I’d never have otherwise discovered:

Fire & Knives

The place where serious food writing and beautiful graphic design meet, Fire & Knives is a new food magazine made by London-based writer and editor Tim Hayward. Big name contributors like Matthew Fort and Tom Parker Bowles will be familiar from the Sunday supplements, but in Fire & Knives they get to write about the aspects of food that fascinates them. Combining food with film, architecture, history, literature and much more, it’s an eclectic and impassioned exploration of British food culture.

Fire & Knives [Stack Feature]

Manzine

Made by a group of seasoned men’s magazine writers, editors and designers, it’s their attempt to get past the focus groups and the aspirational advertising and create a magazine for the bloke down the pub

Manzine [Stack Feature]

VNA (Very Nearly Almost)

With its hundreds of pictures of graffiti, stencils, paste-ups and tags, Very Nearly Almost (VNA) is a snapshot of the art on our streets. It’s inevitably controversial, but fascinating to see the work being done in different cities around the world, and to hear from the people creating graffiti at a time when ‘the Banksy effect’ is beginning to drag it into the mainstream.

VNA [Stack Feature]

Postr

Postr Belgian magazine designed as an A1 poster and distributed free around selected sites in Belgium and the Netherlands

Postr [Stack Feature]

‘SUP

‘SUP, the inventive, ultra-cool trans-Atlantic music magazine. Started 12 years ago by editor Marisa Brickman and going stronger than ever, it’s full of clever design ideas and refreshingly unpretentious writing.

‘SUP [Stack Feature]

Anorak

It calls itself ‘The happy mag for kids’, but really that’s just Anorak being modest. It should call itself ‘The happy, cool, clever mag for kids and grown ups and anyone else who likes to see a good story told in an interesting and innovative way’.

Anorak [Stack Feature]

Under/current

Provocative, disruptive and intelligent, Under/current is a brilliantly original arts magazine that mixes in fashion, music, literature and lots of photography. It takes itself very seriously, but it carries the reader along with it as it investigates themes such as ‘Downfall’ and ‘Dawn’, gathering an eclectic range of work and taking the time and space to properly explore its meaning on the page.

Under/current [Stack Feature]

If that’s whetted your appetite (and I hope it has), why not give it a whirl and try Stack for yourself.

Week 10

Katy Lindemann — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:40:20 +0000

[ photo courtesy ]

Bloody hell, how did it get to week 10? I’ve clearly not been keeping them weekly, but as that’s because I’ve been busy with good stuff to feed my brain, hopefully that’s no bad thing. The thing you’re most afraid of when you leave the comfort of a monthly salary for the brave new world of freelance is of course will I get enough work? And also if part of the reason for leaving the safety of permanent employment is to get variety and explore different opportunities, there’s aso the question of will I get the right work – stuff that interests me, the stuff I want to be doing? And so being behind on weeknotes because the answer to those questions is yes and yes, then that can’t be too bad.

Project Alberta has pretty much been wrapped up – thanks to some sterling team work and particularly excellent work by my partner in crime John Connell, the work’s been delivered to the client, who’s really happy – we just have our closing review call to answer any final questions. Because the client’s in Canada, all of our meetings have been via their very whizzy web-based video conference software Elluminate, which has been a huge help in the absence of face to face meetings.

One of the other questions you have as a freelancer is will I get paid? Happily, I’ve so far had the satisfaction of all invoices issued being paid on time, which I’m making sure I don’t come to expect, but it’s been very gratifying to kick things off on a positive note.

I’d not been working in an office since leaving Naked at the end of June, but this week I started a 3-month contract at Profero, where I’ll be spending 4 days a week until Christmas. One of the aims of being freelance was to get explosure to different agencies and organisations, different ways of working, and to soak up as much as possible from these opportunities. Profero have a lovely agency proposition: ideas that people can belong to – which is most definitely a point of view that strongly resonates with me. And the chance to work in a full service digital agency is already offering me new opportunities I’ve never had before. For a start, we’re making stuff. I’m working with creatives, UX specialists, developers, designers, project managers….all very different from my experience at both PHD and Naked, and it’s awesome to be able to soak up so many different points of view and areas of expertise.

I’m working on a cracking brief for ASOS, which is a brand I both adore personally and hugely admire professionally, and it’s a totally different experience to be applying strategic insights directly to a development process to stuff that’s actually being made, rather than at the high level, more conceptual strategic level I’d been working at whilst at Naked. It’s brilliant to be able to sit in a working session and absorb so much new stuff, process, thoughts, ways of working – this whole journey was about learning and exploration, and so far it’s shaping up very nicely. As well as ASOS, I’m working on a mobile brief for J&J Skincare and will be prepping an innovation session to inspire the M&S client team about digital innovation in retail. So far, so good.

Friday is my non-Profero, other stuff day, so today I’m cracking on in earnest on the bits I’m doing to help input to Project Southwold with Rattle. Also hopefully going to be doing a bit of thinking for Rebel Alliance, which is all very interesting.

In other news, last week I joined Jamie Coomber, Le’nise Brothers & Graeme Wood on a panel representing the IPA to discuss different ways that brands can take advantage of social media at a conference put on by an organisation called the Social Media Academy on Thursday 23rd, then spent the following day at Conway Hall for the utterly delightful Playful 2010. Playful was a cracking day, too much to write up here, especially when others have done so already so eloquently, but one of my highlights was Sebastian Deterding’s self-described “grumpy talk on ‘badge measles’ and the confusions, side effects and missing parts of gamification”: Pawned: Gamification and its discontents. I also had a couple of moments on the stage as part of the What the Foursquare? panel, which was marvellous fun, and which I’ve written up in greater detail in the previous post. A good time was had by all (and we inadvertently started the rumour that Dominik Diamond had died, sparked by his sudden appearance amongst trending topics, all the result of his appearance on a live recording of Shift Run Stop. Oops.)

And obviously, I still haven’t seen Inception.