You either loved her or you hated her or had no opinion on her really

Is it possible to execute a sombre high-five? Cause DDB will have to try:



Rest in peace, Jade. You were the thin, bitter spread on the toast of the national consciousness. Apparently.

Antisocial Networking

People Of The Now 7: Ryan

A cold Thursday in Clapham, 1:30am.

Ryan: Nice, innit?
Me: Mm! If you like cigarette holders, I guess.
Ryan: Press that button on the side, right? And the lid flips open.
Me: Wow! That is pretty nice.
Ryan: Got it from a charity shop...
Me: Good man. I wonder if they've seen an increase in the trade in the, uh-
Ryan: In the present climate, yeah mate. Well I stole it.
Me: You stole from a charity shop? Isn't that a bit, well, cannibalistic?
Ryan: I only stole it for a joke, like. But I was in there an' I saw this TV and DVD combi, right? Combi. And it was yellow, which is my favourite colour.
Me: Bargain if you have somewhere to put it. Like a house.
Ryan: Well I thought it was £25 cause that's what the label said, but then the woman said that it was the other TV was 25, a grey thing.
Me: Bastards. A bait-and-switch.
Ryan: ...so I bought that one, and sprayed it yellow. Looks proper professional!
Me: Hey, nice one man. I mean that.
Ryan:...so anyway, you sure you haven't got any change?
Me: Sorry buddy. Oyster only tonight. Good luck with that though. Take care of yourself.

**entry censored by Chinese Government. Thankyou for your cooperation**

After a heady bout of research at the British Library, a spare half an hour found me at the Taking Liberties exhibition. If documents outlining the intricacies of curtailments of feudal nobility give you a hard-on (on whatever happens to you if you happen to be female), this is for you. It was at times a little difficult for me to invest the old parchments with the sense of awe they deserved, but the copy of Magna Carta and the materials on female suffrage were quite arresting, as they obviously were to everyone else.

Moreover, kudos to whoever curated this and wrote the accompanying copy for making all the exhibits relentlessly relevant to today. It worked - I saw a couple studying the Laws of The Forest as they pertained to 42-day detention (or something), with the following exchange:
-Terrible, isn't it. So unconstitutional.
-...actually... I don't agree with you.
-What?
-...I just don't. I'm...sorry!

They rounded the corner at that point, but I like to think that the debate didn't end there, as it so often does in the real world.
Like the best adverts, the entire setup was designed to seize you and force you take a stance on what you saw. Everyone gets a wristband which they scan at various terminals, at which point they have the opportunity to 'vote' on various issues. This had the beautiful Huxleyan side-effect of reducing the individual to a number:

Best of all, these responses were aggregated in real-time, and available to view at a final, big-screen terminal at the end of the exhibition. The results were presented in a visually pleasing, almost artistic way, and almost made me go back in to vote for what I missed, which has to be a first for an exhibition. And, apparently you can continue your barcoded interaction online afterwards. The voting system was elegant in its simplicity, and makes me wonder why this hasn't been fully realised in the experiential world yet. Not the the seeds aren't there: voting at the co-op tills always makes me smile, and mine was one of the families that went mad for supermarket self-scan then promptly ditched it once the novelty wore off. When the synthesis is realised in the marketing sphere (and make no mistake, all the technology is there and affordable), we could see some really exciting developments. I can't wait to shout "I am not a number!" and mean it for a change.
A couple of final observations before I go enjoy the sun:
-In almost all cases, I voted for the wet-blanket wishy-washy middle option on the terminals. Is this a product of middle-class handwringing? Because it kinda pissed me off. Or is it a result of the proliferation of media meaning that we overdebate the issues, and can't take a side? Tough to say. Aww, I just did it again, huh.
-This child (?) has it right:

-Apt, Neil :)
Happy weekend, everyone! Go picket something...

People of the Now 5 - Uno

On the train home yesterday, there is a man reading a book entitled Plane Flight, a couple of seats away. I put down my copy of American Psycho and look up...

Me: Can you... fly planes?

Uno: Mmhmm. Small ones only. You need a special license for each size though.

M: That's... so cool. Living out a childhood dream.

U: Well, and I'm an engineering student so I have that to fall back on.

M: Wow... I just do marketing and ads and stuff. I kinda wanted to be a journalist at one point.

U: You seem a bit like a paparazzi!

M: If only. Being a pap would be pretty good. I was told when I was very young that getting into journalism was next to impossible, so...

U: Ah but that was other people's experience. If you only rely on other people's experience you can never know if you were able to do it. Abraham Lincoln said, "Failure is not a signal to give up. It is a signal to try again".

M: Right on! You never know, huh? I might be a paparazzi one day yet.

U: It's funny you should say that. You know Alexandra from the last Big Brother?

M: Uhm. Yes?

U: I got through to the end.. but my police check didn't come through in time. She was my stand-in.

M: Oh what?

U: Yeah well, you know. I'm gonna apply next year.

M: Can they... fast-track you or something?

U: They said not.

M: Bastards. Don't give up.

[heavily edited]

Tip of the Year

"You never know."

Generally, it's said when someone tries to sell you insurance, or when you can't decide whether to pack an umbrella.

But this sentiment is most true with people. And in the best way possible. If I were to digest my experiences from a year down into a single aphorism (yeah just the one, beat that School Of Life) it would be that You have no idea what 99% of people are like - and if you ask you'll be pleasantly surprised 99% of the time.

You might think that this is a comment on how adpeople are just so very interesting, dear, but that's missing the point. If anything its more interesting to hear stories from people who haven't polished them so effectively. They have truths that won't show up in ACORN - and the things we say and have have resonances that we can't predict, but should view a little more optimistically than we do. Could anyone have guessed that people would go mad for a drumming gorilla?

Nor is this an industry point. It probably goes without saying that in a business that starts and ends with the human psyche it's negligent not to have an empathic streak for those people you share your reality with - but in our disconnected world, I believe you'll find yourself a much higher existence in sharing situations with others, without necessarily waiting for them to share with you.

I have a few resolutions, but my prime one is to put these thoughts into practice in 2009. I'll let you know how it goes.

In Which Your Reporter Inadvertently Creates A Mini-Meme

Happy Christmas, one and all! This is going to be very quick as there's lots to do in the Interested house.

--

You get what you deserve when you try and overstretch your social circle, don't you? I ended up at a party where I knew the grand total of one person. We all know that these situations are totally awesome, because it's equally true that nobody knows you.

Hanging on to the one person you know is utterly out of the question - they didn't bring you there for your barnacle impression. So what's a researcher to do?

Research. D'oy!

"Hey, nice to meet you. So if you could be an animal, which animal would you be?"

"Hmm, like anything?"

"Sure, I haven't made the rules for this yet"

"Okay...aaaaaaaa... lion!"

"Nice! Best answer I've heard all night! What's your name?"

A cheetah. A lemur. Then they got better: animals with reasons. Extinct animals. Fictional animals. A nice little game to play to let people open up.

The payoff came when I was in a conversation with some I'd just met, and someone I hadn't met came up and asked them The Question. It had begun to spread itself, taken on a life of its own. 

Not everybody wants to be 'on' when they're outside work, but it certainly pays to consider the power of what we're doing, and the idea that the noble art of 'stimulating conversations' can go beyond the bottom line.

What animal would you be? Probably not a turkey.

P.S: Mary's on the Twitter: "Joseph's looking at me funny today. Probably impossible to keep this one schtum any longer".