The last supper (spam again...)

Christmas binge over, I wasnt that surprised to see that Little Chef is about to go the way of the sit down Wimpy and close its doors. The word is that its lack of evolvement in its offering has made it increasingly irrelevant given todays perceived desire for healthier lifestyles. Which is strange given latest projections for overweight / obesity published by the HSE, indicating that there's nothing more we'd like than to tuck into a plate of over priced, fatty food with a sprig of limp lettuce to make you feel better about what you're about to do to yourself.

Some brands don't need to evolve. Coke (and Pepsi) famously tried to tamper with their winning formula, and look where that got them (Malcolm Gladwell has a nice piece about this very thing in his "Blink" tome which is worth looking at for those with a penchant for product testing getting off to the wrong start). Other brands, however, become topics of public and political debate, fast food in particular, and see themselves having to evolve their product line to accomodate notions of what's right or wrong for us (there's always the off button, but people seem to forget this all to easily).

Can't concentrate too hard today, as the kids have just declared war on each other (again) and the seemingly innocuous task of designing a film poster has spiralled into a hate campaign though the language of scrawls.

Well done to everyone...

Quick on this, given I'm preoccupied with a post about Xmas that needs thinking out before I write it down, but noteworthy all the same. Two news stories jumped out at me today that affirmed my previous post about the pervasiveness and mass acceptance of You Tube and the like as a means of expression and communication.

First up - Social networks top Google search
Nice piece of reporting from the BBC looking at the popularity of community sites across the web, and their predominance of the annual round up of Google's searches of 2006. Compare this with their 2005 Google Zeitgest (how do you pronounce that? stevie t, any ideas?) and you can see the dramatic shift away from P2P, online music and World of Warcraft towards a who's who of "social computing" including wikipedia, bebo, video and MySpace.

Second up - We've all won the Time "Person of the year 2006"!
I knew I was under consideration, but I never expected us all to win. Anyways, hop along to the Time website here to get the full rundown, and at the same time go out, buy the magazine, and frame it (or send copies to relatives, although no doubt they'll be doing the same). Still, their point is noteworthy as it signifies the importance of user contributed content to the media mix. The role of user footage in breaking news stories is now absolutely crucial to news networks in getting under the skin of events as they happen, and the emergence of personal video blogs (search for serving US troops in Iraq) can offer far more insight than a 15 second bulletin on the nightly news.

Squeeze my nunchucks till the juice runs down my leg...

So, that stuff about Steven Seagal? Turns out the pony tailed avenger has a side line as a blues man with his band Thunderbox! He's touring his new album "Mojo Priest" and hits the UK in the new year, including a stint at the hallowed Fairfield Hall in Croydon (straight after a long run of the "Nutcracker Suite" - how appropriate!)
Many dates, many opportunities to right wrongs, beat up local drug dealers and teach the good fight through the power of twelve bars and E7, A7, D7 chord progressions. Croydon council are scrapping their ASBO program for 10 days either side of the 21st Jan as the local hooligans run for the cover of Purley Way and it's warren of super stores, sofa shops and DIY leather centres.

Right, the campaign to rebrand Channel Five as "the home of Steven Seagal" starts here.

Presentation done proper

I'm rubbish at reading instructions, hence my difficulties in understanding what "Squidoo" and "Lenses" are all about. Duh. This blog started out as a "lens", until I realised that what I wanted wasnt a simple list of useful things, but rather a running commentary about things I come across that could prove useful in the future. Well, this one is a cracker - "Best presentations ever".

If, like me, part of your job is to "sell in" other peoples brilliant work (and sometimes my own) then you soon understand how mediocre presentations can not only kill a great piece of thinking, but can damage your client relationships. Part of the battle is to show passion, interest and knowledge in your client, what they're trying to achieve, and how you think your agency's inisight can meet these challenges. The other part is "getting the puppets out" and giving them a good show to boot. You've asked you're client over, so you should at the very least show them a good time.

There are some great examples of well thought out and appropriate presentations in this list, from Martin Luther Kings stirring call to understanding and common unity, Malcom Gladwells "no slides" Blink presentation through to Steve Jobs introducing the world to a new computer called the Apple Mac (whatver happened to that?). I'm no fan of Ken Livingstone, but he once silenced a room of enraged critics by explaining the problems of local government with the politics of whose job it is to change the light bulbs in the street lamps outside your house.

I'm rambling now. Bit hungover having been at a wonderful party last night that included one dead goldfish (blender error), a resignation, an arrest, loud singing, dwarf porn and a very giggly conversation about what the hell Steve Seagal is doing in Croydon these days (something to do with pregnant 16 year olds, according to one of my companions).

Ooh look, it's nearly lunchtime!

How green is your avatar?

These puns are getting out of control. Regardless, today was a funny old day, beginning with a bit of an outburst and ending in a fit of giggles (accompanied by bad French impressions using poor but appropriate french). The turning point of the day (where things that seemed bad become things that were just there) was this article, looking at the ecological impact of Second Life, and whether virtual people burn up more electricity (and release more CO2 gas into the atmosphere) than real people. At first I wandered how much time these people have on their hands to be coming up with this stuff. By the end of it I wandered if "grndhse07" really needed to be around considering the damage he/she/it was doing to the real world.

Still, it's those damn cows that are the real culprits. Bovine boom boxes, each and everyone of them!

Look in the box

I've been catching up on the latest series of The Apprentice USA (god bless TV Drive). It's a great series, defying all the traditional perceptions you could have of reality tv and their usefulness to the viewing public other than as an arena of mawkish ridicule. What's interesting for me about this show is that many of the tasks involve some kind of marketing project, under much stricter timings than even we usually work under.

The task this week was to create a DIY clinic for Home Depot, the largest home improvement chain in the USA. If you havent seen them before, its where somebody demos a product and tries to engage customers to spend more money on something they didn't know they needed until they tipped up at the store. One team (Net Worth) decided to have a show and tell on how easy it was to construct a mobile kitchen island (i never knew what they were until I saw it, but they're a bit like this). It looked kind of ok (if you like that sort of thing), but despite the fact that the team weren't really into the task, the concept itself was complicated to understand, took forever to demonstrate, and didn't invite or allow for any kind of audience participation. Whatever, the team went along with it and eventually lost the task.

The other team (Magna Corp), was led by Craig, a quiet guy and very different to the rest of the candidates in that his day job was as a part time fireman, as opposed to a corporate lawyer or real estate developer. His suggestion was that they show people how to build a box that could be used to store toys. The team were very unimpressed, saying the idea lacked creativity and saw no opportunity to deliver something that would have the punters in awe at their marketing acumen. Whatever, the team went along with and eventually won the task. Here's why...

• Building a box is something we can all do with a bit of guidance. The demonstration was actually more of a workshop, and people readily joined in once they got over their initial fear of constructing something from a few slabs of wood and some screws and hinges.

• The box is just a box until you get it back to your house and personalise it. Then it becomes a piece of furniture and part of your home. Much of the audience had children with them and they were shown that with some paint and a bit of imagination the boxes could be customised until their hearts content. The kids duly joined in and much painting, hand printing and stencilling commenced, to the delight of the parents who started thinking really hard about how much they could do with something like this in their home.

• Finally, they called the boring old "box" and much more fancy "trunk", giving an otherwise fairly utilitarian piece of wood some warmth and personality.

The team leader was duly recognised as a bit of a visionary, but the criticism of him was fair. He wasn't able to communicate to the rest of the team that a simple box can be a great way to get customers to engage with the team and in turn Home Depot's brand.

Thanks a lot...

Found this on YouTube, a nice film where a guy went around and asked people what they were thankful for. The reason for sticking it down here isn't so much because of the video itself, but for the fact that people seemed willing to engage in its making when asked to respond to the question "What are you thankful for?". A sign, maybe, that YouTube has entered into the modern consciousness not just as something they read about, but something they actively engage in as a participant to the film making process.

Need a lie down now.