L’Age Idiot.

‘You can’t email a hug’, runs the headline, against a picture of a mother (or is it father?) and baby cuddling.

Una Furtiva Lagrima?

It is a distressing truth that, for those who don’t continuously innovate, the bony finger of irrelevance beckons.

New York City Boy.

America renews.

It renews itself, continually: and it renews me.

I’ll Be Watching You.

Big Data’ this, ‘Big Data’ that. As Monticello’s Melyn McKay explains, one of the quirks of modern corporate life is that we somehow expect ‘the numbers’ to show us the way…..

Now They Know How Many Holes It Takes To Fill The Albert Hall.

Or whatever Panama’s equivalent is.

And The Boss Don’t Mind Sometimes If You Act A Fool.

The Future of….Management
– by John Newton, Chief Marketing Officer, Aroq

Let’s make one thing clear, no-one has any idea what the future will bring, regardless of what the experts might tell you.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin.

Wired Magazine ran a cracker of a story about L’Oreal’s – wait for it – human skin factory. 

Only Boys Who Save Their Pennies Make My Rainy Day.

And now there’s plenty of ways in which boys, and girls, can do that.

Jean Genie.

FastCo reported on perhaps the sexiest bit of wearable tech yet: touchscreen jeans.

Power To The People.

We really liked The Wall Street Journal’s piece on the next generation of Apps: they’re people-powered….

We Built This City.

Marc Kushner is an architect: with a particular interest in social media.

Broken Strings?

Highway To Hell.

  

When It Comes To Love, I Need A Slow Hand.

When I was a teenage boy, I’d sometimes find porn in hedges.

They Seek Him Here. They Seek Him There.

Can you remember the last time you saw, or read, something that really made you stand still, draw breath and want to wallow in its beauty or message?

I Saw The Crescent. You Saw The Whole Of The Moon.

There are greats.

And then there are GREATS.

And The People Bowed And Prayed. To The Neon God They Made.

There’s a museum in Oxford called The Ashmolean.

Kind of a weird name, but a very cool place. Like a more accessible, and better curated, British Museum.

It’s The Terror Of Knowing What This World Is About.

A Design For Life.

The Future of….Design
– by John Mathers, CEO, The Design Council

Asked recently what she sees as the single greatest driver of social change, Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation replied, “Design.”

I’ll Tell You What I Want, What I Really, Really Want.

We’ve written a bit recently about authenticity. In the digital world, there is, of course, the ‘us’ that we want the world to see, and the ‘real us’.

The Leader Of The Pack.

Devin Fidler’s piece in the Harvard Business Review somewhat proved our thinking on that particular publication.

He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands.

But, rightly in our view, he’s starting with the kitchen utensils.

You’ve Got To Find A Way, Say What You Want To Say – Break Out.

Being a Saudi prince is pretty cool.

Until you travel overseas and realise that the rest of the world has a certain – not terribly positive – view on you.

Je Ne Veux Pas Travailler.

Melyn introduced us to the works of David Graeber.

Shake It Up, Just Like Bad Medicine.

Atul Gawande is a Harvard professor who was invited to give a series of Reith lectures in 2014.

The Sun May Rise In The East; At Least It Settles In The Final Location.

Meanwhile, over at ReDEF, Adam Davidson was waxing lyrical about the advantages of the ‘Hollywood model’.

This is less porny than it sounds.

1990s: Time For The Guru.

The genius that was Peter Drucker continues to give.

Too Many Protest Singers?

For an industry that’s all about fresh thinking, there doesn’t seem to be much of it on display when it comes to the election.

In A New York Minute….

Everything can change.

Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean; On The Cover Of A Magazine.

On 9 March 2014, Andrew Sullivan wrote a telling piece for the for The Sunday Times in which he excoriated online journalism for ‘selling its soul to the admen.’

It’s Time To Play The Music; It’s Time To Light The Lights.

In 2006, I stopped going to the theatre.

We had a one year old, and nights out were precious.

Theatre just seemed too risky.

Real, Real, Real.

We all know about the importance of authenticity.

It’s been part of the bullshit bingo in agency-land for some time.

Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.

The currency of leadership is the future.

The future is what leaders deal in, and, ultimately, it’s where they will be judged.

Way, Way Back Many Centuries Ago………

Sir John Hegarty is a well-known Big Data Hater. To the extent that this is a product of an impatience with the industry’s addiction to the latest buzzword, I’m with him.

I Got A Letter From The Government The Other Day.

Soul Sister.

Today’s UX people are (perhaps justifiably) proud of the impact that they have on web design, putting the user and her journey centre stage.

But it’s nothing new, of course.

I Get So Emotional, Baby. Every Time I Think Of You.

Arsene Wenger said that ‘we have moved from being a thinking society to being an emotional society’.

I Like Driving In My Car.

– or; What Will Jezza Do Next?

The rights and wrongs of Clarkson-gate to one side, his ‘moving on’ raises some interesting questions about the relative strength of media brands in the 21st Century.

If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place, Take A Look At Yourself And Make That Change.

“….the main responsibility”, asserts the brilliant Ian Priest in the IPA’s booklet A is for alliances: Less pitches, more partnership, “lies with client marketing and procurement”.

Careless Wispa.

When I was a boy, my Dad said to me:

There are three types of people in this world. There are people who make things happen. And there are people who watch things happen. Then there are the people who simply say, “What happened?”

Rose Fass has written a genuinely brilliant book about being, and staying, in the first category.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

But if you try, sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need.

Paranoid Android.

The Grand Old Painter Died Last Night.

His paintings on the wall.

Video Killed The…..?

If a picture paints a thousand words, then a moving image says it all (nearly).

 

The world is about to undergo another huge, technology-led revolution.

Thank You For The Music.

A friend of mine recently hosted a birthday party for his Dad.

Who was 100.

You’re Simply The Best.

Every year, a panel of experts chooses the UK’s Superbrands.

There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards.

We have an odd relationship with the Harvard Business Review. In our view, a lot of their content amounts to pseudo-scientific ‘statements of the bleeding obvious’. But every now and again, they publish a gem.

Down By The Sea.

Bren Smith is rethinking fishing.

We Don’t Need No Thought Control.

‘On Mondays and Thursdays, I learn how to die’.

Painting, By Numbers.

In his final, brilliant oeuvre, ‘Literature and Science’, Aldous Huxley urged a rapprochement between the two disciplines.