salty seadogs

is he, isn't he. we think resident data guru iain III has more than a passing resemblance to man of the sea - captain haddock.

this week we most humbly recommend

what sports tells us about life by ed smith

here's the blurb:

why will there never be another bradman? how do you win 33 games in a row? why did zidane lose his rag on the world's stage? foraying deep into sport's leftfield, ed smith asks the questions we rarely ask of our teams and players. when is cheating really cheating? is the free market good for sport? can talent be a curse? does luck matter? his answers, often controversial and always thought provoking, will delight anyone who has ever wondered why sport matters.

we say: if you love your sport and have a life, you'll rip through this book. the former england batsman composes a beautiful wordy innings featuring scintillating sentences and swashbuckling paragraphs.

he is, by all accounts, one sharp cookie, who has an eye for storytelling and the enlightenment that accompanies it.

bad language just has to stop

i read with interest the inaugural speech of the new ipa president, rory sutherland. as you’d expect there is much to commend in the address; from a challenge to the industry to demonstrate its social as well as commercial values, to a rallying call for our various specialisms unite for the common good.

one bit that really caught my eye though was his reference to ‘human understanding’.

it's so refreshing to hear the word human in a marketing context, rather than consumer, target, or data – which is even less personable.

marketers, especially direct marketers, should never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate arbiter of our labours is our fellow citizen; a living, breathing sentient being, not a number on a spreadsheet.

so why do we trot out impersonal labels? and worse still, those ubiquitous bits of ‘marketing speak’, like the way some folks make strategy precede or follow another word to try and make their point sound more, well, strategic. i doubt some are fully understood judging by their random use. even common parlance, like ROI, can have several interpretations depending what you are measuring.

i suppose its part of our identification, a rite of passage, or tribal mentality. and miraculously it would appear that the higher you go the more phrases you can use and, quite possibly, the less sense you make.

refreshing our use of language could ensure our industry focuses on promoting and selling products and services in a way that puts people (and human understanding) at the heart of communication, not numbers. making it more straightforward and direct will also bring to the fore the responsibility we have to consider what value any given campaign may have to another human being. this should lead to even better and more relevant work. that way we might also save ourselves from the ‘junk mail’ jibe, whatever the channel.

this change in language can start whenever an agency and client meet. it should permeate briefs and presentations. every industry creates jargon to act as shorthand to facilitate sharing ideas and thoughts quickly. ours is no different. but over time the lectionary increases, meanings change and use becomes a barrier to real conversation. in my view it gradually dehumanises our endeavour.

sutherland goes on to suggest that human understanding is actually what we should sell in the future. again I am sympathetic to his view. but the challenge is that we can’t sell if clients don’t want to buy. so the industry, client and agency, needs to meet on this point together.

so will our next appointment at entire be a data planner, flash programmer or behavioural psychologist? therein lies the conundrum.

i firmly believe that we should return to real language – communicating clearly without the need for ‘marketingese’ that masks real dialogue.

fiat is driven

something for those who like to do their bit for the planet and look good doing it. a really lovely website and has some clever data thinking too. eco drive has been round a little while but this little fiat beauty is sure worth the journey.

take a spin

The internet makes me want to rock out

Today is the day Wolfram Alpha went live. Some people have called it a Google killer, but these people are all journalists and haven't been paying attention.

Wolfram Alpha is basically a HUGE database compiled from loads of information on the internet. Instead of providing you with links to pages to answer a question, it just gives you the answer in a simple, usable format, along with any extra information you could want to know. Average age of someone called Nick, just search 'name nick'. Want to know what happened on your birthday? Just search it. Average salary for Finland? It's there.

It's definitely worth checking out the search examples page to get an idea of the enormous potential this engine has as I've inevitably quoted some really boring searches, there is LOADS of juicy stuff in there.

Google and WolframAlpha will sit alongside each other, both offering different ways of searching the web, each one subtly more suited to certain situations. It's certainly not the end for Google, but it is the beginning (or next step if you use Ubiquity) of the view that the internet is a single entity that can be directly queried, rather than have to be navigated using millions of incongruous pages.

Brilliant.

extend your reach

i love graphs. usually i manage to keep my enthusiasm for these beautiful creations to choice clients and colleagues, but every so often, a graph comes along that gets me so excited i have to tell the world. well, that 'so often' is today folks. marketing profs emailed me some facts today that i just HAD to turn into a graph. the excitement never stops for me.

So, without further ado, here is:

Years taken to reach 50 million market audience by channel!

is this man ian bates?

we're very taken with the story that beyonce has been using a double on her european tour to fulfil some of her duller tasks. you go, girlfriend.

seems that just the other day, the bootilicious one sent her lookilikee to have an official tour of vienna's albertini musuem while she chose to go shopping with her mum. thing is, she got papped by the papparazzi at both places at the same time. they put 2 + 2 together... yadda, yadda, yadda.

interestingly, at the time, the museum bods felt there was something not quite right about their particular beyonce. well, they would say that now, wouldn't they! or, had they rumbled this ruse, but dared not to mention it as to not offend the 'pop princess' in their presence?

anyway, this got us thinking. we know someone who's particularly time poor: mister ian bates: creative director, entire board member, dma council member, opinion former, mover and shaker, visionary... there's just never enough hours in the day.

well, now, there doesn't have to be.

the search is on. is there anyone out there, a double, who could help ian take care of all those tiresome duties he doesn't need to be at? you know, those parties. those media calls. those long, meandering meetings. the endless rounds of handshakes and small talk.

batesy, meanwhile, can do that which he loves the most: spend time at the chaos of the coalface. the pressing deadline, the hunt for the big idea, the a3 pad and the big, fat marker pen.

so far, we've had one idea as to who can 'double up'. maybe you have others!

no-one over 5ft 6 inch need apply.