SEO FAQ FTW JPG and other useful acronyms

Is good no? Via Len Kendall in Chicago

First Warning.

The first time I heard this I'd been in a funk for about 10 days. Ordering McDonalds delivery so that the brown paper bags were piling up on my bed and I was tipping the delivery guy to go and buy me some fags because when I don't want to see anybody the most taxing thing is polite chit chat. I'm neither polite, and I'm not interested, and so by that I mean  I don't want to speak to the maid, the security guard, reception and I especially don't want to deal with stuff like friends and if you really want to see a grown man cry get my family to call up to see if I'm OK.

Anyway.

Have you noticed I like to say anyway?

Well anyway, Inland Knights say "anyway" better than any mother fucker on the planet. It's like a precursor to bringing out a pistol. I say a Glock, but it could just as easy be a Beretta or a Mauser (when they made pistols). It's like 'anyway, now I shoot you' without actually saying anything, but if you want to verify the validity of that statement you need to check the tune out. It's called Back Chat.

Anyway. The first time I heard this I'd been horizontal for a while and I guess I must have fallen asleep listening to Doug Rushkoffs podcasts, but by the time I awoke I had no idea what the fuck was going on. I recognised the track but it was also really alien. The last time I had a track play games with me like that, was waking up to ELO's Strange Magic which comes close as a description but not close enough because I thought I was having a religious experience on that occasion.

This time I didn't need any epiphany. I wasn't debating whether this was the Good Lord speaking to me so I just leaned over to iTunes and reset it back a few minutes while I adjusted to the rude but welcome musical intrusion into my life. I realised it was special and got out of the 'pit' as I like to call my crib on these occasions and went to blip.fm or Youtube to see if I could track it down.

Somebody once wrote that ABBA were the last band to sing optimistic pop songs. Of course there are exceptions but in general they were our last gasp before we consumed ourselves. Now you may choose to propagate that machine unthinking or otherwise but that's not what makes me tick, so when I listen to ABBA I actually hear the dwindling voice of an age. You can call it the seventies or whatever but no group will ever have the audacity to sing  like ABBA ever again or at least until the Long Now Foundation  start to make an impact on this smear of mathematics we call culture (One for Steak in Kidney).

So when I heard RIng in Swedish by Abba I tumbled out of the pit to find it so that I could always play it when I needed it and on demand. I needed it in the cloud under a book mark. Ring Ring in Swedish is a culture remix that always existed. Who knows how the song was originally written. It's probably in Wikipedia but the point is that it sounds more authentic than ABBA in English. For all their preternatural and superlative laden, hippy white bread drippy pop aspirations, when ABBA sing why don't you give me a call in Swedish, it's unpretentious and feels more exposed than making a buck in English and somehow taps into what we all felt as young people (before SMS and email) waiting for a phone to ring so that we could know we exist.

As opposed to the brass patina and distressed leather cynicism of middle age when one knows you will eventually call and we extract the quid pro quo of doo lallying in the first place.

Word.

Brand Karma

A few years back, one of the few people in Asia that I noticed was subject to a fair amount  opinion in the offices, bars, karaoke joints, award shows and massage parlours of advertising (maybe not the last one) was Craig Davies. A lot of people had a lot to say about Craig when he was Regional ECD for Asia and Africa.

But until he interviewed me as Global ECD for JWT in Knightsbridge back in 2007 I had no opinion. But I got lots now so listen up. First off it was a very tough interview. The questions got harder and harder not easier and I couldn't believe that he knew more than enough about my rapidly moving world to assess whether I was any good.  For example a  memorable question was 'what do you think of Andrew Keen?'. This was in the thick of all the social media Web 2.0 hype at the time that is pretty much mainstream now that Facebook is something most people can relate to.

Difficult to be moderate on that question. Well difficult for me as I can't stand Andrew Keen. I replied that he was more an opportunist peddling shallow arguments for a living than having conviction. 

Risky move. Craig was both reading his book and by any definition is not only a professional but probably one of the most senior and accomplished professionals too.

I didn't stop there (do I ever?). I said that the cult of the professional was responsible for millennia of disastrous decision making. That professionals were often intoxicated with their perceived talents and that  the ability to self produce, present or publish instantaneously and globally had shown that amateurs talents were astonishing us time and again.

Anyway, I walked out of that interview not knowing if I'd said the right thing or not but somewhat comfortable that at least I'd been myself. I got the job after a bunch of other interviews and then got to see both Craig and the Guy Murphy (the Global PD) in action , working  and collaborating together. In my experience a lot of the heavy hitters who get to the top of the agency business have eaten so much crow by the time they've shinned up the greasy pole, they have some of the most formidable political skills in any business period. But no longer really love great ideas or often don't know what a kick ass contemporary idea even is. 

That wasn't the case with JWT and one of the reasons why I have such strong faith in the agency is that I was lucky to see people like Guy and Craig who are quite understated, still quite young and really enjoying their work in action. Quite refreshing, and I like to think that JWT"s improved reputation and ongoing successes is something I spotted a little early on from reasonably close observation in London.

In any case, Craig has now relocated to his home country of Australia, and has started something that is both simple in it's aim, but is I believe an important idea. I wont say any more as there's an introductory video for you to watch. This ties directly into what I feel is a huge opportunity for brands (corporations) to shake off the lethargy of undifferentiated, link tested, politically correct but morally stultifying blandness and start to stand for something. Something I wrote about more at length over here. Watch the video and come join us on Brand Karma if it strikes a chord.