RIP Twitter | Hola Facebook

My Twitter Account was suspended. I'm on Facebook if you wish to join me having fun and causing trouble over there :)

Most Censored COVID-19 Video On Facebook & Twitter

This video is so explosive, it's blocked for uploading on Facebook and Twitter. I've uploaded the movie file  HERE so you can share this worldwide.

I believe his name is Chris Jefferies, but I've yet to verify this and connect with him.

Is Social Media About Being Opaque?

Something occurred to me during the Nestle chocolate meltdown in Social Media the other day. I picked up on the story from @jamiec and took a wonder over to the Facebook page seeing straight away that the language used might well be one of the last examples of unvarnished corporate sentiment we'll get to see. It's the language of 'fuck you' isn't it?

"it's our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus"

So among other digital dropped jaws, I tweeted that part. It was picked up State-side where it started to do the rounds. I can't imagine too many multinationals making that mistake again. It's inconceivable that a Facebook fan page will instruct its fans how to behave and even more damagingly resort to biting sarcasm.

From this it's clear that many are still naive about what makes for participation in social media. Who are still drawing on legacy sentiment from the past. That is the mechanistic and 'professional' corporate bullying tone. Invariably a top-down, hierarchical monologue model (both internally and externally).

But somewhat surprising to me about the whole affair is the sheer hypocrisy of the blogging and digital social media community. The people who jumped on the band wagon who profess to understand social media. These are people who seemingly claim to partake in its values and yet who time and again dodge being transparent, authentic or  in current parlance, human.

Sure it's one thing to gasp in surprise at Nestle's coming out party. But the number of bloggers who are missing a human side to Nestle's use of Palm Oil by Indonesia's deforesting Sinar Mas conglomerate didn't escape me. New meeja's transparent schadenfreude at Nestle was easy to see and yet seemingly opaque when it came to their own positions on the issue. You do have a position right? It's only human after all.

It's one thing for Nestle to parade their sensitivity to local issues by creating say regional flavour variants of Kit Kat in Japan (how Kawaii), but it seems the locals of Indonesia's Riau province on the island of Sumatra are taking a good pasting while trying to protect the land from deforestation by Sinar Mas. All three Youtube clips are still below two thousand hits despite Nestle + Social Media search terms on Google being around half a million.

What does this tell me? It tells me that the sit-on-the-fence, have no controversial opinion, follow-the-dollar attitude that contributed to the decline of advertising's reputation is spilling over into social media. I just don't know how y'all can profess to being authentic, human, transparent and 'keeping it real' if you have no opinion on the issue. Which isn't about Nestle messing up in Social Media. It's about the deforestation for palm oil in Indonesia. Or did we just hijack it so we can wave it in the face of the next corporation to put us on the pitch list and who are stuck in the 20th century so that we incentivise them to work with us? 

Transparent, human and authentic us.

Facebook Is Right - Pussy Riot Are Obscene

I've been criticizing Pussy Riot and their Talmudic inspired sisters Femen since they came out. Please read this post. So I agree with Facebook, they are obscene and that was the nature of my post on FB that has been removed and for which I'm facing a 24 hour ban.

What I'm curious about is this particular post is months old if not years which means someone has gone through my timeline looking for an image to report. This is how my 40,000, 8-10 Million monthly reach Twitter account was initially targeted leading to a permanent suspension. I anticipate this corporate media censorship will lead to those eternal truths about 9/11 and so much more being no longer permissible discussion.

Tracy Twyman

Update** The original video on Rumble has been deleted. I've looked into it and all the important videos have been wiped from the net. It's troubling on a few levels.

2nd Update. I found it.

I never liked Tracy Twyman's work. Every interview of hers was to my mind tedious and top heavy on the occult. I prefer inputs and outputs on that subject. I don't need 60,000 explanations of where money comes from or 66 ways of explaining the dollar stripe $ in the symbol, or why it used to be two stripes for those of a certain age. Babylonian money magick is like any other. A layer of deceit and/or complexity on a simple model. They call it the magic money tree because that's exactly what it is (repeat till fade).

When Tracy Twyman disclosed some of the information in this recording for her friends and confidantes, it wasn't the information per se that stopped me from sharing it. It was because she is alleged to have hung herself shortly after. Ordinarily I'd have been euphoric just to know someone else in the world had also experienced what Tracy clearly communicated a number of times before her final demise.

Who is the victim here. The woman with a baby openly receiving death threats on Facebook or the issuer of those threats brazen enough to publish them from their FB business page?

AI is opening up worlds that previously were considered fantasy, tin foil hat, space lizard people and so forth. Well, now you have the opportunity to listen to her own words and ask yourself, 'before public access AI what would sound 'cray cray' and what seems perfectly within the realms of the possible now?'

Now that AI is ubiquitous not only can it be done but it takes a special kind of stupid to say 'they would never do that or that's impossible'.

No, you would never do that, they wouldn't bat an eyelid.

Perpetual Motion?

I've no idea whether this is a hoax but the topic is certainly popping up on the radar lately from Escher to a Youtube link I spotted Faris sharing on Facebook the other day.

Kiss my sweet ass

Rob Campbell over in Singapore is warming up for some trouble making. I know this because he asked me on Facebook what I thought of the Nokia N95 and I told him straight. I was hoping to do an in depth review of this model, because its a complex bit of kit and even the iPhone is not yet performing perfectly in the smart phone category, as I've noticed from a few people's twitters, including my friend Steve Portigal who is quite the champion of user operability.

Anyway now that Rob has forced my hand (Charles shakes fist in an inappropriate and very suggestive manner) I'd better just crack on with it and describe my N95 experience thus far.

But before that I want to compare it with the smart phone called the i-mobile 902 I owned in Thailand, 2006 which did 70% of the functions the N95 had, but with a much more sophisticated digital camera and which I blogged about over here, along with examples of the photography. That phone cost me about 280 Euros which if you remember that 1 Dollar converted to 76 Euro cents when it was launched and now will get you 56 Euro cents gives you an indication of what we planners call a 'trend'. I digress I believe an N95 can cost up to 700 Euros, which a year later is at least twice as much as the i-mobile I bought in Thailand - Economics lesson over ;)

So the bottom line is that the N95 is a bit of a slug, either the processing power isn't sufficient or the services that sit on it are too cumbersome. It's not fast enough in layman's language and furthermore my experience with the example I'm packing is that it's prone to shutting down or occasionally needs a reset by removing the battery. But what worries me most is that Scoble twittered today some problems he is experiencing. That's not good because I think Nokia gave him the phone to test-run and he's an A list blogger.

But let me tell you why I think Nokia brands really shine compared to Sony Ericsson. My first experience of Nokia apart from the double chocolate chip user interface was the experience of dropping one to the floor. You know what I'm saying?

No?

Allow me to share a little. Here is my friend Lauren's phone.

Photography Charlie Gower

You question the veracity of the shot?

Photography Charlie Gower

Lauren, we got a deal for that shot. Not a brand book deal. A human to human deal. You get my drift.

Then there is my backup phone.


This is the phone I use when my battery has run out on my swish N95. It looks a bit beaten up doesn't it?

Here's a closer look.


It's a bit blurred as indeed I was when I took the shot (a cheeky red or two) but you can see the screw exposed on that corner still held in place by the molding. My God they build those Nokia phones sturdier than a Rob Campbell mercurial point of view dancing from one Fred Astaire light footed soliloquy to another Falstaffian bluff or other.

Yes the N95 is a flawed, and possibly a precocious genius, but time will tell who is going to own the Smart Phone segment and I can say that I've had a look at the N96 which is quite impressive although I can't say anything about it quite yet. Good on Rob for being a sport and buying a competitive phone to really put it through its paces and I'm looking forward to his write up on the N95 although I don't expect anything vastly different from what I've been saying. Perhaps a little more vitriolic though :)

Intel, Information, Stories & Narratives

 

It's always very difficult with MKULTRA victims to know what's what and so I've never really had much time for Michael Prince's video recordings. However when seen in the context of disinformation and fear mongering product from factions who run things, there are snippets of information that sound more like intel. 

I've posted about Michael Prince AKA James Casbolt before.

These guys make no money from this, they live in surveillance state America, admit to killing people and the FBI aren't knocking down their door. You ask yourself why they are getting away with it when stupid kids are being jailed for having rap lyrics on Facebook that talk about killing?

Welcome to information warfare. Lots of Transhumanism selling from these boys. That's for sure.

Ken O'Keefe Is A Con Artist

 

Ken O'Keefe has been a compelling speaker for Palestine but it's now clear he's a con artist who uses this cause and other people's suffering to line his own pocket. 

I never paid much attention to his World Citizen ideas but it's an idea he used to raise funds to pay for his Dominican land project where he and his new Filipino babe, Sophia will live in paradise, safe from the people who sent him money for his pyramid scheme as there's no extradition treaty with any country there. If I was her though I'd go for the record deal from the notoriety.

Good luck to him and I hope those who constantly seek leadership figures in their lives have learned a lesson about giving cash to anyone who appears on Television which in this case is Press TV and Russia Today. Many are on Facebook right now standing in solidarity with him when it's clear they haven't even done the basic task of reading his version of events (deranged) and Max Igan's version who himself has troubling questions to answer given the time it took to step-up.

I'm annoyed because the information I needed to know this has been circulating on the net since 2011 and I hadn't come across it, which is unusual for me as it's well known that I'm one of the handful of people to have read the internet in its entirety twice or maybe three times.

While researching, corroborating and fact checking the information and making sure this post is accurate I came across more troubling testimony about other well known figures, some of whom I know personally.

More on that later. 

Update: Ken is interviewed by the world's thickest "presenter" Richie Allen who is notorious for spending more time on saying what he's going to say, than actually saying it. Ken is clearly bullshitting and does a formidable job of maintaining the pretense that he wants to save the world with your donations. 

 

Whom were you talking to?

2010 Facebook Global Social Graph - Via Tony

Clintons Sex Trafficking Haitian Children

My apologies for screen grabbing Facebook posts. There isn't enough time to do both. The Spirit Cooking episode which I will post next is taking all the attention but I I believe the Haitian Children sex trafficking is a far more wicked crime by the Clintons.

Fight Club

Floating around London town recently, and talking to a lot of interesting, likable and smart advertising people, it’s plain to see that there’s a need for some input on the whole idea of social(ist) media. Most of the people I talk to simply don’t have the time or the inclination to log on and check out a smattering of the 200+ RSS feeds I have coming in each day. It is an addiction but its not quite the same dedication as working though 300 pages plus of Les Miserables before something cheerful happens.

Along with my daily RSS sprints, I’ve been casually jogging around the latest round of social networks since 2002 when the original Friendster went big Stateside, spread out to Europe and is now a dominant force in Asia. They should realistically relocate their pampered U.S. asses out of San Francisco to Singapore. Its this hubris that led them to having their lead stolen by myspace. I’ve been watching straight faced as the plannersphere piles into Facebook of late but the interesting social sites are in Gaia and Habbo Hotel at one end of the spectrum and Secondlife at the other (Mekong Charlie if you must ask). Yes the first two are for kids but those kids are the first generation virtual world builders/social media networkers on the scene and they’re going to be quite demanding if myspace wants to win them over in just a few years. Anyway News International and Roop Murdoch will probably just buy them when as he knows all too well what the conditioning element(s) of using a media format can be in selecting the next one.

My blogging chum in Singapore, Marina raves on about ecircles which closed down in 1997 and was a little too early for it’s time, but for the real deal on sharing conversation, pictures, mp3’s as well as changing status, quasi tweets and building community with likeminded people it was/is and always will be IRC for Internet Relay Chat or mIRC as it’s better known. Cheap as chips and basic ‘code-monkey’ software mIRC is very usable and easy on the processing power resources.

Want to leap into a conversation with Baghdad and/or Boston? It’s IRC that has the full spectrum of seasoned veterans from the 80’s as well as newbies up for a bit of digital conversation and of course there’s a twitter channel on there too for those who wander why the list of people who follow my twitter twaddle is up in the 90’s.

I do concede that the original BBS people are the Daddy when it comes to practically all shades of early internet life but why would you want to know something about a format that is still only huge in China? OK, I’ll do a post on that another time, what with China having the largest internet and mobile phone market in the world right now and they aren’t even in second gear.

So what’s my point? Well I’d be the first to advocate for social(ist) media, as indeed Fightclub did that there are no rules. Main stream media (MSM) is so obsessed with imposing old revenue models on new media that its in danger of getting out the invoices for the telegraph-wire which kicked off this whole media-at-the-speed-of-light-gig.

Or maybe its just sheer fear that makes MSM want to impose the old rules of interruption in the new environment, which in a way is fine (and part of the ‘no rules’ dictum), because after all it is in precisely this manner that we rather patronisingly conditioned the post war (ahem) ‘consumer’. Rather disconcertingly, there’s a sizable segment that actually like it that way and which Faris did a post on cheekily calling them the passive massive? But anyway it’s looking like not for much longer. We’re on the edge of something new and to bring an old mindset to a new media really is indicative of how uncreative, stuffy (or scared) we have become. After all, if the discovery of the Americas has resulted in a new Europe being built, I doubt if the internet would even exist. Its time to take the gloves off and get stuck into socialist media your own way; make friends, be authentic, honest and useful but ‘monetizing’ socialist media is precisely why nobody has really done it yet. Groundwork needs to be laid, and fortune favours the brave.

Mind The Gap

I've been coming to Thailand since I was 23 years old and have never felt happier than when the chicken is grilling on the roadside and I'm able to shoot the breeze a little with the locals. I speak reasonably good Thai and generally know when I'm the subject of conversation in Khmer or Laos though sadly the thing that impresses any of them most is my ability to chow down on the really adventurous food that takes years if not decades to get into.

In all the time I've been here there's only one person I've come across who had any appetite for talking about social inequality. I think I've had some exposure to all the classes, ethnic groups, business people both local and international and the impact of the massive tourism business not to mention the amazing cuisine, the girls, the transsexuals, minor royalty, cops, villains, army, politicians, sports and pop stars. It's never left me that the propensity for the underprivileged to be so unambitious is only matched by the propensity for the privileged to have so little ambition for the underprivileged. 

And so I've left it there because generally the nasty after taste of all that can easily be translated into a myopic xenophobia for all other ethnic groups including Caucasians who are easy pickings when feelings of domestic superiority are aroused.

All that has changed.

Just because all fluffy kittens are nice doesn't mean that all things nice must be fluffy kittens. By that I mean just because a group of people have a justifiable grievance, doesn't mean I'm all for what they are all for. I don't have any time for the Thai media who never speak truth to power and simply echo the prevailing ruling elite's sentiment without question. So I'll try and paint a quick picture of Thai politics if that's at all possible.

Pretty much all politicians are on the make. We had Khun Chuan a few years back, who not unlike our John Major was a quiet and untainted modest politician. Apart from him, all of them are first class weasels who put self interest before their people and their country while all the time proclaiming love for their King, while showing very little application of that love.

There's not much to say about the King without sounding like the sycophants who invoke his name despite never having read any history whatsoever, or even ever trying to apply his sufficiency economy philosophy. Actually nobody talks about it. It's enough to say I heart New York because why would any body question that simple expression of sentiment?

Suffice to say that at the beginning of the decade or thereabouts Thaksin Shinawatra became Prime Minister and I remember my girlfriend of that time cried as his electoral success became apparent.

Groundless or melodramatic tears I thought at the time, but now I see what's going on it's somewhat clearer. Anyway, vote buying is standard political strategy. It works in the Western world over taxation and it works here. Thaksin's genius was to do it in a new way and by pumping money into the rural areas he secured the hearts and minds of these people like never before and more importantly their relatively inexpensive votes.

He then went on to amass as large a personal fortune as he could until the ruling elite could take it no longer and locked him out on a foreign visit through a military coup. We all rejoiced over that. The three thousand extra judicial killings in 2003, the vote buying, the stranglehold on the free media which at times is just as silencing as the lese majeste rules for the royal household (and allegedly the Privy Council I read only today).

And then it became apparent that our initial euphoria was misjudged because the hearts and minds (and votes) of all the more impoverished people in the Kingdom had been brushed aside like their hopes and aspirations are always brushed aside by the ruling elite and our hypocrisy was staring us in the face. The ugly truth is that the wishes of the majority are the foundation principles of democracy.

This narrative was quickly reduced to reds versus yellows or Mustard versus Ketchup as Nick memorably described it in Hong Kong. Yellow for Royalists and Reds for Thaksinomics.

This may have served as a useful mnemonic in the beginning but it was always the case that red can be yellow but yellow can never be red which may be confusing but serves as a useful reminder of deity worship versus day to day self interest. They're different things unless they're the same thing.

I feel I'm veering off into known unknowns territory so I'll attempt to wrap this up by throwing in another example of the gap that dare not speak its name. I've mentioned the social inequality gap and I believe that if ever the Kingdom is going to right itself there needs to be a grown up discussion about why there is so little ambition for the poor. Why public transport and infrastructure to the rural regions never gets a mention. Why schools that teach history and geography are evidently absent on a massive scale. 

But one last example has been brought home to me time and again in advertising and the focus groups where I get to hear female office hierarchy talk openly behind one way mirrors about who to to lunch with based on where they come from. This is just one picture that the Thai advertiser likes to think portrays the average person in Thailand.

And this is the colour and bone structure of the remaining 95% of the population.

Can you see why they protest? You ignore their electoral wishes. They are marginalized, put through shitty schools, given no opportunities, have a health system that only Thaksin ever tried to improve, work on the streets where even the endless broken pavements are alien to you. You look down upon them, see them as the minority when it is you who are outnumbered. You parody their simple ways in the soap operas and finally try to sell them skin whitening cream if they ever aspire to a metropolitan lifestyle.

They may be the unwashed masses and frankly many of them have tried to cut my own throat when given a chance for a few dollars but that's because they've never had the chances that you and I had. They don't have a Facebook group, they are grubby, they lost thirty five lives so far against an entire army and yet they are the soil of your country.

Mind that gap.

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.

T Shirt Culture

Visit Plannersphere

That T Shirt I'm wearing in this picture is a screen printed Interesting 2007 original that went along with a lot of other deeply cherished T Shirts (and more) that frankly meant more to me than the luxury goods items I stupidly left in my suitcase which was stolen or "borrowed" depending on what sort of writer one is.

So this is a good place to tell Hong Kong that if you ever see this unique T Shirt which has the full name of the longest city name in the world underneath the Interesting 2007 screen print  which is Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphop or the full name of Bangkok known locally as the City of Angels (all of this in Thai though), then give me a holler. Otherwise fellow planners, don't forget that both Facebook and Ning have great planner resources and you can add me on there or twitter or even Plazes which I noticed today was looking a bit sorry for itself.

Planning Wank

One of the notable disappointments of the plannersphere is the inability to engage with the larger subjects of the day. A herd like mentality (high five Mr Earls) seems to invariably ensue until a breakaway opinion is shared.

I mean really, was it only me who noticed that this economic turmoil would be the single most influential dynamic in our business before I blogged it?

Of course not, it's just that nobody wanted to point out the elephant in the room and this post is all about the elephant in the room.

Thanks btw to Neil who respects his own opinion as much as he welcomes others or I think we'd still be keeping quiet.

So, some months ago I came across a post on the use of a hotmail address which I found to be symptomatic of any London based planner who has yet to sharpen their skills abroad which is an assumption that what seems right in the UK is obviously a more progressive and thus substantial opinion than abroad - wrong. It's all over in London and this post one year down the line is my call on where the action is.

The writer (a friend of friends and thus a friend I might add) asserts that the use of a Hotmail address is either uncool or indicative of age. I'll let you read it but I'd like to state here that a hotmail address in China (the Leviathan of internet populations) is considered more prestigious than a QQ address which most are unaware of and the reason why I'm blogging about this topic.

Why put one's foot in the mouth without qualifying that one is just a local planner and the views expressed commensurate with that? The internet is after all a global media despite our cousins in America failing to understand that we don't all live in a U.S "state" when signing up to try stuff out. One of the perks of planning I might add.

The point is that clearly a snobbery of some kind (at the worst possible time) is intoxicating a large segment of the plannersphere, because while I use all my email address so that I can see who is doing what I use my hotmail address as the oldest and most well known leaving say my Gmail for business or Yahoo for the password options or whatever it is I used Yahoo for while trying to figure out what Yahoo 360 meant to social media some years ago. (Unilever Asia are you listening yet?)

No that isn't the point. The point is that when it comes to Microsoft the plannersphere is tainted. Seemingly jerking off to the latest Skittles work which admittedly punches above its weight and is thus to be welcomed.

When it comes to any discussion of Microsoft, the debate is already in the realms of "I use Apple and they haven't spoiled the world" so let's all break out into Kumbaya, in unison ; after we watch this Coca-cola hill top ad (which hasn't aged as well as we would hope).

Well the thing is Apple wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Microsoft (nor would Google) and as I've shared previously it's time to stop kicking the Grandaddy of Software for just existing (and who would pull it out of existence if their paycheck was not on time as most are?)

Microsoft is way off from perfect, and this post is being written on an Apple MacBook Air which frankly has weathered the single toughest beating I've dished out to a notebook and survived but that doesn't mean we shouldn't aquaint ourselves with some facts:

Microsoft is the de facto operating system of the world. It is as it is and we cannot unwind the clock. We probably need it, more than it needs us (Think about that).

Bitching about Microsoft is like bitching about an incontinent relative who was mopping our own urinary leaks long before reasonably sentient thoughts arrived.

Go to China and, Microsoft or Bill Gates is the ONLY thing that is openly admired about the U.S.

The responsibility of ensuring that the system doesn't freeze up after more than 30 years of solid performance is in itself considerable and while it's easy to see that less is more when considering operating systems, I don't know a single person who hasn't succumbed to feature creep when buying a technology for the first time. Why wouldn't the inventors have succumbed to that line of thinking too?

So people like Tom Rafferty who make a living through liberal pinko commie bashing Microsoft are just that. Blow hards who have never done anything as fundamentally important or profoundly life changing as Bill Gates and Microsoft. Who could deny that here is a man who didn't change the world?

So while it's fashionable to take the piss out of easy targets such as Hotmail ,like this joker over here I'd like to remind people that getting my first mail address outside of University which provided one that was all numbers and letters and @solent.ac.uk was when Hotmail first allowed me to talk to anyone else with an email address back in '95 through the revolutionary interface of what is now called The Cloud. It was brilliant back then and is still a brilliant idea right now.

I've been watching something. I seen how social media and the ability to share common interests or even share uncommon ones thus providing a learning platform is the single biggest revolution on the planet since Microsoft increased the market for computers from about five as IBM predicted (and is in the seven worst tech predictions of all time) to just about the entire planet.

Big organisational goal I might add.

I've watched as one memorable evening the Microsoft Live (call it 'we're not buying Facebook' statement if you will) has rolled out and quite hard work for me as one one who has thousands of emails scattered all over the show, took about an hour to consolidate what up till then was in my opinion a reasonably slow and poor blogging/messaging platform by Microsoft.

It isn't now, it's one of the best and most seamless integrated roll outs I've witnessed and here is a question to my peers in digital agencies, planners all over and anyone interested in what can only be classified as a revolution in communication. Why haven't any of you deemed it important to record that the largest adoption of or invitation to social media is occurring as we speak and is based on a platform that has been around for years?

Maybe it's the Asian numbers that are missing so here's some quick cut and paste to help me get to the final sentence before I pass out with faux rage and delicious tropical heat.

Windows Live reaches 142 million users a month in Asia Pacific and that number is about to get bigger. Microsoft and Windows is a large, healthy, growing, prestigious brand in Asia from a population that appreciates the sheer ability to connect through web cams to messengers but don't take my word for it here's a presentation from Geert who I met in LA last year and is responsible for that fab brand consumer ad we all loved so much.

Windows Live Trade Launch

View more presentations from Geert Desager.

There's more facts to appreciate what is going on with the QUIET launch of Windows Live.

If the Windows Live user community were its own country it would be the third largest in the world. 8.2 billion messages are sent via Messenger daily - that's 14 times the amount of snail mail sent via the US Postal Service on a daily basis and 17 times the number of comments posted daily on MySpace. Look even in the UK Microsoft Live fares unexpectedly well on the visitor stats as you can see over here.

So really my irritation is that because something is fashionable we, the planning community, seem to invest it with magical powers of efficacy that simply aren't there. Because we the planning community are by and large appreciators of Apple products we've lost the respect and the impartiality to judge what is unquestionably the de facto operating system of the world that churns out our payslips and which we are asymmetrically unprepared to talk about in the same way we are so keen to give Microsoft a good kicking at the first opportunity like their recent Global Advertising (On a local budget if you think about it) for pointing out what heaven forbid in this world of truth rejection is easily the hardest factoid in the universe.

MS is a cheaper operating system to run. Christ I'd like to have that in a brief. I'd send the creatives down to Four Bucks and get them to pay the agencies Macchiato coffees while explaining that this is what the cost of living means to most people in the real world.

So there you have it. Microsoft is huge, they're in business, they just rolled out some pretty awesome integrated social media shit and we the planning wank community pretty much ignored it preferring to waffle on like "let's not talk business or profit or communications efficacy" and continued with our specialist subject of "let's talk about what's hip" what's yoof or anything that has diminished our client's ability to believe in us. Because frankly they don't really and who could blame them, given the silence on something so large that just rolled out. Most planners probably don't even know because they're too sniffy to have a Hotmail address. Go figure that one out in ethnographic field studies.

My only real gripe with Microsoft is that somewhere back in the day, they changed the world and I believe they could do it again if they really really thought about it. Now that is awesomeness. My latest fave word.


I'll try to clean up this post later when I've cooled down from the rant. Formatting is all over the shop in Draft blogger but little I can do till they fix things.

Chris Christie's Camel Toe

I'm in Facebook jail for the next thirty days. I posted that video clip of a US military guy throwing a puppy off the cliff. I'll try to find it and make it my header gif until I return, which is not exactly the most pressing thing in my life right now.

Food 2.0

One of my favourite twitterers is noodlepie who blogs over here. I really like it when he decides to cook something in the evening and nips out to the market to buy the fresh produce. I find it inspiring and I'm a wee bit jealous till I get my kitchen sorted out.

In the meantime all I can do is take the occasional picture of the food I'm eating and blog it. This has made me think I need to get stuck into Jaiku again now that Google have bought the company and temporarily put a hold on new members.

It does feel like the future is heading into a Jaiku/Facebook and location based contextual information mashup. I can't wait for that day. The day when I'm waiting for a plane or train and I can hook up with likeminded individuals who have time to kill and who can also teach me more in 20 minutes conversation than any book could. Now I like books, I'm currently rereading The Master and Margarita but I don't think there is any other better face to face time than chewing the fat with someone I know a little bit about as a result of blogs or whatever other social media is available. Even a few pictures can tell me a lot. So here is my Haggis moment at Heathrow.

Then my favourite Turkish joint in Croydon which does all this for a fiver


I had lunch with Rory the other day. It was a much grander affair and well worth the trek over to Docklands for the best conversationalist in town. No time to snap the food but I can vouch for First Edition's yummy Lamb. Here's the layout I caught while waiting for the great man to arrive.


Then there was that awesome Scone on Picadilly that stopped me outside the window and lured me inside with thick cream and heaps of fresh berries too.


Then there was that Champagne and Chips moment last night. I went for the Rock at the Rock & Sole in Covent Garden with dirty hand cut chips. It was lovely


And no food post would be complete without a pic of Lloyd Davies of Perfect Path tucking into a Breakfast Club Breakfast of Champions


At this rate I'm going to be resembling the Pied Piper pork-pie-star himself Rob Campbell which I guess means I should get on the Diet Tangos ASAP

Update: Quite by coincidence Graham Holliday of Noodle Pie has blogged about a response I made to his twitter over here on his Guardian Blog for food.

Just Stop It

This is the work of Adam Crowe who has a remarkably sparky intellect and a feisty can-do attitude (as do all the gang I've met that work at Imagination). He has also developed a brilliantly conceived greasemonkey script that changes the word 'consumer' to 'person/people/public' in Firefox browsers. There is also a Facebook group for likeminded people who have had enough of this derogatory term.

The quicker we drop this deeply patronising word that implies a discernment on the part of our fellow human beings that is bordering on an automaton/amoebic level, the more likely it is that the good folk we fight like hell to secure as customers, might just begin to reciprocate with a little respect for the marketing and advertising business.

Nice one Adam. I'm beginning to feel momentum on this issue.