Onslaught Turns Into An Avalanche?

Via Paul Isakson

Update: Russell has chipped into this discussion.

The Heart of Darkness - Pol Pot's Car For Sale

Update: International Herald Tribune

Update two: The Car is being sold here

One of the things I love most about Cambodia is that on each visit I see new growth. I don't mean the X.X% GDP growth that will choke us all in good time anyway if we don't rewire the economy, I mean the kind of growth that means the kids look a little cleaner, and a little less grubby. I guess it's the kind of growth that is really a reversal of growth in some ways, as a diminishing number of children are seen running around wearing shabby rags as clothing.

On my first visit, my driver called Elephant, took me around the killing fields and the notorious Tuol Sleng prison which was a school before it became a dark horror story of a torture concentration camp, a place where the Khmer kids were more barbourous than any of the adults could ever be, where they thought up the most ingenious ways to cause pain and suffering to the prisoners of the Khmer Rouge regime, which really only came to power because there was a hell of a shit fight going on in that part of the world through Vietnam and another war on something terrorful for safety. I'll never forget when I asked Elephant if he had lost any family members, how dispassionate he was retelling the story where his brother was killed by the Khmer Rouge after he stole a car to run away from the commune. He was caught, bound and immobilised before being run over in the same car he had taken. Stories like that are two a penny a Cambodia and few people want to think about the bad old days.

Anyway I could go on about how 300 kilometres or more north of the capital Phnom Penh lies the temple Angkor Wat, which in my mind is profoundly mysterious to the history of civilisation with it's Indian architecture dedicated to the God Vishnu, and how much fun I had hiring a motorcycle trials bike and generally just whizzing around on my own, playing with M16 guns and grenades on a range, and partying hard in the Heart of Darkness, but maybe that stuff isn't really interesting but it was a part of my life that I look back on fondly. Or maybe it was the butterflies that flew over the burial pits in the killing fields, on a beautiful day as I reflected on the whole thing that gave me a lot to think about.

One of the oddities of that period was the discovery by a friend of mine that Pol Pot's stretch Limo (Don't all agrarian economy Marxist tyrants run around in stretch Limos?) was being used to ship melons to the market in the capital. I felt at the time it was wrong to profit from that vehicle but like those kids who not only look cleaner on each visit but also have no recollection of that insane time, I think time has moved on. I'm particularly pleased that a portion of the profits now that it is on sale will go towards a charity. You know who you are if you are reading this but the bigger the chunk that goes towards the growth of Cambodia the better the Karma. What goes around comes around.

Onslaught

Well of course I love this next commercial and the values it stands for, but as I've said in the comments over here and here, and indeed to the client Unilever (the owners of the Dove brand), I don't think it's honest for a multinational to put 'keep-it real-credentials' in the 'Campaign for real beauty' while they sell skin whitening creams to among others, Indian subcontinent and South East Asian countries that are by nature blessed with dark skin.

Just doing the focus groups for these kind of products can be quite tough for those of us who think a bit about the effects on the culture of the societies that we make advertising for. Take Thailand for example, based on qualitative research, some office secretaries (for example) will choose who they take lunch with in groups, based on the whiteness of skin.

The darker skins are considered too 'rural' for those who want to climb the whiter skinned ethnic Chinese communities that effectively run S.E. Asia big business.

The aspiring English classes also used to take a dim view of darker skin in previous centuries because it indicated an agrarian lifestyle working in the fields. So I'm not trying to speed up cultural and media literacy development in these countries (or maybe I am), but I am suggesting to Unilever that specifically on it's skin whitening creams, it puts a disclaimer on ALL those products that Unilever embraces skin of all colours.

Otherwise its a bit hypocritical to be a campaigner for real beauty, when it's fake beauty and discrimination that powers one of the fastest growing skin care categories in many parts of the developing world.

Update: I see that the original video was pulled for copyright reasons but that that a remix is now resurfacing for the same issues of resource exploitation but this time the targets are Nestle.

Four Continents Capital

As we approach 'Peak Oil' it makes perfect sense that the city boys will look towards the developing economies for a source of cheap energy, you know, like being run around town and saving on electricity for household chores not to mention maintenance. There is an alternative source. I'll write about this a bit more if this provokes any comments.

White Swans

I've been borderline garrulous recently about a potential new model for the marketing communications business which is classic recombinant culture theory that I nicked off Faris. It would take some balls from an agency and even more from their respective clients to seriously implement but in principle it's about mixing and remixing some transmedia planning along with fair chunks of the book, The Black Swan which I talked about at length here.

To save a wee bit on time I want to cut and paste from that post:

"Our view of history is always explaining backwards as best we can. This is a linear approach that cauterizes the true story. Even more breathtaking is the idea that viewing history by working backwards is a fallacy, because history is actually always moving forward."

I ran this by Johnnie Moore the other night (you should check out his ace podcasts) at The Endurance pub in Soho while Piers was in town, and without even ruminating for a second, Johnnie cheerfully fired back that Kierkegaard wrote something similar as follows:

"Life is understood backwards, but is lived forwards"

This was the first seductive simplification that knocked me for six, and I scribbled it down quick on my hand because I knew it was, as are many of Johnnie's thoughts and occasional silences on lots of stuff, really important. It was lovely to see the ink on my skin the next day to remind me to give him a shout about it. I just did. Thanks Johnnie :)

So it's not like I've really discovered anything new, or I'm responsible for inventing anything seminal, but earlier today, as once again I ran the thoughts I've been bundling together on "transmedia-planning-meets-black-swan-mashup" by a generously attentive listener who works in the strategy game, she encapsulated the bit about The Black Swan that takes ages to explain. Describing narrative fallacy and how it leads to the illusion of predicatability that many draw from so called dependable data is not easy, and is actually probably just me trying to be too smart for my own good, but in essence Tania my listener, chipped in and captured the thrust of my long monologue with a lovely expression which she and her colleagues call 'the upside of risk'.

That made for two very seductive simplifications.

That'll do for the time being as I've still got lots of things about China that I'm practically bursting to blog about. So in the spirit of some timely recombinant culture media here is that White Swan I saw walking down the road in Marlow. The file wouldn't open from the Sony mobile phone when transfered to a Sony Vaio PC which Rob has nothing to do with, so instead, I've squirted a Nokia N95 mobile phone video on to it. I may come back and rotate it to portrait, if I find someone who can actually do important stuff like that, but in the meantime here's a White Swan doing a 'Black Swan'. Or put another way, a bird walking down a street that is right up mine.

The Management

While taking a walk early in the morning around the Compleat Angler in Marlow (a beautiful part of England) last week where I was attending the most intensive customer segmentation gig of my life, I came across a rather large Swan walking down the road. It was too incongruous not to whip out the only camera device I had, a Sony P 900 and film it in regrettably low resolution. Anything better than nothing I thought. Sadly it wont play on the 'puter for what looks like anti convergence reasons, and I'm a bit miffed so while I figure out a solution, I'm going to post a couple of shots from the infamous i-mobile 902 that I took inside the supper club side of Bed Supper Club in Bangkok, as it was closing down. Mucking around with light gain is one of those camera features that turns a snapper into an accidental photographer.

Incidentally for those who might want to know Q Bar was looking dangerously like it has lost the plot. Brimming with hookers and low on customers this veritable clubbing/music institution needs a creative director if the night I dropped by was typical of their weekends. However it was really terrific to see the staff again who really are some of the most professional in Thailand so I might as well post some relevant Q Bar (staff) shots too. They were always so nice to us and made us feel welcome. These are also for Dino who I'm hoping gets to play a set in Bed should I be in town.

Bed Supperclub

Q Bar

So that Swan? I'll nail it somehow or someway and next time not digress so wildly either.

Disco Diva - Finnish Dance Moves

Finnish nightclub dancing emerged during the Boney M debate and this morning, in an attempt to get some energy into a NOKIA conference/induction thingy I'm attending, I was summoned up front to do some Finnish Disco dancing. 

It's too coincidental not to blog so here it is. Stuff like this just cracks me up.

Bleeding Hearts Club

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.

Mobile Life

Losing mobile phones is something I do so well that without wanting to come across as achieving enlightenment on a detachment level I think I’m entitled to say that for some time now each phone loss now feels as disappointing as say having a pint swiped in the pub. It happens, at least 20 times or more now. Yes it’s annoying but there’s no point beating myself up. I’m a complete loser (or champion winner) at losing stuff, and mobiles top the list.

It does feel beyond absurd though when I’ve resorted to calling my number once I get home, on the off chance I can retrieve it by negotiating with cab drivers to bring them back for a price that suits us all. Often they just switch it off once I start calling. Its me thats in negative equity, not them.

Haggling for something that belongs to the owner anyway is something everyone should try at least once in their life for the humility it fosters.

Some time back I also lost my Sony T1 camera and predictably a while later my mobile phone too. Some time late last year after all this; an amazing local Thai brand called i-mobile brought out a 5 mega pixel camera phone pretty much before anyone else so I thought I’d go for it. I lost that too eventually but not before many enjoyable attempts at experimenting with it.

Anyway, just before a trip to the middle Kingdom last week that I couldn’t Blog about because China is a bit fussy over Blogs, I unexpectedly met a cashier acquaintance at the new Boss Bar in Phrathunam, who I’d inflicted with some amateur photojournalism using the i-mobile 902 late last year. I promised to post the pictures I’d taken so here they are plus a few others (thats the girl on reception crashed out in the wee hours above, plus erm my foot ) from a phone that despite some shortcomings and an all too brief relationship was a brilliant bit of kit that makes me yearn to get back into the kind of spontaneous photography that only a mobile phone camera delivers comfortably.

The i-mobile 902 phone also had an FM radio, voice recorder, and mp3 player with speaker, blue tooth and few other features that I’ve probably forgotten about.

www.bedsupperclub.com

OK, I know Rob hates Bed Supperclub but its a great design and some mates DJ there on a Monday, plus we laugh at all the Friday and Saturday night cattle class clubbers just as much as him and usually turn up for the last hour to watch the preening set get silly on too much alcohol and questionable happy hardcore bollocks.

Royalists

Gadget

The King of Thailand was born on a Monday. To celebrate the reign of the worlds longest serving monarch his people wear yellow shirts. Steering a country like Thailand which is built on power play and political intrigue through a volatile century that saw the Japanese annex Thailand in the Second World War through to the Vietnam war which effectively rolled out across Indo China is remarkable in itself but the strongly paternal figure of the King is the last dramatisation of a living deity we will probably ever see.

Westerners don't fully appreciate that word but if you want to see an instant lynch mob just set fire to a banknote in Thailand. Strong leadership will always raise question marks for continuation of stability and this will (not can, but will) play itself out in the natural transition of life expectancy that all humans are subjected too. That's as good as I can get on the topic without offending my hosts, because the Kingdom of Thailand dispenses Lese majeste writs much more easily than for arguably more important matters such as the breaches of human rights that the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra stands accused of. A little matter of 2500 extra judicial killings in 2003 springs to mind. I guess Manchester City Football club have shown how many dollars they can be bought for.

Anyway its Royal Monday here in Bangkok and we're happy that its probably only the UK which prefers to stalk its Royalty to death for the newspapers that apparently nobody reads any more. There's been a couple of things that seem to have changed in the last few months. The first is that I dropped by the high end Gaysorn Plaza over the weekend and all the luxury boutique owners were moaning that the economy was starting to bite into their wealthy customers pockets. Its cause for concern in luxury brand obsessed Thailand when the not inconsiderable wealthy elite begin to slow down their spending. The other point is that they are ostensibly searching peoples bags as they make their way into the underground for bombs. I'm not sure why the skytrain isn't subject to this kind of search yet but the congestion around rush hour will be paralyzing if this happens. I'll finish this one off later, as my net time is going to run out v. shortly.

Ooohs and Aaahs

Last night a few more bloggy folk got together at The Endurance pub in Soho. I hadn't met Spy vs Spy before because Angus Whines or Winges (she never stops actually) has acute Cold War Survivor syndrome, but I like the way she calls me Frith as if she's barking orders at me on her blog. I also got to meet Tom who does genre defying posts over at his, my political homey Sam was there, as was 'word of mouth' Will who finally got the beers in (thanks mate), and the delightfully snippy but witty John Dodds.

Our guest of honour was Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting from San Francisco. Steve was one of the earliest bloggers I came across. I'd better not go into how convoluted it was to actually realise who was who when I first asked Steve if he was Tom, but if Kirsty or John hadn't been there I would have just kept quiet about it and added a new chapter to The Metamorphosis

Anyway it was a fun evening. Steve is a cool guy and its always fun to let London do its work on visitors but while playing about with Sams camera phone i.e me doing my 'I'm thinking about thinking' pose, Steve whipped out his iPhone he'd been hiding all night and Sam and I both lost control, climaxing instantly while cooing over it with reverential Ooohs and Aaaahs.

Now I'm an apple fan, but not a worshiper. However it looks better in real life than I had expected and we put it to the test in that darkened pub with no flash and I think I'm pretty much sold on it unless someone slips me an N95 when I get back from the tropics. Hint hint.

Here's the pic. Aaaaah.....


Update: More photos from Sam's Sony mobile phone camera:

Poor Will. He puts up with some stick from us.

Good effects with that Sony Sam

Yeah Nice one Angus

I'll have a think about it then then. What a tosser eh!
Yep. Definite tosser.

Sunny

Nicky Hursell

While watching the world cup last year in a tropical bar, before setting off to India, I got into a conversation with a creative who made a very acute observation about England's performance.

She informed me that the English could never really hope to win as we struggled to beat Costa Rica. A side from a country where the national squad makes 150 dollars a month and the population is under five million.

Psychologically we Brits are fond of rooting for the underdog. I thought this was a good insight for our complete lack of killer instinct against a side who were otherwise better known for playing the pan pipes after a hot and sweaty game in a Latin American climate as I wrote about here.

Anyway I've watched these online votes go peaches up before. First John Grant cast the winning vote for the pedestrian Um Bongo, against the infinitely hipper Kia-Ora over at Beeker's. Then Bacon lost out to Sausage, when we all know that Bacon is proof that God exists. So here is a chance to redeem ourselves.

The Kaiser over in Munich (who started the iPod singing craze here, here and here without anybody asking him some months back) has taken on The Northern Planner asserting that The Smiths are rubbish. His first pick for German opposition was Kraftwerk but The Northern Blouse crumbled at this suggestion and so sportingly Marcus (crazy like a fool) Brown (The Kaiser) has plumped for Boney M. The loser has to sing a song from the opponents music on Youtube and post to their blog. I've never seen NP sing, let alone do "Brown girl in the ring". So please hold that visual in your mind while I make this request.

I think we all know deep down who is the underdog here. I ask for nothing less than your votes for Marcus while leaving you with the awesome string arrangement on Sunny.

Six Feet Under

Opening sequences or idents for TV programs are a splendid way to understand how to build emotion and feeling into short film clips as indeed we often try in the world of commercials. They are a great example of 'its not what you say but how you say it'.

Idents.tv is a nifty resource if you want to get up to speed on typography, design, music, direction, DOP, special effects and the use of storyboards. Its fascinating to see how the show Six Feet Under created theirs over here.

Marxist Libertarian

No surprises on the political compass test for me then. I don't really believe in perma-ideology given that nothing lasts for ever, but broadly speaking I'm going to be hanging out with Gandhi and the other libertarian socialists in the bottom left. This is quite a fun little data visualisation and perceptual mapping exercise.

Incidentally I've been trying to persuade advertising agencies to do 3D perceptual brand mapping for years. Sadly not one of the them has had the perspicacity to make a flash designer and excel spreadsheet whizz kid available. So I might as well blog about it instead.

Oh Captain my Captain

Tim Footman is a writer based in Bangkok. One day through his blog roll I came across a link which I felt was something quite different. It was the blog of Brian, a 45 year old advertising copywriter and soon to be published author based in Donegal who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only six to twelve months to live. I wrote about it here.

There is no happy ending in blogging I guess. I assumed that one day I would be thinking about Brian, realise he hadn't posted for a while, and that maybe there would be a slow but increasing sense of 'The End' parading as radio silence. This indeed happened early last month as Capt. Pancreas had gone quiet for a few weeks but then he reappeared with news of being in treatment. I guess there was no online access in the hospital.

Brian is responsible for coming up with the phrase "trying to squeeze the sweetness out of every second" and I just discovered he died on Friday.

He leaves a seven year old son, a wife and a bunch of people that never met him in real life but could feel his warmth and generosity.

O Captain my Captain
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

- Walt Whitman

My blog's WELL BIGGER than yours

By way of The smell of fish and chips

This reminds me of two recent clips mashed up (I cringe using those words) together that I've come across. One is the Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip musical video below, and the other was a viral for Rayban I think, that used a kid doing a wheelie just as in the one above but with an endline something like, "Never Hide".

Update: Here it is. I found the Ray Ban viral.

Brunch Bites

aburt

Mike Butcher organised one of his Brunch Bites yesterday and I popped along thinking it might be a good idea to broaden my digital gene pool. It was held at the Dana Centre which is housed by The Science Museum in South Kensington. I thought it was a lovely place for this type of event as there is plenty of room, gratis Wi Fi and for me it's a convenient couple of tube stops from Victoria Station.

I was hoping to catch up with Steve Bowbrick as I spotted him attending on upcoming.org and/or facebook but it looks like the King of Shaves won't get a chance to see my longest beard yet, and instead I got a chance to say hello again to the Buddha of digital suburbia, Lloyd Davis and the frighteningly erudite Al Robertson who is coming close to the final edit of his book.

The people I got chatting to might have been unrepresentative 0f the 30 or so folk there but apart from one programmer, absolutely everyone around me was connected to the mobile phone as media business. In particular I'm thinking of the wonderfully geeky Imp of A consuming experience who is the most techy blogger I've met.

Brunch bites is an excellent occasion for dipping into other digital worlds and seeing people get together to talk and network. The coffee was generously paid for by Trusted Places who must be the obvious candidate to use if the location has to change for the next occasion! Pop along if you get a chance.

Bank Holiday Special

Paul over at life in the middle is giving away his old bike which is still in good working shape but needs a little love, care and the wheels turning more frequently since he got a new one. All you have to do is leave a comment and say how you would pay it forward which is a very nice gesture I think. Sustainability, environmental concerns, recycling, health and ethics all in one fell swoop so if you don't need a bike yourself let someone know. I'd be pitching for it myself but I'm probably not going to be in London long enough to be a deserving recipient.

I also just came across this Hip-Hopera (its not Hip Hop, more Afro American culture) called 'Trapped in the closet' which still doesn't quite describe how cheese TV and Soul by R Kelly can transform a well worn narrative structure into something quite spectacular. Its a seminal recombinant-culture art form in the making. Like Noah who tipped me off about it, I would have thought this could never appeal to me, but it does.


One last picture because I love the way that Second Life (now that its passe) is still developing really good avatar art like this. There's something ethereal about the bling that just floats a little in the air. I've lost the original exhibition where this example is on display, I think it's in New York but if anyone knows I'd love to link to them.

Oyez Oyez

iainaitch

Are bloggers the new town criers?