How Great Thou Art

This work filmed in New York reminds me of a conversation I heard repeated recently between an American and a Pakistani sometime in the late 60's or early 70's I guess. The American, squashed in the back of the pedal powered cab  listened as the Pakistani driver said.

"You see, we here in Pakistan understand the problem. Progress he exclaimed! Progress is the problem".

It sounded funnier in audio but it touches on a some thoughts I've had recently and which I've no answer for. However this is the second piece of art in a week which gives me permission to hope that maybe our artists are emerging from an understandable but frustrating inertia of everything goes, compounded by never quite leaving when its time was up.

Too early to call but this work is not inconsequential is it?

The flip side of the progress coin is a dawn shot of New York that someone tweeted the other day, and which left me in no doubt of the city's prowess as the definitive skyline of progress. 

It's this that awes me about New York. On weird days the abstract creativity of Wall Street spits in my gravity cautioning face. But for the record. I'm anti gravity. 

Sort of.

Google Insights

The preview function for this post isn't working as I'm writing this post. It's an embed chart for Google Insights and I want to use it and others, as the basis for a more rigorous (and ongoing) discussion of research. The research industry doesn't want that discussion preferring instead blind and slavish diligence to discredited principles. 

I say blind because though I was quite generous with Synovate back here, I thought I'd hold out on highlighting that their poster is actually placed in the only restaurant among twenty or so in Sok Kwu Wan that has closed down. 

This is somewhat like a short allegorical tale for the whole research industry in advertising. They haven't researched their own assumptions. The managing director of Synovate Hong Kong doesn't respond to my emails, and regretably this is the best awarded agency that Hong Kong has to offer. 

Quite, is all I can say. 

In principle the research business (like the banks and their credit guessing mathematics) is fundamentally flawed because it's a risk analysis game. If you position risk analysis against creativity (as we do in advertising) then whoever is paying for the risk analysis wins. If clients are happy to trust their planners on research interpretation then the results are intelligent but if not, well you can switch the TV on and see the results in the next commercial break.

However, rather then launch an ongoing discussion of quantitative (trends) analysis using this incredible Google tool (it may not display) I want to test post first and see if my first chart is visible. If it's not above this paragraph I'll do a screen grab and add it underneath later.

Powerful Ideas

I have a different conclusion over the value of opinion forming from customer reviews than Neil writes today, because there's a lot of contextual depth when people give strong opinions. It's much the same reason that I read newspapers that disagree with my political opinion. 

But it's still a great post so head over and pipe Neils great blog into your RSS reader