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[cartoon courtesy of The Hughtrain]
Today (June 30th) is the last day the “Blogger’s Wine Freebie” will be open. [DETAILS HERE.]
About 100 UK bloggers signed up, which is fantastic.
We’re planning to do a similar U.S. freebie when Stormhoek launches in the States later this year.
I wrote the following in the letter that’s accompanying the freebies:

OK, so what’s the point of all this? Sure, I suppose giving out a few bottles to some bloggers could potentially be quite good PR, etc etc. Maybe a few of you will blog about it. Maybe not. You never know.
But in the back of my mind I’m thinking there might be something larger going on here.
What if, say, not one or two of you end up blogging about it, but a couple of dozen? What will be the rippling effect?
Will the idea-virus spread far enough that suddenly, instead of one or two people knowing about the wine, suddenly tens of thousands of smart, connected people in the UK know about it, and are talking about it?
Is that enough to launch a national brand?

I happen to think it is enough. Maybe not with this brand per se, but one day it’ll happen. And then God knows what the traditional ad agencies will do with themselves.

June 29, 2005

take back jerusalem

grokster goes global

From Ben Hammersley: “Declaring filesharing illegal across the net because it

“no, i’m not keeping up with your blog”

From David Weinberger:

I would like to. I really would. I like it and I like you.
But we’re now well past the point where any of us can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with. Even with an aggregator.
I just can’t do it any more.

I see David’s been reading my mind again.

recenty overheard:

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Two bloggers drinking beers.

Blogger One: “Advertising is fucking dead.”
Blogger Two: “Man, advertising is so fucking dead it’s no longer even that fun to read about how fucking dead it is.”

Yep. And “Death of Advertising” is no longer that interesting to write about, either.
The world has moved on etc.

June 28, 2005

personal ontology

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Yesterday we had “Prime Tags”.
Today we have “Personal Ontology”.
From Forward Markets:

An ontology as defined by dictionary.com is:

“An explicit formal specification of how to represent the objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them.”

A personal ontology by extension is simply one persons ontology as opposed to a global, all encompassing ontology (e.g. the kind of grand unifying and restricting taxonomy-like structure that Sig is railing against). A personal ontology on the other hand is more relevant to the individual.

I’m assuming this to mean: as with the blogosphere and links, if you give people tags, the organisation will build itself.
And if the organisation builds itself, then why do we need SAP telling us what to do?
Hamish? Sig? Feedback?

June 27, 2005

prime tags?

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Sig Rinde talks about tags. And he has created a new gizmo that allows you to play with his ideas:

Even with tags we easily become overwhelmed and would require some data-structure to find our way. Technorati follows 1.3 million tags now!
Every person on this planet has a tag; name or social security number etc. 6.45 billion of them.
This experiment:
Uses multiple tag choices to choose and find.
And so what?
Using multiple tags, about 20 tags would cover the 1.3 million single-use tags at Technorati.
Using multiple tags, about 33 tags could give a unique identity to every person in the whole world.
(Quite a few years since I studied statistics, believe I’m in the ballpark, but anybody out there who could corroborate?)
And 20 – 30 tags are less cumbersome to navigate than 1.3 million, or 6 billion!
Multiple tags can replace any single tag, however unique that is.
You’re tagged with your name. That does not say much, does it? Unless I know you of course.
Now try multiple tags. Add 10 tags, red hair, tall, birthplace etc. and you may be one of 153,000 with exact same tag set. Add yet another one that says more about you, say ‘Italian speaking’ — voila, you got only 9,675 individuals with the same tags. Add one more, now 634 identicals. Add two more and ‘highlighting’ exactly those 14 tags gives one return; you.
Ditto for plants, ditto for file structure on your computer, goodbye folders and search. Etc.
Add that a set of tags gives immediate (and complete!) information about the object. Far beyond what a two dimensional system may give (First and middle name, family name, does not give much information that).
And that is what knowledge is all about. Expand on that.
Time for a remake of Carl von Linn

June 26, 2005

complex selling

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My old friend Hamish, a top SAP financial software consultant, has been riffing lately on what he calls “Complex Selling”:

Understanding the Market
Understanding the Offering
Finding likely customers
Prospecting
Initial discussions
Engagement
Managing the Sales process

blogging this?

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links etc.

[BLOGGERS:] Take the M.I.T. Weblog Survey.
[VERY COOL:] “Chicken cartoons on sticky notes.”
[Thanks to Alexoid for the link.]
[DITTO:] “Open Source Beer”. Great podcast, too.
[DITTO:] “Open Source T-shirts”. One guy in France making 36K Euros (ca. $43K USD) a month.

everybody wants to be more creative

[More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:]
Everybody wants to be more creative than they already are.
I didn

brit blogs etc.

Finally back home in Cumbria after almost 3 weeks of being away. Wow.
It’s been a long time coming, but it seems like the British blogging scene is finally starting to reach critical mass. Barely a day goes by without someone on my radar screen telling me about something interesting (i.e. as in “commercially interesting”) going on.
The guy to watch in this space is Alistair Shrimpton, who runs the UK branch of Six Apart. Very little happens without him knowing about it first.
He’s coming to the London Marketing Soiree on July 11th, so look out for him there.
[Speaking of London:] Looks like I’ll be spending a lot more time in London. A lot more.

June 23, 2005

the “i was there” factor

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Human beings want to be part of something.
We want to be able to say “I was there”.

I was there when Moses came down from the mountain.
I was there when Jimi Hendrix played The Star Spangled Banner.
I was there when the Americans liberated Paris.
I was there when the Red Sox won the World Series.
I was there when Apple released their first personal computer.
I was there when Starbuck’s opened their first store in Seattle.
I was there when Saul Bellow was signing books at Barnes & Noble.

When people talk about your product five, ten, twenty years from now, will they be saying “I was there”? Does your product have the “I was there” factor?
If not, should you be worried?
[Thanks to Evelyn for starting me thinking about this.]

June 20, 2005

what’s their angle?

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[FROM A RECENT MEMO TO A CLIENT:]
Back in the old days, you hired an ad agency to tell your product’s story. Some of them would do a good job– engaging commercials, beautiful photography, exotic locations, sexy people, clever taglines etc etc.
Nowadays, you have to be smarter than that. You don’t want the kind of high-production stories that come out of ad agencies– you want the kind of stories that ordinary people can tell.
Ordinary people actually aren’t that different than ad agencies i.e. they’re only going to tell your story if there’s something in it for them. With ad agencies, it’s easy– they just want the large wads of cash. Ordinary people want something else. Status. Cool factor. Peace, Love and Happiness. Whatever.
Forget your “product benefit” for a second. Instead, just ask yourself, when somebody’s telling your story to other people, what’s in it for them? What’s their angle?
Worth thinking about.

a brand is a narrative

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A brand is a narrative. We use them to paper over the narrative gaps in our own lives– to fill in the missing plot points in the autobiographical movies everyone has got playing in their heads.

June 18, 2005

advertising creative wanted

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A friend of mine is looking to hire a London-based, junior creative who’s good at both graphic design and copywriting. A sense of humor is also a definite plus.
If anybody knows anyone who fits the description, feel free to drop me an e-mail and I’ll pass it along. Thanks.

great brand

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Welcome to Madison Avenue etc. etc.
[Thanks to Loic for taking the pic.]

random

[OFFICIAL:] The Stormhoek wine freebie offer is open till the end of June. We send the wine out in early July. Feel free to sign up if you haven’t already.
[UPDATE:] The London Marketing Soiree on July 11th now has 127 sign-ups. I’m guessing the final number will be around the 200-Mark, with about two thirds actually showing up on the night.
[MEANWHILE:] It’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve been home. I’m looking forward to getting back to my desk next week and getting some proper writing done again, not just the usual “I’m blogging this” running commentary, which is what I mostly end up doing when I’m travelling etc.

June 17, 2005

euroblogs

Loic Le Meur has a nice overview of The European Blogosphere.
This was built as a wiki for the talk he gave at Reboot last week.
[On the subject of Euroblogs:] One big issue I kept on hearing from a lot of the Danish bloggers at Reboot was whether or not it was a good idea to write in English.
Obviously, English is the lingua franca of the internet, and if you decide to write in your non-English native tongue then your readership is going to remain quite limited. Loic solves the problem by writing in both English and in French, but like he told me personally, that can be a real pain.
I have no opinion one way or the other. Local is good. So is global. Depends on what you’re trying to acheive.

June 15, 2005

anybody want free wine? (cont.)

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Yep, my Stormhoek wine freebie offer is still open. Any British blogger over 18 years old is welcome to partake.
Like I said before, the wine is still in South Africa. As soon as it’s shipped to the UK I’ll let you know etc.
I’ll be working more on the Stormhoek blog over the next few weeks etc etc etc.
Here’s an idea I like playing with: Building brands for 1% of the cost it takes the competition. Not half, not a quarter, but 1%.
Is that possible? Hell, even if you’re doing it for under 5%, it’s enough to get the big boys to pay attention. And buy you out at a later date for obscene amounts of money.
A few months ago I was writing a lot on one of my favorite subjects, “The Global Microbrand”. I guess this is the kind of stuff I’m talking about.
[SPEAKING OF GLOBAL MICROBRAND:] English Cut just made it to Number Four Google Search for “Savile Row”. Hello, Long Tail.
I spoke earlier about the importance of getting English Cut on to Page One of Google. “If you have the best tailor in the world but he isn’t on Google, does it matter?” etc.
Shit. This is huge.

wednesday in london

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Still in London. Here all week.
This is what is currently on my radar.

1. English Cut. Got a call from Thomas over in the US. He had a really good visit both in New York and San Francisco. He’s now wrapping up the US trip in Chicago. We sold a lot of suits. Next visit we might add Houston to the list.
I’m down in London, trying to move the ready-to-wear conversation forward with possible suppliers. Maybe there’s a market for cheaper English Cut suits (say, $400 – 800 instead of $3000 – 4000). Maybe there isn’t. Same goes with English Cut shirts, ties, cufflinks etc. We’ll see.
2. Wines and spirits. I’m working on the Stormhoek brand, plus another 5 wine & spirit brands, which I’ll go public with later.
3. Thingamy software. Those of you at Reboot who got to meet Sig Rinde– he and I are working on something together.
4. The book proposal. That’s coming along nicely.
5. A commercial Hughtrain/blogging project, which I’ll unveil later.

OK, so what do these various projects have in common? Not much, except I started all of them for basically ZERO money [Tom and I got English Cut up n’ running for about $500. That kinda thing].
I’m starting to think– if your business plan needs a lot of starting capital, it’s probably pretty flawed.

June 13, 2005

monday in london

I’m in London for the next day or two. Had lunch with Neil McIntosh of The Guardian. About to go grab a pizza etc.
Seems like the Reboot presentation everyone is talking about is the one Ben Hammersley gave, and rightfully so.
I was sitting in the font row, he said, smugly.
Also, I thought Dr. Weinberger’s talk was pretty darn tootin’.

June 11, 2005

london marketing soiree july 11th

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A lot of people here at Reboot have been asking me about the
London Marketing Soiree with Seth Godin on July 11th.
So far the number of sign-ups has reached 94. Wow. That’s a lot.
Reboot is very groovy. Every seems very friendly, laid back and very, very smart.
[SUNDAY UPDATE:] Back in London. Had a great time in Copenhagen. Great to meet so many insanely smart and interesting people.

June 10, 2005

in copenhagen

I’m blogging this live from Reboot in Copenhagen.
It’s very cool stuff.
UPDATE: Doc Searls’ Reboot photos. And here are all the Flickr pics tagged “Reboot.”

June 9, 2005

english cut on NPR

Thomas is being interviewed by NPR tonight.
If you’re an English Cut fan, you can stream the show live at http://www.wgbh.org, and submit questions, by either calling 877 673 6767 or leaving comments before, or even during the hour on the Radio Open Source blog.
The show is broadcasting via Public Radio in Boston, Seattle and Salt Lake City at 7pm EST. Very cool.
I’m writing this from the hotel in Copenhagen, having just arrived in the country an hour ago to attend Reboot 7.0. See some of you tonight at “The Poet’s Bar”, I hope.

June 8, 2005

the english cut wars (cont.)

A recent comment I made:

Gordon, you identified the flaw in the “Don’t do it” argument [i.e the argument that English Cut should not diversify into anything other than bespoke Savile Row suits].
I have never once referred to suits as “luxury” items [whereas Gordon did, tellingly]. A suit is a suit is a suit. You wear them, for the same reason you wear anything else– to cover up one’s nakedness, to protect oneself from the elements, and to identify yourself among your group.
Yeah, bespoke suits are by far the best route, in terms of quality. But they cost a lot of money and take weeks to make. So time and money are the big opportunity costs– for both supplier and customer.
So, let’s say you don’t have a lot of time or money. What compromises are you willing to make, as a customer? And what compromises is English Cut willing to make, as a supplier?
At least with English Cut, you and I can hopefully have an informed, two-way conversation about this (like you are doing now bwah ha ha ha…). Try doing that with Armani.

This is getting fun.

london geek dinner– afterword

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Here is everything you need to know about how the London Geek Dinner went, including many photos.
Thanks for everybody who came. Lots of interesting folk there. The concensus seems to be that it went off successfully. Robert Scoble said it was by far the biggest geek dinner he’d ever been to, which I guess is saying something.
There’s an old saying, “A host never enjoys his own party.” As the organiser of the party, I can relate. I don’t get to talk to anyone for nearly long enough. I was just rushing around, just trying to introduce myself to as many people as possible, trying to be as sociable as I could, making sure everyone was being looked after. It’s not something I’m particularly good at, but I tried my best.
But it was great seeing seeing people again, and finally getting to meet a lot of bloggers for the first time, whose work I consider myself a fan of.
Robert made a great speech. During the question and answer session, the thought occurred to me… As someone who doesn’t work for Microsoft, I tend to view what Robert’s doing there in mainly external terms– how blogging affects the “Porous Membrane” between Microsoft and the outside world.
But of course, large companies have PLENTY of internal membranes as well. Though part of me has always suspected it to be the case, Robert’s speech made it much clearer to me that Robert’s work is changing Microsoft INTERNALLY is by far the bigger story.
Sure, we bloggers think the world of Robert and his work. But having talked to Robert, it seems a lot of people at Microsoft are far from happy.
Basically, the are seven layers of management between Bill Gates and Robert Scoble. Obviously he’s being protected by upper levels. But what about the layers in between? Think of all the wee internal fiefdoms and hierachies Robert’s work must be threatening.
I imagine trying to keep track of all the fiefdoms in a company the size of Microsoft is a bit like trying to keep track of pee in a swimming pool. That being said, I find the implications that a lowish-level employee can make such a huge, tangible difference to one of the largest companies in the world utterly staggering.
Don’t you?

June 7, 2005

in london

In London, currently just hanging out until tonight’s Geek Dinner with Robert Scoble. Roughly 200 people. Jeeze Louise.
Meanwhile, the London Marketing Soiree with Seth Godin on July 11th has just topped 60 sign-ups, which is also pretty amazing. Still a month to go etc.
Then I’m off to Copenhagen the day after tomorrow for Reboot 7.0, then back in London on Sunday.
Busy Hugh.

June 5, 2005

my first podcast

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[MY FIRST PODCAST:] Seventy-six freakin’ minutes of me rabbiting on about blogging, reboot 7.0 and whatnot. Thanks to Nicole Simon for doing the interview.
[THINGAMY:] If you don’t know Sig or his work, you wouldn’t know what the heck he was on about in this post.
But I have the sneaking suspicion he’s made a real breakthrough with his new software, Thingamy.
Go read the tea leaves and let me know what you think.

“it’s your turn to wear the shirt”

Recent letter from a gapingvoid reader:

Dear Hugh,
Last month I got my gapingvoid “Mistakenly” t-shirt in the mail [see the cartoon above].
I have a small but successful business which employs about 20 people.
When I first got the shirt I showed it around the office and everybody loved it. And now, when anyone is having a really bad day at work, we make them wear the shirt.
When anything bad happens to somebody… somebody forgets to place an order, a customer bawls them out, somebody loses an important document, a printer messes up a job or whatever, we tell them, “It’s your turn to wear the shirt.”
So it looks like your shirt has become this little cult object in our office. Very cool.
Yours,
K.J.
London UK

That’s one sick puppy. But I like him already.

all your base they belong to english cut etc

Just added this to Stormhoek.com:

Thomas was interviewed about a month ago by CNN. Dave Parmet, English Cut’s PR guy in New York, kindly just sent me the segment’s online transcript.
Big Media has its uses, occasionally…

the english cut wars (cont.)

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The English Cut Wars continue. In the comments I add:

When you talk with a good, honest Savile Row tailor about prices, what he does is allow you options.

For

hardcore marketing disruption

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Just heard: Bibendum, the very fancy restaurant in London’s famous Michelin Building (awarded two Michelin stars, not bad), has started serving Stormhoek Ros

the english cut wars have begun

Nice little marketing sparring match breaking out between me and Paul Robinson in the comments of a recent post:

PAUL: What are you now saying? That you want to sell crap. You are, by definition of your own marketing, your OWN WORDS, proposing to sell complete and utter crap. Because you know, that’s what scaling is all about after all. To hell with everything we’ve just said, let’s just pile up some sweatshop goods and sell them for a huge markup. Sure, we spent the last six months telling the world that quality is worth paying for, but if they can’t afford it, what the hell? We’ve got kids to put through college, and who care about the customer?! NOT US!
Seriously, do this, you’ll see your business die within weeks. You will be heralded as two-faced liars. It’ll kill English Cut, permanently. You can’t have two marketing campaigns that contradict each other. If you must have two sales channels, let them complement rather than conflict — take a leaf out of Tesco’s book re: Value vs. Finest.

HUGH: Five points:
1. I never said off-the-peg was crap. I said designer label was crap, for the money they’re asking. Big difference.
As Thomas said in one of his posts:

“Luckily for suit lovers everywhere, with modern technology there are now some really good ready-to-wear, manufactured suits being made, starting at only a few hundred pounds. Fifty years ago, suits that were both good and cheap did not exist. The tech simply wasn’t there.”

Also:

“For the money, the British high street retailer, Marks & Spencer makes as good a suit as anyone. I rate them highly.”

M&S suits are around the

my job

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free group

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NB: The London Marketing Soiree with Seth Godin on July 11th already has 30 people signed up.

anybody want free wine?

BAR stormhoek2.jpg
My Stormhoek wine freebie offer is still open. Any British blogger over 18 years old is welcome to partake.
The wine is still in South Africa. As soon as it’s shipped to the UK I’ll let you know.
I’ll be working more on the Stormhoek blog over the next few weeks.
[NOTE TO SELF:] So far 46 bloggers have signed up to receive a free bottle. Is a few free samples and a couple of well-executed blog posts enough to successfully launch a national brand? If it is, then a lot of ad agencies can kiss their sorry-ass business models goodbye.

bbc podcasts

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The BBC World Service is starting to podcast, using RSS etc. Rock on.

June 4, 2005

think different

From Gerard Baker of The Times, London:

June 3, 2005

“european civilisation has sown the seeds of its own decline and fall”

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The Anglo-Saxon economies, in response to their own economic crises of the 1970s, had prepared themselves for this new world with painful but necessary reforms.
But Europe looked inward, not outward. Instead of focusing on what was needed

london marketing soiree, july 11th

Seth Godin and I are arranging a London Marketing Soiree on July 11th.
Please tell your advertising and marketing friends.
Seth doesn’t want a late night, so it won’t be a full-on dinner like the London Geek Dinner on June 7th. It’ll be a cash bar, nibbles and Seth will give a talk.
Seth, in my humble opinion, is the greatest marketing brain alive. He’s certainly one of my heroes.
[NB:] Kudos to Lloyd Davis for setting up the wiki.
[NOTE TO SELF:] What’s the deal with all these social functions I’m suddenly organizing?

June 2, 2005

english cut ready-to-wear

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I’m finding two main issues about selling Savile Row suits:

1. I’d say well over 90% of English Cut fans either can’t afford $3000 suits, or aren’t inclined to spend that kind of money on them.
2. Bespoke suits don’t scale. Tom can make 3 – 5 a week, and that’s it.

So we’re looking at ways of going into the ready-to-wear market.
No, we’re not thinking of selling $1200 designer label stuff. That stuff is junk; it’s a ripoff.
Right now English Cut is making the best suits in the world in the $3,000 dollar range. We want to do the same in the $500 – 600 price range. Not too cheap, not too expensive.
It’s a potentially huge market. A lot of suits at that price range are made by people who don’t know what they’re doing– watch out for howlers like 3 buttons on the cuffs, “keyhole” buttonholes on the lapels etc. It all looks tacky, because it is.
We’re going after the sharp, classic English cut. Soft yet authoritative lines, strong cloth designs (e.g. classic “Fuck-you pinstripes” etc.). All the little details done properly (like, FOUR buttons on the cuffs, like they do it on Savile Row).
And then line extensions. Shirts, ties, cufflinks etc. All carrying the “English Cut” label. Or one idea I like a lot: business casual for our many U.S. West Coast readers.
Think Ralph Lauren, only smaller and sharper.
[Factoid:] John Vizzone, chief designer of Ralph Lauren Purple Label, doesn’t just wear his own clothes. I’m actually not sure if he wears Purple Label himself, either. I do know he wears Savile Row. Same with Calvin Klein. When Tom worked at Anderson & Sheppard, he cut for them both.
[NB:] If we do this, we’ll still be giving the full-on, obscenely expensive bespoke Savile Row treatment, of course.

June 1, 2005

Dutch say ‘No’ to EU constitution

Voters in the Netherlands have overwhelmingly rejected the proposed European Union constitution.

Exit polls suggest 63% voted “No” in the referendum. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who urged a “Yes” vote, says he will respect the result.
The BBC’s William Horsley in Brussels says the ballot has probably delivered a death blow to the constitution, at least in its present form.

The Netherlands was, like the recently-voting “Non” France, a founding member of the European Union. The fact that 2 of the 6 founding members of the EU have said “No” in the last few days is, to “Jerusalem-singing” Eurosceptics like myself, delightfully humorous.
Gosh. People reject a half-baked, calcified mockery of constitutional law, and Big Media is genuinely surprised. Again, I find it humorous.

untitled

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the adventures