Archive for July, 2005
July 31, 2005
7 Comments
Here’s a personal example of why I like blogs so much. My business partner, Thomas Mahon, is one of the best tailors in the world. We sell suits around the $4000 mark (and we consider that cheap).
In a recent post, he wrote:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. For the money, the British high street retailer, Marks & Spencer’s makes as good a suit as anyone. I rate them highly.
M&S suits cost about one tenth of ours. They’re like the British equivalent of Sears or JC Penny. Naturally, not everyone who reads his blog has a spare four grand to blow on a suit, so he was giving some advice about what to look for at a more modest budget.
Could you imagine a similar piece of good, solid information appearing in an ad for Armani or Brook’s Brother’s?
Of course not.
This the new advertising. A world where dinosaurspeak has nowhere to live comfortably.
Of course, not everybody wants to live in this new world of ours. When Tom and I launched English Cut back in January, we sent the link to a fashion journalist that he knew well. The journalist wrote back, saying (A) he hated the concept and (B) he didn’t think it was going to work.
I love watching the gatekeepers getting it wrong.
[UPDATE:] Another nail in the coffin of dinosaurspeak: “Stormhoek, Kittens and Gay Live Aid Performers”. Thanks, Gia.
Again, can you imagine the words “Kittens and Gay Live Aid Performers” appearing in a Jacob’s Creek wine commercial? Again, of course not.
July 30, 2005
6 Comments
If you care about blogging, please go read this.
Hell, even if you don’t “care” about blogging that much; even if blogging is only moderately interesting to you, seriously, just go read it.
Yes. This is huge.
July 29, 2005
5 Comments
Gia got her Stormhoek wine today, and made a few points about DRM (Digital Rights Management):
It’s Official: TV Sucks… Drink Bloggers’ Wine Instead
Please, British Television, don’t implode like the Music Industry and definitely, most definitely, don’t start calling ME a ‘pirate’ in the way the Film Industry does because I copy films to my harddrive for my son to watch on the train… Last time I was in Blockbusters their TV channel-thingy started talking about how “Video Pirates” were “involved in drug and human trafficking”… ????… Really? Me? Almost everyone I know who regularly copies DVDs? We are all involved in drug or human trafficking?? Piss off! … and the ‘Oh, no, we’re not talking about you we’re talking about the bad guys who do it, you know, the… (hushed voice) Asians’ argument just won’t cut it. Unless there is a legal number of times one can copy a DVD for personal use, then I’m afraid that, legally, I am tarred with the same ‘Supports Human Trafficking’ brush. And, you know, that really pisses me off.
It’s very simple. When a corporate schmoe reaches a certain age and position within society, the thought of calling teenagers or single mothers “criminals” is far less daunting to him than the prospect of having have to change his tired ol’ business model.
When you spend twenty-plus years getting to the top of the pyramid, the last, last, last thing you want to hear is that nobody wants your pyramid anymore. Especially if that’s the only pyramid you’ve got. So you lash out.
But cultural entrenchment isn’t just the domain of “the evil managers”. The guys with the black turtlenecks and iPods are feeling the same pain, as any wander around Soho on a weekday will confirm.
[NB:] Welcome to the future of advertising: Selling wine by talking about DRM. Heh.
[DRM RELATED:] From Suw Charman: “I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1000 other people will too.”
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Another reason why The Head Lemur remains one of my favorite blogs.
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[LINK:] More thoughts on the subject from Evelyn Rodriguez.
July 28, 2005
18 Comments
Incisive thought from James Cherkoff:
I have just received a bottle of Stormhoek wine — all part of Gapingvoid’s wine blogging campaign. It’s real modern marketing — albeit at a micro-level. Will it increase sales? Who knows. Will they learn a lot about their market? Definitely.
“Learning a lot about their market” is EXACTLY what marketing should be.
To hell with “selling”. This is about something far more interesting.
9 Comments
There’s a London Geek Dinner for Girls on the 16th August. Visit the wiki and sign up.
Sounds like a fun evening. Guys are allowed to attend, but only if one of the girls invites them first.
[SFX:] Foot tapping…
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Even if your heart is in the right place, Chris, trying to tell other people what tag to use kinda sorta defeats the purpose, don’tcha think?
Tags, not trees. Right, Sig?
July 27, 2005
9 Comments
Calling All British Bloggers:
If you participated in the recent Stormhoek “Blogger’s Wine Freebie”, if you could list any blog posts you might have posted about it on the Stormhoek wiki page, I would really aprreciate it. Thanks.
Saves me having to do it later…
July 26, 2005
32 Comments
PART ONE:
Megan McArdle, one of my favorite bloggers told me recently that she got both her job and her boyfriend through blogging, which is a very cool story.
But I’m looking forward to the day when that kind of story gets a lot more common, and not just with bloggers with relatively high traffic, like Megan or myself.
And I’d also like to see bloggers not having to rely on their stories being pinged by “A-Listers”, in order for the word to spread sufficiently.
Here’s where I think a lot of bloggers would like to be:
1. Let’s say you needed a job. So you post a “looking for work” post on your blog, and within days another blogger e-mails you and offers you an interview.
2. Or let’s say you wanted to hire somebody for your business. So you’d post something on your blog, and some other bloggers would e-mail you, and the next thing you know you’d have a few interviews set up.
3. You’re moving to a new town. So you blog about it, and the next thing you know a couple of bloggers from that town with apartments to rent send you some details.
4. Your girlfriend and you broke up a few months ago and you’re looking to date again. So you blog about it and the next thing you know a woman blogger e-mails you, and you two go meet up for coffee the following week.
5. You’re looking to buy a car. So you blog about it and the next thing you know a blogger looking to sell his 1999 Honda sends you an e-mail.
6. You’ve got a nice little freelance business which you regularly talk about on your blog. Once a month or so a blogger e-mails you, offering you good, solid work…
We’d like to be able to be more reliant on the blogger’s market, and less reliant on other markets.
Because the blogosphere is a market that bloggers are comfortable with. And compared to dealing with the blogosphere (when it works), most other markets are anonymous and unpleasant.
PART TWO:
So what is the answer? How does an average blogger, someone who doesn’t have a lot of readers, make it happen?
I was very pleased with what happend on the “Blog Designers Wanted” wiki page. I jut put up a simple, blank page on the wiki, and within 24 hours, about as comprehensive a list of good blog designers as you can find anywhere suddenly self-created, as if by magic.
But bloggers need more than just blog designers. We need all sorts: jobs, workers, furniture, love, sex, friendship, apartments, business opportunities, the information is endless.
But what we also need, when we scatter our pollen, is a place where our pollen can be seen easily by others. Just scattering it everywhere is no guarantee it will land where you want.
Ergo, “The Hughpage”. An Open-Source “Craigslist” for Bloggers:
This wiki is designed to give bloggers a place where they can centrally collate their links for whatever reason: Work, jobs, love, sex, networking, friendship, apartments, furniture, cars, arranging geek dinners etc etc. Go ahead and build, design, improve and contribute to it as you see fit, in whatever manner works best for you. I’ll pay for the bandwidth. –Hugh MacLeod
The Hughpage wiki is up and at your disposal.
Just blogged that you’re looking for a job? Then go put the link in the jobs section.
Just blogged that you’re looking for a date? Then go put your link in the dating section.
Just blogged about needing an apartment? The real estate section.
Just blogged about something that doesn’t have a section? Then create a new section by yourself. No need to ask first. Exactly.
Feel free to go crazy. Thanks. [NB: You might want to go check out the Blog Designer’s page just to give you an idea of how it generally works etc.]
[NOTE TO SELF:] This is either a totally great idea or a totally insane idea. Maybe a bit of both etc.
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Sorry Robert, I don’t much care for “Windows Vista”, either.
It’s the kind of name Disney would come up with. Or General Motors.
It. Is. Bland.
Microsoft. Stop. Being. Bland.
Now all you need is some uninspired-but-really-expensive Madison Avenue ad campaign (e.g. “What do you want your Vista to see?”) just to seal the deal. With an RSS-free, Flash-intro fake blog designed by a hotnewyorkcreativeshop. Rock on.
July 25, 2005
6 Comments
Piers Fawkes, a Brit living in New York, is unimpressed with the London advertising scene:
There are a few folk in the UK who are very switched on, I grant you, but a lot of agency people I met in my short visit were rather bemused by PSFK and IF. Although blogs are championed by the Guardian newspaper — an important media read — the British marketing community seems to be dismissive of the new tools to develop dialog between brands and consumers.
The contrast with New York, where I am based, is vast. Agencies in New York get it — they may not be making the best attempts but they’re trying hard. It’s best to crash and burn than not not try at all, no? The buzz around new media tools is exemplified by the social networking going on here. Meanwhile in London, there seems to be an air of “well, we make the most creative advertising in the world, why should we listen to what’s going on anywhere else.” Everyone in Soho seems to be still in the pub talking about the next commercials director.
I know it’s fun hanging out in Soho and shooting trendy commercials and whatnot, but in terms where business is evolving on a global level, the British advertising scene has evolved into a complete irrelevance.
How did this happen? Here’s one idea: Soho is a trendy neighborhood in London (like the “SoHo” in New York). Now here’s the thing– Soho is where the London ad community is traditionally based, fair enough.
Hey, guess what else is in Soho? That’s right, Wardour Street. What’s Wardour Street? That’s right, the traditional center of the British Film industry.
The British advertising industry and the British film industry have always had a closer day-to-day relationship with each other than the American equivalents (Madison Avenue and Hollywood are thousands of miles apart, after all).
The British advertising scene sees itself more as an extension of the Film-TV-Entertainment industry, than they see themselves an extensions of their clients’ business.
Big. Mistake.
4 Comments
I’ve put the entire Hughtrain on the wiki.
If you can improve on it, feel free to do so. Thanks.
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Thanks, Nick:
Being more of a drinker (ahem) than a connoisseur I can’t claim to give the this wine a fair hearing but within my narrow terms of reference it went down a treat. The one word that does spring to mind is refreshing. What can I say? Give it a try.
And Ray Booysen pipes in:
The wine is an absolute winner. It has a wonderful crisp taste and went down very well. If only I had some more! It is a perfect wine for parties and would go incredibly well with any sort of sea-food.
The only
July 24, 2005
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Good stuff from Stowe Boyd. Open tags vs closed tags.
Jeff Jarvis has a new blog design. Much better. When people new to blogging ask me who to read, I always suggest Jeff. Always. Very little happens worth noting in the blogosphere without Jeff spotting it sooner than most.
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Alistair Shrimpton of Six Apart and myself are trying to assemble a central database of folk who build blogs, wikis, websites etc on a professional basis. Please go check out the wiki and feel free to add your name (or the name of a recommendation) to the list.
People are always asking the both of us, “Where can I find a good blog designer?” We thought it was time to come up with an easy-to-use solution that anybody on the planet could make good use of.
If you know anyone who qualifies, please spread the word. Thanks.
[BONUS LINK:] A photo of London-based uberblogger Gia Milinovich wearing one of my t-shirts yesterday at Open Tech.
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Seth Godin gives advice to people wanting to publish non-fiction books:
4. Books cost money and require the user to read them for the idea to spread.
Obvious, sure, but real problems. Real problems because the cost of a book introduces friction to your idea. It makes the idea spread much much more slowly than an online meme because in order for it to spread, someone has to buy it. Add to that the growing (and sad) fact that people hate to read. Too often, people have told me, with pride, that they read three chapters of my book. Just three.
A successful book agent I know tells me that at leat half the people he meets who are writing their first book, are doing so not because they have anything particularly interesting to say, but because the idea of “the writer’s life” appeals to them.
Tweed jackets, smoking a pipe, sitting out in the gazebo and getting sloshed on Mint Julips, pensively typing away at an old black Remington. Bantering wittily at all the right parties. Or whatever.
Anybody who wants to write books for the money deserves to suffer. And happily, many of them do.
July 23, 2005
5 Comments
[NB: This is one of the cartoons in the Stormhoek brochure. Thanks to Geoff for the pic.]
[UPDATE:] The first Blogger’s Stormhoek review is in. The link is here.
The moment of truth is upon us though, how was it for us (I let my wife have some too. Generous I thought!) — Jane described it thus:
It was very fresh and sharp flavour. Very drinkable, and I think I need another glass to check my appreciation.
[Said while insisting I get her another glass]
For myself I would tend to agree, very dry, fresh and crisp. Lovely.
I am oft to pour another glass and see whether I can order some more…
Thanks Hugh and if you want to do the sample thing again, I live in Europe and North America.
Thanks Paul, that was very kind. As far as further UK samplings are concerned, there’s a new Stormhoek Ros
July 22, 2005
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Kudos to Peter Copper for posting pictures of the Stormhoek Wine Freebie brochure that came with the bottle.
So the Brit bloggers are getting their wine. Our next step is to roll the idea out to both the United States and Western Europe. We’re looking into the logisitics now (shipping costs, legalities etc.). I’ll keep you posted.
Like I said in the brochure copy:
Of course I can’t do it by myself. I need your complicity if it’s going to work. No complicity, no idea-virus. I can’t just write a big media company a cheque and make the marketing problem go away. Those days are gone.
What do you get out of it? A free bottle of wine and a chance to play a part in screwing up the traditional marketing and advertising landscape forever. A chance to see how far we can stretch the power of the blogosphere.
The internet and the blogosphere proved years ago that you don’t need to hire an ad agency or Big Media to mass market digital and digital-related products. But what about non-digital?
What is actually possible? Where is the edge?
Shall we find out?
[Attention British Shoppers:] btw Stormhoek is currently available at Thresher’s, Sainsbury’s and ASDA.
[Yes, it’s true:] We’re going to be bringing Stormhoek to Our Social World in September.
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Nick Reynolds got his bottle of Stormhoek in the mail today:
I’ll get back to you when I’ve drunk the stuff but I can tell you that I haven’t been this excited about tasting a new bottle of wine in quite a while.
Marketing Disruption etc.
[Some more linklove here etc.] Yes, James H. Turner, we are indeed looking into launching the idea-virus in the States. Watch this space etc.
[PS:] Does anyone have a photo of the brochure that came with the bottle? If so, could you possibly e-mail it to me or send me the link? Thanks.
[PHOTO:] Cool pic of bottle & brochure here. Thanks, Woffle.
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Paul Goodison notes his Stormhoek Wine Freebie has arrived:
And following Hugh’s promise of samples I can confirm today that I have a very exciting looking bottle sat besides me. I got bottle 24 of 75 — unfortunately not really a collectors item as the Stormhoek promise is about freshness and drinking the wine at the peak of its freshness (i.e. relatively soon!) The inserted leaflet from Hugh entitled “Wine Blogging as Marketing Disruption” however could well enter that category 
Anyway thanks to Hugh, Orbital Wines and Stormhoek — will report back on how I found the wine, because I am of course a person whose wine recommendations you trust… aren’t I? What do you mean, ‘No!’?
The leaflet Paul speaks of reads like this:
“Wine Blogging as Marketing Disruption”
Hiya,
Thanks for signing up for your free bottle of Stormhoek. I hope you like it.
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?
If it isn’t, well, no great loss. We will have gotten some PR out of it, and maybe a few long-term Stormhoek customers out of the blogosphere.
But if it is, then I’m thinking, Holy Shit, what we’re doing might put a lot of traditional ad agencies out of business. Seriously.
We’re talking serious marketing disruption.
But as a marketing blogger, I’m starting to believe that all marketing should be serious marketing disruption.
Of course I can’t do it by myself. I need your complicity if it’s going to work. No complicity, no idea-virus. I can’t just write a big media company a cheque and make the marketing problem go away. Those days are gone.
What do you get out of it? A free bottle of wine and a chance to play a part in screwing up the traditional marketing and advertising landscape forever. A chance to see how far we can stretch the power of the blogosphere.
This is only an experiment. Luckily we have a wine company crazy enough to have let me talk them into it. So we’ll see what happens. Rock on.
“FRESHNESS MATTERS.“
Those two words sum up the heart and soul of Stormhoek.
Contrary to popular belief, most wines do not improve with age. Sure, the great wines of Bordeaux and the Burgundies often do, as do certain others, but these are not the wines that most of us are buying most of the time.
A grape picked straight off the vine is one of the freshest taste experiences imaginable. It’s juicy, intensely fruity, often aromatic, and held in balance by a streak of zippy, bracing acidity. This abundant fruitiness is something that winemakers, over the last three decades, have worked hard to capture and preserve in their wines.
30 years ago, most white wines were dull, lacking in fruit, and low in alcohol. This was largely the result of a gaping void (heh) between what vineyard owners and wineries wanted
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Doc Searls gives Thingamy a mention:
What matters most is who is coming up with it. As usual with cool things that happen naturally on the Web, it’s not the big vendors or other usual suspects. It’s individuals, trying to make sense of the world.
Dollars, of course, will come later.
If you want to know more about Thingamy, Sig’s the guy to talk to etc.
[NOTE TO SELF:] How does this affect “The Porous Membrane”?
July 21, 2005
5 Comments
Robert Scoble says being linked to by an A-Lister ain’t what it used to be.
Weather forces are constantly wearing down the mountains. You can see these forces from a plane. Mount St. Helens is half blown away. Most of that material ended up in the flatlands.
Same with traffic on the Web. The “big” sites like Slashdot are losing traffic to the flatlands. On Sunday I got something like 15,000 visits from a front-page link on Slashdot. I remember when such a link used to be worth 40,000 to 100,000 visitors.
Where did that traffic go? My theory is that it’s spreading out to the flatlands.
So, how do you get noticed in a flatlands world? Do something interesting and let your friends who blog know about it. Every link is a vote for whether or not your stuff is interesting.
Hell, it’s hard enough reading everyone who deserves to be read, let alone linking to everyone who deserves to be linked. I wish I had an answer.
[BONUS LINK:] Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo! asks, “Has blogging peaked?”
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Another bomb blast in London. Not as serious as the last one, it seems.
Tom and I are in Cumbria, so we’re fine.
More: “One person was injured at Warren Street. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing the detonator.”
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From Trendwatching: The Nouveau Niche.
Consumers are more individualized than ever, expecting every good, service and experience to be addressing their unique and oh so important selves. Gone are the traditional demographic segments, the distinct consumer classes: this is all about being MASTERS OF THE YOUNIVERSE. Gone too are the days when, as BusinessWeek so eloquently put it; “the ideal was not merely to keep up with the Joneses, but to be the Joneses.” In a NOUVEAU NICHE world, where the demise of institutions and their stifling conventions has unlocked latent hyper individualization, where it is all about ‘me’ (for better or worse), where being special will lend consumers status, to be mass is now every consumer’s nightmare. Witness GRAVANITY, witness MASSCLUSIVITY. Even the few mass objects of desire that still manage to unite large groups of consumers — iPods, Nokia handsets, or the Mini Cooper — are likely to be customized and personalized the moment they leave the warehouse, website or store.
Consumers are also more experienced than ever. They expertly cut through the crap, ignore advertising, and know which quality and price levels are fair. They actively hunt for the best of the best, [my italics] and the best of the best is often NOT mass. (The only mass they’re willing to put up with is the stuff they don’t really care about and can get on the cheap at Aldi or WalMart). As Chris Anderson, author of the excellent Long Tail article points out, the only reason mass used to equal ‘hit’, had to do with the now outdated perception that if something sells well, it must certainly be good.
Yep, I can relate. Last February (before English Cut had taken off) I wrote:
We have gone beyond the tipping point. We are not blogging because it’s cool or hip. It’s now mostly about survival.
We have entered an age where anyone who wants to make a living above minimum wage will have to get used to the idea of building and owning their own “global microbrand”. If you’re not blogging already, I would start. Seriously.
Re. All this sort of stuff I like to write about– blogs, English Cut, The Hughtrain, Seth Godin and his Purple Cow, the slow death of Madison Avenue and Big Media, The Cluetrain, etc etc:
It’s all connected. In the last week or so English Cut got e-mails from people wanting appointments, from all over: Dubai, Japan, San Francisco, Washington, Atlanta, New York, India, etc.
It’s all about The Global Microbrand. English Cut is my way of expressing it. But had it not been suits, had I not had a friend who was a Savile Row tailor, it would’ve been something else.
July 20, 2005
22 Comments
It turns out that one of English Cut’s customers also knows a hardcore diamond cutter/master jeweler, Paul Hatton.
Next thing you know, our customer is telling Paul all about blogs and whatnot.
Next thing you know, I get a phone call.
Next thing you know, I’m building yet another blog for a master English craftsman.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please go check out “Hard Diamond”.
Thank you.
July 19, 2005
21 Comments
Sig’s got a new plaything for all you geeks out there:
Tags, not Trees
Take my new tree-structure-free gizmo out for a test drive:
What is it?
Whatever you want it to be: Navigation-free website. Tags-only blog. Complicated-to-simple database. Active resource picker. Knowledge and learning base. File system. Whatever. An experiment for the heck of it.
Basically a different approach to organise data, finding data, and transferring knowledge.
An example of no-tree-structure-at-all. Anataxonomy in practice…
NB: This gizmo has no commercial application, or at least, it was built without a business model in mind. Like Sig says, he just built it for the heck of it.
What sayest thou?
[UPDATE:] Dennis in Sig’s comment section referred to it as “Blog + Wiki= Collaborative Software v2.0″
[UPDATE:] Really good commentary from Doc Searls: “Politically, tags are The People’s Directory.“
[Disclosure: I work with Sig and his software company, Thingamy.]
July 18, 2005
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Ben Metcalfe [backstage.bbc.co.uk] & Lee Wilkins are working together on getting none other than [drum roll, please] Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo! to participate in a special Geek Dinner.
Jeremy is here in London to speak at the Open Tech 2005 conference which takes place on Saturday July 23rd 2005.
I’m not involved with organising this one. Lee’s a pal of mine, so I’m just spreading the love etc.
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On June 8th, the day after the London bombings, I got an e-mail which I immediately posted on gapingvoid:
Hi Hugh
A collegue of mine is missing after yesterday’s blasts. Her name is Monika Suchocka. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and is around 170cm (5.57 foot) tall. The last we heard from her was a text message saying she was getting on a bus.
If you could please post a link to my article on her or email some people in London, it would be most helpful. We are really worried.
Thank you for your time.
http://www.rjb.za.net/archives/2005/07/08/missing-person-london/
Regards
Ray Booysen
I received the following e-mail just now:
Hi Hugh
We found out on Friday that Monika was a victim of the bomb blast. She was on the Picadilly line train that was targeted.
Thank you for your thoughts and help you gave.
Regards
Ray
Sad. Very, very sad.
July 17, 2005
8 Comments
“How To Be Creative“
A book by by Hugh MacLeod
[As regular gapingvoid readers will know, I’m hoping to turn “How To Be Creative” into a book. This is my latest attempt to write the book proposal, as I see it in its finished form. Apologies in advance if you’ve already seen a lot of this before.]
In 2004 I wrote a post on my blog called “How To Be Creative”. Its premise was very simple:
“So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.”
It really wasn’t so much a How-To laundry list, “The 7 Steps Of Highly Effective Creatives” etc. It was more of a series of meditations on the lessons I had learned the hard way over the years, as I tried to bridge the nearly impossible gap of making an OK living without letting my soul die from the inside out.
Somehow it ended up striking a chord with a lot of people. Lots of people ended up reading it (I’m guessing several hundred thousands). It went viral, to put it mildly. Later it ended up as a PDF file on Seth Godin’s ChangeThis.com. At last count it was the third most downloaded PDF on the site, topping manifestos written by people far more famous and talented than me, like Tom Peters or Guy Kawasaki.
Like I said, it hit a nerve.
Most of the Change This manifestos were written by people to be read by their peers. People in their thirties and forties, interested in the same kind of business-orientated subjects, whatever. Mine wasn’t. Mine was written for people far more younger than me– kids just leaving college, or folk who haven’t been in the real world very long, just looking to figure things out for the first time. Kids who want to do the same as me when I too was just starting out– stay alive spiritually while still being able to function in an adult world, without being eaten alive or turned into robots.
A few months later I started getting people from the publishing world asking me if I would be interested in turning it into a book. Of course I would, who wouldn’t? So they asked me to write a book proposal. This is what you’re reading now.
[RSS READERS: CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE THING.]
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[This is my latest rewrite of “How to Be Creative” [Older version is here]. 12,000 or so words, plus lots of cartoons. The book’s text will be quite short, divided into four parts, but there will be plenty of cartoons to look at, between 150 – 300 of them. The book proposal is here.]
“So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.”
PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION, OF SORTS.
Before we get started, three points:
1. “Creative” is one of those annoying words that means little, simply because it means so many different things to different people. I make no claim to have a better definition of “creative” than anyone else.
The best working definition of creative I have is “When work and play become the same thing”.
When that happens, you’re in flow. When you’re in flow, things are created.
Perhaps there are better definitions of “creative” out there. Does it matter? Not really. What matters is that you find your own definition. You don’t need mine. I don’t need yours.
2. The creative drive is like the sex drive. We all have it, and because what we do on this earth affects other people, we have to be careful what we do with it. Because to use it unwisely can screw up your life.
I am not here to tell you how to be more creative than you already are. God/The Universe/Whatever made you creative, just like he/she/it made all of us. Tapping into it is a personal journey– other people can only help you so much. That being said, I think once you’ve gotten the itch to do something creative, there are a lot of land mines and pitfalls that are best avoided. All I can do is tell you what has worked for me over time.
I used to associate “creativity” with all that youth-generated sexy stuff: fun, glamorous jobs, being hip, being artisitic and meeting women. As I get older and I see how the world is changing away from the Big Media Industrial Complex towards something much more personal, complicated and fractal, I start equating it more with mass economic survival.
3. Quitting your job at the phone company to become a musician is no different than quitting your job at the phone company to start your own accountancy firm. It’s just the human spirit trying to better itself. The difference between art and commerce is artificial. What matters is not what individual path you have chosen, but that you stay on it; that you become the person you were born to be.
[RSS READERS: Click here to read the whole thing.]
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July 16, 2005
3 Comments
From Fred Wilson:
This is the first time I have heard of this OPM stuff and I need to do more research before I truly believe that Microsoft is really going to do something this dumb, but there it is.
All the great RSS stuff that is coming in Longhorn won’t help me a bit because if I have to live with this, I won’t be using Longhorn.
Robert, do you know anything about this?
[UPDATE:] Turns out Robert has already written about it here. [Thanks to Gabe for the tip-off].
And in the comments below Robert says:
It sounds lame to me too, but then it’s not the first time we [i.e. Microsoft] have done DRM.
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7/7 Memorial Service, Manchester, July 19th
Dear Hugh,
I am involved in organising a performance of Faure’s Requiem in Manchester on Tuesday 19 July 2005 at 7.30pm at St Ann’s Church in the city centre [Address Details Here]. The idea is that it should be an evening of remembrance for the victims of the London bombing last week and a gesture of solidarity from Manchester (who’ve experienced the horror first hand) to London. As well as the requiem there will be an organ recital of Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma variations.
We are relying heavily on word of mouth to spread the word and encourage people to attend to make it a special evening.
If you could mention it in your blog, we would be very grateful; similarly if you know of anyone else who would be willing to publicise the evening, that would be excellent.
Regards,
Caroline
If anyone knows anybody in Manchester/England etc., please can you forward them the link to this page? Thanks.
July 15, 2005
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From English Cut:
Also, my tailoring colleague Jonathan Quearney and I met up with marketing mavens Johnnie Moore and James Cherkoff in London recently, where they interviewed us for a podcast.
I was very pleased with this. Like Tom’s earlier Chris Lydon interview on US Public Radio, this kind of stuff adds more dimension to “Brand English Cut” etc.
Kudos to Johnnie Moore for making it happen.
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This just arrived in my Inbox:
Dear Hugh,
We have an office-full of pre-release Stormhoek samples, so we hope to
finally send out the Bloggers’ freebie samples at the beginning of next week.
Could you possibly forward me the names and addresses of the recipients?
I need to produce labels for said samples, is there any mileage do you think in making each one a personalised label?
Hope all is well at your end.
Andrew
Hopefully Geoff will let me supply free wine at the Our Social World conference in September.
I think marketing to bloggers is a no-brainer, although granted, it’s still early days.
[UPDATE:] Just sent the list to Stormhoek. Please watch your mailbox if you’ve signed up. And please let me know if you haven’t received anything by August 1st.
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A nice thought from Caterina, which of course got me thinking about how it all fits in with English Cut:
As I was saying to Andy the other day, the marketplace used to be a human place, where people exchanged the goods they’d grown or made, and each exchange was an exchange between people. Now there are supermarkets and Walmart, and I had a conversation with a clerk at Borders who said that they were going to replace him with a system whereby your goods were tallied by an RFID reader as you walked out the door. There’s something different about knowing the people who make your clothes and grow your food, and I think that this will be an enormous force going forward.
One thing I’m noticing is an increase in the word “bespoke” being used around the blogosphere. Is that partly English Cut’s doing? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it’s just a word my radar is more attuned to, now that I’ve gotten into the tailoring business.
[Speaking of tailoring:] A few weeks ago I was messing around with the idea of going into the ready-to-wear (i.e. cheaper) end of the business.
I have to say I’m losing enthusiasm for the idea. Two main reasons:
1. It cheapens the brand. Of course it does.
2. A wee voice tells me that it is far easier to sell one $3000 suit than it is to sell ten $300 suits.
Something worth thinking about, in any business.
July 14, 2005
4 Comments
Got back to London from Paris this morning…
Just when I was about to post something about how frickin’ tired I am getting of all this travelling, along comes another conference I will be attending. Looks like a good one:
Speakers include:
Ben Hammersley is a journalist, writer, explorer and an errant developer and explainer of semantic web technology.
Loic Le Meur Executive VP & Managing Director of Europe, Six Apart, the Company behind TypePad and Movable Type
Jason Calacanis Engadget(Building a blog business)
Ross Mayfield CEO Social Text (Tentative)
Max Niederhofer, co-founder of 20six(The Ludicity of Blogging Communities)
Me!
Simon Grice CEO Midentity, Personal Digital Identity — the next paradigm shift
Tom Coates BBC Radio and Music Interactive
Euan Semple BBC Director Knowledge Management Solutions
Colin Donald Broadband Stars (UK
July 13, 2005
19 Comments
One of the main arguments we use to rationalize moronic and soul-destroying hierarchies in our workplace is that we’re biologically programmed that way i.e. it is in our genetic makeup to create moronic, soul-destroying “tree structure” hierarchies, and to organize things accordingly.
“It is scientificly determined that I be moronic and souless” etc.
As a card-carrying member of the Madison Avenue “Fuck You” school of marketing, I can certainly relate. And I imagine, so can lots of people reading this.
Sig begs to differ:
tree-structures, are we hardwired?
If I say “Book” and “42”, what comes to your mind? Some “Hitchhiking” perhaps?
What with “Umbrella” and “Film”? Any film titles coming to mind?
Add “Nanny”, “Flying”… would that be “Mary Poppins”?
See? Your brain is quick and naturally wired to intercept iffy tags!
Nevertheless, I often hear that tree-structures are necessary and that we are hard-wired for tree-structure organising: Hierarchies, folders…
That I would argue, humbly of course, is bogus.
Would “Film > British location > Female lead > Disney > Family > etc.” trigger “Mary Poppins!” as promptly?
Nah, didn’t think so…
We’re naturally inclined to tag imprecisely and freely — and locate any object or subject intercepting those tags. Fast, efficient and without training. And without any quest for standards.
In other words, we need no classic tree structured data sorting. We would be better off without.
[DISCLOSURE:] Sig and I are working together on a mostly secret project. Even if what we’re doing is proved wrong, well, at least we had fun trying. And if we prove to be even partially right, then… Holy Fuck. Holy Fucking Fuck. Holy Fucking Fucked Fuck.
Indeed.
7 Comments
Last weekend I was in the South of France. 2 nights ago I was in London, doing the London Marketing Soiree with Seth Godin. Today I am in Paris, typing this from my usual internet cafe in Montparnasse.
The London Dinner was very, very cool. I’d seriously recommend you clicking on the link etc.
Thanks Seth, for making it such a wonderful evening for all concerned.
[NOTE TO SELF:] Your life is just too fricking weird these days.
July 9, 2005
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When my business partner and Savile Row tailor, Thomas Mahon was last in America, he was interviewed by Christopher Lydon on Public Radio, namely, on a show called “Radio Open Source”. The MP3 download is here.
Pretty darn cool.
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Jeff Jarvis, one of my heroes and favorite bloggers has been having quite a run-in with Dell.
And the mainstream media has picked up on it.
When I first read how Dell responded to it, the first two words that came to mind were “Oh, Dear.“
“Dell is dead,” a friend told me today. “I first sensed that four years ago, when they stopped being a technology company and started being a marketing company.“
PS: when I say “Branding Is Dead”, that’s what I’m talking about. Getting too metaphorical about one’s product kills companies.
July 8, 2005
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VERY URGENT: I just found this e-mail in my inbox:
Hi Hugh
A collegue of mine is missing after yesterday’s blasts. Her name is
Monika Suchocka. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and is around 170cm
(5.57 foot) tall. The last we heard from her was a text message saying
she was getting on a bus.
If you could please post a link to my article on her or email some
people in London, it would be most helpful. We are really worried.
Thank you for your time.
http://www.rjb.za.net/archives/2005/07/08/missing-person-london/
Regards
Ray Booysen
Can anyone help?
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Hey Robert,
My friend, Sigurd‘s son, Edward, wants to know why the new neato MSN Messenger is only available for Windows, and not Macs.
Since I don’t regularly use either MSN or Macs, I have no idea why not. I assume it’s because you guys in Redmond care more about Windows than Macs, which is perfectly understandable.
But still, you guys have an opportunity here to make a new customer/fan/maven with a very switched-on 14-year-old, so I thought I’d throw you guys a bone.
Besides that, part of my post-Cluetrain schtick thinks it would be kinda neat to believe that, thanks to the power of blogs, the opinion of a young chap in Southern France could actually get on the radar screen of the groovy cats in Redmond, without a lot of fuss.
Any insights or new product development news from you or your colleagues would be much appreciated etc etc.
Thank you in advance!
Yeah, I know. Ten years ago this would have qualified as an insane idea. No longer. You know that; I know that. We live in interesting times etc.
Say Hi to Maryam for me!
Hugh
PS: It’s now official: I hate French keyboards. If I were French I’d probably hate them less. C’est la vie.
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Thanks to everybody writing in to ask me if I’m alright. Yes, I’m fine.
My heart goes out to those who were killed and injured. It is all so utterly appalling.
Yesterday was totally surreal.
Yesterday morning I was walking down Earl’s Court Road in London (2 – 3 miles away from the bombs) when the bombs went off. I was caught up in the impending commuting chaos in that usual, well mannered British way. Nobody, including me, knew what was going on. I just thought it must be a strike or a big-time technical SNAFU.
So, around 5pm I get a phone call from an American friend.
“Are you OK???“
“Yes, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m currently in Cannes, drinking a beer on an 63 metre yacht.“
It was a very cool yacht. On the foredeck was a trap door, underneath which was a large storage compartment where they keep the helicopter.
The aft deck had both a helipad and a jaccuzzi.
Nice boat etc.
Somehow I managed to go from terrorist incident to big Mediterranean yacht in a single day. Though the London Underground and buses weren’t working, somehow the Brits managed to keep the trains to Gatwick Airport running and the planes flying.
A testament to the British attitude that life must go on.
Somehow I managed to get to Victoria on foot, catch the train to the airport and catch my plane on time.
I only found out about the true nature of the London events when my American friend phoned me on the yacht, yesterday evening. Funny how one loses track of world events when travelling.
Strange day, indeed.
No, I can’t tell you who the yacht belonged to.
I’m currently writing this from the South of France. I find the last 24 hours too surreal to really write about the politics of terrorism in Europe in any meaningful way. Terrorist incident + 63 metre yacht= Way too much information for my tiny little brain to absorb in 24 hours.
This morning I phoned some friends of mine in London. Life seems to be returning to normal, as best as can be expected. I find how the Brits are reacting to it more reassuring, than I find Al Queda’s actions not reassuring, if that makes any sense.
I’m back in London on Monday. See you then.
July 6, 2005
8 Comments
This made my day:
Blogvertising
Hugh Macleod’s blog, gapingvoid.com, teaches blogvertising by example. You think he’s talking explicitly about blogvertising or maybe making crass commentary on society. Then you realize that you want to buy some Stormhoek wine and a English Cut $3000 tailored suit. You just got sold to. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. All I do know is that I want a new suit.
Thanks, Tony; this actually made me laugh out loud (for all the right reasons).
I’m not always sure how I feel about it, either. “Blogvertising” is still a work in progress, as is any form of commercial blogging enterprise.
My M.O. is still the same as it has always been, the same as what most bloggers do with their stuff– throw different ideas out there, and see which ones stick. Make it up as you go along etc etc.
If you try something and it fails, you’re going to get flak. If you try something and it succeeds, you’re going to get flak. Welcome to the Human Race etc.
All you can do, of course, is keep throwing new stuff out there. And that’s the fun of it.
July 4, 2005
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