young man in a hurry

Is blogging killing planning?

Went to the IPA strategy group debate last night, where the point of contention was - blogging is killing planning, as it promotes ideas without substance, rather than emphasising the value of quantitative and qualitative analysis. In short - standards are slipping, blogging is to blame.

For the motion was John Lowery, who gave a very impressive argument, well thought through, expertly and eruditely presented. Against the motion was John Grant, who had the best arguments, but no coherent way of presenting them, and his initial presentation was short on actual points. He chose instead to go for a negative line of attack, emphasising what it would mean if the audience voted against the motion. "What would it say about us?" he proclaimed. "Who gives a shit" was my muttered reply.

The debate opened up to the floor, with some good points made by some seemingly big game players, and one terrible point made by an Account Director from Delaney, who embodied why people with flair and nous think account men are pricks. I am an Account Man, I felt ashamed. Discussion continued and the key points that came out, which ultimately I think provide a good case for why blogging isn't killing planning were as follows,

• Blogging is a new comms medium, we don't understand its impact on individuals/groups.
• Blogging is throw away in its very nature, it is not a professional journal, more the brain farts of the people who write them.
• By having planners blogging and promoting their trade, more people will be interested in planning/have a forum to discuss thoughts with other planners/learn methods and rigours required to be a planner.

John Lowery's argument, whilst brilliant in its formulation, seemed to be based around a single brief posted on a single blog, by a single person (who remained nameless). Whilst Rob tells me that an good argument only needs one killer fact, and I agree, it seems a little drastic to call in to question your entire profession because of it.

The danger of John Lowery's argument is that if a blog is seen as the professional embodiment of its writer, that everything thats posted on it represents a mission statement, a golden idea, then no one would ever blog. He said that people should blog less, so the quality is better. This is a ridiculous contention, as it misunderstands the medium. It is spontaneous and by that nature sometimes poorly thought through. If a blogger treated his posts like an academic treated his journal entries, thought would be restricted to a few ideas, discussion would be muted and a canon of 'correct thinking' would be produced. Blogging represents a chance for everyone to say something and contribute to whatever they please. It is not press, it is not a bound training manual, it is not a paperback produced by the OUP. To assess it as it were, misses the point.

Breakthrough ideas for 2007

Travelled up to Edinburgh at the weekend to see my brother. And in all honesty was looking forward to the train journey as much as the visit itself. Phone off. Stare out of the window. I thought about buying a trash novel to read, purely to disengage brain. Instead I bought the Harvard Business Review, purely on the basis of it counting their 'Breakthrough ideas for 2007'. They had 20 in total, which were of varying interest. Below is a quick summary of the ones that caught my attention...

1. "The accidental influentials" - Duncan J. Watts
Argues that society is not made up of 'influencers', people who shape culture/pass on ideas to others, and that any notion of 'influencers' being at the core of one's marketing strategy is flawed. Instead, people are accidentally influential, insomuch as for an idea to spread rather than a few thought leaders shaping opinion, what is required is groups of easily influenced people in contact with other easily influenced people. The notion of influencers creates a bottleneck when the people they come into contact with are not easily influenced, Watts argues.

2. Harry Potter marketing - Dalsace, Damay and Dubois.
Introduces the idea that brands should not be age focused, i.e. define themselves as being a 18-34 brand, as that inevitably means they have to reposition themselves depending on the tastes/influences of 18-34 year olds at any given time. Instead brands should 'grow up' with their target audience, evolving and ageing alongside those to whom the brand was launched. Struck me as being a good idea for social networking sites, which will inevitably be seen as the property of an age group at a point in time, rather than a consistent representation of an age group throughout time.

3. Algorithms in the attic - Michael Shrage
Lots of ancient maths equations could make loads of dollar due to computers increased ability to use them properly. E.g. Google founded on an 18th century algorithm to classify nodes. Lots of money for mathmos if they bother to sift through the annals of their subjects history.

4. The emerging hotbed of User-Centred- Innovation - Eric Von Hippel
Innovation is vital for economic growth. Users are now at the centre of innovation rather than companies. Therefore governments should support user innovation, and encourage business to use it well. Denmark taking the lead.

5. Living with continuous partial attention - Linda Stone
People not really concentrating on anything as constantly looking for updates/new opportunities and don't want to miss anything. Different from multitasking. Results from massive bandwidth of technology and people trying to mimic computer updates. Good excuse if your not paying attention to someone.

6. Innovation and Growth - Size matters - Ap Dijksterhuis
Bigger companies are more innovative (on an aggregated per capita basis) than smaller ones. However to sustain they need to innovate faster as they grow bigger to sustain momentum. Plus resources required to service larger workforce is not 1:1 relationship with growth, more like 1:0.8, whereas innovation is a 1:1.2 ratio.

7. What sells when father knows best - Phillip Longman
Daunting thought that patriarchy will reestablish itself as those of a conservative judaeo-christian disposition are more likely to breed more than liberal types. Explanation of why religion more of a public issue now than 30 years ago. Basically, more social conservative are being nurtured than social liberals.

8. Business in the nanocosm - Rashi Glazer
One day we'll all have portable machines that builds stuff, e.g. plates, tables, bags. Bit science fiction since people find it hard to believe that books won't exist on paper in a few years, but interesting nonetheless.

9. Act globally, think locally - Yoko Ishikura
Business should think about local impact of actions and then scale globally. Similar to actor-network theory, I think. Good stuff, but hardly a breakthrough idea.

10. The best networks are worknets - Christopher Meyer
When approaching a problem you need to design a 'worknet' which involves five steps as follows,
1. Define the work - What is the purpose?
2. Identify the talent - Who am I talking with?
3. Engineer exchanges - Ensure balance between emotional, informational and economic returns.
4. Design the experience - Create environment that supports exchanges, virtual or real.
5. Assemble the technology - use leading edge stuff, but not for its own sake.

I thought this was seriously good. And would advise anyone interested in strategy to find a copy and read in full.

11. The folly of accountablism - David Weinberger
Accountability has gone wrong, has become a belief system and serves to bureaucratise, and give people false beliefs they can control life through adhering to specific set of rules. Essentially adding layer upon layer of process and sign off is wasteful and creates more damage to an organisation in the long run. Should be substituted with realism and trust.

Hope that was useful. If it was buy HBR every now and then, although it is £15.95, but it does contain good shit. Particularly if you don't use academic thought in your job (which is everyone bar people who work for think tanks).

Finding nemo

First Christmas ever without Mike, younger brother, which was  a little bit sad, in many ways relaxing and ultimately for the best as he is in Oman doing what he loves best - diving. He is working on a University of Edinburgh initiative - Project Nemo - looking around the Arabic Sea for clownfish.  Of course they have a blog, not being used at this stage for any scientific purpose, more a collection of musings, but a  good sign that scientific expeditions are looking to post findings online in real time. Well perhaps not in this case, but there are plenty of examples of research teams who have. Most of the one's I've read about appear to be password protected, no bad thing I presume, but there are  some open to all, Open wetware being one, and a whole host of others kindly listed by Jean-Claude Bradley. This really is the way all teams will need to start working, whether developers, scientists, mechanics, social workers or project managers, using the web to keep everyone abreast of status and findings should be a must. I also have an agenda, no more status reports in excel - what a waste! If they could just be continually updated by the people who actually do the work, and then have filters assigned to fields so they could be shared with Clients. It would certainly force transparency, something we're not going to be able to talk our way round much longer. 

Oh - if you want to read my bro's two line bio, he's the blonde 11th on the list.

Should everyone have a blog?

I ask the question as for some time I have thought blogs to have somewhat limited purpose. They do a few things very well. They can create some sense of community, all the marketing blogs out there link to each other, comment on each other's thoughts and musings and engender a sense of purpose to their work as a result. When lawyers, doctors, fishermen, cobblers and teachers use blogging in the same way as marketeers and populist academics, the full force of bloggings potential will be seen.

The other benefit of blogging, whether the blog be of a brand or a bartender, is the great levelling quality it brings to communication. HTML pretty rusty? Create a blog. Marketing budget small? Blog. Living in Mozambique and want to show the world what you're seeing. Blog it, send me the link and I'll know where you are. This point is less about blogging per se, more a result of the internet growing up and letting the world in, rather than keeping it the preserve of developers and keen night school students.

So it creates a community and allows everyone to start from (roughly) the same point. But the real question is content. If you are in some sort of 'community' as part of your job or the result of your extra-curricular interests, what content to put on your blog is straightforward. You comment on your work, the work of others and the issues of the day, whether a House of Lords ruling, an impending IPO or the surf in Cornwall. Someone with similar interests/views will read it and the conversation and community will begin.

However, if your job is just that, a way to earn money to enjoy the greater riches of life, and your interests are primarily spending time with your family and friends, the use of blogging is reduced to the point of self-indulgence.

I would like to blog to join a community, but at this point in time am concerned it would end up a a vanity project. Hopefully it won't, and someone out there will read it, say to themselves "i thought the same thing, what does he think about X, I'll leave a post and find out" or "what a load of crap, i need to straighten this whippersnapper out with a dose of the truth".

If it does, great. If it doesn't it can act as a mouthpiece for my views on marketing, Manchester United and members of parliament. And leave the community to a coffee and cigarette on the roof terrace with Sharabi, Hallybone and Fox.