Monthly Archives: September 2007

28Sep / 2007

The Communications Room goes global


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“Remember that happiness is a way of travel — not a destination”

Roy M Goodman

Some people may accuse me of having a habit of committing various forms of career suicide. I think it’s worked out pretty damn good to be honest. But first of all I was ‘uninteresting’ and did a marketing communications degree. Not only that, I did it at a ‘new’ University. Then I decided not to work in London’s ‘adland’, whilst pursuing my education at OU doing an MA in Social Science Research. To make matters worse, my research method of choice is the fluffy ethnography. Well here’s another good one to add to this list.

I’m giving up my role as a communications strategist after busting my balls for 8 years to get here. What am I doing? Backpacking around Central and South America for 6 months and then I’ll hopefully pursue said given up career in Australia. I’ve still got plans for this blog and I’m going to continue to post as much as I can whilst I’m away. Although with perhaps a more international flava!

Hopefully I can join some coffee mornings from Mexico City to Buenos Aires with a host of interesting people. So anyone out there who is up for meeting up during my fleeting visits to various Cities over the next 6 months, get in contact.

More importantly anyone in Sydney who fancies giving me a highly paid planning job around May next year then please feel free to do the same.

I don’t leave for a few weeks yet so hopefully I ‘ll have some time for a bit more blogging whilst I wind down. I’m very apprehensive to be leaving my job, but excited about the road ahead.

Posted in Australia, Blogging, Central America, Planning, South America, The Communications Room, travelling

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26Sep / 2007

Plotting the Plannersphere

I’ve been meaning to have a go at this Political Compass Test since Charles posted it a while ago. As you can see, The Communications Room is only slightly more authoritarian and left than Punk Planning.


Go on, have a go and politically plot the Plannersphere

Posted in Blogging, Plannersphere, Planning, Political Compass Test, Politics, Punk Planning, The Communications Room

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25Sep / 2007

Hand dryers just got sexy

Whilst I was out last night I came across the Dyson Airblade, the new hand dryer that’s allegedly the most hygienic, fastest and energy efficient dryer in the business. Given that my hands went from wet to dry in about 5 seconds, I can vouch for it being the fastest in Southampton at least. Sorry if I’m late on this Laaaandoners, you chaps have probably got an Airblade 2 up there or something. They have only just hit the coast by storm I’m afraid.

It’s great. No longer do you have to resort to wiping your half dry hands on your jeans because you’re fed up with waiting for a mild breeze that couldn’t knock over a daisy dry your palms. The only thing that’s missing is an attachment that you can use for when you have spilt something on your shirt. This is the only benefit of the old style hand dryer in my expert opinion on clumsiness.

I love Dyson, it’s one of those brands that’s all about innovation and making things better. I can imagine Dyson creating an endless product range in anything mildly related to the efficient use of air and power. What’s next? My vote would be air conditioning. I’m sweating my nuts off writing this.

Posted in Dyson, Dyson Airblade, Hand Dryers, Innovation, NPD

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24Sep / 2007

Brand America

An unnamed friend, from an unnamed agency, working on a huge, unnamed American account sent me through a brief directly from his client last week. And I kid you not, in the little box titled ‘why should people believe what you’re saying?’ they put the following in capital letters. Just in case you didn’t hear them of course.

‘BECAUSE WE’RE AMERICAN!’

I’m hoping this was intended to be a joke and they weren’t being serious, but some how after watching things like this as well last week, probably not. Here’s one for the fight fans. Go on Ricky, shut him up!!

Posted in America, Boxing, Branding, Clients, Floyd Mayweather, Ricky Hatton, The brief, The weird world of agencies

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20Sep / 2007

Those were the days

Flagged up by the House of Naked, Animoto looks like a pretty neat little tool. You upload your photos, then it adds music and cuts it together into a video. Perfect if you don’t have the time or ability to tackle something like iMovies. It’s a nice concept for a Facebook app me thinks? Ideal for capturing bite sized moments and memories. Here’s my very quick stab.

Posted in Animoto, Facebook, Full moon party, House of Naked, iMovies, Photos, Slideshows, Thailand

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19Sep / 2007

It’s good to talk…you never know what you might find out


Sorry for the complete self – indulgent post, but this is too cool not to post on my blog, although perhaps not for anyone else on the Plannersphere other than me.

Well, I’ve got to the age where I’m getting curious about my family history and where my bizarre surname Moggridge comes from. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to shed any light on the origins of my surname, but I have managed to find out that I have a pretty awesome Great Aunt who only passed away in 2004. Given that my family is very ‘bloke’ heavy, keeping in contact with relatives isn’t obviously our strong point. I think BT was right. This is such a shame when you find out about relatives such as this and didn’t get the opportunity to meet them.

Originally from South Africa, Jackie Moggridge married my Grandad’s brother, Major Reginald Moggridge (Major Moggridge….love it!) before the Second World War. Jackie became one of the most respected female pilots in British aviation history. As one of the first ATA Ferry Pilots Jackie ferried more planes than any other male or female pilot during the war. After the war she even transported spitfires to places as far away as Burma. Awesome!! And if that’s not enough, here’s a quiz question for you. Who was the first female British pilot to be employed by an airline? Yep, it was Jackie. How I’ve only just found out about this is so gutting.

But if you are that way inclined you can order her auto biography here or read an endearing discussion about her here. But never has a BT advertising campaign ever been so true.

Posted in Aviation, BT, It's good to talk, Jackie Moggridge, Woman Pilot, World War II

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18Sep / 2007

Activists for the liberation from seagulls


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I’m a bit of a sucker for anything related to group dynamics and problem solving, particularly when it comes to a good old fashioned agency ding dong about processes and politics. To the annoyance of my colleagues no doubt, I’m somewhat of an idealist. I believe there should be way more collaboration, more productive conversations with smaller groups than long, pointless meetings with all and sundry.

I also get angry with pessimists, idea killers and micro managers. They are the antithesis of the kind of people you need in an agency to get ideas off the ground. In my opinion these people should realise their skills might be better suited elsewhere, like perhaps a bank, or better still a factory.

I like to refer to these people as Seagulls. They fly in to meetings squawking away without any idea of what’s going on and then proceed to shit all over everything. Undoubtedly this will be repeated everyday up until there is nothing left in the team or the idea. They will then blame everybody apart from themselves and simply fly off and shit somewhere else. There’s at least one of these in your agency, admit it? You avoid inviting them to meetings at all costs, or you refrain from putting yourself forward to work on certain accounts. They sap the life and enjoyment out of everything and turn the process of creation into a stressful and frustrating job, that just needs doing. That’s why I find this idea of coliberation refreshing.

I try my best not to get caught up in all the politics, but occasionally it’s inevitable, particularly as a planner. It might just be me, but I think the ‘planning department’ is often treated a bit like Switzerland. You’re seen to be this kind of objective mediator between feuding nations. I believe we would all like to think of ourselves as liberators as opposed mediators and coliberation is a much more productive term than collaboration when it comes to agency group dynamics.

Posted in Agency politics, Agency processes, Colibberation, Collaboration, Group Dynamics, Liberation, Planners, Planning, Seagulls, Switzerland, The weird world of agencies

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14Sep / 2007

Judge more books by their cover

Nowadays I tend to buy the majority of my books from Amazon. When I buy books from Amazon it’s normally when I know exactly what I want – something recommended on a blog or in the paper. However, I still love books shops. I browse and feel my way around them, picking up the books with interesting covers, reading the summaries and generally looking for something but not anything in particular. The last five books I’ve bought on Amazon were; The Brand Innovation Manifesto, The Undercover Economist, Freakonomics, Herd and Convergence Culture. All plannery type of books and my wish list looks similar. Interestingly though, the last five I bought in a book shop were; The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, a Karl Marx biography, Watching the English, The World of Karl Pilkington and Unspeak. All quite disparate and bought on a complete whim.

Hypernarrative has posted this interesting article. It discusses the concept of sites organising products visually and allowing you to meander through and pick up books just as you would in a bookshop. It suggests that ‘bad design’ can in fact be good design. It encourages discovery, although I doubt it would sell as many books?

Excuse this slight random digression and probable guff but it’s just bouncing round in my head…..

So whilst sites like Amazon try and be helpful/sell more products by analysing your history and recommending potential titles, they focus your reading in a particular direction. I now read more plannery type books than ever before, finishing one and then moving straight on to the next. Is this because I’m spending more and more time online? Am I allowing sites like Amazon and Last FM to influence my future knowledge and interests or limit it to specific areas? Sounds a bit extreme I know but I’ve even started to make a conscious effort to return to my broader, more interesting habits, at least so I can avoid boring people at work with just ‘cool work stuff’.

Yep, the Internet gives people access to more stuff than ever before blah blah blah. But rather ironically, because there is so much stuff, news feed, filters, social networks etc allow you to make sense of it, or more importantly limit the amount of new stuff you can discover. Where is the potential of finding something new and unexpected in your Netvibes?

Posted in Amazon, Books, Digital, Internet, Netvibes, News feeds, Social networking

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12Sep / 2007

iTunes U

Sorry if this generates even more information overload for planners, but I think it’s worthwhile.

iTunes have just launched, iTunes U, ‘the campus that never sleeps’. You may have noticed it on your iTunes interface already? It’s basically 100s of free lectures from some top Universities in the US. I haven’t had the chance to have a good rummage, but there are a couple in there I’ve spotted that look interesting. Particuarly lectures from MIT’s comparative media studies course. Which features the fantastic Henry Jenkins.

You can read The Guardian’s article here.

Posted in Apple, Comms thinking type stuff, Divergence, Education, Henry Jenkins, iTunes, Media, MIT, Random observations, Universities

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