NORTHERN PLANNER

Lauren tagged me ages ago, so it’s about time I got around to putting down five blogs that make me think. Now there are far more than five, and you all know who you are, so I’m going to choose some that give me a slightly different perspective on stuff…..

1. Fake it until you make it. These are the observations of One Woman Running, an aspiring creative. I love the way she writes, I like her observations on The Work, but what I really enjoy is the way talks about her life. She makes me remember what it was like struggling to get that first job and how brave temps and people doing something they don’t love are – every single day.
2. Regine Debatty (we make money not art). This is a new one for me, but I love it. It sits at the intersection between technology and art. She shows how artists are using their medium to expose the ethical questions we should be asking about what’s going in in labs right now. As a science geek I love it, as a planner who wants to know what the conversations about the future are, well ditto.
3. Ray Kurzweil’s blog about emerging trends and technology can be quite scary sometimes, but always useful. The silliest thing I can do as a planner is just read stuff about planning. I think it’s important to hoard all sorts of interesting stuff. This is a great place to do just that.
4. I have to put Lauren and her She Sees Red Blog. I don’t know enough about art, something I want to remedy. Lauren’s reporting on her gallery visits, and how she does her own work is really helpful and a joy to read. Lauren’s one of these people that doesn’t just talk, she does.
5. So is James Boardwell. He’s someone I was lucky enough to meet at those Northern Planning summits. Now he helps me with most of my Web 2.0 stuff, and social research. His blog doesn’t get updated very much, which is a good job since lots of his stuff needs time for proper reflection. There’s lots of meaty posts about, well, everything. Every time I meet him he makes me think, for as long as I can keep up with him that is. He’s living proof that it’s essential to know people who are far cleverer than you are.
6. And I’m going to be cheeky and add a sixth. Marcus Brown is an interesting, generous man. He’s on the third version of his own blog, which is beginning to sire some posts that are incredibly profound, honest, personal and beautifully written. Then there are his alter egos, The Dead Artist and Sacrum. Sacrum is very funny, but he’s also an intelligent comment on the way planning models are used to look clever while doing nothing useful whatsoever.

By the way, Sacrum seems to have packed his bags and vanished into hiding at a secret       destination. Do you think he was responsible for the Olympic logo?