NORTHERN PLANNER

Northern Planning summit last night at Runaway Girl in Sheffield. Gemma noticed that the staff were incredibly nice to us. Either they’re that way all the time, which is a nice thought, or they knew we were coming. Let’s face it, if Famous Rob thinks you’re okay you’ve got it made, no wonder they tried so hard.

Rob mentioned that he can continue to teach me about music, now that his wi-fi’s sorted out. He played some stuff on his Ipod that sounded pretty good, the acceptable face of thrash metal to these old grumpy ears.

Rob’s got a fuller description on his blog. For my part, I’m glad we agreed that Second Life is rubbish, that JamesB needs to re-think his arty flat caps and I really like the idea of creches for men in shops – just give me looped Sopranos episodes and you can try on as many pairs of skinny jeans as you can.

As the relentless march of web commerce quickens pace, sticking to what you know is not an option for retailers. They ‘ll have to to find new ways to create experiences as opposed to just selling stuff. Nothing new in this line of thinking of course, but I’ve been having a look at ‘Instore Magazine’ to see what plots they’re hatching to meet the challenge. Are the Amazons of this world worried? Let’s see.

First up, Tesco are introducing an interactive touchscreens to help customers compare products on more than price.

Mintel says ethical shopping isn’t a fad. 3/4 of UK shoppers feel it’s their duty to recycle, while more than a third buy fairtrade when available. No wonder Tesco is also focusing on it’s ‘locally sourced’ produce credentials too. Or is is trying to kill off the independents?

Woolworths and Curry’s are focusing on same day pickup, to entice customers who have ordered online to come into the store.

Bodylite displays has launched a flat pack mannequin. People can come up with their own designs.

…….and that’s about it. Most of the stuff is about design, little seems to be about experience. If you listen carefully you can hear Amazon chuckling all the way to the bank.

I know we’re supposed to be grumpy at Christmas starting as early as November, but I was in Leeds this week and just loved seeing the lights.

A bus drove through this one but I kind of like what it’s produced.

Mum and Dad live in Cornwall, so we usually spend Christmas with my in-laws who don’t, but this year we’re going south. Highlights will be getting wrapped up and walking on the beach, the traditional Hovells Christmas Eve Fondue, Mum’s cooking, not to mention seeing Mum and Dad at Christmas for the first time in three years. I miss them.

As opposed to the "Real Thing (r)".

For Stan Lee😉

Before you go any further, this is another coffee/tea related post, sorry.

I had an afternoon cuppa with JamesB yesterday and he pointed out this website. Coffedate.com is just that, a place where you can meet someone in a relaxed environment. I like the idea of a more relaxed, no pressure, antidote to speed dating, I can imagine being to enjoy a chat with someone, romance or not, maybe they saw this post, maybe not.

So I may have to revise previous views on coffee (but not the superiority of tea). Tea is still slow and all ritual and little rules, but coffee is slow in a different way. It’s a social thing, the framework for a relaxing chat anda catch up, maybe a more informal meeting. It’s an alternative to the social alcoholic drink, overstuffed sofas, rustling newspapers and a muffin. Put another way, even if you’re going to have tea, you nearly always ask someone out for coffee.

By the way, I wonder if someone out there could be championing proper coffee as enjoyed by generations of Americans, maybe as an antidote to faffy coffee? You know half caf, soya milk frappicinos and the like. Every hardworking American worth their salt seemed to drink strong, black coffee when I was growing up, nothing added, just coffee – or at least they did when I lived their briefly as a kid (and on any detective show too, imagine Cagney and Lacey drinking a latte). I’m Northern though, so anything simple is okay by me.

This is an article about record companies searching for formulas and equations to work out what will be a hit or not. Interesting that one outfit seems to have a system that does okay.

That’s my problem with it though – ‘okay’. Reducing music down to a safe bet reminds me of the formulaic ads I fast foward through every day. 

Knowing our place in the universe dents your confidence a bit. Ever since we proved that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around our place in the universe has seemed more and more marginal.

We’re on a spec of rock and metal, orbiting an ordinary star on the outskirts of a galaxy that has about 400 billion stars in a universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies. That’s before you consider the possibilty of an infinity of dimensions. Our existence is pretty irrlevant.

But when you talk about existence, you get in trouble, existence only applies to things on your relative scale. An atom in a bogey in your nose doesn’t know it’s in a nose, a bogey or even know it’s an atom. Outside it’s nucleus , the strong atomic force is meaningless, while inside an atom it’s everything and gravity doesn’t matter until you get to the tiniest distances possible.

On the very smallest scale, electrons do not exist, they are not a solid thing but a cloud of probability – since they may be here, here, or here, we have to assume they are in all those places at the same time.

In the same way, do we exist on the scale of a universe? We are invisible next to something that big, to it, are we really there? Maybe trying to understand the meaning of the universe is like a bacterium wondering about the meaning of the human gut it lives in.

Don’t know where to go to this, but I like the thought of your truths being grounded in your individual perspective. Just thinking out load, so I’ll stop.

Scott has kindly given me this Cool Brands book to have a look at. My first reaction is to reject it immediately, since I reckon calling something cool makes it anything but…

I had a read anyway and the case studies are quite good. Especially the titles, which describe the brand in sentence. It’s quite interesting to compare them as you find that some don’t do much, they don’t feel ownable. Some are brilliant compressions of something really meaty, jam-packed with possibility.

Of course pictures and associations matter, but sometimes going back to a short sentence  can help you decide if you have something extraordinary –  or just a few words.

Compare:

Innocent by name, Innocent by nature

Chanel – fashion passes, style remains

Topshop – fashion for fashion’s sake

Smile.co.uk – brightens up banking

Hakkasan – original cuisine set in sumptuous decadence

With:

Canon, at the heart of digital imaging

Blackberry – tools for success

Becks – quality and purity

Alfa Romeo  – objects of desire