NORTHERN PLANNER

We had the first Northern Planning summit at The Showroom in Sheffield last night. I got there first and sat down with a coffee to do a bit of work. Strange nervous feeling at this point, I sort of know these people, but I’ve never met them before.

James arrived next. We swapped notes on the places we work and the unconventional ways we got into planning. Then in walked the famous Rob Mortimer soaked by the rain.

Some people like going to the cinema for a first date, that way there are no awkward silences and you then have something to talk about after. It was a bit like that for us – thanks to shared experiences from blogging, the conversation was easy to start and it only really stopped when the bar staff wanted to go home.

Amongst other things, we covered the advantages of baldness for planners, the lunacy of Rob not having a planning job yet, the merits of being open in blogs v keeping things back, the value of doing what’s right now v planning models, the brilliance of 80’s music, the lack of good researchers up north and advantages of using pictures and analagy over words. Also, I think James recorded me likening good creative briefing to Ronnie Corbett telling a joke, and Rob’s views on the strange success of Magners. Rob also played the orginal version of that track on the Sony Bravia ad – magic. We had to move rooms when the live music came on (hope the performer wasn’t offended) and ended up talking over a candle lit table and enjoying personal waitress service (the girl has probably heard of Rob).

I thoroughly enjoyed their company. We’ll be doing it again soon.

Out and about tomorrow so limited blogging. The day will end with a drink and a chat with the famous Rob Mortimer and the not so famous James Boardwell. With any luck there’s some sort of ‘beer goggle effect’ for interestingness and they won’t catch on that I’m actually as dull and predictable as this blog.

I’m not really into fashion (as some of the sporadic self portraits on this blog will confirm) but I still like this great example of a corporate blog from GQ.

On another tack, it’s another example of our increasing need for editors in our lives. The Long Tail and the increasing plethora of choice means it’s harder to actually make your mind up. From top ten credit card deals and pension guides to things to wear this summer and albums you must buy this year, editors help us decide. In the UK we’ve got ‘Happy’, basically a magazine that tells women what to buy and where. We’re going to see a lot of brands making themselves useful just by helping us make sense of the limiting effect of having so many options.

It used to be a lot easier to find new music for example – back in 1990 you just read Q, the NME and Vox (remember that?). Now you have to know what you like and find a source that likes it too. But that means you just find more of the same thing. Luckily I have a source called "Muller" the man who also introduced me to Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2005 and Prince in 1986. Indeed, some people think we’re only best friends because no one else likes our records or shares our humour.

By the way, I’m in love with The Guillemots at the moment (Made Up Love Song describes everything I feel about Mrs Hovells). Muller hasn’t got it yet, which means he’ll pretend not to like it at first.

Stuart pointed me to this site. Genius way to champion learning by doing. Reminds me of this and this.

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Interesting  post on waste from No Man’s Blog. It shows how much individuals could help the environent if they knew how easy it is. Yet most of the questions the media asks tend to be about the big, difficult things with no easy answer; like nuclear power, Kyoto and the behaviour of governments. It’s easy to do nothing when the conversation manages to shift responsibilty onto someone else.

There are lot’s of simple, and painless, things we can do before having to worry about drastic changes. Take Asi’s example;If one mobile phone charger per household is left on standby, the energy wasted is enough to provide the electricity needs of 66,000 homes for one year. Or consider that DVD player uses 80% of it’s power while on standby. Most people can’t afford a wind turbine but they can afford to switch things off whem they’re not using them.

I make no secret of my love for tea and here’s more persuasion to choose the leaf over the bean.

"Wake up with the Freedom fighters" declares the website for Contra Coffee. It offers coffe grown by the former Contras, the CIA backed militia that waged the dirtiest war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista governement. During the 80’s they carried out a campaign of torture, rape and massacre throughout the peasant communities, with the clandestine funding of the Reagan administration.

But now you can curb the spread of socialism through more peaceful means— purchasing Contra Coffee online with the guarantee that the ex-assasins get a fair price (how nice).

Charles Darwin was a shy man and avoided public debate, but he still welcomed criticism.

When he first published his theories on evolution, his argument was flawed but thankfully, lots of people wrote and told him so.

He read every single letter and used the continuous feedback to refine his work in later editions. Without the willingness to listen to honest critiscism,  historians think Darwinism may have stalled before it really began.

By the way, in his lifetime Darwin’s best selling book was actually about earthworms.

..and well on the way to turning into a ‘grup’.

According to German sleep physicians, our bodies are out of synch with the world we now live in resulting in social jet lag. Thanks to a mismatch of about two hours between our biological clocks and the demands of our jobs,at least half the population feels sluggish,disoriented and dazed. They say the solution is to match natural sleep rythms with daily routine – the average person prefers to sleep between 12midnight and 8.30am.

More examples include the need to sweat in  gymns now that work is less physically demanding, or female bodies that require getting pregnant at young age while culturally many women now want to have children later in life.

Read more about it here in article from the Observer.