In praise of Umwelt
“I’m not taking your stupid test.” Umwelt describes what matters to a particular being. Appreciating Umwelt leads to better tests and better questions.
My very own planning handbook
I didn’t have planning or strategy in my job title until I was forty, when I was parachuted, feet first, into a Planning Director role. Before then I’d spent twelve years in various account management roles and six years as an agency MD. I held down Planning Director or Strategy …
Strategy is Your Words : Book Review
Strategy is Your Words by Mark Pollard On page 155 of Strategy is Your Words, Mark Pollard states that, “Strategy is ideas and ideas are made of words.” If he posted that without context as a Tweet, I expect it would be a red rag to Strategy Twitter. However, unlike …
What marketing does best
The marketing profession is singularly good at devaluing ideas, which is a shame because it is meant to do the opposite.
Coffee austerity in Uganda.
You are a coffee farmer in Uganda. You till the soil on your patch of mountain with your spouse. You have three children and a dependent grandparent to support. You have a roof over your head and, to all intents and purposes, you are self-sufficient for food. You are …
Wake up and smell the broccoli. (And the coffee while you can.)
You won’t find any climate change deniers on the mountains of Uganda. Thirsty coffee trees don’t do fake news. Nor does broccoli. When the rain fell too heavily on the plains of Spain in December 2016, washing away entire crops, broccoli and other vegetables disappeared from British supermarket shelves. Prices …
Technology vs Machinery.
Every organisation has “machinery”. It’s a legacy combination of structure, culture and process. New technology and old machinery are seldom a good match. Technology vs machinery.
A dedication to aesthetics as practised by The Who and The Rolling Stones.
Pete Townshend stole his trademark arm swing from Keith Richards. And Andrew Oldham cut the Rolling Stones from six members to five, not for an musical reasons, but to improve their aesthetic and their memorability. Here are three extraordinary passages from an extraordinary book; Stoned by Andrew Loog Oldham. Firstly …
Clap traps
Claptrap is another word for nonsense. It is derived, not surprisingly, from the words clap and trap. It is a trap set to draw you into applause when none is warranted. A clap trap lures you into being impressed when you really shouldn’t be. A clap trap is an ideological …
Six years of agency staff meetings analysed in hindsight.
You learn a thing or two as the managing director of an advertising agency. Like what makes a good agency tick. Like what motivates good people. Like how it feels when the agency’s heart is in the right place. I was fortunate enough to be given temporary stewardship of such …