Worn Again via Wired – quality

via wornagain.co.uk

I’d not come across Worn Again until I started reading a story on Wired.co.uk which highlighted some brilliant up and coming British talent. It’s a great idea – stylish products made by recycling material from other businesses. This bag is made from decommissioned Eurostar uniforms and seat headrests – the site also features products made from decommissioned Virgin hot air balloons. Fantastic.

The Wired feature can be found here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-10/27/wired-goes-talent-spotting-in-creative-britain.aspx

Les Veloistes Gentils 2010…legendary climbs

I've just emailed members of Les Veloistes Gentils about the planned ride for 2010. After our cracking ride in May this year across the Pyrenees, the general consensus seemed to be (a) more legendary climbs and (b) less chance of snow stopping progress.

So, to meet both objectives, we're going later in the year (20th-24th June) and we're tackling two of the most famous (and daunting) mountain climbs: Alpe d'Huez and the giant of Provence, Mont Ventoux (and we'll be taking the classic Bédoin route up). We'll also need to go over the Col du Lautaret on the same day that we'll have gone up and over Alpe d'Huez.

In all we'll be covering more than 650km in just five days. Starting in Geneva, we'll stop in Grenoble, Serre Chevalier, Digne-les-Bains, Carpentras and finish in Avignon. 

Should be cracking.

NOWISM: consumers’ pursuit for instant gratification

via trendwatching.com

Long but as ever useful briefing from Trendwatching.com, this month about ‘NOWISM’: how consumers are increasingly moving away from physical objects that deliver ever more marginal increases in status and towards instant gratification from experiences.

This picture amused me…it’s a genuine workstation that’s been designed to allow workers to walk at 2mp/h while working…burning 100 calories an hour in doing so. Crazy.

I think the trend is undeniable but I’m not very happy with it personally! I think we’re in danger of breeding a generation with extremely low thresholds for downtime, and I reckon downtime’s damn important. I also think that a desire for instant gratification is expensive and a society based on it is likely to have greater levels of crime. Worrying.

Happy flowchart

via typcut.com

Came across this today. I’m a huge believer in people taking control of their own lives and if things aren’t good, making a change. On the flipside, i don’t have a lot of time for people that moan about their situation but don’t seem prepared to do something about it. Seems like common sense to me, but it’s surprising how many people simply let life happen to them.

Star Wars dressing gown

via wired.co.uk

That’s my Christmas pressie sorted then. Wifey, are you listening?

Ten marketing rules for all small businesses

I've done some work in the past with a fella called Nick Gregory. Actually, my wife's done more during their time together at Oracle and MediaSurface. Nick's a very smart marketing guy and now runs his own consultancy, Market Accelerator. 

He's just posted his ten marketing rules for emerging enterprise software vendors. Nick's focus is IT, but I think the same rules could apply to pretty much any small and growing business. The rules are great and very much like Nick himself: straight-talking, pragmatic and focused on the result.

Here’s a funny/cool little site…

…that Gabbi came across. It’s called Xtranormal and, put very simply (because it’s very simple) it’s a site where you can make little animated films simply by typing the script and dragging a few camera angle changes, expressions and actions where you want them.

When Gabbi found it, he was looking for something to use as a script so, bless him, he took the nine point plan to the perfect PR pitch and made this little film. OK, so it’s a bit amateurish but as a quick and easy way of turning the written word into something more dynamic, it’s pretty damn cool.

I was looking at the site over the weekend and, as you’d imagine, kids love it. Here’s a film that I made with my two. Hilarious.

Stop the PR pitch madness, part II…the nine point plan

So the post on Tuesday stirred up a neat little discussion. I was thinking that while it's obviously easy to sit back and say what might be broken with a process, it's also important to propose an alternative. So I thought I'd play client for half an hour, and try and work out how I'd go about selecting an agency in my perfect little theoretical world (though – and despite my flippant remark – you could do worse than read Gabbi's summary of the Winning Without Pitching Manifesto in the comments).

First off, for me to say that pitches should be banned was, of course, rather provocative. But I've found that being a bit provocative can be what encourages people to contribute… We need some way to sell ourselves, whether it's called a pitch or not. My issue is with what agencies are asked to pitch.

So, here we go. I'm a PR manager looking for a new agency. First off, I do my own research – speak to a few peers, perhaps, or journalists, contact an industry association, surf the web…you know the sort of thing. I reckon I should be able to narrow down a list of four that I'm going to ask to meet. Let's get in touch.

Hi,

I'm the PR manager of Les Chapelles Holidays, and I'm looking for a new PR agency. I've drawn up a shortlist of four agencies and you're company is one of them. As such, I'd like to meet.  This is what I'd like to propose:

1. I'll come to you if that's OK? I'd like to see your offices.

2. I'm only planning on meeting each agency once in the selection process, but would like a three hour meeting in the afternoon (the reasons for which will become clear a little later).

3. I'm presuming you'll do your research, so you'll be able find out lots about our business from our website, coverage search, social media analysis, etc etc. If you have any specific questions, however, feel free to drop me a line.

4. I'm not giving you a brief, because I'm not asking you to pitch me creative ideas and a communications strategy. I'm a forward-thinking guy, and (a) don't believe that you'll be able to get under our skin enough in the next fortnight to develop a decent strategy or associated tactics and (b) I respect that your strategic nouse and creativity are valuable, and I should really be paying for them.

5. When I come in, I'd like to meet the team of people that you would foresee working on the account. I think you'll be able to assess who those people might be from your research on our business, and our budget is currently about £10k a month, so I reckon I'll be meeting four or five people (and if there's more than one director in the room, I'll smell a rat). It'd be great if each of them could give me a five-minute precis of their experience, role and the piece of work of which they're most proud. I'd also like to know their favourite band and cocktail of choice.

6. I'd like you to present comprehensive agency credentials. Agency history, client base, key areas of expertise and anything else you feel would be relevant. I'd also like to see three case studies of work you've done for clients that you think are relevant to our business area. I'd expect these to include the business challenge, strategy you developed, tactics you implemented and the results generated. I'd also like the people in the room to have worked on the case studies, because I might have questions.

7. I'm going to test you guys out with an exercise that will take about an hour. It'll be challenging but fun, and will give me the chance to see how you guys work together (and with me).

8. I'd like to take contact details for three client references away with me.

9. After we've had the meeting, can we go to the pub for an hour or so? I'm buying.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Mark

Now, I'm sure I've missed a few things out – and would welcome suggestions for additions and tweaks – but how refreshing an email would that be to get? I think every agency contacted would be keen to win the business, I know I would. And I think I'll have gathered enough information about the agencies' expertise, resources, people, passion and abilities to make a decision.

Or am I wrong?

Stop the PR pitch madness

Last week, when Confused.com decided to pay some of the losing agencies in its pitch process for the ideas that they came up with, the company was roundly applauded by the PR industry. "At last," people cried, "a recognition that creative ideas are valuable." Fair enough. Clive at Bite wants to know how you put a price on a great idea, rightly pointing out that the value of a brilliant piece of creative will likely outstrip the two minutes in the shower it took to come up with it. I know for a fact, for instance, that Marmite's 'Love it or hate it' strapline was the result of a five minute stationery cupboard meeting between an advertising executive and a 22-year old intern (that's a complete lie, by the way).

Of course, it might have been nice for Confused.com's Kelly Davies to offer to pay agencies before the pitches took place, but then of course she wouldn't have known whether they'd come up with any decent ideas would she? And you know agencies…lazy buggers would have gone through the motions and just picked up the cash.

If nothing else, the novelty of Confused.com's action serves to highlight how happy the PR industry still is to give away what should be its most valuable assets: creative and strategic thinking. It really should stop, but when even the biggest, most successful firms haven't got the bollocks to change things, it won't.

Imagine this scenario (hypothetical, before Kevin McCloud gets all excited). I want to get a new house built, so I'll need an architect. I do some research online…talk to people who've had houses built…maybe even get in touch with the Royal Institute of British Architects (or, more likely, the Conseil National de l'Ordre des Architectes). Having done that, I'll have a list of a handful that I'll meet. At those meetings they'll show me some of the houses that they've built previously, give me some references, show me their professional qualifications and I'll tell them a bit about what I'm after.

Now, what do you think will happen if, after these meetings, I pick my three favourite architects (let's call this my 'shortlist') and ask them all to come back in, oooh, 10 days' time and show me the plans for my new house? That's right, the fully worked up and costed plans…plus a timeline that they'll commit to. I imagine my brief would have been OK…I'd like four bedrooms, big kitchen, double-garage, playroom for the kids and an en-suite…so I'd have thought any architect worth her salt would be able to hit the nail on the head first time, wouldn't she?

No? Sir Norman Foster said what?! What sort of language is that for a Knight of the Realm to use..?

The thing is or course, I wouldn't expect that to happen because I'm bright enough to know that to get the plans I want…to get the house of my dreams…is going to take a while longer.

And yet this is what clients ask PR agencies to do all the time. And before we all happily sit back and point the finger at those unreasonable clients, they do it because PR agencies are happy to respond. This merry dance takes two.

Funny thing is, how many times have you heard an existing client say, "we should start next year's planning as early as possible…give ourselves the time to get the strategy right, define the positioning, come up with some really strong creative…"? 

Yes, we should. So why when we pitched for this account did you force us to do the same job in a week and a half?

Pitches can be incredibly distracting and stressful for the people involved. So, Mr Client, when we win your business through a stressful and distracting process, will you be happy when your new account team becomes equally stressed and distracted when the next pitch comes along? Thought not.

Pitches should be banned. Agencies should get much better at presenting credentials and references and have the confidence to decline to pitch valuable creative ideas that in the main (and even if you win, for crying out loud!) you're almost certain not to get paid for.

If a client can't decide on which agency to use based on reputation, experience, previous work, references, team…without needing to know exactly 'what you would do for us'…then they're an idiot, frankly, and shouldn't be in the job.

The lost art of the holiday handover

Mobile technologies and the 'always connected' society bring innumerable benefits, there's no doubt. But they have their downsides too…mainly due to the fact that we're, umm, always connected. People moan about it, but we're our own worst enemies. The lost art of the holiday handover is a great example.

When I were a lad, before I was senior enough to qualify for any mobile technology (and, let's be honest, it was still a time when mobile phones were the preserve of the wealthy and mobile email a mere pipe dream) when you left work for your holiday your final task before leaving…generally undertaken as cleaners were collecting coffee cups and negotiating their way around the office with hoovers…was to write a comprehensive handover document for your team. This was your opportunity to either (a) show how efficient you'd been in getting all your actions done before taking a well-earned break or (and in my case far more likely) (b) dumping all your crappy work on someone else for a fortnight.

Nowadays, people find it much more easy to say…"I haven't done a handover doc, but I'll have the mobile and will check email now and then so if anything serious crops up, do give me a call…"

Being connected has made us lazy. I'm as guilty as the next. More so, probably. Hell, when I recently left the permanent employ of a big PR company I even told members of the team that they could call me if they had any questions about stuff I'd been involved in…

The only people that handovers are still done effectively are the more junior members of the team; those yet to be armed with smartarsephones. They probably enjoy their holidays more too.