Philip Slade

Philip Slade

The Sex Pistols, digital sensors and the Girl Guides of America.

(Written for a 2012 talk) 

Why we need to make new technology acceptance like 1970’s Punk. Scary at first but strangely comforting when familiar.

A recent incident with the Girl Guides in America highlighted the ever growing conflicts between those who get our new speed of change and those blinked to it. The worst part? we are losing the power to debate the ground in-between. A generation of reality shows appears to have tutored people in conflict arguments rather than debating skills.

Anyway back to Punk. The speed of musical change in the late 1970’s meant that the mainstream got a fair few years to come to terms with the Sex Pistols and The Clash and accept change had indeed happened. But in terms of technology, it's like Dubstep which emerged from a South London underground scene but before the UK mainstream got it, the Americans were exporting it back to the UK. Change just got dumped on the masses in the shape of Britney Spears remixes.

The beauty of human ingenuity paired with internet capabilities means that constant change is now our norm. Unless we embrace some bizarre Pol Pot style year zero experiment we need to communicate the benefits of rapid change to a wider group of the population. This takes me back to the Girl Guides of America. Links below for full story.

But to summarise; 11 year old Girl Scout adds to her door to door selling of cookies by setting up PayPal account and selling online. Great idea you’d have thought, well yes, The Girl Guides at first congratulated the girl on her resourcefulness, but then changed tack and slapped the poor girl down saying that the internet was not a place for a Girl Guide to learn life skills (!) and she would be ‘..much safer..’ selling door to door. You can imagine the scale of  the resulting social media storm. It was both loud and unfortunately generally lacking in any form of debate, just shouted statements. Maybe not quite as diametric as the American assault rifle ‘debate’ but still pretty entrenched into unstoppable force meets immovable object territory.

New opportunities driven by new technology are going to appear more often. This will benefit the parts of society attuned to accepting the positive benefits of rapid change.

Our challenge is to communicate the wider benefits of constant improvement, The web has happened, social change is exciting, scary and not a little fun. Rather than just focus on the thing that is causing the current moment of change. We have big chunks of society who still need bringing onboard to the realities of a mobile based, mature tech world. It is a responsibility of those developing new tech that what they have in their hands is not just a shiny new object, but a potential weapon of diversion. 

Compared to the 1970’s we are much more tolerant of differences in musical styles. Its no longer a subject for broadcast bans or Government intervention. But we appear to have become more intolerant of those who are not on ‘our’ technological level. This is why I say there is a huge responsibility for those brands with the power to communicate across social demographic groups to explain a wider message. This is a narrative that development means change (and change is good).  

Any brand in any market adapts to the forces around it. The wonder of our current situation is that adoption can and will happen fantastically fast. To repeat myself, the imperative is not to leave chunks of our society behind, entrenched in a refusal to adapt, like an American style second amendment position, violently opposed to change however logical or beneficial.

Whether its a Girl Guide selling cookies or someone writing music, traditional procedures exist. But we now have increased abilities to find and implement smarter solutions to the processes at hand. What becomes dangerous for society is not a new song or type of cookie sale but the misunderstanding of why it had to be ‘new’

 

Human endevour truimphs over lack of affordable housing

'....Watch as Vocativ climbs the tower and gains the rare in-depth access to residents' daily lives inside this unique and sinister establishment.

Few cameras have been allowed into the depths of the tower. It is an experience not to be missed.

We answered some frequently asked questions about our Tower of David video here: http://voc.tv/15I8iPE....'

““The answer is not mergers. The answer for the advertising industry is to change its model and the way it prices its product. Agencies give away their highest value product – their strategic thinking – for free and try to make a profit off implementation work. However, implementation is often a commodity. It reduces the client-agency relationship to a mere transactional level, of buyer and vendor. And, as time marches on and agency margins drop, the cost of doing business for the agency goes up, putting further strain on the relationship. That can be directly traced to the willingness of agencies, unique among service providers, to give their product away for free.””
— http://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2013/07/29/is-the-publicis-omnicom-merger-a-sign-of-strength-or-weakness/

Deloitte report about mobile fact v hype

72% of UK consumers own a smartphone compared to 58% just ten months ago.Among the affluent and influential 25-34 years olds, nearly 90% own a smartphone.In excess of 50% of consumers have used a smartphone to check product availability and to buy g…
  • 72% of UK consumers own a smartphone compared to 58% just ten months ago.
  • Among the affluent and influential 25-34 years olds, nearly 90% own a smartphone.
  • In excess of 50% of consumers have used a smartphone to check product availability and to buy goods.
  • 48% of Generation Z, the 16–24 year olds, choose to shop via apps compared to 14% of 45-64 year olds.
  • Only 21% of UK consumers are currently happy to receive tailored communications, but 40% welcome search results relevant to their location.

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    While planning our new 'thing*' came across this again. Genius from David Ogilvy on the qualities of a Creative Director

  • High standards of personal ethics.
  • Big people, without pettiness.
  • Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.
  • Brilliant brains — not safe plodders.
  • A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.
  • Charisma — charm and persuasiveness.
  • A streak of unorthodoxy — creative innovators.
  • The courage to make tough decisions.
  • Inspiring enthusiasts — with trust and gusto.
  • A sense of humor.

    •  

    Seen on http://www.brainpickings.org quoted from

    The Unpublished David Ogilvy
    public library

    London 1927 in Colour

    Two things of note, The Tower of London looks about double the size of its current height and we don't where enough hats anymore

    <p><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/7638752?autoplay=1" width="398" height="299" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></p>

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