January 31, 2008
the blue monster game [update]
[Click on image to enlarge]
Like I hinted in November, The Blue Monster has turned up in a video game. Ryan Anderson from Fuel Industries in Canada sent me the following update:
Just wanted to let you know that Microsoft Technet promotional game with the Blue Monster cameo appearance is now live at http://www.server-quest.com. He's part of the second mini-game called "Packet Invaders." You have to stop a security breach by blowing up the bad port requests and keeping the good ones. When the Blue Monster appears in the bottom right, you can click on him and he'll chomp across the screen and destroy any of the dangerous ports.Rock on.We've created a video showing him in action.
There's also a trailer for the game itself on MSN Video.I hope you get a chance to play the rest of the game as well - there are a lot of hidden jokes and references throughout the levels. We had a lot of fun creating this, and I'm very happy that we were able to integrate the Blue Monster into it somehow. Hopefully next time, he'll get a bigger role.
January 29, 2008
January 27, 2008
how to get published in france
[More thoughts on "How To Be Creative":]
36. Start blogging.I have a friend in Paris. Call her Chantal. She's a lovely woman, tres chic, very smart and sexy, with a cute apartment in the 20th Arrondissement and a respectable job in an advertising agency. A couple of years ago, she wrote a book. A novel. In French. Lots of sex and introspection [Sex & Introspection being a very popular French literary combo, of course]. Anyway, Chantal wants to get the book published.The ease with which a blog can circumvent the gatekeepers is staggering.
The last time I dined with her in Paris, Chantal was telling me her tale of woe, after she had spent many long months schlepping around town, trying to find a publisher, which in Paris means trying to ingratiate herself with the Parisian literary scene. This is something that's actually quite hard to break into, given the huge numbers of unpublished sex-and-introspection novels doing the rounds. One guy, an editor at some small imprint nobody outside of Paris has ever heard of, offered to help her, but eventually gave up once he figured out that she wasn't going to sleep with him. You get the picture.
Being an avid blogger, of course, I was not very helpful.
"Your book has thirteen chapters," I say. "Voila! That's thirteen blog posts. One chapter per blog post. Put it online, and you'll have a book offer within six months. Trust me."
Of course, this is not how you do it in Paris, supposedly. You do it by going to all the right parties and hobnobbing with all the right people, supposedly. If you're good at it, you get a book deal, supposedly. If you're really good at it, they'll also let you go on the highbrow TV talk show circuit and pontificate about "Couture" with all the other erudite culture vultures, supposedly. Maybe give you an occasional column in Le Figaro, supposedly. An intoxicating combo of both intellectual celebrity and bourgeoise respectability, supposedly. Very elite, supposedly. Very French, supposedly.
Sadly, she never went with the blog option. Sure, it could've worked quite easily [Hey, it worked easily enough for Tom Reynolds, the London ambulance driver who got a book deal based on his blog writings], but doing that would probably have been seen as a bit gauche by the other groovy cats in the Parisian literary scene. And I suspect she wanted membership into that club, every bit as much as she wanted to see her name in print.
Of course, as anybody who listens to NPR or the BBC will know, we have similar culturally elite hierarchies here in the English-speaking world, just maybe not so hardcore. There's something strangely curious about how the idea of "The Novel", "Le Roman" has such a strong hold on the French imagination; there's something so heroic to them about the idea of the "Auteur", that it's hard to explain to people from more philistine parts of the world. On one level, you can easily admire such strong reverence to a classic archetype. On another level, such attachment can needlessly hold you back.
Whatever. If I were Chantal, I would still consider blogging the book in full. And I would post up an English version as well, to give the book the greatest chance of being read by people outside her French, urban microcosm. Sure, the Parisian literary purists will bitch and moan, but hey, they're Parisian literary purists- they're going to bitch and moan anyway.
January 26, 2008
johnnie moore on social objects
Johnnie Moore, my frequent collaborator on All Things Evil, makes a good point about Social Objects:
So don't let all the talk about social objects make you think that marketing is all about the props. The props are great if they spark relationships, and they may look important as markers of relationships... but they're not the real magic.
January 22, 2008
meatball sundae [part two]
Recently I did an interview of Seth Godin about his new book, "Meatball Sundae". As Seth described it:
Meatballs are commodity products, built in a factory, advertised all over. Stuff we need. All the same. Average products for average people. Unremarkable, but important. The backbone of our world so far.There's a passage in the book that really got me thinking, all to do with ice cream:The sundae is the new marketing. Blogs and Facebook and google and crowdsourcing and all the stuff that we get excited about. It works great if you've got a social object or a purple cow. But put the sundae on a meatball and...
Willie Wonka isn’t dead, but he’s baldA couple of days ago I wrote Seth the following e-mail:In the heart of the newly hip Union Square neighborhood in New York City is a brand-new landmark: Max Brenner [Chocolate by the Bald Man]. Max (I’m told that's not his real name) purportedly runs a chain of incredibly expensive chocolate cafés based in Australia. He’s got almost a dozen shops there, with other outlets in Israel, Singapore, and the Philippines. The chain is profitable and growing fast.
This is the place to come if you want to order the Warm Chocolate Soup, which comes with crunch chocolate waffle balls, strawberries, and marshmallows and costs ten dollars. Or, for the ambitious, The Chocolate Mess, which is a warm chocolate cake eaten with spatulas straight from the pan, with a mountain of whipped cream, ice cream scoops, chocolate chunks, toffee cream, warm chocolate sauce, and possibly, toffee bananas. It’s $12.75 for one person or $37 for four.
Max’s is packed, with lines of up to thirty minutes for a table. And most tables are filled with adults, not kids.
Just down the street from a Max’s, you’ll find the much more reasonably priced Sundaes and Cones ice cream shop, which is pretty much empty.
Why?
If I want something ordinary, then it better be cheap. I can get cheap and ordinary by the gallon at Costco. On the other hand, today’s spoiled consumer is willing to pay almost anything for the exclusive, the noteworthy, and the indulgent.
Sundaes and Cones isn’t cheap and it isn’t expensive. The ice cream is delicious, but not revolutionary. They sell a good ice cream cone at a fair price. And that’s no longer enough.
Suddenly the thought occurs to me, that perhaps there'd be fewer 'Meatball Sundaes' out there if the Web 2.0-consultant-guru types spent less time trying to sell lucrative, hot-fudge-and-whipped-cream consultancy gigs to the meatball factories.Seth wrote back to me the following:[Ice Cream Metaphor:] The thing that made Thomas and English Cut work so well was, well, he's not selling meatballs. He's not even selling Baskin Robbins. Heck, he's selling something that makes even Ben & Jerries look kinda downmarket. And the hot fudge I bring to the table ain't too shabby, either. On a good day, at least ;-)
Your passage in the book about the two ice cream shops in Union Square was totally correct. The trouble is, too many people are locked into the mass-market, neither-cheap-nor-remarkable bracket, so they're not ready to listen to you properly yet.
I love your ideas, you know that, but I'm guessing it may take twenty, thirty, even fifty years for "Society" to fully absorb the brunt of your message. Luckily you have loads of smart, book-buying people out there who do get it...
We live in interesting times.
THAT is the entire point of the book.Twenty years? Fifty years? Which is why Seth says what he's talking about is not evolutionary, but revolutionary. Make of it what you will...Phew! Someone got it!
hugh and the rabbi [podcast]
When I was last in the USA, I had the great pleasure of meeting Pinny Gniwisch, Co-Founder and CMO of Ice.com, who was introduced to me by a good mutual friend, Leah Jones.
Pinny's a lovely and interesting guy. He's a Hasidic rabbi, with a long background teaching in elementary schools. Nine years ago he and his brother started Ice.com, an online jewelry store. His company is to selling diamonds what Amazon.com is to selling books. They recently secured $47 million from Boston investment banking firm Polaris Venture Partners, which as the schpiel puts it, "will enable Ice.com to consider acquisitions, build up its e-commerce infrastructure and target new niches in affordable luxury goods." Not bad going at all.
Though his company has been this amazingly successful, he still carries on regularly teaching kids in elementary school.
There's not many people who can claim such hands-on experience in both spiritual and internet matters. I thought he'd be a great guy to share a podcast with. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. Enjoy.
The Minutes:
0.00 Intro to Pinny.
2.00 Pinny talks about why he decided against ending up working in a synagogue.
3.00 Pinny explains how, since he became a "successful entrepreneur", he can talk about spiritual matters in places that, if he were a normal rabbi, he'd never be invited to.
3.59. Hugh: Few people are both Rabbis and successful dotcom entrepreneurs. There's an obvious tension there, between the spiritual and the entrepreneurial, but that might ultimately make for something very creative and interesting.
4.35 Pinny: "We are finite beings, Masters of the Infinite."
5.05 Hugh talks about the meaning behind the Chinese Dragon: "Serpent meets the Celestial": a metaphor for the Human Condition etc.
7.15 Pinny: "No technology will make up for the fact that we are ruled by both the Ego and the Spirit."
8.20 Pinny talks about the time his teacher told him about his battle between the "animal soul" and the "spiritual soul". The rabbi said, "Pinny, this is your battle, for the rest of your life. Get used to it."
9.45 Pinny tells his five kids: "Success breeds Humility."
10.00 Hugh tells about the time he met Mark Zuckergerg, the founder of Facebook.
12.00 Pinny explains how he spent ten tears between leaving his job as a synagogue rabbi, to starting a dotcom, teaching in elementary schools. Teaching about 11,000 kids a year.
13.58 Pinny: "Talking to kids is where you see the light bulb go on."
16.30 Pinny asks a group of kids, "Who experienced a miracle today?" One of the kids answers, "I woke up!"
19.20 Hugh talks about how it's much more easy to find inspiration in "small things".
20.13 Pinny: "When I visit New York, I get the most inspiration from talking to homeless guys." Pinny talks about how the guy who gives to charity gets more in the end, than the person receiving it.
22.40 Hugh: "It's in the small things, where you really see the 'juice' of creation."
23.10 Pinny tells the story of how we went from teaching kids, to starting "Ice.com", an online jewelry store, with his brother. Inspired by listening to an NPR interview of Jeff "Amazon" Bezos in the car.
24.40 Pinny: "Razorfish offered to build us a site for 3 million dollars." Eventually he got it for much less from somewhere else.
26.00 Pinny: "We were really doing it for the excitement."
27.15 Pinny: "Nobody knew what they were talking about back then. It was new industry. Nobody had an internet background back then. It was a bit like starting out like Christopher Columbus, except there were thousands of boats along with you."
29.00 Pinny talks about the importance of already having family in the jewelry business: "You can't just wake up one morning and decide you want to be in the diamond business. It's a business with hundreds of years of tradition and close-knit family ties."
31.40 Hugh and Pinny talks about the perils of internet company growth. Pinny talks about having to hire "A real CFO and CMO". The challenge of "Ego vs. The Bigger Picture".
33.55 Pinny: "Our company just raised $47 million from an investment bank. So know we have to grow the company in a corporate direction."
35.00 Hugh: "So why did you want to grow the company?" Pinny: "It was inevitable." Talk about company growth being a manifestation of personal growth within the organisation.
38.00 "More stuff creates more worries." And then you die with "more stuff". And nobody cares.
39.00 Hugh talks about his friend, Jonathan's father, who flew Spitfires in WW2. Looking back, nobody cares about how much "stuff" he had after the war. All that matters was that he "was beating the shit out of Nazis", and that is enough.
40.40 Pinny talks about how being a rabbi kicks into the human side of his business. Something you don't see in a lot of corporations. Creating a work environment "Where work feels like 'Family', that is the gift."
42.10 A lot of what keeps large companies in business is coercion and fear.
44.30 Pinny talks about creating a work environment without Fear, like "You were on vacation".
45.30 Hugh talks about Charles Hope over at Blip.tv. "I only work about 3 hours a week. The rest of the time I just play."
46.30 The podcast reaches the last furlong. Hugh ends the show with one last question: "You've been a marketing guy, you've been a rabbi guy. On paper, they are quite different. But what do they have in common? Pinny: Rabbis have to market God, and marketers have to market their products. Sometimes you're doing the exact same thing.
The reason the temples are empty today, is that rabbis are no longer transparent. Marketers, like rabbis, have to learn to become transparent again.
48.25 Hugh: A lesson in marketing transparency: Moses meeting the Burning Bush. Moses asks God, "Who are you?!!" God is taken aback.
49.00 Pinny makes the point: What's true in religion is also true in marketing: As the generations go on, people want more transparency.
50.50 Closing thoughts and winding down....
54.04 Finis.
January 20, 2008
savile row, three years on.
Thomas Mahon and I launched English Cut, a blog about the life of a small, Savile Row tailor, three years ago this week.
1. Our backstory was told pretty well in Robert and Shel’s 2006 book, “Naked Conversations”. A traditional English tailor [Thomas] and a blogging cartoonist [Me] live in the same remote, Cumbrian village. Being of similar age, we become drinking buddies in the same local pub. One evening over a few beers, during a particularly slow and impecunious month for the both of us, we hatch a fiendish plan. We joined forces to create a tailoring blog, englishcut.com. It gets noticed, big-time. Sales increase, big-time. Later, our friend, Dave Parmet in New York helps us land a major PR coup in The New York Times. Next thing you know, Thomas’ tailoring firm is being flooded with orders. That was over two years ago. Our order books have been pretty much full since then. We stopped taking on new customers a while ago.
2. We’re a small firm; there are just four of us. Tom doing the cutting, plus measuring and fitting the customers, Griff in his shed, doing the main sewing and alterations, Jenny helping Griff out with the alterations, as well as manning the phones and the admin… and me somewhere in the background, making sure all the “Evil Plans” we hatch stay that way.
3. We want to stay small. We don’t want to diversify. We just want to carry on making “the best suits in the world”, and that’s it. We tried scaling the business in other directions, but somehow it never worked for us, emotionally or otherwise. Hey, at least we had a go of it.
4. The phrase, “The Best Suits In The World” is actually not hyperbole. Our suits are way up there, in terms of quality. Sure, you may prefer the house style of other world-class firms, like Welsh & Jeffries, Anderson & Sheppard, or some of the Italian folk, but to say we’re not roughly in the same ballpark as them would be either intellectually dishonest, or just plain misinformed.
5. Our suits retail at about $4000.00. We could probably sell them for far more than that, we just choose not to. Some of our competitors in the same quality bracket are asking for three to four times that sum. Perhaps a long list of orders gives us more of a feeling of security and well-being, than charging an extra X-hundred-dollars per suit.
6. We commonly refer to the people who buy our suits as “customers”, though as the relationships deepen with time, that word no longer seems to do it justice. Words like “allies”, "collaborators" or “partners in crime” seem somehow more appropriate. Whatever business you are in, I think ideally, that's EXACTLY how one should feel about the people giving you their business.
7. Tom is very much the public side of the business. Of all our customers, I’ve probably met less than a quarter of them in person. I’m OK with that; I’m guessing that people in the high-end suit market would rather hang with the impeccably-dressed-and-well-mannered tailor, than hang with the scruffy, foul-mouthed cartoonist.
8. Though Tom is as hardcore “Savile Row” as you can get, we don’t have our own shop on the Row. Instead, we rent space at Number 12 Savile Row, depending on our customers' schedules. This practice has always been common for the small independents, since the very earliest days. The marketing dorks who prattle on about “Absolutely needing a prestigious Savile Row address in order to maintain the upmarket Savile Row brand” are devoid of any genuine interest or historical knowledge of actual hardcore Savile Row culture. Nor do they appear too clued up about a few hucksters that I won’t mention, who have paid full price for the Savile Row address, even though their work, shall we say, is pretty much on the substandard side. Besides, a big part of our business is with our American customers. To manage them, Thomas flies out to the States every few months and sees them in his hotel suite. New York, Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco. A ten-day tour, 3-4 times a year. It works quite well for us. We’re lucky to have the type of customers who would rather see the money go into the suits, rather than the oak paneling and the high rents the already-rich landlords would demand from us. Frankly, given our customers' locations and schedules, I think the money's better spent on air fares. Like I once said to Tom early on, “The guys who demand that we shell out a quarter of a million dollars per year on rent for bad reasons, we don’t need as customers.” Luckily for the business plan, our customers also concur.
9. The big issue with this business is that there is simply not enough sewing tailors out there. We're very fortunate to have Griff and some WONDERFUL freelancers on board, but their kind are very thin on the ground. Since Griff joined the trade as an eighteen-year old apprentice over two decades ago, the world has moved on. Though I take some limited comfort that every other tailoring firm on the Row is having the exact same problem, long-term it's a real pebble in our shoe. It's not that we can't afford to hire an apprentice- we can- but to find a person who has the right cocktail of personal chemistry, stamina, talent and discipline to go down the whole ten year path it takes to make it to Griff or Tom's level, is harder than it looks. The only upside is, well, at least we'll never become a commodity.
10. We've had our down time, as well as our up time. The first year was a lot of fun. It was terrific watching the brand grow from nothing, and Tom's name spread far and wide along the internet. But eventually this online word-of-mouth translated into sales, and lots of them. The onus of the firm switched from the marketing, to the making. Which is how it should be, though once we reached this point there wasn't a lot for me, as marketer, to contribute. My involvement in the firm plateaued there for a while, as we thought about how to take the company and our relationship forward. Now we're back on track, while we make plans to launch the second phase of the company over the next year. The plan is to grow the English Cut brand without compromising our hardcore, small business ethos. Without changing the current size of the firm [Maybe we'll add an apprentice or two, but that's about it]. After over a year of back-and-forth between us two, we finally came up with a fiendish plan for Phase Two. I'm more excited about the business than I've ever been.
January 16, 2008
the social marker- the "social object" on steroids
You all will be familiar with my writings on Social Objects by now.
The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that "node" in the social network, is what we call the Social Object.Increasingly I've been using a term, "Social Marker" to describe a certain type of Social Object. I've found it especially useful for explaining certain ideas to marketing folk.
When two people meet, the first thing they try to do is place each other in context. A social context. So they insert some hints into the conversation:
Let's say, for sake of argument, that you never heard of me before, but I knew all about you. And let's say, for example, you were also the world's greatest Boston Red Sox fan. And let's say I saw you in a coffee shop. And let's say I went over to your table, like a stalker [You don't know me from Adam, remember]."I used to know your Uncle Bob."
"I work at Saatchi & Saatchi's.
"I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell for years."
"I'm a member of Soho House."
"I was reading Doc Searls' blog the other day."
"I was college roommates with your ex-girlfriend."
"I was sampling some fine Islay single malts the other evening."
"I bought some Versace shirts from Barney's last week."
"You're a Red Sox fan too?"
"I think Andy Warhol is overrated."
"I think Led Zeppelin is underrated."
"I was having dinner with some guys from Goldman Sachs."
"My wife thinks the Upper West Side is really good for schools."
"San Tropez is too expensive in February."
And let's say the first thing out of mouth was a short list of five names:
"Carl Yastrzemski. Carlton Fisk. Rico Petrocelli. Fred Lynn. Dwight Evans."
Yes, granted, that would be pretty strange behavior. That being said, because you knew every single factoid about the 1975 World Series there was to know, you would know exactly who and what I was talking about. Right away, you would know that we shared a context, even though I had only given you five names and nothing else. Which would make you more likely to invite me to sit down at your table and start a conversation.
Every ecosystem has its own, unique set of social markers- nouns that serve as social shorthand, stuff you use to let other people know ASAP that you know what you're talking about, that you are a fellow "citizen" in a certain space.
When I visit San Francisco I am always surprised how often the name of my friend, Robert Scoble comes up in random conversation, unprompted by myself. Why is that? Why is he so well known? Is his blog REALLY that good? Is he REALLY that smart and interesting?
Well, I could give a whole stack of reasons to explain why I think Robert's success is well-deserved. But one major reason that his blog's traffic is so high, and his name so well-known, is that his personal brand has somehow managed to become a Social Marker inside the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The same could also be said for Mike Arrington, Loic Le Meur or Mark Zuckerberg. Dropping their names into random conversations allows people to quickly and efficiently contextualize themselves.
Something similar happened to me a couple of years ago. A artist friend of mine was hitting on a girl, another artist, in a bar in New York's Lower East Side. For whatever reason, the subject of "Art and the Internet" came up. So my friend started telling the girl about this other friend of his, this guy living over in England, who drew these weird little cartoons on the back of business cards...
"That is SO unoriginal," the girl interrupts, rolling her eyeballs. "Who does he think he is, Hugh MacLeod?"
Heh. Small world. Yes. She was using me as a Social Marker.
Social Markers are a prime form of social shorthand, that people use to STAKE OUT the ecosystem they're occupying. So why do I find this such a useful term for marketers? Because obviously, if your product is a Social Marker in your industry ecosystem [the way the iPhone is in the mobile world, or Starbucks is in the coffee world, or Amazon is the book world, or Google is in the search world, or Whole Foods is in the supermarket world, or Virgin is in the airline world, or English Cut in the bespoke world etc etc] you will have an AMAZING competitive advantage to call your own.
And if the product your company makes is not a Social Marker, I guess the first question would be, "Why the hell not?" Quit your job and start over.
[Update:] Neal makes a really good point in the comments: Really interesting thought, Hugh, but bad products could also be a social marker - "ah, yes, I was ripped off by that building company too" or "oh - you'll be disappointed by that mobile phone as well". I'd suggest there's also a variable here about positive v negative that you should think about before quitting that job :)
[Bonus Link] US News & World Report: "Selling in a Post-Meatball Era- The quest for 'social objects' that create their own Web buzz." Seth Godin in a great interview to plug his new book, Meatball Sundae. "Social Object" given a small mention etc.
January 12, 2008
savor obscurity while it lasts
[More thoughts on "How To Be Creative":]
35. Savor obscurity while it lasts.It's a familiar story, re-told countless times. An artist creates something amazing and wonderful when she's young, poor, hungry and alone, and the world doesn't care. Then one day something happens and her luck is changed forever. Next thing you know she's some sort of celebrity, making all sorts of obscene sums, hanging out with royalty and movie stars. It's a dream a lot of young artists have, something to sustain them during their early, lean years etc.Once you "make it", your work is never the same.
The funny thing is, when you hear the "rock stars" talk about their climb to the top, the part they invariably speak fondest of, is not the part with all the fame, money and parties. It's the part BEFORE they made it, back when they were living in a basement without electricity and "eating dog food", back when they were doing their breakthrough work.
Back when they were young, and inventing a new language to speak to the world with. More importantly, back when they were young, and inventing a new language other people could also speak to the world with.
Some years ago, after he'd been playing stadiums for a while, the rock singer, Neil Young was booed off stage by his fans when he tried playing new Country & Western material. They didn't want to share his in new adventures. No, they had paid their money to hear the classic rock, dammit. "Down By The River" and "Heart Of Gold", dammit. And if they didn't get it, dammit, they' d be out for blood. As events proved.
It's hard to invent a new language when a lot of people are already heavily invested in your work [including yourself]. When a lot of people are already fluent in the language you're currently speaking with, and they don't want anything new from you. Like the Neil Young fans, they don't want to see your metaphorical new movie, they just want to watch the sequel to the old one.
And success needs lots of people to keep the show on the road. When it's just you, a dream, and a few cans of dog food, there's only one person to worry about. But when the dream turns into reality, there's all sorts of other people suddenly needing taken care of, in order to keep the engine running. Publishers, investors, managers, journalists, retailers, suppliers, groupies, employees, accountants... and the paying customers. They all have a stake your act, and they all want a piece of the action.
So you crank out another sequel and wait for the money to roll in. It's a living.
Of course, one reason the rock stars can speak of their basement-and-dog-food era so fondly is because it eventually came to a end; it didn't last forever. And with all the world tours and parties, this era of creating their seminal work soon became a distant memory. So quite naturally, they miss it. But if they were still "eating dog food" after a few decades, I doubt if they'd be waxing so lyrically.
But as long as you can progress from it eventually, it's a time to be savored. A time when your work is still new to you, a time when the world doesn't need to be fed, like a voracious animal.
January 11, 2008
dying young is overrated, revisited
Four years ago, I wrote one of my "How To Be Creative" chapters, "Dying Young is Overrated".
Andreas Duess, a Toronto-based advertising creative, left a comment there I liked so much, I never forgot it:
I used to live in Hoxton [East London], when Hoxton was still full of artists, rather than bankers. Studios, workshops, warehouses. We used to operate rooftop cinemas, the pubs stayed open all night. The 'Blue Note' had just opened on Hoxton Square. It was cool, it was creative, it was happening. It was awash with coke, speed and pills.Actually, my fellow-artist buddy, John T Unger also left a great comment there. This was quite a while before we actually became friends:Taking drugs was the normal thing to do, not the exception.
Now, ten years later, there are two kind of people who were part of that circle: The ones who jumped off that train. They now run hotels, live in France, own start-ups, work for MTV, do interesting stuff.
And there's the other ones. The ones that are still alive, and many are not, are busy drooling in a forgotten pub in the East End. Dreaming of better days. Royalty payments have dried up, so has the talent. Anyone remembers the rabbit scene from 'Snatch'? Like that, 'proper fucked'.
Drugs don't give you consciousness expansion. Drugs turn you into a self obsessed ranter, full of conviction on the outside and full of hot air on the inside.
Hemingway had a great article he wrote for the Toronto Star on the same subject...He admonished American tourists not to bother making trips to Montparnasse to drink with the great artists of the day, because they would all be in the studio painting, rather than wasting their time at the bar. He went on to say that the tourist would not lack the company of plenty of B list wannabes if he was thirsty, with whom he could sit elbow to elbow and bitch endlessly about how famous he wasn't and how unfair it all was. The article was funny, mean and true (like some other people we know, eh, Hugh?).Yeah, I'm spending a lot of time these last couple of days, sifting through old material. I'm working on a new project, and some of the old stuff should come in handy. Groovy.
[Pimp Central:] Have you checked out John T Unger's "Great Bowls of Fire" sculptures? They utterly rock. Oh, and he designs websites.
podcast update
Just in case you missed it, here it is one more time:
Johnnie Moore and Mark Earls, my two favorite British marketing bloggers, joined me last weekend on a podcast, where we riff about the "Death of Advertising" and, more importantly, what comes after it.
The podcast is here on Johnnie's blog. We had a most enjoyable 45 minutes or so. Hopefully you'll concur.
P.S. In case you don't have 45 minutes to spend listening to a podcast, Johnnie also kept pretty comprehensive notes on the minutes:
40.35 Mark's looking at how behaviours cascade through populations and we do we work with them or subvert them. Hugh: companies don't like to work with random.Rock on, Johnnie.41.35 Hugh: what's worked for me is to get away from the idea of message and think instead of social gesture. How this works for Stormhoek.
43.05 Johnnie: Social objects are incidental to the fundamental process of relating. The brand is secondary to the process and branding goes wrong when it tries to make the product the star. Hugh: paying more attention to the conversations that are happening rather than creating a message.
January 10, 2008
beware of turning hobbies into jobs
[More thoughts on "How To Be Creative":]
34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.It sounds great, but there is a downside.
The late billionaire, James Goldsmith once quipped, "When a man marries his mistress, he immediately creates a vacancy."
What's true with philanderers, can sometimes be true in life.
When I was about nineteen I knew this guy called Andrew, who was a junior accountant, a few years out of college.
Andrew didn't really like being an accountant, at least, that's what he was fond of saying. His passion, of all things, was antique silverware. In particular, antique silver cutlery. In particular, antique silver teaspoons.
He knew A LOT about antique silver teaspoons. He collected them en masse. He lived and breathed them. OK, maybe that's a pretty strange hobby, but hey, he was pretty much a national authority on them.
To make a long story short, eventually he quit his accountancy gig and got a new job as at a very prestigious auction house, specializing in valuing silverware.
I remember buying him a drink and congratulating him. What happy news!
A few years later, I was hanging out at the same bar with some mutual acquaintances, and his name came up in conversation. This time the news wasn't so happy.
Apparently he had recently lost his job. Apparently he had gone into rehab for alcoholism.
What a bloody shame.
"That's why you should never turn your hobby into your job," said one of my friends, someone far older and wiser than me. "Before, this man had a job and a hobby. Now suddenly, he's just got the job, but no hobby anymore. But a man needs both, you see. And now what does this man, who's always had a hobby, do with his time?
My friend held up his glass.
"Answer: Drink."
Make of this what you will.
on "having no life"...
In my previous post, "Applying 'Creativity' To Your Professional Life", I offered some advice to a young friend of mine who's only been in the working world a short while.
2. I had no life in my 20's. Get used to the same. While my peers were partying or zoning out to TV sitcoms, after work I'd head for the coffee shop or the bar, and crank out cartoons until bedtime. Sure, I must have looked a real lonely, "no-life" saddo, sitting there doodling away, but at the time I didn't really care. I seriously enjoyed doing it, plus I knew I was on to something. Besides, the typical twentysomething TV-and-Budweiser-enhanced nighttime existence didn't interest me too much. 'Tis more blessed to make than to consume etc.I think this second point warrants further discussion [N.B. This isn't a definitive post. It's just me thinking out loud.].
One thing you notice about twentysomethings who are doing exceptionally "creative" work is, JUST HOW LONG their hours are.
Of course these "creative" types tell you, "That's because I love what I do." Of course, that is true, and well done to them for finding a niche which they can truly feel passionate about.
[By the way, I use the word "creative" very loosely, less in the artsy-fartsy context, more in the context of doing something one is passionate about: "Creativity equals Passion" etc. Notice how in the last paragraph, I put the word, "creative" in inverted commas, but I didn't with the word, "passionate". There was a reason for that.]
But there are other realities about getting to do something "creative" for a living.
1. It's a great privilege. So there's a lot of other folk chasing after the same prize, and the barriers to entry are high. My first job in advertising, I had to beat out 300 other college grads in order to land it. When all I thought I had to do before that was be in the top 20% of my class at school, those odds seemed pretty hardcore.
2. "Creativity" is extremely time consuming. My cartoons didn't get any good [to me, at least] until I had spent well over a decade working obsessively on them. Hell, I'm still not there yet.
3. When you get into the "creative" zone, the lines between "work time" and "off time" start getting blurry. And the deeper you get into that zone, the blurrier the lines get. I often work from seven in the morning till midnight and think nothing of it. A very smart friend of mine who works over at Blip.tv once told me, "I only work 3 or 4 hours a week. The rest of the time, I'm playing." Working eighty hour weeks is much easier and sustainable when seventy-six of those hours is playtime for you.
4. The thing that turns a job into passion, that turns work into play, is a sense of mission. When you've got a real sense of purpose, the lines that separate work and play evaporate. So instead of thinking about how "creative" or "uncreative" your job is, ask yourself what "purpose-idea" your job is articulating.
5. A "purpose-idea" just doesn't land on your lap because you're lucky, smart and good-looking. A sense of purpose only comes your way usually because you've been working your ass off over a long period of time, intensely cultivating it. And yeah, sometimes that will appear to more mainstream people as "Having no life". To hell with them. They don't know or care about you. Successful people get to where they are by doing the stuff that unsuccessful people aren't willing to do. Harsh but true.
[NB. The term, "Purpose-Idea" was originally coined by my good-friend-and-marketing-genius, Mark Earls.]
[Update:] Stowe Boyd kindly provides some REALLY GOOD thoughts on the subject:
Paderewski, the physicist, once said, "Before I was a genius, I was a drudge." There is a lot of slogging involved. And others, generally, will not understand: especially before you have invested the full ten years. "You'll never sell a book!" "You call that music?" "That's the dumbest design I have ever seen!" "Keep your day job."Another good reason to work apart from others, so you don't have to hear all that negativity. Close the door, and sharpen your pencil.
Like making a fire from rubbing sticks together, creativity's heat comes from work. Work requires dedication. Dedication involves sacrifice, specifically of time and the absence of what might have been done instead.
January 9, 2008
applying "creativity" to your professional life etc.
A young friend of mine, who graduated from university only a year or two ago, offered me this piece of advice about about expanding "How To Be Creative" into a traditional book format:
It's about taking one's creativity and learning how to harness it and apply it to anything one undertakes (including careers/business), despite the fact that the business world tends to kill creativity; in other words, don't focus on life... focus on professional life. As a member of the demographic you're aiming for [i.e. people my age], I can tell you that we're more interested in that; it's easy to be creative on our own time. At work, not so much.Here are some opening thoughts, by no means a definitive list:
1. Add 25% to amount of hours you work every week, and fill them with fun, interesting, useful stuff. Google allows its employees 20% of their work time to devote to their own personal projects. If your employer won't allow you to do this, you should unilaterally make the time for yourself, either at the office or at home, hence the extra 25%. Your peers in the office may think you weird at first, but after a while it'll start paying off.Any other thoughts for my friend? Please feel free to leave a comment. I can already see that I'm going to have to give this a lot more thought over the next wee while.2. I had no life in my 20's. Get used to the same. While my peers were partying or zoning out to TV sitcoms, after work I'd head for the coffee shop or the bar, and crank out cartoons until bedtime. Sure, I must have looked a real lonely ol' saddo, sitting there doodling away in the corner by myself, but at the time I didn't really care. I really enjoyed doing it, plus I knew I was on to something. Besides, the typical twentysomething TV-and-Budweiser-enhanced nighttime existence didn't interest me too much. Tis more blessed to make than to consume etc.
3. All business is creative, just sometimes it's hard to see it. And it's especially hard to see it when you're leaving the office at the same time as all the other yutzes you work with.
4. Creative people like other creative people, even if they're far more senior than you. The great thing about creative people with power and money, is that they would much rather have somebody working for them who reminds them of themselves when they, too were young, rather than remind them of the jocks and cheerleaders they went to highschool with. And you know what? Finding those kind of young people is actually harder than it seems. Truly bright sparks who are honest, reliable and hard-working are rare, even in the younger cohorts. So if you ever meet an older "Creative" like that, don't be scared of her. Don't be scared to seek her out. She's probably just as delighted to have found someone she can give a real opportunity to, as you are for finding someone offering a real opportunity.
5. P.S. When I use the word "creative", I prefer to use it in quotation marks, metaphorical or otherwise. As words go, it's pretty meaningless. There are a lot of people in the "creative" industries who wouldn't know an original idea if it jumped on their lap and peed on them. Aimee Plumley was right. Hipsters ARE annoying. Truly creative people tend to defy the usual stereotypes. Always keep that in mind.
6. Never, ever forget the "Sex & Cash Theory".
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the assignment covers both bases, but not often.7. Always remember: You're playing the long game. General Kutuzov told the Russian Royal Court that all he needed to defeat Napoleon was "patience and time". His strategy horrified a lot of people close to the Czar, who were hoping for something a bit more swift and glorious. But it was "patience and time" that allowed the good ol' Russian winter to come along, and freeze all those poor Frenchmen to death. The rest is history.
January 7, 2008
note to marketers: people like treats, dammit!
It’s now a well-told story. Krispy Kreme doughnuts came out of nowhere, attracted a cult following, spread like wildfire, got over-exposed, then collapsed under its own weight. When I could only get them by making a half-hour pilgrimage across town, I went there all the time. Once they became readily available in my local corner deli, I stopped eating them.
When I was a little kid in central Massachusetts, there was this local, old-style dairy named Pinecroft, that served the best ice cream ever, but only during the summer months. Then the dairy got sold to a bigger company, and the next thing you know they were serving ice cream all year round. It never tasted quite the same after that.
Rosé tastes a lot better in the South of France than it does in London, no matter how much you’re paying.
Lobster is considered a real delicacy, expensive stuff. Back in the 19th Century in New England whaling towns, local boarding houses often had the following sign outside them, in order to attract the sailors' business: “Lobster only served 4 days a week!”
I only listen to my CD of King's College Choir during the Christmas holidays. It preserves the magic.
Scrimping and saving over many months for a $4000 English tailored suit is a much more uplifting experience than buying an entire wardrobe of them with a single swish of a diamond-encrusted credit card.
I rarely eat Barbecue, but it’s usually the first thing I head for when I travel to Texas. When I travel to different places, I always like to sample the local fare. I once tried eating Mexican food in Geneva. Never again.
Though they produced all three Lord of The Rings movies at the same time, they made you wait a year between installments. People flocked to see them all.
One of the things I am most looking forward to in 2008 is the final season of Battlestar Galactica. It will be well after summer till I see here in the UK, on DVD [I don't own a TV]. I'll probably buy it the same day it becomes available, and I'll probably watch the entire series in a single, marathon session. I can’t wait!
Back when Kathy Sierra was blogging, she wouldn’t post very often. Every two weeks, perhaps. But BAM! when she wrote, it was stellar stuff. A real treat to read.
I guess you can already see where this is going: People like treats. People are indifferent to commodities, even when the quality of the latter is high. Your downfall begins the minute people no longer have to wait in line in order to get your product, the minute they no longer perceive it as a treat.
[Update:] David St. Lawrence makes a great comment below: "When they are no longer social objects, they are no longer interesting." Exactly.
January 6, 2008
hughtrain revisited: finding meaning in marketing
In June, 2004 I drew the cartoon above, which ended up being called "The Hughtrain", affectionately named after The Cluetrain, of course.
I've re-published it here on this blog more times than I'd care to admit, but what the heck, there's something about it, some sort of marketing ideal that continues to inform my thinking.
It was drawn the month I read The Cluetrain for the first time. It was also the month I read Mark Earl's "Death of Marketing" and Tom Peters' "Re-imagine!" for the first time.
Needless to say, all three books changed my life somewhat [especially Mark's, as it turned out]. One evening after work, sitting at the bar, inspired by all the ideas inside these books, I cranked out the cartoon. And just to make sure people knew what the heck I was talking about, I cranked out what then became known as "The Hughtrain Manifesto".We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.
We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.Some people find the whole "Marketing as Religion" angle a bit squeamish. Some people much prefer the straight-talking "This is what you get, this is how much it costs" way of doing business. I don't see anything wrong with that, if it's working for them.
But one thing I've noticed over time is, the search for personal meaning is a never-ending journey. It's something that all normal, healthy people share. And the way said meaning is found is mostly through Love. And Love is found not just in the intoxicating blur of romantic, sexual love, but in an endless myriad of ways. Most of them pretty ordinary and everyday.
But the ordinary and everyday is full of surprises. As a wise old preacher once told me when I was a kid, "Wherever God is, Love is. And God is Everywhere."
A few years after reading it, I am still moved by Anil Dash re-telling the words of his new father-in-law, told on the day Anil and his wife, Alaina got married.Among the many things that were said, some of the words that my father-in-law shared with us struck me as the best lesson I learned in getting married. And like I said, it could seem simple, even obvious, when you read it on a screen, because it's so universal. But when you live it and make a public commitment to it, it becomes downright profound.
What he told us is that, in the end, only love matters. Success and fame and wealth and even health all fade in time, and in the end all you have is love. And love is what matters. I hope everyone in the world gets the chance to discover that in the way that I have. I love you, Alaina.If I have succeeded in marketing in the past, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it was not some form of marketing genius on my part. It was simply because, on some level, I gave a damn. On some level, I cared about the product, I cared about the people making and selling it, and I cared about the people using it. And as I found out, passion is surprisingly easy to share, even with folk you don't know. But it has to be there in the first place, and it's devilishly hard to fake.
Using a "social object" to tap into one's shared humanity with other people, whether it's in the guise of a commercial product or not, is both a great pleasure and a great honor. It's why we're here, after all. To Love.
And that's all marketing really needs to be in the end. An act of Love. An act of the universal human longing- the longing to bring the infinite into the realm of the finite. Four years later, The Hughtrain cartoon remains as relevant to me as ever.
[Bonus Link: The podcast I made with Mark Earls and Johnnie Moore over the weekend is now up on Johnnie's blog..]
January 5, 2008
why marketers are so interested in blogs
One thing you notice if you've been blogging a number of years- there are a lot of marketing bloggers out there. Tons of them. And they're all very, very interested in the blogging medium.
Why is this the case? Blogs are cool, sure, but it's not like they cure cancer or anything. It's not like they're going to soon replace Superbowl ads or anything.
I think Seth said it pretty well to me the other day: "The web is a giant compiler for marketers. You can experiment here for less money, in less time, than anywhere else. If Al Gore hadn't invented it, I'd be seriously bummed out."
Yesterday, while Johnnie Moore, Mark Earls and I were recording a podcast, Johnnie came up with a wonderful metaphor to describe this phenomenon.
He told Mark and me about being 12 years old in science class. To demonstrate that yes, indeed, a stick of celery is full of capillaries, even if you couldn't see them with the naked eye, the science teacher dipped the end of a stick of celery into a beaker of blue ink. An lo and behold, the kids watched in amazement as the ink traveled up the celery capillaries, turning the rest of the green celery stalk into blue.
Suddenly that which could not be seen before, could now clearly be seen. Glaringly so.
I think that's why we like blogs. We get to actually see stuff working, for real, here and now, on the "Live Web". We get to watch the metaphorical marketing ink travel through the capillaries. Which is very unlike the murky, vague, advertising-centric marketing world a lot of us grew up with. So of course we're excited. Kudos to Johnnie for explaining it so well.
[Update: Johnnie posted the podcast here.]
January 4, 2008
meatball sundae: ten questions for seth godin
I've just got done finishing my friend, Seth Godin's new book, "Meatball Sundae", which his publishers kindly sent me a complimentary copy. I loved it. It was just great. Seriously.
As is our usual custom, I sent him ten questions [shown in italics], which he answered. Rock on.
1. For the benefit of gapingvoid readers: What's a Meatball Sundae?
Meatballs are commodity products, built in a factory, advertised all over. Stuff we need. All the same. Average products for average people. Unremarkable, but important. The backbone of our world so far.
The sundae is the new marketing. Blogs and Facebook and google and crowdsourcing and all the stuff that we get excited about. It works great if you've got a social object or a purple cow. But put the sundae on a meatball and...
But the book is not so much a negative rant about the combination that DOESN'T work as much as it is a realization that we are in the midst of a revolution, the new industrial revolution, one that changes the two basic rules of business of the 1900s: Factories and advertising. Now, neither one matters so much. That's the biggest change any of us has ever seen. What you going to do about it?
2. I may be wrong, but this book kinda reminds me of another book of yours, "Free Prize Inside", in that a big part of its schtick seems targeted to people already working in [large] organizations. Am I the only one who's spotted that?
Here's my challenge: I want to change things. Sometimes, the best way to do that is to reach out to committed individuals and give them some ideas to run with. On the other hand, big changes, sea changes... those happen in larger organizations with leverage. So, my books have sort of struck a balance, sometimes emphasizing one more than the other. In this case, it's clear that the digerati 'get' what's going on with the new marketing. But we're frustrated. I wrote this book to help us out. The phrase, "meatball sundae" is designed as a rallying cry, something to sneer at in a big meeting.
The book, in other words, is a tool.
3. There is a myth that all a writer has to do is sit at his keyboard, crank out some chapters, send them over to his publishers, maybe do an edit or two, and then wait for the checks to arrive. But as we've talked about before, there's so much more to being a book author than just the book. Would you care to elaborate?
I think it's possible, and for some people, even desirable to write a book the way you said. That might be a nice break! I view the book as the souvenir, the appropriately priced artifact of the idea. But it represents just a piece of fruit on the whole tree. The blogging and speaking and most of all, the endless conversations are the real work, the real craft and the part that I love to do. Even if books didn't exist, I'd still do the rest of it.
4. As "Brand Seth" keeps on growing, how do find dealing with the "public" side of things? "Seth as Social Object"? Is it getting harder?
Facebook is pretty much the only hassle right now. I joined to check it out, but I don't use it, and I end up disappointing a lot of people I don't 'friend'. I should just turn it off, I guess. (Once you friend someone, I figure, you really owe them quite a bit of interaction). Other than that, the challenge for all of us (not just me) is to make appropriate promises. Permission marketing goes both ways. If you hold yourself out there, at some level you're giving people permission to contact you, to ask for things, to converse. I try to have bright lines (no consulting, no boards, no investing) so I don't mislead people.
The thing is, I really enjoy the interactions. I just worry about overpromising and undelivering.
5. The fact that blogging changed your book writing style over time is well documented. Has anything come down the pike recently that's affected your blogging style?
I have to be careful that I don't watch the trackbacks and stumbles too closely. If I did, I'd write nothing but short posts about blogging!
6. A lot of your books seem to be continuations of conversations you started with your seminal book, "Purple Cow". Meatball Sundae I'd say would qualify, as would "Free Prize Inside" and "All Marketers Are Liars". But then your last book, "The Dip", was about something relatively unrelated. Do you find yourself, as an author, often feeling pulled in two different directions?
I worry about Neal Stephenson and I worry about Robert Parker.
Snowcrash and Diamond Age were brilliant books, seminal stuff that actually changed the world. That gave Neal the power to pretty much write what he wanted, but what he wants to write, it turns out I don't want to read. I think he lost a great opportunity and I feel the loss.
Robert Parker hit it big with Spenser novels, but every one is so similar, I can't remember which ones I've read and which ones I haven't.
I don't want to be in either camp. So, I write what's important to me, I write what I think will reach an audience and I write what I think will cause change. I honestly don't worry a bit about sales. The selling of the book is just a tool to spread the idea to people who like buying a book.
7. With your book writing, your speaking gigs, Squiddoo and the myriad of cool free stuff you like to put other there on the internet, you're a very busy guy. Because you've got so much going on, do you ever find that sometimes you don't have enough time to fully investigate all the cool stuff you like to write about? Seems to me an author, if he wants to be successful, has really got to learn how to multi-task. Discuss.
Actually, I'm a multi-tasker who discovered that he could get away with it by being an author!
The web is like crack for someone with ADD, I'll tell you that.
Jim Collins is the guy to go to if you went serious research and depth. I'm the guy who notices things.
8. A common complaint I hear is, most business books say everything they need to say within the first two chapters, with the rest being filler. You seem to like fighting this trend tooth and nail. Has it been an easy fight?
It's a lot easier now, I'll tell you! I won't take full credit for the great business book diet, but for anyone who ever slogged through Michael Porter, I think you owe me one.
The last vestige of this is some of the second-tier book publishers who insist on books being long, organized, boring, vetted by peer reviewers and tiresome. They won't last so long, I think.
9. With the advent of certain Web 2.0 media coming along in 2007- Facebook, etc, suddenly the "Blogging is Dead" meme keeps popping up all over the place. I think they're kind of missing the point. You?
Who the hell knows what 'blogging' means? People say, "that's not a blog because" it doesn't have comments or because it has three authors or because it's got video or who knows what... What's a book? a blog? a speech? Who knows?
I think it's entirely possible that the ego-driven, comment-driven water-cooler blog is being replaced by Facebook and Twitter. I don't think, not for one second, that the inherently closed communities of social networks are a replacement for the idea-driven blog designed to be read by surfers, strangers and the masses.
10. Besides the fact that you pretty much OWN the word, "Remarkable", I think if there's one big idea you've gotten across to me, it would have be the fact that yes, when you think about it, Marketing is one of the most powerful things we human beings have ever invented, and yes indeed, it can be a force for good. Is perhaps one of the reasons the web attracts you is, it's a place that validates this idea more quickly than other parts of the business world?
If I had real talent, I'd probably be a computer programmer (what I studied, but failed to understand, in college). Programmers need computers and compilers because without them, they can't see if the program works. The web is a giant compiler for marketers. You can experiment here for less money, in less time, than anywhere else. If Al Gore hadn't invented it, I'd be seriously bummed out.
[Seth's Amazon.com page, for all his books can be found here.]
January 3, 2008
being poor sucks
[More thoughts on "How To Be Creative":]
33. Being Poor Sucks.The biggest mistake young people make is, underestimating how competitive the world is out there.
Everyone will have had a group of friends who went hitchhiking around Europe when they were nineteen, living off ten dollars a day. And they were so happy! And they had so much fun! And money wasn't an issue!
Ha. That was youth, that was not reality. Reality is much bigger than youth. And not as nice.
That's not to say cash is the be-all-and-end-all. But to deny the importance of the material world around you [and its currencies] is to detach yourself from reality. And the world WILL eventually PUNISH you HARD for that.
I've often been asked by young people, which do I think is a better career choice: "Creativity" or "Money"? I say both are the wrong answer. The best thing to be in this world is an effective human being. Sometimes that requires money, sometimes not. Sometimes that requires creativity, sometimes not. Be ready for it when it happens.
allow your work to age with you
[More thoughts on "How To Be Creative":]
32. Allow your work to age with you.I have a friend. Call him Dan.You get older faster than you think. Be ready for it when it happens.
When I first met Dan, he was a twenty-eight year old aspiring filmmaker, in a one-bedroom apartment down on New York's Lower East Side, who liked to spend too much time in bars.
The last time I saw him, he was a forty-one year old aspiring filmmaker, in a one-bedroom apartment down on New York's Lower East Side, who likes to spend too much time in bars.
There's a famous old quip: "A lot of people in business say they have twenty years experience, when in fact all the really have is one year's experience, repeated twenty times."
It's not just guys in business who fall into this trap, unfortunately. It happens just as often to people taking a less conventional path. It's sad enough when you see it happen to a friend of yours. When it happens to you, it's even worse.
The good news is, it's easy enough to avoid. Especially with experience. Suddenly you realize that you're just not into the same things you once were. You used to be into staying up late all night, going to parties, now you'd rather stay in and read a book. Sure, it sounds boring, but hey, sometimes "boring" can be a lot of fun. Especially if it's on your own terms.
Just go with the flow and don't worry about it. ESPECIALLY don't worry about the people who ARE worrying about it. They'll just slow you down.
early blog marketing: young adam
(Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor in "Young Adam")
Four years ago, I had a go at "blog marketing" my old friend Dave Mackenzie's film, "Young Adam". It went on to achieve cult status, though not for any reason that I could honestly claim credit for. From April, 2004:
Tilda Swinton, the female lead in Young Adam, and I swapped e-mails recently:Dear Tilda,
I am trying to help my old friend Dave with his film, Young Adam, by promoting it on my website. I thought asking one of the actors about it would be a good idea, hence this e-mail. Thanks so much for helping out.
Here are the questions I've prepared, I've tried to keep it short:
1. David never made a feature film before. But here's you, an internationally well-known actor with a superb reputation, turning up in a debut. Was it an easy sell or did you need a lot of convincing?
2. As an actor, how did you rate playing the part of Ella, the main female lead? Was it a particularly challenging role for you? I imagine it would be quite hard to pull off the very sexual side to it, while also maintaining that grim, joyless, hard edge that Ella had.
3. Both Trainspotting and Young Adam, the two big Scots films of the last few years, are both pretty bleak and existential in nature. Do you think that was coincidence, a sign of the times or a unique symptom of the Scots character?
4. Final Question: How do you find the Americans reacting to the film (the ones who have already seen it, anyway)? I imagine it flies against their perceptions of Scotland quite noticably, even more so than Trainspotting.
Thank you very much,
Best,
Hugh
Dear Hugh, This comes from a plane from San Francisco to Denver on the all-kicking Free World tour of Young Adam .. David is beside me reading W .. they are bringing us 'shrimp', sauteed and laid over 'mescalin', apparently .. So: 1 Very little arm-wrestling needed to get me into this agreement to make the film with David. His script was so impressive .. but more: it made me want to talk to him about the film it promised he wanted to make .. once we started talking, we never really stopped .. but the fact that he, or any filmmaker, had no track record would never really figure as a disadvantage for me .. if anything, it's a thing I know very well, the working with first time, or relatively inexperienced, filmmakers - Susan Streitfeld, Sally Potter, Robert Lepage were all in that category .. since Young Adam, I've worked with Mike Mills and Francis Lawrence, both first time feature filmmakers - there is a sort of beginner's mind about people with that fresh vision and atmosphere of adventure .. and absence of battle scars .. 2. All tasks have their particular challenges: my playing Ella had these: that, given the neo-realistic verite sort of atmosphere of the environment, it was clear that the task meant sinking myself into the w