Last night, I went along to The Telegraph to take part in a focus group, about various aspects of the paper. A completely mixed group discussed values, requirements, possibilities and likes and dislikes (yes, I’m being vague, they’re doing research and it’s polite not to mention what on) It was a surprisingly fun 90 minutes […]
A weekend trip
The other week, at a dinner, I volunteered for what sounded like it could be an interesting trip, taking 2 launches (small, motor driven boats) from Putney up to Wallingford. can’t be too hard, we though. The deal was that some friends were coming down river over 3.5 days, coaching a couple of women’s 8s […]
Survivors – What would you do
Survivors, a re-imaging of the 70’s series devised by Terry Nation, started last night on the BBC and there was a minor Twitter flurry of discussion about it. There’s been mixed reaction to the episode, including these from Jason, and from Savage Popcorn. One common question that popped up is what would you do in […]
A Girl’s Guide to the Great British Beer Festival
It’s the Great British Beer Festival this week at Earl’s Court, a huge cavern of a place that is full of beer and beer drinkers. As part of their ongoing campaign to widen the appeal of beer CAMRA are running some free tours, a Girl’s Guide to the Great British Beer Festival. They’re curated by […]
Barcelona Trip
Last weekend, a friend suggested a trip to Barcelona for a long weekend – some of his friends owned a boat in the harbour there so we could have somewhere to sleep. The boats somewhere in the middle there. Easyjet flights were booked and so I set off for 4 days in Barcelona. I’d visited […]
Studying Again
I’m feeling the itch to do some studying again, so looking at the OU for courses. So far, I’m liking this lot: Strategy Archeology Biological Psychology Ancient and Medieval Cities – a technological history Exploring the classical world Robotics and the meaning of life Elements of forensic science Exploring psychology Pretty sure that does not […]
Chiswick Wifi
I’m now back in my flat in London, stuff from the US delivered and slowly sorting through the admin. Currently I have no web access from the flat, so I need to sort that out. For almost all ISPs I need a BT phone line, so got that sorted but it’s going to take 11 […]
Some 2008 Plans
Not really resolutions as they cover more than that, but here’s some of the things I want to do. Work First up, find some new work. I know what I want to do – deliver transmedia experiences – but finding the right place could be a challenge. Money Sort out the long term stuff. I […]
Flooding and Firemen
I said on Seesmic today this place is out to get me and earlier this evening we had another example of it. Sitting in my room I hear a bang, a whooshing news and then a fair bit of swearing and shouting. I went out to find that one of the sprinklers had gone off […]
A week in London
I spent last week in London, the first time I’d been back since I moved to New York. A great week was had, a combination of work and pleasure. had some interviews and met up with some headhunters. I’m back in London permanently from January and this was setting up some things. No idea how […]
Meeting People
This week I got to meet up with zeroinfluencer, or David as he is more normally known as. I’d first come across him as part of the team behind Where are the Joneses? and then followed him on Twitter. When I saw he was popping across to New York, for the OMMA awards (they won […]
Next
Two years ago this week I made the decision to leave Diageo after 14 years – I then proceeded to give 4 months notice! My initial plan was to do freelance social media consulting, an area that was just starting to gain wider traction across businesses. This was slightly scuppered by a chance meeting at […]
Rugby World Cup
The Rugby World Cup has started and so has my task to find somewhere decent to watch it. It does not appear on the usual cable channels, it only seems to be on Setanta, something primarily found in pubs, even though the USA has a team that seems to do OK. So the challenge will […]
Jeremy and his new hat
Caught a drink with Jeremy Wright last night at the end of his rapid-fire trip to New York – he demonstrated his new cap bought on his recent trip to the UK, a flat cap in black corduroy. His trip seemed to be full of incidents and surprises, not going completely to plan, but you […]
Digital challenges for a traditional agency
My ex-boss, who left the company the other week, was interviewed in the Wall Street Journal (subscription req.) about the challenges facing her in new job and those facing a traditional advertising agency as it tries to integrate digital. Some key points from the interview: an agency appointing a ‘digital czar’ is not enough, you […]
Vegan Meals
Last night I had dinner with a few people at Red Bamboo, a vegan restaurant. This place seems to make it’s name from the fake food it provides – soy protein shaped and flavoured to pretend to be meat. We had ‘Chicken’ wings, ‘prawns’, just ‘meat’ in general. There you see fake prawns, shaped and […]
You are never too old
Through a serendipitous meeting yesterday, doing some work on another conference, I got invited to a BBQ in Queens yesterday (my first visit to the Borough). Whilst there, I had a good chat with the main host, a 70+ year old gentleman who talked about his media habits and how so many companies just did […]
Clipmarks and Forbes
Do I believe what it says in the blogs? This time I hope so – Venture Beat is reporting that Clipmarks is being bought by Forbes. The New York-based startup lets you select text, photos or videos on web pages, then use Clipmark’s bookmarking feature to save the URL and your selected information to your […]
Hair Makeover
My hair got used as a model for a website – as part of a Hair Makeover tool for Sunsilk. So I took one of the original shots (on the left) and added my own hair back onto my face to see what the different colours look like. I do like the red!
Harry Potter vs the iPhone
Two great launches have taken place over the last few weeks, the Apple iPhone and the seventh and last Harry Potter book. So had did the launches compare? Facet Harry Potter iPhone What is it? A book A phone. With extras. Audience Ostensibly children 9-12. In reality all ages. Gadget freaks and Apple fans with […]