Another reader-suggested topic today… Here’s the question as it came in: “how is the art of ad making getting disrupted by the ‘skip this ad’ on YouTube – i.e. what message can you get across in 5 seconds to make people watch 30s?” I know I come down on advertising rather often and rather hard. But while it’s true that …
Conversing with ghosts [post 45/100]
Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned sometimes. A friend who’s got teenage daughters tells me that these days it’s considered ok (by some) to carry on a conversation while fiddling with one’s mobile. This still is definitely not ok in my circles, and no matter how much I apologise I always feel terrible when something comes up that I feel I …
FOR SALE: Me. Good condition. Convenience ONO. [post 42/100]
[This article was written for Prophecy and is cross-posted here with permission.] We are addicted to technology. Literally. Cognitive scientists have found the same kind of dopamine response in smartphone users checking Facebook as in gamblers pulling the handle on a slot machine, or junkies getting high. And we know it. We now have resorts where you can pay to …
Getting in on the action (an addendum) [post 17/100]
As Hajo quite rightly pointed out in a comment on my earlier post, of course the other side of understanding that ‘social media’ is really a giant global ongoing conversation is knowing how to participate in that conversation without, if you’ll pardon my French, being a total dick. 5 or so years ago, a designer at Fjord and I put …
Digital snake oil (a bit about branding) [post 16/100]
Brands and branding used to be such a straightforward thing (a few centuries ago, at least). A brand differentiated one person’s products from another’s, and over time customers learned that, say, Pete made the best dark ale and Phillip’s joint salve worked better than that other guy’s (what was his name again?). All you had to do was make a …
Aspiration: Master or Mimbo? [post 14/100]
Yes, I know, I missed posting yesterday. I’ll make it up to you over the weekend. Anyway, I’ve been continuing to have conversations with people in the creative and technology industries about avoiding techno-dystopia. And as I was discussing this with a friend who doesn’t work in that domain (yes, I have them, shut up), something occurred to me that …
The myth of productivity
Pretty much as long as there have been ways for people to interact online, there have been articles written about how that kind of thing is killing productivity. Email and MUD/ MUSHes were killing productivity when I was at University, then Email and the Web and IMing were killing it at work in the 90s. Lots of employers went to …