Waking up over London

Moleskine entry: July 26th, 2009

Sam and I scored well on this flight.

Two seats back, in the middle of the plane, I spotted two empty rows of four. Heh. As soon as we were airborne and the seatbelt signs were switched off, we leapt to action and staked our claim on the free space. Nice.

I spent the entire flight stretched out and completely horizontal.

I also spent a long time in deep thought. Taking in the events of the last couple of days. Drifting in and out of sleep, dreaming of home.

See this is why I love flying: alone time, rest, thought and much relaxation. Hurtling through the sky, wrapped in 200 tonnes of metal at 600mph.

I am at peace.

Being up in the Mountains

Moleskine entry: July 25th, 2009

It’s been kind of invigorating. Refreshing.

Healthy.

I’ve been up in the Big Horns trekking, riding and herding as part of challenge two of the Lucozade Energy Challenges, although (I’m certain now), this much you know. What you probably don’t know however is that the powers that be have gone ahead and equipped me with some rather spiffy kit.

Including, amongst others, a sat-phone.

This thing worked FINE in Namibia. In fact, the photo above was taken and uploaded on the spot in the middle of the Namibian desert, this place in fact.

However, for some unknown reason, in the good ol’ US of A, it failed. Nothing. Nada. My glorious sock-rockin’ sat-phone, was… useless.

Which meant in turn, I was non-contactable for four days.
Say it again. Four days.
Say it one more time, and this time say it with me – out loud: Four. Days.

‘Liberating’ doesn’t quite do it justice.

At one point, we were sat by a lake some 10,000ft up, the air was thin, the horses were thirsty and the winners were discussing going for a swim. The sky was clear, the water freezing and the surrounding landscape, breathtaking.

Just pausing – for a moment – to take in what I was experiencing.

Four days with no signal. Four days in the mountains. Riding horseback every day, we rode down from 8500ft on the last day, Friday, and it took five hours.

I couldn’t tell you the total of how far we travelled or for how long. All I know is every day we were saddled up by 10am and we only got out again for lunch and then again at the end of the day for dinner and rest. I never thought I’d enjoy it so much.

Incredible really, incredible.

I wrote every day, trying to keep a personal journal as well as an official, Lucozade one is no easy task. But when there’s nothing to distract you except maybe the odd passing moose, you’d be amazed how one can focus the mind.

Perspective is a wonderful thing… and the view from here, is amazing. I know what things are important to me now. Not that I didn’t know before I guess.

But as I said, being up here sure does focus the mind.

Expanding the Universe

Or ‘How we can expect developers to make games more social into 2010 and beyond‘

Some time ago now I spoke at an event in Marlow called ‘Six Degrees of Social Media’ – I talked through couple of social media for business case studies (mainly those of my own), and made it clear to the attendees that if there was a place for an online outreach programme within their business, then they should do it.
Obviously, the explanation was a bit more detailed than that, but you get the idea.

Anyway, after the talk (and subsequent Q&A), I remember getting into a lengthy conversation about how you could use hidden elements within video games to drive the gamer’s experience further into other mediums. The result of which would, in turn, either unlock further gameplay features or maybe, just simply expand the online world within which you’re playing.

Which brings me to Batman: Arkham Asylum

Arguably one of the best games to be released this year, Arkham Asylum is not some lame attempt at a movie tie-in, oh no. Instead what we have here is a well thought out action adventure game set inside Gotham’s very own institute for the criminally insane. With an original (and remarkably well-written) story, Arkham is a game that stretches across many different genres taking inspiration from such games as the Grand Theft Auto series, Ultimate Spider-Man and even Eternal Darkness.

One of the best parts of the game is that of the character of The Joker. Maniacal, murderous and just plain hilarious, the clown-faced villain is always with you – – he’s taken over the asylum you see, and as such has access to both the asylum tannoy and video screens. At one point, towards the end of the game during one of the Scarecrow sequences, a Joker ventriloquist dummy appears on screen and happens to mention a very specific URL.

The script is from a cut scene and as such, I can’t go back and replay it. But I think it goes something like this:

“If you think you’re going crazy and are in need help, then why not try http://www.ithinkimgoingcrazyanddressedlikeabat.com/idiot – BAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!”

See that URL?
Yes. That one.

The puppet says it so quickly (and so quietly), that if you’re not paying attention, you miss it. In fact, I did miss it the first time I played that section, but thanks to a rather unfortunate turn of events, I was forced to play through a second time.

Miss it again, I did not.

Leaning over to my Mac (I was 2screening, as usual), I typed the URL in from memory quick and was suddenly whisked away to quite possibly the most awesome website I have ever visited…

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is – believe it or not – a user-generated ‘Easter Egg’. Possibly even the first ever UGC easter egg at that! In the website-owner’s own words:

“Many of you have written to say hello, and many more of you have written a few encouraging words… all the emails I’ve gotten have been positive and friendly. You’re a wonderful bunch of crazy bats!

.

The number one question seems to be, “Are you affiliated with Rocksteady or Eidos?” The answer is “no.” I’m just a fan who found this URL like any of you, except that when I went looking, the domain was still unregistered.

.

The number two question is, “How come Rocksteady or Eidos did not register it first?” The answer is, “I have no idea!” But I’m glad they didn’t, as it’s given me a chance to virtually meet and greet a lot of great people!”

Amazing.

So even thought Eidos went as far as to start such pre-sales online activity such as Arkham Care and Gotham City Digital, they actually managed to miss the one URL that appears in game. Astonishing.

Anyway – to my point…

One of my colleagues over at 1000heads recently blogged about the excitement born out of the ‘easter egg‘, the notion being that just by being ‘in the know’ about a hidden secret within something like a DVD or a video game (or even a fast food menu), you suddenly feel like being part of something incredibly exclusive.

Including such things in the video games of the future (given that we’re now talking about a multi-billion dollar industry), is only going to become more and more commonplace as we move into 2010.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait 😉

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

While it’s easy to give We Are Social (WAS) a right good pasting over their handling of the Eurostar debacle over the weekend – let’s put things into perspective.

For starters: less than 24hrs after the whole thing started playing out, there was a video response from the Eurostar CEO himself, Richard Brown. This is not something to be sniffed at kids.

A video apology, delivered via YouTube, to the LittleBreak website in the form of a blog post. In this day, that is a feat in itself.

How many other CEOs of train operators could you name who would consider doing that (outside of a BBC interview)?  Seriously?

Please do not think for one second that I’m making light of all those people trapped on the train/in the tunnel/in folkestone for God knows how many hours – I’m not.

But look at it like this – if the CEO had put that video up within, say four hours of the incident taking place, how easy would it have been to cry:

“OMG! What is he doing wasting time posting on a blog? He should be out there dedicating his time to getting those people out!”

WAS were originally (I assume), hired to create sales and conversation around ‘little breaks’ – facilitated, naturally, by Eurostar. Note: This would mean working with Eurostar’s Marketing and PR team, not their Customer Care dept. Whether or not the addition of a reactive care stream to We Are Social’s (now ongoing?) brief is the mark of a bad agency remains to be seen.

What isn’t necessary – in my opinion at least – is playing the blame game when it comes to addressing ‘twitter concerns’.

Remember – this happened on a Friday night and played out over the midnight hours. Come Saturday morning, the problem was still going on. I know I (at least try to) take weekends off sometimes, I’m pretty sure others do too. But, when the call came in, the WAS guys got themselves over to Eurostar HQ pronto and were camped out there from midday onwards.

By the end of play, they had that video up.

If care was part of the package then someone SHOULD have been online.
It wasn’t, so there wasn’t.

The end.

Thirty days of November

I started writing this post nearly three weeks ago, way back when November was coming to a close and I’d just about made it to the end of National Vlog Post Month (NaVloPoMo). If you missed the explanation at the start of it all, then apologies – the general gist was to upload a new video every day, for the entire month of November. Consider this a review, if you will.

Final score? 28/30

Not bad for my first attempt, wouldn’t you say?

The two that I missed were Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd respectively. The former was my birthday and, while I did actually manage to record and upload a video in time, the quality was so frickin’ bad – I’m refusing to put it up. The latter however, was the day after my birthday and, given that the party guests only started to leave around 7ish on Sunday morning, I think I can let this one pass.

Either way, two other videos were made for the weekend in question and, if the creators don’t mind, I think I’ll submit them as entries for those days. Guest entries if you will. First, my NaVloPoMo partner in crime, Benny Crime, with his ‘Happy Birthday Whatleydude‘ entry and second, creator of all things NaVloPoMo, Rupert Howe, for this awesome ‘Whatley’s evil twin‘ video.

While Benny’s is suitably bonkers, Rupert’s definitely needs some explanation, but you’ll have to wait for another day for that I’m afraid…

In the meantime one upshot from making video every day for a month is the enforced, creative experimentation of it all.

Much has happened over the past couple of months and there is much to catch up on.

The ‘Tales from my Moleskine‘ series is only halfway through (so expect something from there to appear here next), there is a lot of random video content I still want to throw together and of course, there’s just a crap load of normal life stuff I want to share.

So watch this space, I’ll be back soon…

“Changed for good, my output has.
To what end, remains to be seen…”


1000heads: Fifty People, One Question: London

I found this in my Google Reader a few days ago and it’s stunning. Originally shared my way via Rax Lakhani this video is a simple premise beautifully shot and perfectly executed.

Word of mouth in its purest form.

People, talking to people – about the things they love.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2834087&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1

Enjoy.

Coming full circle

And so it ends…

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7902646&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1

There. I made it. 30 days of November and 30 days of video.

Well, 28 actually… But we’ll come to that another time. Similarly to others I have much to reflect on, but for now…

NaVloPoMo is at an end.

And I am happy 🙂

The music on the above video is by a band called The Momeraths.
I’ve used their stuff before and they’re kind of awesome.

Check them out.

Living in the future

It was my birthday last weekend and, as quite possibly the best birthday present I’ve ever been given, my girlfriend sprung two tickets to Paris this weekend.

Doors - Kube Hotel

However, not content with taking me to the most romantic city in the world, seeing the sights, taking in the museums and generally doing ‘the tourist thing’ – my lady also decided to check us into the coolest hotel I have ever seen.

Don’t believe me?

The future is here. The future is now. The future is Omar Sharif.