My mate, Marmite
How do you feel about Marmite?
Me, I love it. In fact I could eat it with a SPOON.
Obviously, some people hate it. I mean REALLY hate it.
But what if, just imagine, you’d gone through your whole life without ever trying it. Ever.
Well, one morning, out in the middle of Damaraland, that’s exactly what we discovered Manzoor had done.
Something which, of course, we had to rectify…
It wouldn’t be a NaVloPoMo post without tipping you off about someone else’s efforts…
So why not go give one of Benny Crime’s videos a whirl.
You’ll never feel the same again…
😉
I have to tell you something…
I’ve really missed London.
Inspired by Rupert’s first entry into this year’s NaVloPoMo –
“What People Do With Their Hands”
Enjoy.
Happy Birthday Dad
That little guy on the left, is my brother Stephen and that bigger guy on the right is my Dad. They both live in Gibraltar and I really don’t get to see them much. Last week, my Dad was over here, in London and – through various circumstances – I didn’t make time to see him.
I know he checks on me here from time to time, so hopefully he’ll see this today:
November 3rd 2009: My Dad’s Birthday.
Dad, this one’s for you.
Happy Birthday, x.
From me, and all the guys from my new office 🙂
Windsocks and toilets
“Houston. We have a problem.”
It would seem that the 30-day video marathon that is NaVloPoMo has arrived slap, bang in the middle of the first decent writing stride I’ve had in donkeys.
This is largely in part thanks to the wealth of written content I have hidden away in my new best friend and travelling partner, my moleskine.
Alas, as video cannot be held inside its tender pages, the ‘tales from my moleskine‘ series may have to take a back seat for the time being.
We’ll pick it back up again in December. Promise.
If you’ve missed it all so far and fancy a dive, by all means, just click on the word moleskine and you’ll be magically transported. However, if instead you’d rather stick around and see what ocular treats I have lined up for you today, then please, make yourself comfy… We’re off to Africa.
The date is July 8th, we – the first batch of Lucozade Winners and I – had left Damaraland that morning and boarded our own private Cessna to fly up to a place called Haartmann Valley. From there on in, it’ll be a three hour drive to our next camp. Eesh.
It’s pretty remote, but we’re told it’s paradise.
This short video, put together soon after we arrived, hopefully gives you some kind of insight at just how remote ‘remote’ is when you’re in Africa.
Hat tip to @reyes who duly pointed out the base for this month’s shenanigans.
Some jumbled letters here
I think, this year, I’m going to attempt National Vlog Post Month – aka – ‘NaVloPoMo’.
STOP!!!!!
Don’t go! Don’t run away! Stay here, please..?
Just for a minute.
Let me explain.
I’ve seen those jumbled letters before you see, they make me shiver and panic. “Too much!” my brain screams, “Far too much!”.
Thing is, NaVloPoMo defines that every day for the month of November, I need to post a new video blog. This sounds relatively simple enough, right? Well no, it’s not actually. But – logistic technicalities aside – when it comes to my own blog, I try to stagger my output as much as possible. One post every week to ten days or so here on my happy place means that, in my mind anyway, people might be more inclined to read it.
This might sound silly to you, but if I suddenly started throwing out seven posts a day, you’d stop coming back.
The point is, time is precious. And I’m aware of how much time it takes to read a single blog post, let alone consume any video. So if you just go away for a month and decide to come back in December, when this is all done… then I understand.
If you’re happy to stick around and put up with my videos, then awesome.
Here’s one to start you off:
(see you back here tomorrow)
Come on, someone just do it already #1
This might turn into a semi-regular feature.
Hence the number. We’ll see.
On with the post.
_________________________________________________________________
These adverts – from UK-based electronics retailer, Dixons – have been springing up all around London lately. Take a look:
Read all that? Good. Right then.
Is it just me or is there a MASSIVE opportunity here for a competitor to come along and have some fun with this?
Alright the ads are actually quite well done. Providing a playful spin on the words ‘the last place you want to go’ as well as taking a cheeky swipe at some of the more… stuffier… of London’s largest department stores, these billboards do raise a smile.
But still. If I was a keen-eyed ad man I might be tempted, with the right client, of course (someone like ebay maybe?) to go away, knock up some good-sized stickers and then in one night, do one big hit on them all.
Guerrilla style.
You see what I mean? Bam.
So come on, someone just do it already!
And that was going to be it from me but, when I researched the ads some more it turned out that not everyone is a fan of this new campaign.
“Then there are the nasty Dixons Ads on the tube at the moment. They tell you to spend your time learning about your product from well-trained (threfore ponsy) shop assistants in well-known stores like Harrods, Peter Jones and John Lewis and then buy at Dixons on line. Why do I not find this amusing?
.
Firstly because of the snobbery, and secondly that Dixon’s shop assistants are the diametric opposite of knowledgable and helpful, and a terrible glimpse at what shopping might become if Dixons had its way. Thirdly the idea of checking out the store first and talking about what you want, and then checking out online vendors to get the best price happens all the time.
.
Better not bite the hand that feeds you!”
He makes a good point.
The value of the online shopping market is growing year on year while that of the high street is steadily declining. And while you have to applaud Dixons for attempting to drive traffic to their online store, I for one can’t help thinking that there is a slight danger of them shooting themselves in the foot:
Time will tell. After all, similar things have happened before.
Thanks for reading.
Sunrise over Wyoming
Moleskine entry: July 22nd, 2009
5am start.
Not because we have to be up anytime in particular…
…it’s just so beautiful up here at Sunrise.
Breakfast can’t go quick enough.
Today I am so eager to get back in the saddle again. I have to tell you, the first time I ever encountered a horse I had the most horrific allergic reaction, I was nearly sick. My eyes blew up, my breathing suffered, I was itching and scratching all over… It was horrible.
So to say I was apprehensive about this particular challenge might be somewhat of an understatement. But today? Up here at the Snowshoe Lodge, some 9000ft up in the Big Hornhorn mountains, I could not be more excited about seeing my horse again.
Marlena, the equine in question, is and I quote: “A real bitch”.
She bites, she doesn’t do as she’s told and if you don’t show her who’s boss, she’ll throw you around like there’s no tomorrow. Heh. We’re having fun, put it that way.
I digress.
Today we’re herding cattle properly. 220 of them. Younglings.
They’re fast and they don’t like horses much.
Our guide, Stewart yells: “Let’s move out!”
And I smile… 🙂
Additional notes, thoughts and sketches: July 23rd – 24th
– I saw a Moose today!
– Stone horses, swimming in water
– Shell Lake. 10,000ft up in the mountains and simply breathtaking
– Rocks, like old people
– White Creek Canyon
– Black Mountains
– Rattlesnakes
– Trapper Canyon
– Devil’s Leap
We’re heading home tomorrow… it’s been a good trip.
About those velvet ropes
A post about Google Wave.
Back at the turn of the year, Peter Kim launched his ‘social media predictions for 2009‘. The paper, downloadable in PDF format, featured forward thinking insights from such social web luminaries as Jason Falls, Charlene Li and one of my favourite players in this space, Chris Brogan.
The predictions themselves make for interesting reading and I would (even now), recommend going back and taking a look if you have the opportunity. To cut to the chase though, it was the thoughts from Mr Brogan that stood out the most for me, mainly around his notion of the ‘velvet-rope social network’.
“I believe we’ll have more focused velvet-rope social networks in 2009 where the tools and the goals match verticals instead of the general commons of Facebook.”
Nicely put. At the time I remember agreeing with the idea, but I wasn’t entirely sure about the execution. Chris himself has returned to the subject a number of times on his own blog (often with examples). However, the reason this particular thought came back to me recently was in large part, thanks to Google Wave.
Google Wave is currently in private beta and the invites only started pouring out into the web just under a fortnight ago. With them came the promise of a new dawn in co-working, a new way of true collaboration on a global scale… A brand new vision of the future.
Except that so far, based on at least 99% of my own experiences at least, no one has found any real use for it.
Well that is until I realised exactly what it is.
Ready?
Google Wave is, to my mind at least, one of Brogan’s new velvet roped social networks.
You open your Wave (this is your network) and invite in whoever you like to join you (as long as they are on Wave). This is, of course absolutely by invitation only. One inside you can chat, share and exchange.. basically do anything you would do normally just within the comfort of the Wave.
As Brogan said: “…the tools and the goals match verticals…”
But there’s more.
The answer? They’re both velvet-rope social networks. Why? Allow me to explain.
Not soon after I started thinking about Google Wave, I realised that another service from the big G shares the same commonalities as the velvet-rope social network: Google Reader.
Google Reader is not too dissimilar. The sharing functionality ‘baked in’ to the UI of the RSS service allows me to one-click push the stories that I’m reading out to my buddies on Google Talk (Google’s Instant Messenger service, aka ‘GTalk’). These stories then appear in my contact’s own Greader – sometimes with an added note from me – and that, is my choice.
I like sharing. I also like, occasionally picking and choosing with whom I share.
Is this the way forward?
Maybe. The point is, Google Reader is cool. I like it. I like sharing stories with my friends and I like them sharing with me. It’s closed (to a point) and I know who I’m sharing with.
Google Wave, while being no replacement for email or IM, is actually really quite useful for actually doing some work. Of the 36 ‘waves’ I have going on at the moment; one is for a specific project, a handful of massive group chats – the IM equivalent of an MMORPG (eesh), – and the rest are along the lines of ‘Is this thing on?’, ‘testing’ and my own favourite, ‘is this actually the future?’
It’s closed, for now. If you have an invite, find the people you want to work with and start a new collaborative project.
Treat it right, and you’ll yield results.
Don’t, and you’ll never see the benefit.
Thanks for stopping by.
–
Additional reading: “What problems does Google Wave solve?” (via Renate Nyborg)
giffgaff gives the goss (on pricing)
giffgaff, the people-powered network to whom we gave (what we thought was) a fair preview of, has released a teensy bit of news about their pricing. Well, that’s not strictly true, but we’ll come back to that part shortly….
The ‘news’, coming in the form of a blog post from marketing chief, Kylie (no – not that one), explains that based on the feedback they’ve received so far, they’re now not really sure what kind of tariffs to launch with. While this may seem odd and somewhat indecisive on the part of the not-yet-launched MVNO, giffgaff have opened the question out to the blog readers:
“…we need your help. How do you think we should charge? Per minute / per text? Or bundles? Or something else?”
This is pretty much unheard of in the carrier space and we can only applaud giffgaff for sticking to their ‘people-powered’ principles.
While this isn’t actually news about the pricing (it’s more along the lines of ‘um.. we don’t know yet’) what the post does go on to say is that data on giffgaff will be totally and utterly free*.
Yes, that’s right… FREE*.
But not the kind of free* that you’re used to, not the kind of free* that comes along with a ‘fair use policy’, no, no. This is free* until we build the billing system!
“When we launch, data will be free. Honestly, that’s because we won’t have had time to build the bit of our backend system to charge for it, and yet we don’t want to launch without data – so we thought we’d just let you have it.
All we ask is that you don’t take the mickey, and that you do give something back by topping up, making calls, answering some questions, doing some marketing etc.”
That’s not too bad is it? Free data for the period of time it takes us to build the billing system. That’s certainly honest guys. Good work.
So the news from giffgaff:
We (still) don’t know our tariffs and data will be free until we know how to charge for it.
Honesty is the best policy but – with respect – this is still looking vague guys. Admittedly we haven’t come to visit yet, (we really are hideously busy day job wise), but it is on our to do list.
PS. Give us something a little more convincing and we might be convinced 😉
Hat tip to contributor Ricky Chotai for spotting this one.
whatleydude.com 