Bye bye frenetic

In a small sample of just me, my friends, my family and colleagues, there is a backlash underway against being absolutely freakin frenetic all the bloomin’ time. No one’s loving always having soooo much to do and having too little time to do it and resentment is building about consistently being asked to deliver great stuff at speed just because sometimes it can. This interview with Cal Newport catches all that vibe and while it’s focused on the digital workplace many of us are beholden to (i.e., constant messaging and information distractivity (my new made up word), I love the ultimate recommendations – three principles – for living life in general and ending up with something you’re proud of: 1) Do fewer things; 2) Work at a natural pace; 3) Obsess over quality. Newport concludes on his theory of productivity: “That trio of properties better hits the sweet spot of how we’re actually wired and produces valuable meaningful work, but it’s sustainable.” I’m going to promote it. Thank you Vicks for

Musk on meetings

Anand Sanwal from CB Insights (I almost always read his emails) shared an email Musk sent to the Tesla team. Fingers crossed, as Sanwal said, that this isn’t urban legend, as it’s the only thing I’ve ever nodded to positively that’s emanated from Musk. Maybe if a Tesla was within my reach that would be different. But anyway, the email was about meetings and productivity. Top line rules: 1) Avoid large meetings; 2) Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing; 3) Forget the chain of command (big thumbs up to this rule); 4) Be clear, not clever (my favourite); 5) Ditch frequent meetings (I hate weekly “touch base” meetings that always get moved); 6) Pick common sense (makes sense). Wouldn’t argue with any of it in fact. And then there’s other stuff Musk says and does…

Take it down a notch

When Terry Smith, CEO of Fundsmith, expressed his scepticism about the stated purpose of Hellman’s (to tackle global food waste) and of Lux (inspiring women to rise above everyday sexist judgements and express their beauty and femininity unapologetically), I did get his point. He had his reasons for challenging Unilever, but he also drew attention to what’s been happening far too casually in branding for the last 5+ years.

Brands have felt the pressure to be both ethical and world-changing at their core. Because of the zeitgeist but also because they’ve seen the likes of Unilever benefit from attaching social and environmental aims to their brand. The result though, is too many businesses and products aligning themselves with saving people and/or the planet, without strong enough justification to do so.

Cause related marketing used to be enough for brands to make clear they are not just evil money-makers (while they made money out of positive associations). Which meant their core purpose could be a little more prosaic, though no less important to the customers they serve and still expressed in very human terms.

So while all businesses and brands should be playing their part to protect people and planet, their purpose should be utterly true to them. It is time to take most purpose statements down a notch.

Unilever, from experience, will be taking their “higher purpose” statements for Hellmann’s and Lux very seriously. By taking action. Not just delivering words.

Beanbag cultures

This episode on the future of work, from the Weekly Economics Podcast, is a must listen for anyone involved in capturing business cultures with words or aiming to direct them with the creation of purpose and values statements. Important questions are raised about the genuine benefit of having comfy beanbag environments, with their suggestions of inclusivity and creativity, when what people really need is more time outside of work, or the persistent push for self-entrepreneurship and betterment, when employees aren’t given freedom to choose or act. The words we thought were good to include in lists of values need rethinking, again.

Wisdom, lullabies and chickens

One of my favourite “little books of” is Taxi Driver Wisdom by Risa Mickenberg, a series of quotes taken from conversations with New York City cab drivers. It contains page after page of classic real-world wisdom, though not all of it you want to hear! I was reminded of it when I discovered, Ceyda Oskay’s “Sleepdust: Uber Drivers Singing Lullabies”, an eight minute edit of dialogues between the Turkish artist and Uber drivers that took place in London in 2019. You hear the drivers sing lullabies from the countries they migrated from. It’s a very gentle and poignant listen. A natural miscellany of cultures. It reminded me of cab rides I took from Brixton to Heathrow, always with Floyd who I brought back duty free and who told me about his plans for a chicken farm. His wisdom one day: you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. So I didn’t.

The Selby Films

I need to thank Caoilfhionn O’Connor, creative director at Likely Heroes, for pointing me in the direction of The Selby Films. Even those more obviously for brands are a masterclass in how to capture people’s stories without going overboard in selling an angle on them. There’s a central message always, but it unfolds with ease instead of being edited so tightly that the person at the centre of the story feels like a puppet. Amongst several favourites is this one capturing Jazzi McGilbert who set up the Rep Club. Her quiet telling of her own story is perfect too. Love her line: “It makes it feel like a sort of speakeasy vibe...it’s everybody’s little secret they want to tell someone else. But maybe not everybody”. The same with Selby Films, you don’t want to lose what’s special by everybody doing it. But there’s lots to be inspired by.

Gender Swapped Fairy Tales

Why hasn’t this been done before? Gender Swapped Fairy Tales, by illustrator and author Karrie Fransman and creative technologist Jonathan Plackett, is such a simple but brilliant idea. But harder to execute than first thought apparently.

The idea began when their daughter was born and they first imagined using a basic search and replace algorithm to swap pronouns around . But they discovered: “oddities in the English language meant an artificial intelligence was necessary to detect the context of the sentence and to apply the language accordingly.”

In her interview with Creative Review, Fransman described how many periphery elements in stories are gendered:

“Even the kingdom becomes a queendom, and a hen is now a rooster, and it’s all really tiny little things littered in the language. Brothers and sisters turned into sisters and brothers, and women were now introduced by their professions – they’ll say ‘miller and her husband’ – and they’re introduced first as well.”

What better demonstrates the extent to which gendered thinking and attitudes are embedded in our language and lives.

Fashion world edit

I kept the September 2018 issue of Elle magazine because it was dedicated to sustainability. It’s typically the biggest issue of the year and it was Elle’s first with 100% recycled-waste paper. That was just the first indicator of what felt like a major change in stance by the publication. Not just fashion conscious but conscious fashion. I liked what I was reading and it’s true to say across the many magazines I enjoy reading (old skool, I know), sustainability – in all its forms – has risen up the agenda. Phew.

Looks like GQ, November 2020, is a keeper too. An extended editor’s letter, by Dylan Jones, is a broad-ranging missive on the state of the world and the role of brands in it. It opens with an exterior picture of Selfridges’ flagship Oxford Street, with the sign signalling their net zero strategy and a call for all of us to change the way we shop. Pretty incredible for a luxury store like that to suggest consumption isn’t king.

Jones’s editor’s letter carries on, part analysis, part prediction and part plaintiff cry for brands to understand what’s going in in the world, respect the impact of the pandemic on individuals today and the disaster climate change represents for future generations. He asks brands to make the decision to make a change, by implication to make the world a better place.

Retail is facing major challenges and as a consequence brands too. Will survival point them in the direction of more empathetic and environmentally positive behaviours? Jones points out the accelerated shift to digital, the requirement for experiential retail that is less transactional, more relational and, in pandemic times, ana experience that gives people space. A far-reaching suggestion is that we’ll all want our brands nearer to home. That flagship store on Oxford Street could be a thing of the past, with smaller stores for leading luxury brands existing in towns. We could order off the internet, but where’s the life-enhancing experience in that.

I’m glad fashion and lifestyle magazine editors are writing about these things. It’s been two years since the Elle sustainability issue I kept. I hope Dylan Jones’s call to action gets a faster uptake in thinking and behaviours.

Brighter, better days are coming

I really enjoyed this introduction to designer Yinka Ilori in Observer Design. A bit of an abstract painter in my spare time, I favour an acidic bright colour palette and have aborted umpteen attempts to stick with a cooler, more sedate one. So, an unapologetic pursuit of colour – in everything from chairs to civic design – was bound to catch my eye. Several other themes about Ilori’s work struck me equally though. Designing with pre-loved objects, brightening everyday experiences, encouraging adults to play, and a public art installation in response to Covid-19 that simply states: “Better days are coming, I promise”. I hope his civic works and public art proliferate.

Classic art, recreated

The works of art created for this challenge have to be my favourite of the pandemic. I keep on going back to them to marvel at the ingenuity, with people using only materials (and pets and people!) they had in their homes. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles challenged people to recreate famous paintings. The results were incredible. Hard to pick a favourite from the ones shown here as selected by Bored Panda, but this recreation of Klimt’s ‘Woman in Gold’ shows real dedication with biscuits, and the recreation of Pablo Picasso’s “A Woman With a Bird” is just brilliantly weird.

Marathon effort

Positivity and proactivity are the things that have caught my eye most during the pandemic. You could call it clear purpose. First out of the blocks was 2.6 Challenge a new charity brand that very quickly established itself after the UK lockdown was announced. It’s purpose was to help save all other charities whose fundraising efforts would be diminished by the cancelling of the London Marathon. 2.6 Challenge has carried on beyond the association with the London Marathon, however, with fundraising continuing in lieu of so many other fundraising events being cancelled. Simply fundraise for your own 2.6 challenge, whether that’s 2.6 miles in the park, 26 minutes of an exercise video, or running 26.2 miles in your garden, as some have done.

Give it a go

This Squarespace campaign really resonated with me. A so-simple headline carrying an amazing amount of meaning and emotion. Excitement, opportunity, motivation and achievability. Everything an entrepreneur needs to give their business a go

Stories without words

Really liked this intro to an exhibition of costumes at the National Theatre, London (really liked the costumes too)...

“Every piece of costume is a quiet storyteller on stage. How else could we know that the characters have just come inside from a horribly rainy evening, or that their clothes are old and worn, or that they live in the 1780s, without the marks and prints on costumes telling us so.”

The same goes for the way we all dress. Through our clothes – our style reference points and decision to conform or stand out – we’re telling quiet stories about ourselves, not only about our plans for the day ahead.

Equally true of brand design. The visual language of a well-considered brand will include signs of the sector and club it belongs to, but also signpost difference and intent, possibly to disrupt. More fundamentally, it signals whether the brand has a story worth discovering more about.

Clean and good

The campaign message “Steal our staff” from soap maker Beco is immediately arresting. But the story behind it is even better: “From the ingredients we pour in, to the benefits that pour back out, every product we create is Better Considered.” Beco’s products are better for the environment and 80% of their staff are disabled – and 100% brilliant. They want more businesses to employ disabled people. Check out their profiles. Inspiring.

Guardians of independence

The simplicity of The Guardian’s Hope is Power video is haunting. It’s part of a hard-hitting campaign that’s captured my attention online and outdoors. Funny times we’re in when a newspaper in the “free world” has to voice the need for independent journalism and raise support for that mission. They’ve fully aligned themselves with addressing the climate challenge too, with their Climate Change Pledge. I’m a supporter.

Large Expensive Abstract

As a dabbler in the creation of sometimes large abstract paintings, it tickled me to see that Large Expensive Abstract is the title of one of Grayson Perry’s works in his latest exhibition Super Rich Interior Decoration, at the Victoria Miro Gallery, Mayfair. Grayson noticed that art dealers often have a large expensive abstract in the entrance way to their home and has created one with a bit more bite. I just altogether love the cut of this artist’s jib. He slices through pretension, at the same time finding things to celebrate in every class and culture; plays “our things” back to us, at the same time asking whether what we care about is actually worth caring about. Then he leaves us to get on with it without too much lingering judgement. Some of his new works are poking a stick at current day “political” artists” who he responds to by saying “oh, you mean you’re a left-wing artist”. He’s produced pots celebrating Conservative style and values that in a democracy, I guess, are equally deserving of a creative voice; but not usually thought of has having one, it’s true. Haven’t seen the exhibition yet but looking forward to my assumptions being uprooted and tossed about, then feeling Grayson’s comforting pat on my head telling me: “Don’t worry, it’s ok”.

Design Can

Hats off to Not Flat 3 for trying to do something about homogeneity in the design industry. I hope their Design Can manifesto gains support because as an industry we’re one of the worst for hiring in our own image. Not diverse at all. A comment a boss of mine made many years back has always stuck: That despite being part of the creative sector, the world of graphic design is dogged by conservatism. Let’s get braver about going out to schools, colleges and the world at large to explain what we do, why it matters, and why it’s so important we get a wider mix of people into the industry. Our positive impact could be even greater. Some more advanced thinking about apprenticeships and grad programmes could also be the way to go to show our professionalism and the career opportunities that exist. Agencies tend to just hire people in, without too much thought given to how we train, mentor, provide challenge, explain a career path and encourage people to be and bring their whole selves to work. Other professions do it. Why can’t we? Why aren’t we?

A long time coming

For those of us who’ve been talking and writing about responsible business and sustainability for 25+ years – not to mention the environmentalists who’ve been going at it since the Seventies – the one question we have for mainstream politicians, now putting climate change centre stage, is What The Hell Took You So Long?

Ed Milliband in Prospect (July 2019) explains the delays and back downs as well as opportunities ahead. I truly hope we’re at the cusp of a green industrial revolution the UK can and will lead. Having a vision and strategy that maximise the benefits of climate action – not only for the planet, but employment, cost of living, health and wellbeing, and ok, growth of the economy too – might also have the benefit of bridging the nation’s increasingly ugly divides.