Monday, September 26, 2005

What a week!

Not really.

It's not been too busy a week (and a bit). My economist subscription has finally come to fruition and I've been to Torquay.

Torquay was nice and chilled. Wandered about a bit in the wonderful sunshine and in the nice countryside, but didn't manage to fully unwind while there.

The week went pretty quickly, managed to finally get one of my campaigns live: Orange Content - www.orange.co.uk/downloads

Randomly I appear to be promoting my housemate's own tracks which are on here. As far as he can see, he's not getting any of the revenue from the ring tones.

It does seem strange that he doesn't get any money for tracks that he has written that are being sold using his name. Surely there is a way to get this money to him?

Went to Milk and Honey for the first time, which was very nice. Milk and Honey is a well-to-do bar with an extremely exclusive ethos behind it. You can only get in if invited by a member. More than that, they have a set of rules for behaviour at the place.

I found it a bit quiet - more like a reasonably well kitted out bar rather than anything special. Good night, one of my suppliers' wallet was hit rather hard!

The fast forward course has now started. The brief is to find a way to make Campaign magazine better. Better in terms of content but also in terms of relevance. It's a tough brief - I was hoping for something cool and consumer led.

Business to business selling is tough and there are few easily accessible research tools. Admittedly it is quite easy to ask around my peers in order to find information, but it's not representative and you have to be very careful to ask the right questions.

SPent the weekend chilling, which has not left me feeling amazingly refreshed in time for work today! Oh well.

Trying to get another campiagn live today, www.orange.co.uk/talkingpoint. Should be live at some point tomorrow, but it's tough as the creative agency still have a lot to do. It's going to be really great when it is live though, they've done a really good job on the actual creative.

iMedia Connection: Blockbuster's VOD

iMedia Connection: Blockbuster's VOD

iMedia Connection: Blockbuster's VOD

iMedia Connection: Blockbuster's VOD

CThe Observer | International | Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

Cool!

Saturday, September 24, 2005

freshly mixed - electronica community

freshly mixed - electronica community

I think Freshly mixed is the only site I subscribe to. It's still one of the ones I actually visit the most, just to pick up the mixes I want.


Pendulum on the essential mix is a good idea!!!

Monday, September 19, 2005

RSS basics (Thunderbird) - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

RSS basics (Thunderbird) - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Stuart Jeffries: Corporate rudenesd

There they go again - blaming everything on Corporations.

The problem stems fropm a host of reasons, not just one!

The main reason is that everything is getting bigger and more interconnected. When you live in a little village, courtesy is more important as the people you bump into are permanent fixtures in your life. You aren't rude to them as you're going to see them again.

The problems starty when city life intrudes. If you're never going to see anyone again there's no incentive. Why help a stranger (apart from an altruistic headrush) who, in all probability, will you will never meet again.

As more and more people choose to live in bigger and bigger cities and the city centres consolidate rudeness will become more widespread. ASBOs will not help - we need to convince people of the necessities of being nice.

Presently, there is no obvious reward for being nice. Culture publicly rewards figures such as 50 Cent or Charles Clarke or Alan Sugar. The majority of public figuresd did not get there by being consistently nice to strangers. We need to find people that are consistently nice and reward them.

BBC Nice person of the year?

Teaching people to be nice will take time, effort and should be taught to parents aswell as children.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Messing about with Blogger


I think I need to upload this in order to use it on my title bar! Not sure if it'll come out in the size I want it to though!

Gwyn and Maggie Perry

Going to try updating weekly from now on - we'll see how long it lasts.

Work
One of my clients wanted a finalised plan for a big plan coming along soon. It was frustating seeing some of the sites that I though would work being stripped out of the plan. Branding campaigns are always a worry as without effective measurement all we’re really doing is throwing money at a problem. We can come up with as many strategies as the client wants, but if we don’t measure the outcomes noone will ever know if our clever strategy works!
They finally accepted the plan, though objected to the amount of coverage that we’d achieved. This was despite the fact it was significantly more than what they’d briefed us to get in the first place.
Some people still expect to get unlimited amounts of stuff with very limited budgets. Rates have been coming down in recent months, but not enough to justify what they seem to expect.
I worked on two major proposals in the past week for another client. Both have been rejected - due to lack of money on their side. It’s particularly annoying as we know that the plans and proposals we are sending over will get them more money than they put in, but they’re still not willing to take a risk.
They also want me to attempt to negotiate an entire launch campaign by doing barter deals. In another country where they just laughed at me.

Flat
There’s been an annoying person staying over in the flat this week. Although I don’t object to letting people stay, especially if we’ve got a spare bed, I do object to people moping around in the living room. I always feel a bit guilty retiring to my room or doing stuff when they’re just sitting there looking bored.
Get a book! Rent a DVD! Meet friends!
Nick is still touring in Australia, so there weren’t any cool new tunes!
Life
Usual dramas with gf. Still don’t understand women. Why can’t they just have constant moods!
It’s my birthday tomorrow so I’m going to visit my parents. Torquay is nice, but I do feel that I should be doing something wild rather than slightly pedestrian. I need to learn how to say no to my mother.
Didn’t see much of my friends this week. Mainly because of me buying this computer and feeling slightly poor. But also due to spending a bit too much time with gf...
Randomly, an old friend from School gave me a call last night as he was in town. Very short notice, but I hadn’t seen him or any of that gang for over a year, so I met up with him.
Shock horro but he’s gone and gotten married! Luckily to a very nice girl. It does seem that most of my Swansea friends are settling down. Worrying!

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Food - lots of healthy food was at carnival! Posted by Picasa
Dancer! Posted by Picasa
Best Float I saw all day! Posted by Picasa
Good Overalls! Posted by Picasa
Random People trying to Fly Posted by Picasa
More of the Carnival Posted by Picasa
Part of the Carnival Parade Posted by Picasa