Living on Brand Street

Sometimes I have a good idea

Hill & Knowlton QA with Twitter's Biz Stone, originally uploaded by zrodgers.

And sometimes they really happen ;-) This is our Hill & Knowlton First Annual Official Cannes Lions Tweet-up with Biz Stone. Good times (and a packed theatre)

Happy Birthday America

Many happy returns. Wish I was there.

DEADLINE

Loving. Well done Bang-yao Liu. If this is just a senior project, I expect you will have a huge career.

Home Sweet Home

I read The Hobbit when I was ten. And I think that was the genesis of my quest to live in England someday. The fictional story read as if real. The appeal was of a land with multiple magical layers of history, like another favorite, Puck of Pook's Hill (which has maybe a bit more history in the stories). The reality of my life in London, though, is a more of a Sherlock Holmes landscape. So I fell instantly under the spell of this amazing home built by Simon Dale with and for his family. It is in Wales — and I have been here long enough to know the difference — but it is the very place I dreamed of living when I was ten. Well done Simon and team. It is just beautiful.

Don't keep calm and carry on

Don't keep calm and carry on., originally uploaded by moleitau.

I just love this. I love the original "keep calm and carry on" too. So British. But it is "get excited.." that I printed out to put above my desk. Thanks moleitau.

Targeting virtual voyeurs

Over lunch the other day, I was boring yet another dear friend by preaching about Twitter. Being a regular person — not a wild-eyed new media zealot — she had her polite listening face on, but I knew she wasn’t.

In fact, she was listening to the table next to us. They were having a much more juicy conversation.

Besides reinforcing that we all have a bit of the voyeur inside, it reminded me that the only way to sell anything is to start with user needs, whatever they may be.

Rather than high falutin change the world twitvangelism, I should have told her about the virtual voyeurism product feature of Twitter. There are even apps that help you listen in on other people’s conversations. Now that would have gotten her attention.

note: btw, I wrote this, before I wrote this

Logos in the sky with soapsuds

Have I mentioned how much I am loving Flogos?

Extreme Sheep LED Art

If you are a herding dog fan — and I am — then you don't really care if some of this is fake. Because I believe in the magic of the dogs. They should have herded the sheep into the shape of a giant bone. Now, that's funny. (And would have had as much to do with selling Samsung TVs as this.) But why quibble with something so fun to watch? Well done to The Viral Factory. Except for not giving the dogs all a credit line. They better get to go to Cannes.

Fleet Foxes. My new favorite band

Don't know why I am late on this bandwagon. One hearing. One song. Hooked for life. They sound like déjà vu somehow. Makes me feel like I did when I was in college.

Do not know what the lyrics to this song mean, but I think it is heart-breakingly beautiful.

Seattle based indie folk band Fleet Foxes perform the track 'White Winter Hymnal', taken from their 2008 album Fleet Foxes, at BBC2's Later... with Jools Holland.

Happy 60th Birthday Ogilvy

I used to work here (the London office) and I must say that this video, for the first time in over a year, made me miss just being in that space. Some wonderful, warm, witty people there.