I dunno a yellow 599 or a white California, can't decide

In all honesty i can't see anyone trusting me with it either.

We get around

Back in October we made a short demo film for Harman International. (produced by the excellent Th1ng.co.uk) The film was a demonstration of new sound synthesis technology developed in conjunction with Lotus engineering. The aim being to demonstrate how electric cars of the future could be made safer by emitting various sounds to alert pedestrians. I just did a Google search on it to find the film has made its way onto over 60 web sites, weirdly its had some of its most views on the Pistonheads web site, I never took those TVR boys for being keen on hybrids

Farmville or why we're diffrent from the Americans

Came across an interesting stat with regards Facebook breaking the 400 million user barrier last month. On both sides of the Atlantic a prime driver has been the playing of Sim type games like Farmville. Both US and UK players are manily proffesional women. However the age differences are really telling. Average of 31 here in Britain and +55 in the States

Farmville Explanation

View more presentations from Philip Slade.

General Election warming up (in a one sided way)

Well so far, apart from the Tories most of the pre-election communications have been rather dull and unremarkable. The Conservatives on the other hand are proving to be such a gift to the spoofers, HERE, and HERE you almost can't wait for their next mind boggling missive. Some of the regional David Cameron supporter groups have taken to Flickr with (unintentionally) hilarious results, really no spoof required.

Big Potatoes a manifesto for innovation

An interesting view on the current debate about innovation (i.e. there isn't any) A group of writers (Norman Lewis, Nico Macdonald, Alan Patrick, Martyn Perks, Mitchell Sava and James Woudhuysen) have published a paper called: Big Potatoes, A new 14 point Manifesto for Innovation. I really like the insight that the Great Depression saw real innovations from companies that have gone on to be durable brands of the new century; Nestlé, Penguin Books, General Electric and Texas Instruments. But so far the credit crunch has seen almost the opposite level of thinking.

"..The Big Potatoes Manifesto is call to arms: for leadership and risk taking, for accepting failure and unexpected outcomes as the necessary and inevitable path to success, for bold and ambitious experimentation and an end to the instrumentalist short-termism which has institutionalised a culture of limits..." MORE

1. Think big!
2. Go beyond the post-war legacy of innovation
3. Principles, not models!
4. In praise of ‘useless’ research
5. Innovation is hard work
6. For success, expect lots of failures
7. Regard chance and surprise as allies
8. Take risks
9. Innovation demands leadership
10. Innovation is every body’s responsibility
11. Trust the people, not regulation
12. Think global, act global
13. The spirit of innovation knows no limits
14. By, with and for humanity

Change is good

I feel energised by change. Doing the same as before has never held great appeal, even when you are not quite sure where change is going to take you. What you do know is that its going to be different and maybe involve a bit of work getting things right. Yesterdays launch of the Apple iPad is very much a case in point. The web is teetering on melt down so many people are expressing there opinions as to its potential success or failure. There are some extreme Luddite comments filling the forums, pick any, or start HERE with the Twitter stats. Even if against all the odds it does turn out to be a turkey -this century's Newton. The fact is they tried, Apple have taken a huge step in thinking. It is this ambition for change that I so like. Sure version 2 or 3 of the iPad are going to be way better, and the price will be half its current $800, particularly the school friendly Wi-Fi only $499 version.

Yes I am a Mac fan and I can't wait to use one, But more than any of that what I feel invigorated by is that here are a bunch of people for whom the option of a better Netbook or Kindle was never going to be good enough. Change is good.

Update on Monday, February 1, 2010 at 11:33AM by Philip

Thinking more about the iPad, I actually like best the idea its not finished. This is Apple saying we trained you with the iTouch now play on something bigger. The iPads true place will become clear with version 2+ and the content designed during the coming 12 months. Way to earlier to call time on this type of thinking yet. remember how the games industry greeted the Wiii? rubbish spec? no place in the market? launch games are too simple?

Amsterdam

A calm(!) 48 hours in Amsterdam with chums from the TopGear team.

Philip Slade, Amsterdam, Jan2010

seen in Tate Britain

Neat debates currently rolling.

Two ongoing debates have caught my eye at present. The first relates to my last post below. The air brushed David Cameron. Not only is the web now awash with versions of it, but you can now download your own poster builder app HERE. Brand Republic have a good discussion on the subject HERE. Not least becasue the Labour Party appears to have adopted one of them as an official poster HERE - a really new move in UK politics.

Next, the Pepsi; Super Bowl Vs Social networks campaign. Some very good thoughts and ideas about measurement (or lack of it) HERE. Plus quite a few neat asides about brand building with fuzzy logic.

An election of commuincation

I know I get excited by the smallest things, but the up coming general election in the UK is really going to be something. Not for all the reasons of potential regime change, but the cascade of communications. The very nature of the state of politics in the UK at present means fractural opinions are being considered.

The main parties being so frighten of an original or different view. Even mainstream press are considering the whitterings of the nuttiest blogger as light relief from the blandness of central office party line. I quite warm to Gordan Browns inept PR skills, his advisors attempt to lighten his image are so ham fisted its got to be some kind of massive double bluff, surely he can't really be that way? If David Cameron does become PM at least we should get some decent satire from the left at last. Those of us who remember how good comedy was under the last Conservative government know that really British humour only works when we moan about stuff, as for music,  protest and anger songs have only ever worked under the Tories.

Social networks. The lack of American style fund raising will probably mean we won't see the cleverness of the Obama style social network activity. I would be surprised however if we don't see some pretty heavy weight SEO spending. What Obama did with Fox news misinformation so Labour should do with Cameron's media chums, However and its a big however. The modern Labour party is a world away from common sense and logical actions.

Humour

The early rounds of tit for tat ads are shaping up nicely. I do hope we'll see more of this. The ones shown on this page are all from the excellent Beau Bo D'Or