31 December 2007
Viral Marketing - Cloverfield
Can the 'net sense when something is contrived I wonder? As a case study it would be interesting to compare this with Blair Witch Project which went viral big time, possibly unintentionally.
Bullitt
28 December 2007
Volver
All in all, this is possibly less jarring and deals with less contentious issues than some of Almodovar’s other films, however, it’s not a fairy tale and has the trademark non-gloss reality of films made outside the
27 December 2007
I Am Legend
I Am Legend is not a new story (See "The Last Man on Earth" (1964) and "The Omega Man" (1971)). Neither does this film deal with it in any original way. Will Smith is the last man in New York City and most of the film considers how he deals with this situation emotionally and psychologically. It's superficial and has that Hollywood gloss which almost always serves to make it less real (see "28 Days Later" by way of contrast), although it's well done, and Will has turned into a fine actor. The photography is great, although I wish I wasn't sitting so close to the big screen as I'm not used to having to turn my head from side to side to watch a movie! Particularly impressive was the way NY City had been turned into a desolate backdrop, slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. Less impressive was the way the 'infected' were all created by computer graphics, and not played by actors (at least that's how it looked). That made them look and behave more like aliens, than diseased humans and I'm afraid completely unbelievable.
Watch out for a brief, but typically impressive performance by Emma Thompson as Dr. Kripper - even though she's not credited at the end of the film!
One final comment.... Why do Will Smith movies need a scene which shows him exercising half naked? It's pointless.
Boxing Day at the O2
Parking was expensive (£6.00 a day, £3.00 on bank holidays etc.), there were queues everywhere - toilets, cinema, to get in, to get out - and the ice skating rink, whilst bigger than most of the seasonal ones, did not have the festive atmosphere of places like Somerset House or Hampton Court.
Having said that, we had fun, and I survived another year of ice skating without breaking a bone!
Is Google turning into a Follower?
Actually , I quite like the idea of Knol, which takes the Wikipedia "wisdom of crowds" principle and adds a "moderated by experts" dimension. It also seems to add other crowd tools, in particular content rating. This is the kind of approach that is more likely to find traction inside and organisation, that the simple Wiki one.
I wonder how Wikipedia will respond?
26 December 2007
Ibrahim Ferrer
This album, with the smooth, almost perfect voice of the old man sums up the 1940s and 1950s era of Cuban music so well. And if you've seen the man perform you'll know that he is a real Cuban, with a unique interpretive style. Ferrer is one of those men I would dearly loved to have met and listened to his tales of the old days and the struggles during the tough times is Cuba. Ry Cooder and the production team have done a great job with the production. The music has a certain raw, almost live, edge to it which is so refreshing in comparison with the over produced plastic music churned out by the mainstream labels.
The highlight of the album for me is the semi-popular Aquellos Ojos Verdes - Green Eyes - which would be a candidate for one of my desert island disks.
This album is an easy to listen to introduction to the lighter romantic ballads and boleros of the Cuban style. But it's not Easy Listening. It'll make the hairs on your neck stand up - Go listen.
Lord of the Rings
However, the producers and director have a done a great job. They haven't tried to recreate the film on the stage, but to create a spectacle in its own right. The stage set is magnificent, complicated to manage I guess, but giving a great space for the cast to perform in. It's a real feast for the eyes. Frankly, the music and the singing is not up to much, and some of the acting is a little wooden, but this is all compensated for by the visual experience. I can't think of anything that has impressed me as much as this since I saw it rain on the stage at the London Palladium way back in the early 1980s when Tommy Steele and Roy Castle were performing in Singing in the Rain. (The audience were clearly enjoying themselves, and although the show is a little long, there were only one or two 'flat' spots when the attention tended to drift.
My recommendation would be to see it if you can.
24 December 2007
My Birthday
However, the reason I comment on this is because (some say) my bother and I are getting more and like Frasier and Niles from the TV Series. Frankly, I don't think they know what they're talking about, but I am beginning to wish I hadn't bought him the Christmas present I have (although I obviously can't say what it is here in case he's reading this)!
Training Update
Mutual Grooming
I loved this story on Guardian Unlimited. I’ve talked about herd behaviour before on this blog, and this is yet another example of a similar thing. It seems that the richness of a relationship is no longer important, simply the volume of friends we have. Ironically, you could have 500 ‘friends’ online and yet be incredibly lonely because you end up not knowing a single one of them really well. And it’s a similar situation in virtual worlds, you end up knowing someone’s online persona, without a single clue as to who they are or what they’re really like. Does that make them your friend?
The Legacy Intranet
12 December 2007
Intranet News
However, I do also think that we'll start to see news treated, not as some kind of separate entity, but as content that can be mixed in with other content. For example, the online services Paul suggests are going to replace news will themselves begin to host news and other messages from the organisation. Likewise, the social networks being built inside organisations will also mix in news with the user generated content, in much the way Facebook has been mixing in adverts to my news feed. This is all just an other example of the blurring that is going on. Blurring between home and work. Private and business. Official and unofficial. One geography and another. One platform or another. News and opinion.
I also think people will consume far more via RSS and their news readers than by going to the sites themselves. We're already seeing a huge growth in RSS news content inside the organisation I work for. And that's another reason why news will need to find its way to other platforms.
And in this new boundary-less world, we'll make sense of it all by trusting the content from those with the highest reputation, not those who wear the official badge.
Cycle routes
10 December 2007
The Golden Compass
I was looking forward to seeing the film version - The Golden Compass - last night and I’m afraid I left the cinema feeling deeply disappointed. Taking a successful fantasy epic to the screen is never easy, but I’m afraid this effort from director and screen play writer Chris Weitz left me feeling as though I was missing something. The film failed to catch the colour and depth of the book. Superficial, it lacked the detail that made the books great. I guess I’ve been spoiled by the Lord of the Rings masterpieces, On the up-side, the visual effects are stunning and you don’t feel for even one moment they’re not real.
09 December 2007
Congratulations!!!
Langtry's Perrier Jouet lunch has become one of my favourites, good food (usually with a little twist), relaxing atmosphere, and good value.
Disaster
07 December 2007
Kaspar the cat
More rambling on intranets and collaboration
"Google can return a plethora of pages on the internet but you know you have to rely on your own judgement as to what's good and what's rubbish - you can't apply the same to organisational content - people need to know it's all good."
Summarises it nicely!
Hairspray
I paid £20 each for two tickets in the Grand Circle - at the very back of the theatre [Row J, seats 12 and 13]. These were excellent value, with a good view and plenty of leg room. Also the advantage of not having anyone sitting behind you. If you fancy it, book your tickets on one of the websites that tells you which seats you are buying, then check them out on Theatre Monkey where there are seating plans for all the theatres with recommendations on which are good and which are bad seats.
I have to tell you though, this morning I'm not humming any of the songs from the show, so I don't think the music is as legendary as, say, Phantom of the Opera or Lion King, but the production is terrific, the large cast enthusiastic, and the performances - especially from Michael Ball and Mel Smith - first class. My favourite scene was the number 'Back to the Sixties' when the Dynamites step out of the advert. Check out the video on the official site. The other high point was the duet between Wilbur (Mel Smith) and Edna (Michael Ball) which brought the house down. They were obviously enjoying themselves!
Knowledge or Information?
I’m doing a fair amount of work these days on the governance arrangements which need to be in place for some of the new social media tools, such as blogs and wikis.
The wiki phenomenon in particular is an interesting one.
One of the key success factors for traditional intranets is the implementation of tools to ensure content is kept up to date, is usable, accessible for people with disabilities, and complies with the organisational policies and any regulations that affect your industry. Important so that users can have confidence that the material they are viewing is safe to use as part of their business dealings. Trusted content. This is most often achieved by having clear ownership of content. Someone you can pin responsibility to. However, in the new collaborative world of crowd-sourced content there is often no one particular owner of content, so who do you pin responsibility on?
This means we need to think differently about content governance.
But there’s another dimension. People sometimes refer to the content on these collaborative platforms as knowledge. Explicit knowledge. I don’t think there’s ever really been agreement about when explicit knowledge becomes information. There are as many views as there are practitioners. Whichever way you look at it a significant overlap will exist between knowledge management policies and information management policies. The two need to be taken together.
Then you have the issue of whether a single organisation – even some of the largest – can ever really generate effective ‘crowd-sourced’ content. Wikipedia is a good example of effective crowd-sourcing and the wisdom of crowds. It depends on a substantial volume of people having sufficient knowledge of a subject reviewing and editing content such that its accuracy and relevancy increases in, typically, small incremental steps. However, inside an organisation there are often only a handful of people who have sufficient knowledge of a subject to make a valid contribution. A handful of people does not constitute a crowd! So what happens is that the wiki platform – put in place for crowd-sourcing content – starts to be used as a (sometimes simple) content management platform, by-passing the controls and policies in place on the normal content management system. Sometimes this is done for mischievous purposes – to get people out of the rigour associated with owning important content. However, it’s more often because the wiki platform is so much easier to use than the official organisational content management system. So you can’t blame people.
You can add to that the tension between knowledge management (keep everything so we can learn from it) and information retention (get rid of everything as soon as you can).
And the fact that a wiki platform will often contain a mix of genuine crowd-sourced material and individually owned ‘published’ content.
It’s complicated.
So what’s the answer? Should we re-classify traditional content managed intranets as ‘legacy’ intranets and move to a different form of governance for the whole intranet, or should we try and force different kinds of kind onto different platforms, which will be difficult as people will naturally gravitate to the platform of least resistance?
What is clear however, that the drivers of these policies are still there, and in fact are becoming more prevalent. Growing concerns about data privacy, identity theft, stories about the potential impact of loss of data etc. mean that governance is likely to be tightened rather than relaxed. Another tension.
I’m going to have to think about this some more! Watch this space.
Jack the Ripper
A couple of nights ago I went with a group of friends on a London Walk – Jack The Ripper. Led by our guide Steve we assembled at Tower Hill tube station before heading into the East End of London to be entertained with stories of the Victorian terror that was Jack the Ripper. And it was fun.
The thought did occur to me whilst we were standing outside modern buildings listening to Steve’s stories, just how much this part of London has changed. It’s become a mix of chic and modern, and old yet trendy. Particularly around Spitalfields Market. Of course, it’s the stories we came for, but it would have added to the atmosphere to have stood outside the actual house where Mary Kelly (the Ripper’s last victim) met her end, rather than a multi-story car park.
I’ve been on other London Walks, around other parts of London and I can recommend them all. Most of others take you to places that still exist, but I guess even when the last of the old Ripper-era buildings are gone, people will still be following a guide to hear about the horrors of those days. And so they should.
05 December 2007
Getting faster
Join me if you like!
02 December 2007
Today's run
Next weekend I'm looking to do a 22k road run, with perhaps a fast 10k during the week. Just 2 weeks to go before I start running 3 times a week!
Cold Stone Creamery
Cold Stone Creamery
If I had more experience I'd open an outlet at Bluewater. It would be a surefire winner!
A problem with wind
Anyway, the hardest thing about riding a bike is the wind. I can cope with rain, punctures, hills and motorists, but a strong wind kills me..... Yesterday was just like that. A strong wind was blowing from the west. A record time getting there with the wind behind me, and a torrid time coming back. I made it though. 52 miles.
You can see the details from my Garmin GPS on the Motion Based site.
29 November 2007
We won!
Last night I was at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane where my team collected the award for the best corporate website at the CorpComms Awards! I knew we would. Really, I did. Because we've developed an awsome site. Of course, I had very little to do with it. All the hard work was put in by my team. I was presented with the fetching glass and chrome trophy by comedian Frankie Boyle. Photos and everything.
What a great night!
I do wonder how many people in the room realised how fundamentally the corporate communications profession is going to change over the next few years. We have Generation Y people coming into the workplace who will be their own communicators, and we have technology - like the technology I'm using for this blog - that removes the barrier to entry to communications. So people will be willing and able to do it themselves. Communicators really need to re-assess their role now that everyone has a radio tower. Carefully crafted messages and beautifully designed websites will be less relevant, and probably not timely.
28 November 2007
Black tie
I'm In!
I plan to run in aid of the The Salvation Army Training Centre in Hadleigh which my sister, Shelley, manages. They do great work helping people with disabilities, or who have been long term unemployed, back into work.
Half Marathon time
Punctures
Talk To Her
One of the great parts of the movie was the performance by Caetano Veloso singing at a party. I'd heard of this guy, but I don't think I'd ever really listened his work before. It was sublime. That's another CD on the way from Play.com!!
23 November 2007
I'll be the England manager
I'll let you know how I get on!
Still running
I cycled to work on Wednesday as usual, then did an 8k run when I got home. And it felt really good. I'm planning a half marathon distance training run tomorrow, but as the weather is looking like it's going to be really cold, I think I'll do it down the gym on the treadmill. I've got a table tennis match right afterwards, so at least I'll be in the right place. Running is generally easier in the gym, so I make sure I put the machine on a small incline to at make it feel a little more realistic. I'm going to take it real easy - aiming at 2 hours for the 13 miles. I don't want to push it too early and risk injury!
I'm pondering entering the San Francisco Marathon in 2008. I love San Francisco. I could see some baseball afterwards as well.
18 November 2007
Live Flesh
In all, not as good as "All About My Mother" but pretty good nonetheless.
The runs are getting longer
I'm now going to up the running to at least twice a week, with one of those being a progressively longer run. Target is the Silverstone Half Marathon in March as a warm up to the London Marathon. I'll need to fit in a 10k before then though.
Social media football team
What a great story though....
11 November 2007
Dot-com Bubble
Holiday fatigue
Training update
The policy of not running so much and doing much more cycling seems to be paying dividends in keeping me injury free. I'm also taking fairly high doses of Glucosamine Sulphate, which appears to help with post run recovery.
Today I took the road bike out and did a fairly gentle 60k ride around South London. It was too windy to make it much fun, and it's quite a hilly route - including Chislehurst Hill on the way home. However, at least the heart rate monitor didn't go crazy like last week when I came over Shooters Hill!
I've got 4 round trips into London on the bike this week - just as the weather starts to get cold! That means I won't be runninng until Friday, so no risk of injury. Let's just hope I can start to get the distances up soon.
They read magazines........
29 October 2007
It's a funny game
Disposable fashion
When I was being brought up, we were taught to look after our things and make them last. To this day, that's an attitude I can't shed and I still feel bad about throwing things away (or sending them to the charity shop) because they've gone out of style, rather then because they've worn out. That probably makes me a loser, but I feel better knowing that I'm not perpetuating mass excess.
28 October 2007
Joke
This joke is dedicated to the black sheep...
Review: Stranger Than Fiction
Feel good weekend
As you can tell, I whimped out of the Wilmington 10k.
This is a special mention for Daisie who has been pestering me to be mentioned on the blog.....
27 October 2007
Pie and Mash
26 October 2007
Web 2.0 or not.....
25 October 2007
To run or not to run.....
I've really suffered with leg injuries (calves mostly) over the past year. However, I now cycle much more and I've found that helps with fitness, but also seems to aid recovery from running. Doesn't help build the running miles I need to do to be ready for the London Marathon in April though.
I'll let you know whether or not I do the race on Sunday, but if you're there - look me up ;-)
Facebook at work
"Inside an organisation - terrific potential, for the reasons others have outlined above. Except that, no matter how we as the professionals dictate how these tools should be used, it's the users who will actually decide how they're going to use them and where the value will come from. That's difficult to predict. And we're increasingly blurring inside and outside, so the features that people use 'outside' will need to be there and we'll need to understand better how to manage the resulting content explosion. Just hope I don't get 'poked' too often ;-)" You can see the full thread here.
iPhone - now there's a surprise
I'm afraid I've never been much of a fan of Apple - they are a triumph of form over function!
23 October 2007
Pedro Almodovar
Georgie Fame
I confess I have eclectic music tastes. If you look at the tracks on my iRiver you’ll find everything from Salsa Celtica (salsa with bagpipes) through to Scissor Sisters. One artist I think I’ve overlooked recently is Georgie Fame, so when Somebody Stole My Thunder dropped through the letter box from Play.com it was a pleasant surprise. It’s a collection of some of Georgie’s “Jazz-Soul Grooves” from the1967-1971 period. Very refreshing to hear music with an edge, and how quirky is El Pussy Cat? Of course, the title track is very well known, being originally released around the end of the 1960s. The whole album is an easy listen, but not easy listening! Blues Brother meets early British pop! Good stuff.
Facebook versus MySpace
It Took A Long Time, but I made it in the end
It’s now 5 years since I finally got motivated to do something about my weight. Over the course of the first year I managed to lose about 65 pounds. I did this through sensible eating, and a vigorous exercise regime. I feel good, and better than that I’ve managed to stay fit – although the doctors will probably tell me I could easily shed another 15 pounds or so. But hey, I’m fit, healthy and happy! And I think I buck the trend as a ‘fatty’ who has managed to keep the weight off.