Stupid Google and the Pancake People

I came across a really good Nicholas Carr article during my post-holiday-looking-for-anything-to-avoid-work blues last week. It’s about how Google is changing the way we consume info and had a lot of blogging action already. (Thanks to Amelia for the link.)

The basic principle is that our mind is adjusting to consuming information the way the internet presents it – in short, sharp, interlinked snippets. We quickly scan small chunks of info hopping from page to page in search of that key nugget of information (‘power browsing’). Hyperlinks propel us from site to site where footnotes once suggested further reading, aggregators give a peak at info where “Introductions” once gave an overview and Yahoo Answers lets us cut through the crap altogether and grill a whole community for specific info.

Apparently all of this is obstructing our ability to read and absorb longer texts, full articles and books. The British Library, for instance, noted that people using their online journals and e-books constantly jumped from source to source rarely returning to any text they’d previously visited. They simply “skimmed” a few pages before bouncing to the next article.

Carr points out that, ironically, we may actually be reading more today than we did in the 70s (thanks to SMS messaging, e-mail and the internet) but in a totally different way. “Once we were scubadivers in a sea of words. Now we zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski”. This is even being echoed offline. Since March this year The New York Times has devoted the second and third page of every edition to abstracts of the articles featured.

Way back in the 4th century BC Plato’s character Socrates feared that the development of writing would hinder day to day general knowledge (men would “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful”). The Gutenberg printing press drew similar concern from Squarciafico (the Italian Humanist) questioning whether the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness. Should we be concerned that the net is making us stupid?

I guess it’s a simple debate of breadth vs depth – we may learn about a whole load of new stuff, just in less detail (although there are exceptions, such as Wikipedia). I mentioned this point a while ago when debating whether ‘integrated clients’ would struggle to review a variety of work from a variety of agencies across a variety of media. Would they become ‘pancake people’ (thinly spread across a broad area)?

What about a ‘pancake agency’? Is a fully integrated agency simply a jack-of-all-trades? A recent report from the University of Chicago Graduate School highlights the so-called “Dilution Effect” (Rory Sutherland touched on this the other week). Put simply, people generally want things to serve more than one purpose, but when said thing accomplishes multiple goals it becomes less associated with the achievement of a single goal. For instance, a laser-pen is great when you want to give a lecture and make notes at the same time, but would you use it just for day-to-day writing? Apparently not. Likewise the gym – it may have started as a great place to exercise but once it also becomes a place to socialise it loses an element of its status as a get fit venue.

So would Fallon, for example, lose some of its reputation for great TV ads if they started doing good DM? And could an integrated client judge it anyway?

Then again, if we were to add a little depth to a well known figure of speech we’d realise that “Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better then master of one”. Hmm…

Naughty Me

I’ve been a little lax of late (new job, exams, etc, etc) and given that I’m buggering off on holiday tomorrow I thought I should leave at least a token entry to keep my blog momentum up! So here are a couple of things grabbing my attention at the moment…


The Newton Machine
This one’s hit the blogosphere already (thanks to Alex for the link) but the more I think about it, the more I really like it. Basically, TopShop have installed a ‘Newton Machine’ in their Oxford Street store. This ‘machine’ (invented by the German photographer Helmut Newton) is actually just a camera. However, it is set up in a way that allows the model to take the photos themselves (i.e. no photographer needed). The model stands in front of a mirror and holds a small controller that lets them adjust the camera’s timer and flash thus allowing them to perfect their pose before taking the shot. When they’re good to go they simply press a button and take the picture.

Here's its launch in 1972:

Newton’s inspiration was two-fold. Firstly, he recognised that models were usually better at taking photos than their (more often than not) boyfriend photographers. Secondly, it was a middle finger to the controlled and static fashion shoots of his time.

In TopShop, you’re the model. Try on some TopShop clothes and orchestrate your own photo shoot using this Newton Machine. Your pictures are then posted on an online gallery and you get your own A5 paper copy to take home.

More importantly, TopShop have really managed to embrace Newton’s principles and given up a bit of their brand to their customers. Bo**ocks to the static half-dressed mannequins and the engineered instore posters that we put up every month, you show off the clothes you want to wear however you want to show them off. And have fun doing it in the process.

Newton himself claimed that his job was to “seduce, amuse and entertain”, TopShop lets customers do it themselves all under the TopShop brand. Clever. And, if I am allowed to be a little self-indulgent it brings to mind a previous post on Trust and who we consider trustworthy (i.e. "people like ourselves").

Adidas Football – Dream Big
For me, Adidas really gets football. I’ve given them the nod before and their “Dream Big” online campaign is another great example.

I’m guessing it’s come out of their “Impossible is Nothing” stuff but in this campaign Adidas sends some of its top football stars to random ‘local’ destinations to have training sessions with the local teams, all of whom have ‘written’ to Adidas asking for their help. (They’ve dreamt big – get it?) Gerrard, Viera and Beckham hotfoot it to the smallest football league in the world – the Isles of Scilly (only two teams and one football pitch) – taking their Predator boots and merchandise with them whilst the likes of Kaka, Alonso and Fabregas fly out to tiny Andorra to teach youth teams the art of passing with their AdiPure boots.

Each trip is broken into a set of clips that are drip fed onto the site and, despite initial reservations, I reckon they’re really good. (I even get an e-mail letting me know when a new series is out.) They’ve got a real feel of the classic Nike “Parklife” advert which every aspiring Sunday League Player relates to. Maybe I’m being a bit naïve, or maybe it’s just because I’m one of those aspiring Sunday League Players, but I’m hooked nonetheless.

In fact, I’m going to write Adidas a letter…