Confessions of a dangerously idle mind

Nice little bit of wisdom picked up at the Google Creative Sandbox last night. You don’t necessarily have to wait for the next new bit of tech to arrive to do something cool or different; all you really need to do is look at what you have differently. Attached link is a really good example of that - a very cool piece of stop motion animation to promote Google Docs using Google Docs. Think it was done by the Google Creative Lab guys in NY.

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The second annual TEDx Sydney has come and gone (or the 3^rd if you count the one not organized by Remo), and a few days later I sit pondering what I found of it. 

There’s no doubt it was a brilliantly organized, thoroughly fascinating, and somewhat overwhelming day in the Carriageworks surrounds, but there’s been one thing gnawing away at me: I didn’t walk away from it as inspired to do something as I did after attending TEDx Sydney 2010. Was it just that I was the cynical old hand, compared to the many starry-eyed TEDx virgins in attendance? Or was it something else?

I’ll be honest and say things didn’t start well when everyone bar the back two rows (containing the designated “blogging community”, I assume) were asked to switch off all electrical devices. How were we supposed to spread the ideas if we couldn’t take note of them? (#tweettweet?) I confess I didn’t turn my iPad off but I did feel very conspicuous when I did try to jot something down. But I don’t think that was the main problem.

Try as I might, 5 days later I can’t really recall hearing any big ideas that were really worth spreading. At 2010’s event, Rachel Botsman delivered her first presentation on Collaborative Consumption, and whether you were into it or not, it was an idea that has well and truly spread from that point to all corners of the world. 

Sure there were plenty of ideas that made sense – Katherine Samaras’ presentation on obesity certainly was that. But if parts of the US are already looking at it – read here about Arizona’s plans to tax the obese – then it’s hardly revolutionary.

And there were ideas that I certainly agreed with – I went home and told my wife I wanted to take my girls out of ballet and get them into an instrumental music program thanks to Richard Gill’s speech. But after two years of end of year concerts that look like someone’s trying to herd cats, that was hardly going to require a big push. (Question is will screeching cats be any better?) 

The fact is there were loads of interesting people doing loads of interesting things – Drew Berry the biomedical animator; Josh Cook the bird behaviourist; Bryan Gaensler the astronomer; Johanna Featherstone the poetry advocate (yep, not sure what that means, but she was cool) … the list could go on. Everyone was really interesting to listen to. But I reckon other than Saul Griffith – who wanted to (re)spread the idea that the future should be awesome (robot shark submarines, anyone?); and Genevieve Bell, who told me it was ok to be bored every once in a while (and revived my faith in big corporations like Intel at the same time), there was no one else that really got me thinking. (Except I did think that the upcoming Daniel Johns/Josh Wakely collaboration was likely to end in disaster. But boy can he sing.)

Yes, I loved the day, and yes I’ll be clamouring for a ticket again next year (providing this post doesn’t put me on the outer with the organisers), but I just hope third time round I walk out burning to make a difference somewhere. Then it’s up to me spread something. 

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Review for the Murakami Reading Challenge

I’ve read around a half dozen of Murakami’s books since I was given a copy of Wild Sheep Chase a few years ago, but I’ve always … avoided isn’t the right word … shied away from his longer works. I hadn’t really thought about why until recently. For one thing, there’s something about the magical realist world that Murakami creates, that makes it very difficult for me to read other writers for some time afterwards. But the other reason is I that I get so drawn into his books that I feared diving into one of his longer works would take over my every waking moment. And it did. 

Any spare moment that I had over the past few weeks I spent being absorbed into the dual worlds of Kafka Tamura and Mr Nakata. As with all of his books, it was dense with references, both mythological and popular - from Oedipus and Orpheus, to Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders. And of course, music is as important as always. Again, an eclectic mix: Prince; Radiohead; Coltrane and Beethoven.

Then there’s the language - even in its translated form there’s a poeticism and originality of phrasing that’s astonishing and often breathtaking. If I was to read it again, I’d certainly do so with a notepad by my side to take down some of the most memorable.  

The book’s not without its flaws - the shifting between first person and omniscient narrator can be a little disorienting at times; and there’s the odd word - “porch” was one that particularly stuck in my craw - that just seemed too western; but perhaps all of that can be put down to the translation.

But when all is said and done there’s little doubt in my mind that Murakami is one of the most exhilarating of contemporary authors. As I commented to a friend the other day, no other author makes me want to write so much, and yet at the same time, makes any attempt seem wholly inadequate. That said, Haruki started relatively late, so who knows, perhaps one day…     

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So I sent a very brief email in reply to get more info, and this just arrived. Do you know any of the past winners? They seem to check out as actually existing, but again I’m suspicious. This time it’s the odd formatting that reminds of most spam emails and the last line - “We await your kind advise.”

What should I do next?

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As a creative, I’m pretty sure I don’t just speak for myself when I say that I like awards, and being awarded - and when it’s an individual thing, all’s the better. So you can imagine my (initial) delight when I received the following email, notifying me that I’d been awarded the “BRAND LEADERSHIP AWARD” by the World Brand Congress in recognition of my “professional efforts.” Now I’d never heard of the World Brand Congress before, but surely that didn’t matter - my fame must be spread pretty far and wide by now - even to Mumbai by the looks of things. 

Legitimate recognition or world class scam? I’m erring on the latter, but I’ve been researching the event and they’ve certainly gone to great lengths to make it appear legit. In fact, let me take you back to the beginning of the story. This all started with a web enquiry that came through our company website and was forwarded on to me.

There was just enough info to pique interest, but the email address threw me. Whenever there’s a person’s name and the email address has no connection to it, I usually think spam. But I’d just spoken at the ADMA forum, I thought someone might have seen my presentation and mentioned it to another event organiser - I was up for an all expenses paid trip to India as an entree to the international speaking circuit. So I emailed him back. This was the response:

So there was certainly something about his unique turn of phrase (“forward your coordinates”???) that started to raise a few eyebrows. Then there was the Global Chairman, Dave Porter. Don’t these scams from odd parts of the world always have an wholly Anglo sounding protagonist on the other side of them? 

Anyway so Dave did email me and you saw what I received above. Apart from this whole thing being somewhat out of the blue, it’s the little details that caught my attention - the odd salutation (“Compliments for the Season and Greetings!” no english speaker would start anything with a phrase like that); the gaps in word spacing in the sentence that’s telling me why I’ve been selected (“This   is in  recognition of  your professional   efforts.”). All makes it feel a tad suspicious to me.  

The event site - http://www.worldbrandcongress.com/ - looks much like these conference sites always look, but then there’s Aalok Pandit, the guy who made the initial enquiries. Here he is on Linkedin - http://in.linkedin.com/in/aalokpandit - and here’s his “company” website - http://www.funandjoyatwork.com/ - plot gets a little thicker. Things then get a little hazy when it comes “Global Chairman, David Porter” - very little on him online. 

What do you think? Am I being paranoid? It seems to be a real event, but is my airline ticket, event registration and hotel booking in the mail. Unlikely. Perhaps it’s just a clever way of attracting delegates - they may well be giving an award to everyone who turns up, just for turning up? 

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