top fives: bad things

So here are the things I won't miss about 2009. They are a bit of a random mishmash of personal/worky/other, so they probably look a bit odd piled up next to each other like this. 1. my son being in hospital There have been a few difficult things on the personal front this year, but none more so than my baby boy spending time in hospital. Three times in 2009 with breathing difficulties. (Apparently they don't say it's asthma until you're a bit older.) So the fact I've had a heavy cold over Christmas has meant I've pretty much spent the whole time scared that he would have to go in again...and that I'd be responsible. Thankfully, that hasn't happened (hope I don't have to say "yet"). Here's to a healthier 2010, Milo. 2. michael jackson During the summer I found it really weird that there wasn't more of a conversation around Michael Jackson on the planning and creative blogs. He seems to have been knocking around some of the really big cultural shifts of the last five decades. As a performer, as a brand, as a social phenomenon (I found out on Twitter before it was on the news - you probably did too), it didn't really feature. But as an uber-fan, maybe I'm just being a bit precious. 3. losing too much time to free flash games OK, it's not the biggest thing in the world. I got hooked on sites like Kongregate for a bit in the middle of the year. And then moved on to Canabalt, which is awesome. But if you add up the total time I've lost over the whole year, you'd probably laugh at me. And life coaches would offer me their services for free. Seriously, it must be four days or something. 4. brands trying to show how social they are Making ads like this. Rather than behaving socially. 5. felipe massa's accident OK, so formula one is my not-so-secret guilty pleasure. There are lots of good reasons not to like it, but I can't help it. Somewhere along the line I managed to invest myself in the story of it, and I've been hooked ever since. When this happened, I was absolutely gutted. Felipe should have won the championship the previous year, when it was claimed by Lewis Hamilton. (The driver was the consistent side of the partnership in Ferrari, the team was at McLaren. If you don't agree I will fight you on this.) That image I have of him beating his chest on the podium in Sao Paolo, knowing he'd won the race but lost the championship by a single point, holding his head up high...that's one of the most inspiring sporting images of the last decade for me. To be hit on the head by a spring from someone else's car the following season, whilst travelling at 162 mph, that just doesn't seem fair.

this is what flashmobs should be about

This happened outside Tate Modern. Puts that T-Immobile stuff in the shade.

a little more about active remembering

(Apology and advance warning: approach this post, written whilst feeling tired and worthy, with caution.) Had an argument about the T-Mobile ad with someone in the week. Well, not really an argument, more of a disagreement in conversation. This argument's been going back and forth for a couple of weeks. Some people love it, others don't. It's done its job, of course, because everyone's talking about it. And I can see why people love it. There's a big part of me that wants to as well. I love the spontaneous dancing you get in musicals, for example. But it just feels a bit contrived and, ironically, disconnected for me. So I was going to post something about it, to try to explain why it left me feeling so cold. But then I read two lovely things about connectedness by Asi and Ted. And they made me remember something about active remembering which I'd started to develop. The thing they have in common with each other and the T-Mobile ad is how technologies are enabling people to express themselves in new relations to each other and to brands (and the best brands to people, obviously). We're springing up all sorts of content around our friendships, loves, families and even the vaguest of acquaintances. Pushing what feel like more meaningful emotional buttons. So I found myself thinking how social media and the technologies that support them are a kind of active remembering tool. You might be posting to your Facebook, Twitter, blog or something else to actively remember yourself to a friend. A kind of "remember what we have" message. Or to actively remember an experience you shared, putting your memories in a communal place. And I know that's all kind of obvious. But anyway. It made me feel quite wow. Active remembering is a way of expressing your identity in different contexts and spaces again and again. Some of them may be individual, and some of them may be social. And it made me think, what a powerful thing for brands to harness. And then again, if you're trying to shout about it before you've really, meaningfully, invested in enabling it, you're probably doing it the wrong way around. (Pic courtesy of this person.)