A position of power, dominance, control, or superiority. The second naturally is derived from the first as a metaphor
I used driving seat as a metaphor about being in control, to discuss what a product is like to use. I looked at a range of products:
Skype back in 2004, before it became kludgey with a poorly designed interface under Microsoft ownership
Veoh – a video platform that was a native client and on the web that went head-to-head with YouTube. The better technology lost out
Yojimbo – a great information organisation software app by Bare Bones Software
Flip Video Camera – back before cameraphones were ubquitous flip provided an easy way to record and upload video to the web. It encouraged a lot of people to record vox pop video interviews for the nascent YouTube platform
The Bing search engine in a direct comparison to Ask.com
Sina Weibo
A retrospective on the Palm Vx PDA that was my dot.com era ride or die gadget
Early Casio G-Shock and Apple Watch smartwatches
Hemingway writing software
Casio G-Shock Frogman
A retrospective review of the Nokia n950
The Missing Manual series by David Pogue
Apple iPhone 12 Max
I have tried to avoid superlatives and give the perceptions of having lived with the products rather than having briefly tested them. Having run review programmes for Huawei and Palm, I understand how short hands-on sessions can be deceptive. Usually this isn’t by design, but due to supply issues; however it is worth bearing in mind when you read the latest review by professional pundits.
The rear-wheel drive AE86 model generation of the humble Toyota Corolla has a dedicated following. The cars were light, had twin-cam engines, a very balanced weight split and a limited slip differential.
Back in the 1980s in Ireland they were a steady performer on the local rally scene. The AE86 because of its simplicity became very adaptable for street and motorsport tuning. The AE86 popularised car culture internationally, turning up across media formats and supported by a vibrant cottage industry of parts manufacturers who exported their parts around the world.
The car entered popular culture across Asia and beyond through the manga and anime adaptions of Initial-D, which told the tale of Takumi – a student holding down two jobs – a petrol station attendant and delivery driver for the family’s tofu business in a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno.
Takumi’s adventures in the family AE86 went on to be portrayed in an 18-year long manga series, a Hong Kong film featuring Taiwanese entertainer Jay Chou as Takumi, 27 game adaptions at the time of writing and at least 12 anime series or feature length films.
This soft culture footprint gave the AE86 an impact across Asia, hence the Malaysian meet-up that Hagerty shot in Kuala Lumpur. Will the popularity of the AE86 die off with this generation of young adults? It’s possible given that over a quarter of them in the US don’t drive.
Toyota / Hyundai motorsport collaboration
In advance of Rally Japan, Toyota’s Gazoo Racing and Hyundai’s N Sport held a joint event in Korea. It’s quite rare to see rival manufacturers partner in this way.
How to read a compass
This took me back to my 12-year old self away at scout camp (which I did only once) doing the activity for my map-making activity badge. Taking bearings from multiple locations and triangulating them allowed me to plot out my map. I need to dig out my Silva compass that my Mam and Dad probably still have somewhere in their attic.
I found myself using the basics of reading a compass when living in urban Hong Kong and Shenzhen as the extremely tall buildings stopped GPS from working that well. Sharing here, partly out of nostalgia and the the life skills benefits.
Hello Kitty and an adoption mindset.
Japan popular culture commentator Matt Alt put out a video about the history of Hello Kitty and Sanrio. One of the interesting things that came out of the video was how adult women embracing the playfulness of Hello Kitty, rather than ‘adulting up’ then became on the leading edge of technology adoption. I thought the idea of a ‘playful mindset’ and adoption was very interesting – yet something that we don’t often think about. I used to think about it as curiosity, but it’s more specific and it can be fostered regardless of age.
Welcome to my November 2024 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 16th issue. 16 is a low power of two which saw it used in weighing light objects in several cultures. For instance in the British Imperial system of weights 16 ounces were in one pound. This lived on far longer with British drug dealers who looked to sell cannabis in ‘teenths’ (16ths) or eighths of an ounce. Prior to decimal being implemented in China 16 taels or liǎng equalled one catty or jin. Chinese Taoists counted on their finger times and joints of the fingers with a the tip of the thumb, so 16 can be counted on each hand.
The highlight of November was meeting up for brunch with Calvin who I used to work with in Hong Kong and collaborate with on occasion for projects going in-or-out of China. He was passing through London on his way to Web Congress in Lisbon, supporting one of the burgeoning number of start-ups coming out of Shanghai.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
Things I’ve written.
Ghost Signs – how legacy signage allows us to peer back into history, camcorders having their ‘lomography’ moment and much more.
Layers of the future – or how innovation doesn’t exist in a fully-formed world, but instead exists within layers of progress over time.
Presidential election beliefs – amongst the autopsies of the campaign that have been discussed, one of the things that struck me was the role of presidential election beliefs that have wrong-footed analysis
Klad & more stuff – a Russian pioneered integration of dark web markets and concealed ‘Amazon locker’ type infrastructure to deliver a new approach to drug dealing. Other items include bottlenecks in gadget manufacturing, internet maturity and more.
Books that I have read.
Dead Calm by Charles Williams – the early 1960s crime novel packs a lot into the story. Trauma, mental illness, murder and intrigue on the high seas. Dead Calm was later made into a film and relocated from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
Jipi and the paranoid chip by Neal Stephenson. A short story that fits into the Cryptonomicon universe of Stephenson’s books – shares the story of Jipi a former flight attendant who works for Mindshare Management Associates Inc. – an agency that distracts tourists to Manila from the rapid construction work taking place during a China-like economic miracle. Because of her personality, Jipi has to track down errant AI powered car alarms fitted with plastic explosives that were designed to deter thieves, but AI happened. If you’ve ever had to write prompts, you’ll likely appreciate it.
Things I have been inspired by.
The fame game
Irish rally driver Rosemary Smith, had the skills but never did get the fame. Smith even got behind the wheel of a Renault formula 1 car to get a test drive at 79 years of age.
I am by no means a sports addict but even in my psyche I know the names and reputations of several famous sports stars across hurling, gaelic football, motorsports rugby league and even soccer. Sid Lee and Appino have raised the issue of how this fame gap is bridged in women’s sports drive into long term mainstream success. Where is the women’s sport equivalent of Stig Blomqvist, Arnold Palmer or Michael Jordan who are hailed in a similar way? Want to know more, reach out to Rory Natkiel.
Yes, Christmas really is getting earlier
My local supermarket started to sell mince pies right after the August bank holiday this year. It had Christmas decorations for sale before the Halloween ones. Christmas seems to be coming earlier this year. The Guardian researched how Christmas was arriving earlier each year, from charting music to mince pies and Christmas puddings going on sale. This year lo-fi girl had their first Christmas soundtrack up on November 4th. If you want a change from the Spotify Christmas list, try this old mix from former streetwear boutique The Hideout.
WARC noted how companies like John Lewis with dedicated Christmas campaigns look to gain a first-mover advantage to aid the talkability around their campaign and gain the full benefit from their emotion driven campaign bedding in and building new memory structures.
WARC predicted that Christmas advertising spend would rise 7.8% to over £10.5 billion. Big growth for search, online display and out of home compared to last year. The biggest losers including TV, direct mail, magazine and print news media.
Things I have watched.
Famous Hong Kong cinema film director Johnnie To criticised Hong Kong’s national security regulation in an interview for the BBC’s Chinese language service. With that in mind, I thought it prudent to buy up as much of his back catalogue as possible because the classics amongst them may be harder to get hold of in the future.
PTU – PTU starts in a similar way to Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog with a policeman losing their duty weapon. However that’s where the parallels finish. In Stray Dog the young detective looking for his gun feel empathy at the end with the criminal who used his weapon. The moral being two-fold – crime starts with a few wrong choices, but are still human. In order to deliver law, over time the policeman needs to become less empathetic, losing a bit of their humanity. PTU on the other hand shows how police blurred the line between the law and crime with extra-legal methods to solve crime. It also highlights the complex relationships between criminal gangs and the police. To keeps the tension going with PTU throughout the film. The ambiguity between police and criminals would not be allowed in future Hong Kong films thanks to the National Security laws that have come into force.
Election – The literal Cantonese title for this film is ‘Black Society’ – which as a term covers all kinds of organised crime groups. Two members of the Wo Lin Shing are up for election become leader (aka chairman or dragonhead) of the organised crime group. It’s a common trope in Hong Kong cinema that these elections happen on a regular basis. Wo Lin Shing is a stand-in name of the very real Wo Shing Wo – a group that have a side hustle doing wet work for the Beijing forces at work in the city.
The film focuses on the election and immediate fallout. Lok runs a more rational campaign, whereas Big-D runs a showy campaign offering money for votes. The elders appoint Lok and Big-D tries to steal the symbol of power. To moves the tension and action on at a rate of knots. It features many of the heavyweights of Hong Kong cinema including Simon Lam, Louis Koo, ‘Big’ Tony Leung, former policeman Nick Cheung and Lam Suet.
Not a Johnnie To production, but I have been enjoying Detective Chinatown on Amazon Prime. The show is similar to the BBC show Sherlock and CSI in the way its plot devices and how its story arcs work. It has been interesting to watch for a number of reasons. The series was produced for Chinese streaming platform iQiyi – think Chinese Netflix. The series is based in Bangkok, Thailand. The senior Thai police representative is portrayed as dramatic, volatile and religious in nature – interesting stereotyping by the Chinese production team. The plot line has a very supernatural aspect to it, which is generally considered to be a no-no with Chinese censors. I am curious to see where they take the show.
Useful tools.
Mac keyboard shortcuts
Alongside David Pogue’s Missing Manual series of reference books for each version of macOS, MacMost’s videos are a great resource for the Mac user. MacMost now have a free downloadable table of Mac keyboard shortcuts.
AI-powered diagram creation
Ever sat in front of a blank Keynote or PowerPoint slide and wondered how to represent something? I am across the Napkin AI which takes your written text describing something and renders it into a diagram. I don’t use these diagrams as the finished product, but as an inspiration for me then to artwork together in Keynote, OmniGraffle or PowerPoint. You can output from Napkin AI as a PNG file. At the moment it’s free to use as a beta product.
Woznim
Woznim allows you to record the names of people and where you met them to try and aid in recall of of them if you run into them again. It reminds me of Foursquare and social bookmarking. Foursquare because of its where 2.0 location based data and social bookmarking because if you develop the Woznim habit it could be life-changing, but if it doesn’t gel with you it’ll be dropped as a service in no time. At the moment it’s an iPhone-only app.
Bluesky
Bluesky has been having a moment as another tranche of social media users follow The Guardian’s lead to leave Twitter and need a micro-blogging service. Bluesky has got a good deal of attention because of its starter packs and list features. Whether Bluesky will continue to grow into a vibrant post-Twitter place isn’t certain yet. But if you are going to use Bluesky then these two tools might help:
Bluesky tools directory. There is a surprisingly rich set of tools available rather like ‘golden age’ era Twitter.
Starter packs. Starter packs are a set of curated recommended accounts to follow based around interests. This site has a large directory of them covering everything from professional interests to sports passions.
The sales pitch.
I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from January 2025 onwards; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my November 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into the Christmas season and the rush to complete projects before clients disappear on holiday.
I was fortunate to get an Apple Watch Ultra 2. It is the third Apple Watch that I have owned and the sixth wearable. My previous history in wearables were:
A Yamasa Tokei analogue pedometer (I received it around the time I was in primary school. It came in handy for guesstimating walking distances when I was in the scouts). What I didn’t know at the time is that the 1960s-era interest in pedometers that eventually spawned my device was driven by Japanese interest in combating obesity due to modernisation during the post-war economic miracle.
If you are focusing on your 10,000 steps a day you can thank Dr Yoshiro Hatano and manufacturers like Yamasa who eventually sold their ‘Manpo-kei’ (10,000 step measure) in the west as ‘Manpo-meter’ devices from the 1960s through to the late 1990s.
Nike Fuelband – I really enjoyed the simplicity of this device, but it was very fragile and I ended up going through three devices in a matter of months.
Casio G-Shock+ connected device that was let down by its software, but very much a go-anywhere device.
Polar Loop fitness tracker – it was more reliable than Nike’s Fuelband but I didn’t really enjoy it as device.
Apple Watch series 1 and 2 – I lasted about 48 hours wearing the series 1 Apple Watch, but did better with a series 2 device.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
My expectations have been impacted by poor experiences with earlier devices.
How have I found the Apple Watch Ultra 2?
I have worn tool watches all my adult life, a mix of mechanical dive watches and Casio G-Shocks. That meant that I didn’t think about where I took my watches. Into the shower, or the swimming pool – the watches could take it all in their stride. But the Apple Watch couldn’t.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a classic ‘go anywhere’ watch. It is waterproof like a Casio G-Shock. So fine for swimming, in the shower or scuba diving. Titanium means that it’s hypoallergenic, and corrosion resistant; even more so than most grades of stainless steel. However, if you wear it in the sea or at the swimming pool, rinse the watch in clean fresh water afterwards, like you should do with any other dive watch.
I found the default straps sold with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 were excessively clunky. Awkward to wear and got snagged in random situations. Instead I favoured a Nike Sports silicone band which is ideal for the gym or working in the office.
I bought a cheap clear bumper for the Apple Watch Ultra 2. It keeps fingerprints off the screen and gives items like the buttons and digital crown a modicum of protection from being activated by putting on a jacket as we go into a cooler wetter autumn.
Battery life on it seems to be more generous than the older Apple Watch models I have used and based on what I have seen I think you could get a weekend out of it without a charge.
The ubiquity of Apple watches on the wrists of Londoners mean that this doesn’t attract any good or bad attention.
What’s it like?
Compared to previous Apple watch models I have used the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is faster and more sophisticated. I get the sense that the Apple WatchOS is now supported by less non-health related apps than previously. My watch supports alerts for my train ticket bookings, airline flights and my preferred taxi app.
Part of this might be down to watch might make contextual sense in the 10 second app usage time that a consumer would have. And when does it make sense to just pull the phone out of your pocket.
There isn’t the same lag that made the first series Apple Watch unusable, as the device has become more powerful and more processing happens on the watch. Apple’s health app is more tracking than I need, so I haven’t used it with apps like Strava.
What’s good about it?
All of the Apple watch models have been impressive pieces of engineering and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is no exception. In their own way, they challenge Swiss industry for a different type of engineering prowess.
I really like the strap that I landed on. The material is the right texture and unlike other straps I have worn it doesn’t hinder my typing on a laptop. That being said the strap owes a lot to Marc Newson’s prior work in the early 1990s for Ikepod. This all means that you have a device that feels nice on the wrist.
One of the first things that I liked about the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is ‘night mode’ a plain red on black face, rather than the distracting colour complications. It would be great if this could be a universal theme carried through all the watch faces.
Thanks to mobile phone contracts, Apple watches like G-Shocks are surprisingly poor signals of status. In a city like London, that has its benefits.
What could be improved?
The Apple Watch is over nine years old. A number of problems have been there since the first device launch and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is merely the latest in the line to carry them.
You can’t wear your watch on the inside of your wrist. I used to scuba dive without a dive computer, relying on pre-planned dive tables, a depth gauge and air pressure gauge for my tank. I got into the habit of wearing my watch on the inside of my right wrist so I could hold my gauge console in my hand and see my elapsed dive time at the same time. It also means that your watch is less on-show in public settings.
Screens default to being overly busy with Apple trying to cram in as many complications as possible which compromises ‘glanceability’ – the key experience benefit that wearables like the Apple Watch Ultra 2 provide. Apple should also start to think about accessibility on across the Apple Watch range as much as it does on a Mac. I have have worked bleary eyed from deep sleep, looked at the watch and not being able to read it until my focus kicks in. How could the haptics function in the Apple Watch be used better?
Less apps now support the Apple Watch than have done previously. The more apps that support a platform, the more likely you are to get at least some sticky experiences that add to the utility of the device.
It’s not a particularly stylish device to look at, but it also doesn’t lean into function in the same way that a Casio G-Shock does. This means that it could be better protected out of the box than it is.
The battery life is better than previous generations of Apple Watch, but it still creates battery anxiety. Unlike Casio or other manufacturers, there’s no solar top-up option.
I don’t know how precise the data is. It measures blood oxygen level but freely admits its data isn’t good enough to be used in a medical situation. If you move to an Apple device from a Garmin or similar, you may find that your step count and activity measures may vary.
Price-wise, it’s expensive. It does offer value for what it does, but it’s expensive. You can spend as much, if not more money on a G-Shock than an Apple Watch Ultra 2; but the G-Shock won’t be a worry on issues like obsolescence, software support or even battery replacement in the same way that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is. I have G-Shocks that I have owned for almost 20 years and are perfectly fine. I won’t be able to say the same of any Apple Watch.
What’s its use?
Still a great question. When I had my first Apple Watch, I stopped using it after 48 hours for a few reasons:
I couldn’t see a good user case coming thorough in the product at the time
It was slow
It had poor battery life
At the time Apple had thrown a number of things at the wall. There was a luxury line with a $17,000 version with a gold case and official third-party leather straps by Hermès. Apple still sells a Hermès co-branded range, but the gold models are no longer made.
In the intervening years Apple has committed to a number of areas:
An extension of your phone, on your wrist.
Integration with payments
Integration with identity
The quantified self
The use cases I have personally favoured included being an extension of my phone, when it rings my watch vibrates. But since I work most of the time at home and the phone sits on a stand in front of me, this tends to be only useful when I am out. Glanceable updates from a few apps, notably weather and my taxi app.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 can work as a standalone phone attached to your existing number, but that depends on your mobile carrier supporting it. I didn’t opt for this for reasons relating to my current service plan with 3 UK.
Tracking activity and the quality of my sleep. The quantified self is the area where Apple really pushes now, as do third-party developers such as Strava.
Apple also allows integration with Apple wallet, but you have to turn your wrist in an awkward position to work with most ‘tap-and-go’ systems. It is just as easy to do it with your phone or card.
Finally, Apple and some car manufacturers have been looking at using Apple devices as your car key. I live in London and even if I did need a car, I would be going for a pre-owned vehicle.
Is it a watch?
Is the Apple Watch Ultra 2 actually a watch at first glance seems like a ridiculous proposition, if for no other reason than you have the word ‘watch’ twice in close succession.
But on closer examination, it’s a pertinent question. Watch sales actually dropped as cellphones became ubiquitous. You had the time in your pocket or purse and the phone went everywhere with you. If you went abroad on holiday, it even changed time zones unless you specifically set it not to do so.
Watches offered some benefits from using the cellphone as a portable clock.
Easy to read / glanceable.
An analogue face allowed you to visually understand elapsed time.
It sent social signals in work about taking time seriously and likely punctuality.
More broadly the watch demonstrates signals about style, wealth, taste and even sub-cultures. This can be especially true of luxury brands and the countless collaborations that Casio has done with its G-Shock range over the years.
Finally, if you have an automatic movement watch or a solar powered quartz one, you don’t need to worry about a dead cellphone battery.
Smartwatches in general, have put a simplified version of your smartphone on your wrist. Depending who your mobile service provider is, your Apple Watch Ultra 2 can become a fallback phone, allowing you to leave it charging at home.
But as a watch it’s trying to do too many other things. Update you on your messages, provide a simplified experience of some apps (airlines and taxi services in particular) and activity tracking. All of which is squeezed into a screen area about an eighth the size of my smartphone’s screen.
This all comes with experience choices and compromises. It’s this lack of functional purity that is a moat between even the most technical G-Shock and an Apple Watch Ultra 2. Your watch will never compromise on telling you the time despite being a really shitty dive recorder or digital compass.
Yes you can spend the price of a Porsche; on a Patek Philippe watch with lots of complications, but realistically it’s an objet d’art that happens to look like a wrist watch. On that measure the Apple Watch Ultra 2 isn’t a watch, despite sitting on your wrist.
Welcome to my June 2024 newsletter, it’s been a bit of a mad month with the European Union elections foreshadowing a rightward lurch in policy direction. The snap call for a French general assembly election and the bizarre spectacles happening in the campaign efforts of the UK general election. And before you say it, the UK general election is not a TikTok election. In the northern hemisphere midsummer (21 June 2024) – the longest day of daylight taps into something primal bringing us back to nature with campfires to meet the dusk, seasonal food and the beauty of summer on display.
This newsletter which marks my 11th issue. The number 11 is a mixed bag associated in medieval theology with the ’11 heads of error’. However there are more positive associations for those who believe in numerology. In Chinese its sonic similarity to the phrase ‘definitely fine’ gives it a positive association. For me it’s forever associated with the old bingo call of ‘legs 11’.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
Things I’ve written.
Collapsing the funnel is a term that I have heard thrown around a lot on blogs, LinkedIn posts and podcasts, but what does it really mean?
Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. Perlstein is an American historian with a progressive eye on history. His book name was passed around earlier on in the spring given perceived parallels between Biden and a likely second Trump administration, together with increased activism. It is one of a series of books that Perlstein wrote documenting post-second world war. Reaganland documents the Carter administration and America’s pivot to Reaganism. Before The Storm which looks at the rise of the modern American libertarian conservative moment and the decline in cross-party consensus – viewed through the lens of Barry Goldwater’s campaign to become the republican party candidate against Richard Nixon. I started reading Nixonland before the US college protests started, which gave the book added resonance.
Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino. The first thing that jumps off the page when reading Cinema Speculation is the deep abiding love that Tarantino has for film. Film permeated every part of his life. His Mum took him along to films at the cinema that he probably shouldn’t have been allowed to see. In this respect he was a cinema media consumer in a time when mainstream television had already eaten Hollywood the first time around. The second thing that comes through is the way his deep knowledge allows him to build connections and linkages in non-obvious ways. Something that we lose the ability to do as we mediate knowledge seeking through Google and Perplexity instead of going through library newspaper clippings and reading magazines. I then realised that was a similar red thread in Perlstein’s Nixonland. Tarantino writes how he speaks and I was able to devour the book in two sittings despite suffering from a summer cold at the time. If you like to hear someone writing passionately about the New Hollywood movement of the early 1970s, then read Cinema Speculation.
It was third time lucky for me with Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado. I was recommended the book by my friend Ian Wood and tried to read it a few times, but only really got into it at the third attempt. Once I got into it, I enjoyed it. There are the surface comparisons with Stig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy (The girl with the dragon tattoo and sequels). Without giving plot spoilers I found this comparison lacking. Instead I think of it as a modern-day version of the Sherlock Holmes novels of Arthur Conan-Doyle, but that view may change as I work my way through the series.
Things I have been inspired by.
Bad Times Disco.
Bad Times Disco put together eclectic parties bringing out music like Japan’s 1980s ‘city pop’ sound and art to secret venues.
For their closing event until autumn in Hong Kong they had developed an equitable pricing policy that allows an equally eclectic crowd.
Come join us for our season closing party on June 21st, in a spacious and very central location, filled with BTD regulars, our loving staff, and a great lineup of vinyl-centric DJs. More than a party, BTD is truly a community and we want to see all the regulars for this one.
* Multi-functional space layout *
* Special set design, group exhibit of multidisciplinary art, and more special touches *
* Sober friendly party *
Presales: 270HKD
Phase 1: 330HKD
Phase 2: 380HKD
Last min: 420HKD
Solidarity ticket: 500HKD. If you are a landowner, homeowner, or have generational wealth, please consider purchasing a solidarity ticket to our party and making it possible for lower-income folks to attend the party.
*Limited Low Income Ticket*: 150HKD – This is *only* if you are a service worker in Hong Kong, working class, or unemployed without a safety net in Hong Kong. We will trust you to choose this option for yourself if you need it.
Design Discoveries: Towards a DESIGN MUSEUM JAPAN.
Japan House London has an exhibition of industrial design that reflects on the paradox of Japan having great design, but not a museum of design. Japan has a culture of good design; it’s a living thing and expected. By comparison, the celebration of good design could ironically indicate a norm of mediocre to bad product design. The exhibition runs until September.
Digital mortality.
David Webb is a long time activist investor in Hong Kong. I know of him by reputation since before I first went to Hong Kong and China in the mid-2000s. He has a long-running website that is invaluable for all things Hong Kong business-related – and is likely even more valuable given the recent regulatory and legal changes in the city. In a time when Hong Kong’s retail investors are disadvantaged by the large families and opaque Chinese government, Webb-Site is one of a few assets that retail investors can use for research. The site shows its late 1990s web design roots and makes extensive use of RSS to power its content.
David has been receiving treatment for cancer since 2020 and is now thinking about how his website might live on as a crowd-sourced online database. At the moment he is looking to bring on board volunteer editors. Part of the reason for this is that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission didn’t embrace XML data output, that sites like David’s could ingest and process. More details here on how you can get involved.
Kantar’s blueprint for brand growth.
Kantar’s blueprint for brand growth uses a decades worth of its client’s data to refine their approach for success. It broadly meets what you would expect from the marketing science corpus built up by the likes of Ehrensberg-Bass and the IPA. They boiled down this blueprint for brand growth into three points
Predispose more people – which boils down to a mix of salience and fame.
Be more present – which equates to marketing penetration to capitalise on the increased number of people predisposed to the brand.
Find new spaces – this is about innovating in communications and new ways of achieving market penetration.
This last point is particularly interesting. Much of Kantar’s clients would be mature well-known brands so breaking out into new spaces represents a blue ocean approach, designed to move beyond the fractional gains against entrenched competitors.
Michael Page 2024 talent insights
Michael Page have launched their annual talents insights report. It has content on a diverse set of areas including working locations (remote, hybrid and on-site), artificial intelligence and perceived job security. TL;DR – hybrid seems here to stay, AI usage is in the minority at the moment and the majority of workers feel secure in their current roles.
Quiet pride.
Probably not the right section in this newsletter, it would fit better in a section of ‘things I have been disappointed by’. Campaign Asia and Campaign US ran the following article: Brands plan for a quiet Pride Month. The iPA ran a similarly themed article. I guess ‘pride washing’ of brands will be less of a problem this year, but the lack of visibility is a concern.
The articles imply a wider rollback from brand purpose, indicating a hollowness to the buy-in from large corporates.
The hesitation around Pride may also be related to executives’ increasing reluctance to speak out on social issues more broadly. Wolff pointed to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, which found that 87% of executives think taking a public stance on a social issue is riskier than staying silent. “Essentially, nine out of every 10 executives believe that the return on investment for their careers is not worth the support during this turbulent time,” said (Kate) Wolff. “This is clearly problematic for both the community and the progress we have made in recent years.”
Brands plan for a quiet Pride Month – Campaign Asia.
It offers a different angle on the broader issue that people like Nick Ashbury with his new book The Road to Hell have been driving at with regards the state of brand purpose.
Things I have watched.
I am a bit of a Federico Fellini fan and finally got to watch Roma. Roma is semi-autobiographical in nature. It is a series of vignettes all based around the city of Rome which go from the 1930s to the 1970s and cover various parts of city life with some of the aspects such as Roman frescos turning to dust on first viewing in a millennium to a religious fashion show having an especially fantastical aspect to it. The deconstructed nature of the film is also interesting from a storytelling point-of-view.
Delicatessen was part of a wave of dystopian movies that were produced during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Films like Richard Stanley’s Hardware and Dust Devil. Given that its French there is a distinct mid-century modernism sensibility to many aspects of it such as the vehicles use. In terms of the plot it is similar to a futuristic Sweeney Todd meets Brazil. The directing and writing team Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro went on to make more popular films including City of Children.
THX 1138 was George Lucas’ first professional film based on his student film. It feels modern and fresh despite being shot in the early 1970s. It captures the impersonal socially isolating aspects of modern technology. The film proper opens with Robert Duvall speaking with a system about how he is feeling echoing the nascent current use of AI for therapy. While Lucas became famous from his directing of the film, a good deal of credit is due to Walter Murch’s futurist soundscape and Lala Schiffin’s tonal soundtrack which isn’t that far away from the likes of Jóhann Jóhannsson. It’s no coincidence that later on Lucas named his audio company THX.
Murch although less well-known is a multi-Oscar award-winning film editor and sound mixer who pioneered the use of Apple’s Final Cut software in Hollywood.
I got a good deal of my license fee’s worth of the BBC going through the 1960s Royal Shakespeare Company performances of William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III which together make up the telling through an English protestant lens of the War of The Roses. Peter Hall’s direction is spot on. I only wish that I had seen this while I was studying English literature in secondary school.
Useful tools.
Basic Excel formulas guide.
Nicolas Boucher usually works with finance teams looking at adapting AI, but he put together a PDF with 21 Excel commands and examples. Some of them can be handy in digging your way through quantitative data. You can get your copy of the PDF here.
Bookfinder
The everything store Amazon, a fair few times hasn’t had what I wanted. There are also sound moral arguments to want to buy elsewhere, or you might want to buy cheaper. That’s where Bookfinder comes in. It is fast, has a front end that looked basic back when when Netscape Navigator was your tool for coasting on the information superhighway and surfing the worldwide web.
LittleSnitch 6.
If you’re a long time Mac user who can remember back when Adobe creative suite came in a box, then you might know Little Snitch. It was popular for people running bootleg copies of PhotoShop and InDesign by stopping the software from ‘phoning home’ to Adobe.
In reality Little Snitch is so much more, it’s my go-to software firewall. It allows Mac users to retain a fine control on what goes in and out of your computer stopping dodgy connections in their tracks.
Additional MagSafe 3 cables.
I have a surplus of USB-C chargers now, but the move towards the MagSafe 3 charging connection on newer Macs is a great back to the future move. They are magnetically connected, allowing the connection to be broken before your laptop is dragged to the floor like the original MagSafe connectors that Apple had in two versions from 2006 to 2017.
They got rid of it, and long time users like me moaned about it as USB-C, felt like a backwards move for mobile workers. Apple brought it back with MagSafe 3, which now works with USB-C chargers.
Third-party MagSafe 3 cables are now available so you no longer need to pay the Apple tax of premium priced cables. My favourite is the BeckenBower USB C to Mag-Safe 3 Cable, which has worked out really well for me so far.
Organiser.
I work from home and usually have Bloomberg or Yahoo! Finance on in the background at a very low volume ambient noise if I am not listening to podcasts. I had the classic living room problem of hunting down remote controls to turn devices on and off. I was inspired to build on existing behaviours of looking around the TV first for the remote control and bought an organiser to hold them and a supply of spare AAA, AA batteries and the lightning cord for my Apple TV remote. The one I eventually settled on was Blue Gingko Multipurpose Caddy Organiser. It’s well made from plastic and thoughtfully designed which is why I was prepared a bit more to get something made in Korea, rather than made in China.
If you are using it for artwork or as a go pack for a workshop you can stack several on top of each other.
The sales pitch.
I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my June 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into the dog days of summer!
Don’t forget to like, comment, share and subscribe!
Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues.
Welcome to my April 2024 newsletter which marks my 9th issue. We managed to make it through the winter and the clocks moved forward allowing for lighter evenings in the northern hemisphere.
The number nine is full of symbolism in a good way. In Chinese culture it sounds similar to long-lasting. It was strongly associated with the mystical and powerful nature of the Chinese dragon. From the number of dragon types and children to the number of scales on the dragon – which were multiples of 9. You have nine channels in traditional Chinese medicine. In Norse mythology there are nine worlds and Odin the all-father hangs on the tree of life for 9 days to gain knowledge of the runes.
Social media-related cognitive dissonance
A couple of conversations with people, spurred me to write this next piece.
I know it’s obvious and common sense, but it needs to be said occasionally. This time last year, I was on a Zurich work trip, providing support to a teammate running a workshop for a client who viewed the agency as the least worst option. We did good work and built temporary rapport, we got insight about the wider client-side politics at play. It was the classic example of the complexities involved in agency life and Lord knows we already have enough internal politics in our own shops to deal with.
The photo I shared on Instagram at the time gave no clue to what was happening, serving as a reminder to consider the curated nature of social feeds when scrolling through.
New reader?
If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here.
What my answers to Campaign’s a-list questions would look like.
Boutique e-tailers and why the multi-brand luxury retail sector has gone from boom to bust.
Very Ralph and other things – Ralph Lauren’s world building abilities and how others from a cancer patient or overseas migrant workers have bent the world to their needs, or made a new one.
Books that I have read.
There are a few books that I revisit and the March 1974 JWT London planning guide is one of them. In many respects it feels fresh and more articulate than more modern tomes.
Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism by Angela Zhang sounds exceptionally dry to the uninitiated. But if like me, you’ve worked on brands like Qualcomm, Huawei or GSK you realise how much of an impact China’s regulatory environment can have on your client’s success. Zhang breaks down the history of China’s antitrust regulatory environment, how it works within China’s power structures and how it differs from the US model. What becomes apparent is that Chinese power isn’t monolithic and that China is weaponising antitrust legislation for strategic and policy goals rather than consumer benefit. It is important for everything from technology to the millions of COVID deaths that happened in China due to a lack of effective vaccines. Zhang’s book won awards when it first came out in 2021, and is still valuable now given the relatively static US-China policy views. Given the recent changes in Hong Kong where she lives, we may not see as frank a book of its quality come out of Hong Kong academia again on this subject matter.
Van Horne and Riley’s Left of Bang was recommended by a friend who recently left military service. It codified and gave me a lexicon for describing observations of focus group dynamics and observation-based shopper marketing. Probably of bigger value to people more interested in the analytical side of behavioural science is the bibliography – which is extensive.
Things I have been inspired by.
Sustaining a sustainable brand
Kantar do a good webinar series called On Brand with Kantar. I got to watch one of them: Why consumers ignore brands’ sustainability efforts. Consumers are reticent to trust in brand’s sustainable efforts. Kantar’s recommendation is to stay the course and continue to demonstrate real sustainability. Kantar’s work complemented System 1’s Greenprint US-orientated sustainable advertising report. There is a UK-specific version as well with half a dozen ideas for marketers published in partnership with ITV.
Media platform trends
GWI released their 2024 Global Media trends report. GWI takes a survey based approach to understand consumer media behaviour.
Broadcast TV still commands the greatest share of total TV time, despite Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and a plethora of other streaming platforms from Criterion to Disney+.
Survival/horror players are most excited about gaming luxury collabs, whether or not luxury brands are equally excited about survival or horror gamers is a bigger question.
Games console ownership has halved in the past ten years. This surprised me given how many of my friends have a Switch or PlayStation 5. It probably explains why Microsoft is focusing on being a publisher rather than on platforms as well.
They focused exclusivity on internet advertising, which gives you a good idea on where they want the balance of media spend to go, rather than necessarily the right tool for the right job. Yes digital is very important, BUT, we live in a world were we are wrapped by and consume layers of digital and analogue media.
We can see from GWI data that this viewpoint is likely to be still excessively myopic in terms of media due to offline – online media linkages. This is likely to be even more so in Japan that still has a more robust traditional media industry.
Internet advertising reached a new high, despite being a couple of years after the Olympic games were hosted in Tokyo. (Media spend when a country hosts the olympics tends to be skewed that year upwards).
One thing I would flag is that this report is based on surveying people across the Japanese advertising industry and built on their responses. So there maybe some biases built into that process. Overall it’s a fascinating read.
Social media engagement benchmarks
RivalIQ published their 2024 Social Media Industry Engagement bench report, download it to get the full details. Three things that struck me straight away:
Macro-level decline across platforms on engagement rate, which matches the trends that Manson and Whatley outlined ten years ago in their Facebook Zero paper for Ogilvy Social.
If brands didn’t need enough reason already to reduce exposure to Twitter, the falling engagement rates on the platform add additional reasons. Overall video seemed to underperform on engagement compared to photos.
One thing leaped out to me in the industry verticals data, if you are looking to reach student age adults, why not consider collaborating with higher education institution social media accounts rather than influencers?
Shocking health outcomes
The Hidden Cost of Ageism | A Barrier to Innovation & Growth | Future Work – sparked a lot of discussion with its implications on workplace practices, particularly within the advertising sector. What was less discussed but more important was the implications of ageism related biases on healthcare treatment.
Under-treatment or Over-treatment: Older adults may receive less aggressive treatment options or are overtreated because of age-related biases, rather than based on individual health needs and preferences.
Dismissal of Concerns: Healthcare providers might dismiss older patients’ health issues as inevitable parts of ageing, potentially overlooking treatable conditions.
Age-Based Prioritisation: In some cases, age influences the allocation of healthcare resources, with younger individuals being prioritised over older ones, assuming they have more “life worth living.”
The Hidden Cost of Ageism | Future Work
MSNBC News in the US did a report on what it called a ‘Post-Roe underground’ echoing the underground railroads to free slaves in the Southern states and the Vietnam war era draft dodgers who escaped north to Canada. This time it is to help women access abortion pills or procedures in other states or Mexico.
MSNBC
My friend Parrus hosted a talk on World Health Day, more on that here, the key takeaway for me was not trying to replicate developed market solutions in developing markets. Instead think about how it could be reinvented. Thinking that could be extended beyond health care to consumer goods, telecoms and technology sectors as well.
Luxury market shake-up
Business of Fashion covered a US court case where two women brought a lawsuit against Hermès, alleging purchase of its sought-after Birkin bag is dependent on purchase of other products and is an “illegal tying arrangement” that violated US antitrust law.
Hermès is more vulnerable than other brands because it owns its retail stores. The case, if successful could have implications far beyond the luxury bag-maker. For instance, how Ford selected prospective owners for its GT-40 sports cars, or most Ferrari limited edition for that matter.
While we’re on the subject of luxury, LVMH are rerunning their INSIDE LVMH certificate which is invaluable for anyone who might work on a luxury brand now or in the future. More here.
Morizo
Toyota are on a tear at the moment. They correctly guessed that electric cars were too expensive at the moment and focused hybrids as a stepping stone to electric and hydrogen fuel cell production. They have also successfully use the passion for driving in their products and their marketing. The Toyota GR Yaris was a result of Chairman Akio Toyoda instructing engineers to make something sporty enough to win the World Rally Championship and affordable.
He also outed himself as a speed demon who went under the nom de plume of Morizo.
Quebec
For many English speakers one of the most dissonant experiences is being confronted by a language you can’t speak. It’s part of the reason why ireland managed to become the European base of companies like Alphabet and and Intel. So I was very impressed by this campaign by the Quebec government to attract visitors and inbound investment.
Things I have watched.
I watched Mr Inbetween series one in March and managed to work through series two and three this month. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough as a series. They just keep building on each other.
Over Easter, I revisited some old VHS tapes my parents still had and rediscovered the Christopher Walken science fiction horror film “Communion.” It epitomizes its era, with alien abduction narratives emerging during the Cold War and permeating popular culture from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to “The X-Files,” tapering off after 9/11. “Communion” demonstrates how effective editing and minimal special effects can heighten tension and emotion. Despite the film’s incredulous premise, Walken delivers a fantastic performance.
“Modesty Blaise” is from a time when comic book adaptations were uncommon in cinemas. This 1966 adaptation of the 1960s comic strip shares stylistic similarities with “Barbarella” and stars a young Terence Stamp. I received a tape copy from a friend who was attending art college at the time. The depiction of the computer as a character with emotional reactions in the film feels contemporary, echoing the rise of virtual assistants like Siri and ChatGPT, despite being portrayed as a mainframe. It is interesting to contrast it with Spike Jonze’s movie Her made 50 years later.
Useful tools.
A lot of the tools this month have been inspired by my trusty Mac slowly dying and needing to get my new machine up and running before my old machine gave out.
Time Machine
Apple’s native backup software, Time Machine, serves as a personal sysadmin for home users. Regular backups are essential. If a crucial document disappears while you’re working on it, Time Machine, coupled with a Time Machine-enabled hard drive, allows you to retrieve earlier versions of the document, potentially saving your sanity in critical moments.
Microsoft Office
I prefer the one-off payment model over Office 365 services. I use Apple’s Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps instead of Outlook. While Office is available for just £100, which is reasonable considering its features, I still prefer Keynote over PowerPoint for creating presentations.
Superlist
Many of you may recall Wunderlist, which Microsoft acquired, but much of its original charm was lost in the transition to Microsoft To Do. Superlist is a reboot of Wunderlist by the original team, this time without Microsoft’s involvement. It’s available on iOS, macOS, and the web, catering to both individual and team task management needs.
https://youtu.be/2MzzbRhYlSA?si=04eBXH-MqKLpX2bN
ESET Home Security Essential
I used to rely on Kaspersky, and while I generally like their products, I have concerns about the potential influence of the Russian government. Therefore, I switched providers. ESET has a strong reputation and offers better Mac support than F-Secure. I can recommend their ESET HOME Security Essential package.
Amazon Basics laptop sleeve
I use a various bags depending on my destination and activities. Over the years, I’ve found that Amazon Basics brand laptop sleeves work well for my machines. They’re often among the cheapest options available and tend to outlast the computers they protect.
Laptop camera cover
The photo of Mark Zuckerberg’s laptop with tape covering the camera raised awareness about privacy. Webcam privacy covers, such as a sliver of plastic that slides across, are ideal as they allow your laptop to close fully. A pro tip is to use a red LED torch to clearly locate your camera when applying the stick-on cover.
Protective case and keyboard cover
I’m a big fan of clip-on polycarbonate shells to protect my laptop, as they provide a better surface for the stickers that personalize my machine over time. You don’t necessarily need a big-name case. The one I have came with a keyboard cover that works well. Anything that prevented Red Bull, coffee, or croissant flakes from getting under my keys is worth doing.
Screen protector film
The screen protector film provides great protection and is easy to apply and clean, even for beginners like me. I’ll update you if my opinion changes.
The sales pitch.
I have enjoyed working on projects for PRECISIONeffect and am now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.
Ok this is the end of my April 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the bank holiday.
Don’t forget to like, comment, share and subscribe!
Let me know if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues.
