Ged Carroll

Search results for: “porsche”

  • Apple Watch Ultra 2

    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.

    NIKE+ FUELBAND SE

    Casio G-Shock+ connected device that was let down by its software, but very much a go-anywhere device.

    blue G-shock

    Polar Loop fitness tracker – it was more reliable than Nike’s Fuelband but I didn’t really enjoy it as device.

    The Polar Loop activity tracker looking super cool. Check out the full review wp.me/p4oEpL-ld #health #fitness

    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 series one

    Apple Watch Ultra 2

    Apple 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.

    More information

    On smart watches, I’ve decided to take the plunge | renaissance chambara

    Wearable devices | renaissance chambara

    Living with the Apple Watch | renaissance chambara

  • Omakase and luxury futures

    Omakase and luxury seem made for each other. Think about the core elements of omakase:

    • An expert provides a personalised experience that is about quality, ceremony and theatre.
    • The expert decides what you will have and prepares it for you. You are there from selection to the provision of the item.
    • The ingredients are of fine quality (and often locally sourced).
    Tokyo
    Marc Veraart

    As a trend omakase has expanded geographically with Japanese cuisine. But it has also expanded in terms of categories covered.

    Koreans have taken omakase and pushed it into other areas:

    • Coffee
    • Dessert tasting
    • Barbecue restaurants which are normally a local neighbourhood staple
    • Wine and champagne-tasting

    So how can omakase and luxury come together in the future?

    In order to understand how omakase and luxury in the future it is worthwhile paying a good deal of attention to the pressures that the luxury industry is currently under.

    Luxury is under pressure

    Undoing the mistakes of the past

    Luxury has expanded to be the size of industry it currently is due to ‘massification’ by most of the maisons. The exceptions to this would be the likes of Hermés.

    Massification

    Massification means lowering quality, using globalisation in the supply chain as well as the retail network to manufacture products cheaper. Massification occurred over a three decade period and was covered extensively by former fashion editor Dana Thomas in her book Deluxe.

    Around about 2014, Gucci led the way for luxury brands to do streetwear, leading to a more accessible luxury product. Louis Vuitton did the archetypical collection with its 2017 Supreme collaboration.

    Contrary to what most people believe luxury is aimed at the middle classes rather than the wealthy. But targeting middle class customers rather than the wealthy poses a number of problems:

    • Increased capital outlay due to the scale required.
    • Scale brings challenges in terms of supply chain management and consistency of customer experience. Greater control can be obtained by vertical integration within the supply chain and owning the retail channels. But all of this requires greater expertise and management oversight.
    • Increased economic sensitivity to shocks such as interest rate and cost of living rises.
    • Increased risk of devalued stock during an economic downturn. Gucci earnings were down 20 percent alone in Q1, 2024.

    Bigger might not always be better over a longer view.

    Secondary markets

    Secondary markets have been both a boon and a bane for the luxury sector. At one time pre-owned was seen as an ‘entry-level’ product. I bought my first nice watch secondhand once it had depreciated. It was often said that the best entry-level Porsche was a secondhand one.

    But gone are the days when you may buy a pre-owned Louis Vuitton purse on a second hand market stall in Paris. Now that will be on Vinted, Vestaire or some other platform.

    Secondary market inflated pricing affected luxury businesses in a number of ways

    • You would be interviewed to go on the waiting list for a Porsche or a Rolex.
    • Authorised dealers became order takers and dealer customer service slipped.
    • Your purchasing history would acquire you the rights to buy a Hermés bag over time.

    Luxury groups extended their businesses into the pre-owned market. LVMH owned part of secondhand watch retailer Hodinkee. Richemont owned Watchfinder and Yoox-Net-a-Porter who sold a mix of new lines and vintage preowned items. Rolex rolled out its ‘CPO’ programme selling inspected pre-owned Rolex watches through its authorised dealer network.

    Things looked really good for the luxury industry, they managed to managed to scale, to a point that LVMH is one of the largest companies in the world:

    • Massification through global manufacturing supply chains.
    • Keeping margins high, while letting quality go low.
    • Address a rising middle class in China, Korea, Japan, the Gulf countries and Russia to counteract the hollowing out of the middle class in the US and western Europe.
    • Maximising margins through controlling costs via vertical integration up and down the supply chain, from raw materials to retail.

    Market change

    A few things underpinned the craziness of COVID:

    • Money was put in consumer pockets, for which they had few outlets.
    • Supply chains were disrupted as factories closed down or pivoted to manufacturing essential products. For instances Perfums Christian Dior made hand sanitiser for hospitals for free.

    A Forrester effect (also known as a bull whip effect) resulted, driving inflation that the world’s economies are coming to terms with now. Secondary effects of this event were the increased interest rates used to reduce demand driven inflation.

    Other secondary effects include increased crime levels. London has gone from a luxury shoppers paradise, to having a global reputation amongst elites of being plagued by violent watch and bag robberies. COVID-19 isn’t the only driver of this crime wave, but is a contributing factor.

    It has also had a catalysing effect on reducing globalisation to increase national resilience.

    Consumers know that a good deal of luxury goods don’t match up with the European artisan heritage story that brands try to sell them. Experts like William Lasry has made public which brands make what kind of products where. Luxury brands often make in places like China due to capability and scale – similar reasons to why Apple products are designed in California and assembled in China. (Seriously, check out William Lasry’s channels, I love some of his visits to high-end Japanese manufacturers).

    China

    China has been a key focus for luxury brand, but it has changed in a number of different ways:

    • Chinese consumers have changed in their confidence of native brands and have a lower opinion of many foreign brands. This is partly down to a change in attitudes called guo chao. Guo chao can be traced back to the increased confidence in the run up to the 2008 olympics in Beijing. This was partly fuelled by a series of essays published in 1996 by the likes of academic Wang Xiaodong called China Can Say Now which advocated a modern robust form of Chinese nationalism, which was in stark contrast to the Deng-era vision of globalisation and biding one’s time. In the April before the olympics Chinese consumers boycotted French supermarket brand Carrefour. Over time the negativity of these boycotts have become more-and-more performative and extra-territorial in nature. The current Xi administration has seen fit to weaponise this nationalist sentiment by directing (wrangling is a more accurate term, like cowboys with a cattle train in the Old West) public opinion to further its own ends. A more positive aspect of it has been a more open market for domestic ateliers and brands than had been seen previously. Since before 2019, there have been Chinese efforts to build a rival luxury groups to LVMH and Kering and this fits in with Xi’s distaste for irrational worship of the west.
    • Xi-era growth. China under Xi Jinping faces multiple challenges around growth. The population is aging and in decline which has implications for declining consumption. Secondly economic growth has slowed compared to the double digit annual economic growth of the Deng, Jiang and Hu administrations. Foreign direct investment in China has declined for a mix of reasons including unattractive Chinese government policies, decline in China’s country brand and long term economic growth forecasts.

    Regulatory change

    I know what you’re thinking ok, this is very well Ged, but what does it have to do with omakase and luxury futures? Give me a little bit more time and all will be revealed.

    While China is an economic superpower with a desire to export its world view and the United States is a hard and soft power super power; the European Union’s super power is legislative in nature.

    European regulation drove the globalisation of the GSM mobile telephony standards during the 1990s and 2000s. They have also driven increasing internet privacy standards on web services, much to the chagrin of Alphabet, Meta and Twitter.

    Now they are driving environmental standards across a range of areas including:

    • A carbon tax to take into account the use of fossil fuels in extraction of raw materials, transportation, energy as an input to manufacturing and processing materials.
    • Product passports from raw materials to product end-of-life encouraging a circular economy and sustainable manufacturing.

    This means that the luxury sector has new restrictions on how it operates in the future.

    In summary:

    • We’ve likely reached peak massification due to economic and trade changes.
    • Market share in China looks uncertain due to changes in consumer sentiment and tastes, meaning, a more local approach might be required or a strategic withdrawal.
    • Secondary markets show that consumers are open to ownership beyond pristine new products.
    • Product passports and European legislation means re-examining the whole supply chain and the data to better control it through an entire product life.

    Finally, omakase and luxury futures!

    Omakase and luxury look like a happy meeting in the future. Think about the tenets of omakase.

    • An expert provides a personalised experience that is about quality, ceremony and theatre.
    • The expert decides what you will have and prepares it for you. You are there from selection to the provision of the item.
    • The ingredients are of fine quality (and often locally sourced).

    Going back to go forward.

    The future of luxury is about looking back. Tailors who suited generations of families and made alterations to Grandfather’s suit that the son is now wearing. The shirt maker replacing the collars and cuffs. The shoe-maker who refurbishes your shoes and has a set of lasts with your name on, for when he has to make a new set. Getting measured, having your foot cast for a last or getting your watch could be memorable events once again. So there this a precedence for expertise and service levels. But it implies a retail experience that will change dramatically.

    New techniques and questions.

    Previously with the exception of measuring sessions, these processes were largely concealed from the consumer and were difficult to scale. So it’s worthwhile thinking about how luxury’s omakase future could be extended with modern technology? We have some experiments that might give us some ideas. First up, L’Oreal has showcased bespoke make-up manufacture for a while.

    How could high-end perfume makers adapt for products beyond make-up? Improved analysis equipment from the likes of Oxford Nanopore could facilitate individually formulated fragrance products based on skin chemistry.

    Adidas experimented with its Speedfactory concept that blended the retail and shoe assembly together.

    Technologically there is a lot of promising ideas. Adidas have worked with up-cycled plastics retrieved from the debris brought together by an ocean gyre made into 3d printed soles and fibres. (Look for the Parley label, who Adidas partnered with on this.)

    How can additive or automated manufacturing and other processes feel luxe? In what way could they add to the theatre?

    This hybridisation of retail and manufacturing changes the nature of both offline and online retail completely. Would even the largest concession in Selfridges or a shopping mall be big enough, or would fashion houses need a single purpose brand experience?

    Given that there is likely to be a bit more time between manufacture and presentation of the product than there would be in a sashimi restaurant, what else would go into the maison experience? LVMH is already investing in hotels and resorts like Cheval Blanc which gives it a better understanding of more areas in luxury experience and service.

    Localisation would likely to be needed to handle omakase and luxury due to culture and the need for local materials. This might include new materials, such as fungus-derived leather. Of course, this might have negative implications for luxury house supply chains, whether it’s Louis Vuitton’s iconic plastic coated leather, or the Hermés crocodile farm.

    Which means that product line-ups could no longer be global in nature. So luxury companies may revisit that the creative process looks like. Should there be a single global vision anymore? Luxury maisons instincts would be to say yes, but could this be an opportunity to own local ateliers in markets like China or the US?

    • Will there be more local brands instead?
    • What will a maison’s heritage mean in the future? A luxury maison is about what remains the same as much as what changes. What will happen to long-standing motifs?
    • Will there be a greater opportunity for more auteurs who are closer to the customers?
    • How to bridge the tension in terms of choosing for the customer and creativity as well as quality?

    We’re talking a very different profile of creative in terms of thinking, attitudes and skills compared to the present.

    Service, repair and reuse could learn a lot lessons from traditional tailors and the service networks of watchmakers like Rolex or luggage maker Rimowa.

    I could not think of a more exciting or scary time to be setting the brand direction for a luxury maison, let alone the overall direction or the likes of LVMH. But by wrapping local materials, expertise, ritual and a bit of theatre the future could look like a fusion of omakase and luxury.

    More information

  • January 2024 newsletter – this makes a half dozen

    January 2024 newsletter introduction

    Welcome to my January 2024 newsletter which marks my 6th issue – bringing us to a half dozen issues in total. Here’s a quick video introduction that I recorded with HeyGen.

    Strategic outcomes

    Dozen as a word in the English language comes from the french douzaine – meaning an assembly of 12 things of the same nature. This in turn was derived from roots in Latin. Weirdly enough the use of dozen plunged to a nadir in 1983 and then enjoyed steady growth to reach its most recent peak in 2018.

    The sun rises reluctantly over the horizon every morning, disappearing each afternoon, but that doesn’t mean that inspiration stops. But each day is getting slightly more daylight here in London and in a few months we could be complaining about the heat.

    If you would like a soundtrack for this edition of the newsletter, I can heartily recommend Kizunguzungu (Mr. Turner Extended Version Edit) by Disc-o-lypso.

    New reader?

    If is your first time reading, welcome to my January 2024 newsletter! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    Things I’ve written.

    • A very personal (or iconoclastic) review of last year 2023 – that was twenty twenty three
    • Watch Registry – how a confluence of EU regulations and surging crime has driven a new category of online service.
    • Pebble – micro-blogging service Pebble went under in November last year. Here’s what we lost.
    • Loneliness – its impact and some of the solutions that are evolving to address it.
    • Backroom – how one of my photos went around the web and ended up in an online game.
    • Every old idea is new again – a mix of collective amnesia and the less than perfect memory of the web means that old ideas have their time as new creative.

    Books that I have read.

    • Over the new year, I curled up on the sofa with 2034 by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis. Ackerman and Stavridis plot out a political pot boiler about what a future war with China might look like. The realpolitik of the book feels real, the main issue would be the complete passivity of smaller powers like the United Kingdom and France. The rise of India and the fall of China as a global power at the end is an interesting commentary on the current Xi-led government. The book seems to set out to do a few jobs. First and foremost it’s a call to arms about American preparedness (it isn’t prepared). Secondly, it’s a warning about over-relying on technology, over base skills like astral navigation – something that the advertising industry could learn from as we fumble forward across AI, martech and adtech in a time of declining effectiveness. But the book also irritated me and pulled me out of of the story with magical thinking in Chinese technology and having every part of a plane including an ejector seat open to being hacked and disabled. I could imagine car manufacturers leaving their safety systems open, but would have thought that the military would have been more sensible about their safety equipment.
    • How Did Britain Come to This?: A century of systemic failures of governance by Gwen Bevan. How Clement Attlee’s administration solved issues of minimal government in the post-war period and these solutions held up until the early 1970s. How Margaret Thatcher’s solution of markets for everything suffered from market failures over the years. All of which resulted in geography as destiny in terms of social outcomes.
    • Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy by Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin – an interesting portrayal of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement from the perspective of foreign journalists in the region. McLaughlin writes for The Atlantic and is based out of Singapore, Mahtani does a similar role for the Washington Post. The whole society movement of the protests is something that comes out in the books and makes me think that the authorities will have a longer term job to keep their illiberal agenda going. But on the flipside the American foreign policy looks weak and ineffective in the face of China. What most surprised me was how the authors uncovered details inside the government and the police force. Probably the most explosive allegation is that the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau of the Hong Kong Police were monitoring the WhatsApp group chat used by multiple rival gangs to organise the attack on Yuen Long train station. There is a large overlap between rural political committees in the Yuen Long area and triads. We know that the police did not prevent it, did nothing about it when it happened and conducted minimal prosecutions. Chief executive Carrie Lam was getting her news from the television rather than intelligence gathered using open source, human intelligence sources and ‘exquisite‘ means. Some members of the government related to mainland affairs seem to have had an indication of what was coming, but there is no evidence that Lam knew.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Swiss International Airlines, the city of Geneva and the Grand Prix D’Horologerie de Genève did a classic PR stunt in October 2023. A flight crew member supervised by a watchmaker assembled a mechanical watch mid-flight between Geneva and New York at an altitude at 30,000 feet. In the idea you have precision, innovation, expertise, professionalism, quality and skill. A solid fusion of complementary brands, brand planning and creative ideation.

    Unfortunately, the story seems to have been eclipsed by the Israel – HAMAS conflict in the Gaza region. The uncertainty of the news agenda illustrates the weakest point of a campaign relying purely on earned media. 

    Swiss International, GPHG and Genève Tourisme assemble a watch mid-air
    © Genève Tourisme

    Etsy and agency The Orchard nailed gift buying with their spot ‘Dad’. The insight that family members often don’t want gifts and are concerned about clutter or the ‘wrong type’ of gifts is on-point. There is the additional layer of thriftiness that comes from being part of an immigrant family – be they Irish or Asian.

    The idea also had me reflect on the time I spent helping to sort through my late Uncle’s belongings on the family farm back home in Ireland. There were ‘new old stock’ ties still in their packaging and an Insignia aftershave / shower gel gift set from sometime in the early 1990s in his drawers. Stashed there after being gifted, but unneeded.

    Thoughtful gifts are priceless.

    While the ad is aimed at Christmas, I saw it as I thought about my Dad’s birthday. My own parents exhibit the traits of not wanting gifts and thriftiness. But in my case, no Etsy-sleuthing was required however, with a bit of cajoling he knew precisely what he wanted from the Toolstation catalogue. The collector gene runs deep in the Carroll family.

    https://youtu.be/4VI6rgps_Bc?si=pHQpElVLc_KlDecI
    The Orchard for Etsy

    While a lot of London had their out of office on until January 15th, New Balance had their skates on previewing Scorpius, Rose Water and Medusa Azúl variants of the 1906R in association with Action Bronson. The clever thing that they have done is that each of the colour ways have a variation in brightness, appealing to sneaker heads of different temperaments. For me this was more exciting than Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with Timberland also announced this month.

    7-Eleven Hong Kong did one of the first campaigns that merged generative AI techniques with traditional advertising production values including extensive use of green screens and wire work that would have been more at home in the fantasy martial arts films Hong Kong made famous.

    7 Select

    4.5 billion years in an hour. A great way to bring data to life in a way that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to fathom. It also works well as a background for writing late at night as well. It did remind me of Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy for some reason, and that’s no bad thing. 

    I was looking at the underlying code on one of my flickr photo pages and came across this recruitment advert embedded in the code. I thought it was quite cleverly done in terms of targeting a technical audience.

    Embedded recruitment ad

    A bit of a late find for me, the Computer History Museum held a 2-hour event interviewing key people in the development of the Apple Mac, in order to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its launch. There is so much that can be still learned today from their experience. You can watch it here.

    Finally, Tom Coates shed more light on what we are likely to see platform-wise from a post-Twitter future.

    Things I have watched. 

    It’s cold and dark and I make no apology for my films being unapologetically escapist and and entertaining to try and counterweight the drab conditions.

    Something Wicked This Way Comes – Something Wicked This Way Comes was made in the UK during that many Disney fans describe as the studios ‘dark period’. From 1967 – 1984, the Disney family connection to the business was severed through deaths and a resignation. Film quality declined while shows and theme parks supported the business until Michael Eisner . Something Wicked This Way Comes has a fantastic cast including blaxploitation starlet Pam Grier, Broadway and Hollywood veteran Jason Robards and a young Jonathan Pryce, now better known as David Cartwright, former spook and River Cartwright’s grandfather in Slow Horses. The film is based on a book by Ray Bradbury. The film has a similarly surreal nature to Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.

    I sat and watched Wild Palms. I hadn’t watched it all the way through previously and I found it much more rewarding to watch than similar shows like Twin Peaks. There is that slight dissonance and discomfort you have watching it that reminded me of reading JG Ballard’s works. 

    The Criterion Collection released a sympathetic digital remastering of Frederico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. With a lot of similar projects the work adds little, but The Criterion Collection are no ordinary publisher and the film needed a lot of work. So much so, that it took donations from Gucci and government bodies to ensure that the work was done to a high standards. The results are right there on screen, the sound has had excessive background noise cleaned up as well. It isn’t excessively loud like the audio on the remaster of Sergio Leone’s crowning achievement Once Upon A Time in the West, but it does benefit from the clarity provided. The films commentary on the hollowness of the media industry is timeless as is its tour of Rome: ancient and modern.

    Michael Fassbender’s Road to Le Mans – Porsche sponsored online film series that goes through Michael Fassbender’s journey to drive the Le Mans 24 hour race.

    I am a huge fan of French police dramas from the 1960s to the present day and was really impressed by Netflix show Blood Coast. It features Olivier Marchal on some of the writing and directing duties. Marchal created Braquo, which ran for three seasons until 2016.

    Not exactly something to watch, but the Hot Money: The New Narcos is an amazing high adrenalin podcast with the Kinahan family and the Dubai Super-cartel at the centre of it all.

    Useful tools.

    ABBYY Business Card Reader.

    ABBYY Business Card Reader allows you to convert business cards into contacts.app entries on your iPhone or iPad – this then syncs with my Mac as part of iCloud services. While I don’t receive as many business cards as I used to, this is still a really useful time-saver.

    WolframAlpha.

    WolframAlpha is a handy shortcut for data points that Statista, WARC etc. doesn’t or won’t have.

    Beeper.

    Beeper is a multi-protocol messaging client. You can have Slack, LinkedIn, iMessage, WhatsApp and Discord all in one client. It works on both Macs and iPhones.

    WaveAI Note taker.

    Wave AI is an app that provides call note taking functionality using speech to text conversation. It is based on a freemium business model. Give it a try to see if it works with your style of working. An alternative to consider is Vienna Scribe, both seem to give better results than otter.ai

    Portable second monitor.

    When working away from the office or home, I have found a second monitor to come in handy. The one I use is from ASUS and comes with a protective cover that doubles as a stand.

    Using generative AI tools

    Principled Instructions Are All You Need for Questioning LLaMA-1/2, GPT-3.5/4 – is an academic paper with tips on how to get the most out of your prompts.

    The sales pitch.

    Now taking bookings for strategic engagements or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done to date here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my January 2024 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Gong hei fat choy for the forthcoming Chinese new year. It will be the year of the dragon on February 10th. 

    Be excellent to each other. Let me know what you think or if you have any recommendations to be featured in forthcoming issues. 

  • Padel + more things

    Padel

    The racket sport padel seems to have got the zeitgeist, if not the player numbers yet. We haven’t really seen a surge in sports fads since the 1980s. During that time skateboarding rose from a peak in the late 1970s, to a more stable underground sport that we have today. The closure of a squash racquet factory in Cambridge, saw the sport globalise manufacture and playing. In a few short years rackets went from gut strings and ash wood frames to synthetic strings and carbon fibre composite rackets. It was as much a symbol of the striving business man as the Filofax or the golf bag. Interest was attracted by a large amount of courts and racket technology that greatly improved the game.

    Squash had its origins in the late 19th century and took the best part of a century to reach its acme in the cultural zeitgeist. Skateboarding started in the late 1940s and took a mere 30 years to breakout. Padel falls somewhere between the two. Padel was invented in 1969. But it took COVID-19 to drive its popularity in Europe and North America.

    There is a new world professional competition circuit for 2024. And it has attracted the interest of court developers looking to cater to what they believe is latent consumer demand.

    Finally, you can get three padel courts in the space for one tennis court. More on the padel gold rush from the FT.

    The challenge is if padel is just a fad, or has it longevity? Skateboarding is popular, but many councils didn’t see the benefit of supporting skate parks built in the 1970s around the country. Squash still has its fans but doesn’t have the same popularity that it enjoyed in the 1980s.

    How to play padel

    More on the basics of how to play padel here.

    Business

    British American Tobacco writes down $31.5 billion as it shifts its business away from cigarettes

    China

    “He Always Talks About the West”-Former University President Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison in China and Who’s Afraid of Chizuko Ueno? The Party’s Ongoing Counteroffensive against Feminism in the Xi Era don’t inspire investor confidence in China

    China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge – POLITICO – the narrative feels wrong around this article, even though the purge is on

    Bloomberg New Economy: China’s Economic Heft Sinks for First Time Since 1994 – Bloomberg

    Consumer behaviour

    Firewater | No Mercy / No Malice – on young people and risk

    What’s it like being a Disney adult? – The Face – this is much more common in Hong Kong, but then people had annual passes to go there. I found it interesting that The Face othered it as a sub-culture

    Vittles Reviews: There Is Always Another Province – Province-chasing isn’t just a Western phenomenon; China is still so vast that when the barbecued food of Xinjiang, one of China’s border provinces, showed up in a former sausage shop on Walworth Road at Lao Dao, it didn’t need to open to the general public for months, choosing only to take bookings via Chinese social media. The paradox is that the success of regional Chinese restaurants has created a Western audience which wants more, but that same success has allowed these restaurants to bypass those customers altogether

    Culture

    Television: one of the most audacious pranks in history was hidden in a hit TV show for years. – Watch enough episodes of Melrose Place and you’ll notice other very odd props and set design all over the show. A pool float in the shape of a sperm about to fertilize an egg. A golf trophy that appears to have testicles. Furniture designed to look like an endangered spotted owl. It turns out all of these objects, and more than 100 others, were designed by an artist collective called the GALA Committee. For three years, as the denizens of the Melrose Place apartment complex loved, lost, and betrayed one another, the GALA Committee smuggled subversive leftist art onto the set, experimenting with the relationship between art, artist, and spectator. The collective hid its work in plain sight and operated in secrecy. Outside of a select few insiders, no one—including Aaron Spelling, Melrose’s legendary executive producer—knew what it was doing. The project was called In the Name of the Place. It ended in 1997. Or, perhaps, since the episodes are streamable, it never ended

    Design

    Sony Access Controller Review: A Beautiful Addition for All Gamers | WIRED

    Is the flat design trend finally over? | by Chan Karunaratne | Dec, 2023 | UX Collective

    Economics

    China’s accelerating rise in consumer defaults | FT – inspite of the social credit scores and lack of opportunity to declare personal bankruptcy

    China challenge is too much for Republican market fundamentalism | FT

    Energy

    Audi to build all-electric rugged 4×4 to rival Defender and G-Class | CAR Magazine – differentiating from the SUV field. Interesting that the Land Cruiser and Ineos doesn’t make the comparison list, yet the G-Wagen does.

    China uranium grab poses threat to western energy supply, warns Yellow Cake | FT

    Ethics

    After $500m Zuckerberg donation, Harvard university gutted its disinfo team studying Facebook | Boing Boing

    AI’s carbon footprint is bigger than you think

    Are fashion’s buying practices really improving? | Vogue Business – buyers think that they are taking a long term more collaborative approach, supplier feedback reflects an unchanged reality

    Finance

    Blockchains are entering their “broadband era” | Visa – I was surprised by the amount of faith that Visa has in the future of Blockchain technology

    Against the odds, China’s push to internationalise its currency is making gains

    Gadgets

    Rode acquire Mackie | Sound On Sound – this is big for podcasters, but also for artists that record in their own studios. Mackie mixers have powered the home grown set-ups of artists like The Prodigy, The Crystal Method, Brian Eno, Daft Punk and Orbital.

    Health

    China e-cigarette titan behind ‘Elf Bar’ floods the US with illegal vapes | Reuters – In the United States, the firm simply ignored regulations on new products and capitalized on poor enforcement. It has flooded the U.S. market with flavored vapes that have been among the best-selling U.S. brands, including Elf Bar, EBDesign and Lost Mary. In the United Kingdom, by contrast, Zhang has complied with regulations requiring lower nicotine levels and government registration while building an unmatched distribution network — and driving a surge in youth vaping

    Hong Kong

    Hong Kong migrants revel in Cantopop concerts, films from home as tears flow, emotions high in ‘collective healing’ at venues in Canada, UK | South China Morning Post

    Hong Kong’s first ‘patriots-only’ district council poll reflects political tale of two cities, as some eagerly rush to vote and others shy away | South China Morning Post – Hong Kong on election day splits into two camps, with one eager to vote out of civic duty and others giving polling stations wide berth over lack of political diversity. ‘I thought more people would come and vote because there has been more publicity,’ one elector says after discovering sleepy atmosphere at local polling station – the question is will Beijing take anything from this voter turn out? Does it signal suppressed but indignant separatists, or Hong Kongers who are more focused on prosperity and weekend Netflix? If they suspect the former then the security situation is likely to get more dire

    Ideas

    A simple theory of cancel culture – by Joseph Heath

    Innovation

    The first humanoid robot factory is about to open | Axios

    Japan

    “Hoarder Hygge” is the Anti-Zen – Matt Alt’s Pure Invention – this applies equally well to Hong Kong as well, presumably for similar reasons

    London

    Outernet now London’s most visited tourist attraction | The Times

    Luxury

    Inside Louis Vuitton’s Hong Kong spectacle | Vogue Business – While Hong Kong is gradually recovering from the pandemic lockdowns, growth in Mainland China is slowing. According to HSBC estimates, luxury sales there are expected to grow 5 per cent in 2024, a sharp deceleration compared with 2023’s projected 18 per cent.

    New 2024 Porsche Macan EV: we reveal tech secrets of Stuttgart’s first electric SUV | CAR Magazine

    Marketing

    How One Campaign Changed Everything for Coca-Cola | AdWeek

    Stop focusing on ‘Gen Z’: we’re missing the true audience challenge – The Media Leader

    Behind the Pop Culture Roots of Pepsi’s Modern Retro Redesign – so Pepsi’s own advertising over 30 years had less impact than films from the 1980s and 1990s with younger consumers – that’s a damning indictment if ever I heard one

    Media

    Spotify Is Screwed | WIRED

    Disney global ads president: expect streaming consolidation – The Media Leader – and presumably they think Disney will be a winner?

    Meme

    When My Dog Died, I Turned to a Specific Image for Comfort. Many Do. | Slate – how the idea of the ‘rainbow bridge’ heaven analogue for dogs came about.

    Online

    Techrights — CNN Contributes to Demolition of the Open Web

    Quality

    You are never taught how to build quality software | Florian Bellmann | Be curious, explore and meditate.

    Retailing

    The EU is taking on fashion’s open secret: Destroying unsold goods | Vogue Business

    McDonald’s Launching Spinoff Restaurant Chain Called CosMc’s | Today – I’ll write more about Cosmc’s once I have collected my thoughts on it.

    Security

    Daring Fireball: 23andMe Confirms Hackers Stole Ancestry Data on 6.9 Million Users

    UK’s data regulator resists call to investigate China’s BGI over genomic concerns | Reuters

    Stealing AI models

    Software

    Warning from OpenAI leaders helped trigger Sam Altman’s ouster – The Washington Post

    Practical Ways To Increase Product Velocity | Stay SaaSy

    How it’s Made: Interacting with Gemini through multimodal prompting – Google for Developers

    Apple Makes a Quiet AI Move – On my Om

    Putting China’s Top LLMs to the Test – by Irene Zhang

    Make no mistake—AI is owned by Big Tech | MIT Technology Review

    Documentary on the state of AI

    Technology

    GPU Cloud Economics Explained – The Hidden Truth

    Chipmaking Amid War in Israel – by Nicholas Welch – everything is political.

    ASML axes CTO role with new CEO | EE Times – given that the next stage technology path is rocky to say the least and innovation needs to be a key focus for ASML this made me nervous.

    Broadcom first to add AI to network switch chip | EE Times

    Wireless

    Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are staying connected to the world via donated eSIMs

    Report: 5G global mobile data traffic set to triple in six years | EE News Europe

  • Road to Le Mans

    Porsche committed to major long form content as it followed Michael Fassbender on the road to Le Mans.

    Season one

    Road to Le Mans started off over four years ago with six short form films, each no longer than 10 minutes in length. So far, pretty much what you would expect in a prestige luxury car brand film. I was reminded of BMW’s ‘The Hire’ film series over the years with Clive Owen as the driver.

    Season two

    Porsche must have had positive feedback to continue with a second series in a similar vein to series one of Road to Le Mans. But some of the episodes were double the length of series one and three more episodes in this series. Looking at the Porsche YouTube channel the two seasons were likely considered to be a complete arc. They build a playlist that holds only season one and season two.

    The manage to switch around the voices in the narrative which I think adds more in season two and season three.

    Season three

    By season three, the series seems to have hit its stride. The episodes are as long as they need to be.

    Season four

    Season four seems to have more of Fassbender’s voice in it.

    Feature film

    The theme of resilience in the face of failure was an interesting, honest angle in the film. Road to Le Mans emphasises stoicism and resilience as much as it emphasises the performance of the car. The feature film is an edit together of season four.

    Although it’s Fassbender’s journey and I respect what he’s done, it feels a bit self indulgent at times. I think that this is because the actor’s journey as a profession isn’t a team sport in the same way that most other roles are.

    What Road to Le Man also brought through to me was the depth of achievement in Porsche’s 18 Le Mans overall victories. This film feels like a final chapter to this Road to Le Mans at least.

    Porsche seem to have shouldered the cost of the film themselves, I was a bit surprised that the content wasn’t licensed to a streaming service like Netflix and then eventually put on YouTube. More related content here.

More posts