Ged Carroll

Blog

  • The helmsman + more things

    Sailing the Seas Depends on The Helmsman

    Sailing The Seas Depends On The Helmsman – There has been a minor drama playing out amongst westerners who analyse China. A theatre group put on a performance in the symbolic heart of the Chinese Communist Party. Sailing The Seas Depends On The Helmsman – is a Cultural Revolution era song which eulogises Mao Zedong’s leadership.

    The Helmsman or Great Helmsman was one of the many labels Mao picked up as leader of China.  This series of concerts were seen as a celebration of the Cultural Revolution and elevated President Xi to a similar ‘cult of personality’ within China. Some considered it to be a subtle way to sabotage Mr Xi. Either way it took pull to allow the group to perform in the Great Hall of the People. The scale of the presentation was spectacular and it’s quite a catchy tune – as you can see in the video created by the South China Morning Post.

    Morgan special projects

    I am not the fan of car designs that I was as a child and have never been a fan of Morgans. But there is a lot to admire in Morgan Motor’s Special Project team. The video outlines the process they went through in building a bespoke car for a customer.  Ask pretty much any other car manufacturer to do this and the money would literally be astronomical.

    It is ironic in a day of 3D printing and CNC machines that they use old school techniques that my Dad would have learned as an apprentice to create a special one-off car. There is also an interesting mix of materials in the design and the marine plywood-based seats caught my eye.  The designer gave careful thought to how the car would age.

    Objective See

    Objective-See – handy ransomware blocker for OSX (macOS), ideal for these troubled times when 2/3rds of UK business have come under some form of a hack.

    Everyday objects

    A blogger who goes by the name of ‘The Electronic Mercenary’ has set up a great YouTube channel where they x-ray everyday objects or components for your enjoyment.

    Check it out.

    I don’t often have much time for Samsung, their product advertising usually lacks subtlety and creative chops – you are not charmed by their marketing. Instead you are bludgeoned into submission with a media plan that has more in common with a Katyusha rocket system than persuasion. Occasionally they do some stunning emotive corporate marketing, this is the latest example. Separated Korean families unite in heartfelt Samsung spot | Marketing Interactive

  • Digitas teams with Facebook + more

    DigitasLBi Teams With Facebook To Launch Live-Streamed Morning Show 05/09/2016 – interesting agency as brand. I wonder if we’ll see ‘NBC teams with Facebook’ any time soon?

    Objective-See – handy ransomware blocker for OSX. The Mac has become a major target for hackers and crackers now.

    Japan moves to protect ‘copyrights’ of AI creations | Japan Times – prescient move by Japanese government – it is only a matter of time before other countries have to find ways of dealing with creator / owner issues (paywall)

    Amazon launching YouTube competitor Amazon Video Direct – Business Insider – threat to Facebook Video as well. Things are about to get interesting. It contrasts with Facebook’s move into original content with DigitasLBI

    (2) Tom Stocky – My team is responsible for Trending Topics, and I… – found no evidence that contractors had affected conservative content. It’s probably true, but that won’t stop the doubt seeded in the minds of conservative supporters

    Ten Years — The Year of the Looking Glass — Medium – Reflections on working over the past ten years at Facebook

    Free Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade campaign hasn’t been blowout success – Business Insider – it depends how you consider success

    The Vintage Watch Boom | Intelligence | BoF – part of this is also down to Swiss watch makers treating the industry like fast fashion rather than heirloom designs

    WeChat Campaign Spotlight: Montblanc Gives Chinese Fans a Digital History Lesson | Jing Daily – smaller more discrete items like pens and wallets still do well in gift giving – more on luxury related items here.

    Huawei V8 leaked also gets a dual camera design – Gizchina.com – Honor device looks like it would cannibalise sales

    Why the Home Wars Aren’t the Phone Wars — The Information – not a zero sum game (paywall)

    JD.com sees 47% rise in Q1 revenue | Shanghai Daily – I wonder how much is due to WeChat integration?

  • Google design

    Google design has had a transformative effect on the world. It reminds me of Dieter Rams on the concept of design had said something to the effect of good design being invisible – once you see the product you couldn’t imagine things exist any other way.

    That’s a really good description of the web with Google design. In the markets where it operates (with the exceptions of Czech Republic, South Korea, Japan and Russia) it’s a monopoly. Different regulatory authorities are investigating them for leveraging their monopoly into market domination in other categories.
    urban dictionary on Google SERP
    With SERP (Search Engine Results Page) like this one above, I am not surprised that antitrust authorities are gaining an upper hand. This Urban Dictionary integration seems to cross the boundary from being useful to feature bundling. It deprives Urban Dictionary of an opportunity to put ad inventory in front of its audience. Urban Dictionary makes it’s money from retargeted banner ads and its own customisable merchandise. You can get any phrase in Urban Dictionary with its definition on a coffee mug, coaster set or tote bag.
    urban dictionary SERP
    It would be interesting to see if Google got into some sort of content agreement with Urban Dictionary. However I suspect that they have just gone ahead and done this? More about Google here.

  • Twitter bars intelligence agencies + more

    Twitter Bars Intelligence Agencies From Using Analytics Service – WSJ – I don’t think that this will affect Twitter’s revenue that much. I also don’t think that Twitter bars intelligence agencies will restrict their access to information overall

    China white-box players leaving tablet market and pushing into new applications – focus instead on ‘two-in-one’ device, robots and VR goggles. Expect keener pricing due to competition

    Xiaomi seems kinda desperate for you to get excited about its big new phone – make or break time in China’s tough smartphone market for Xiaomi and its eco-system

    China Exports Stabilized in April Amid Weakness in Currency – Bloomberg – interesting variances in top line take aways from this. Reuters described exports and imports as ‘lower than expected’

    Calls for Reckitt Benckiser boycott in South Korea — FT.com – Korean consumers are forcing supermarkets to withdraw Reckitt Benckiser products from sale.Figures are hard to verify but it apparently due to a company product injuring about 180 women and small children. 103 of them were killed, the rest suffer from horrific lung damage. The active ingredient polyhexamethylene guanidine was found to cause severe lung damage. Kids with oxygen tanks are not what company investors want to see. Back in the UK, the CEO’s pay rise has made more news, the communications team dodged the proverbial bullet. More on FMCG related items here.

    5 latest changes to WeChat Public Accounts – WalktheChat – the ID changes will affect the way teams can effectively manage accounts if working in an agency

    Luxury brands embrace digital storefronts in China, but will they click with buyers? | South China Morning Post

    Getting Next-Gen Messaging based experiences — to work — UX/UI developments, advances and innovation — Medium

    Yahoo investor hits back at ‘patent troll’ critique of activist shareholder Starboard Value – patent trolling is repeatable revenue which is what the activist has

    After The Download: When Apple Turns Off The iTunes Store – When new formats race to the fore it is easy to make the mistake of taking an eye off the legacy formats. This is risky because they usually still account for very large portions of existing revenue

  • Heavens Bankers by Harris Irfan

    I was given Heavens Bankers to read as a friend. I can’t say I had thought that much about Islamic finance before. I knew that it had a couple of patches of ‘heat’ behind it in the banking sector. One was in the late 1990s. It then took a back seat post-911 and took off again as Dubai boomed.

    It helps that Harris was not only an insider, but passionate about banking in its widest sense. He’s also sickening polymath who is a top flight racing driver.

    History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends. – Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

    Irfan delves into the intricacies of how modern Islamic finance grew and contracted. The industry he provides us an inside view of is now worth a trilliion dollars.  The start of history like most things were pretty straight forward. As the industry grew more arcane and complex financial instruments became the norm. This reminded me of a lot of Mark Lewis’ Liar’s Poker. Lewis dealt with bonds and modern derivatives became so complex customers didn’t understand them. The Savings and Loans debacle of 1985-1996 foreshadowed subprime mortgages.

    Where Irfan really excels for the non-banker as reader is in his ability to break down the basics. He takes the concepts many of us learned in business or economics classes back into pre-medieval history. He provides a historical perspective on modern capitalism as we know it. So the book becomes invaluable regardless of how you feel about the current economic system. The background gives you a more informed perspective. More on Heavens Bankers here. More book reviews here.