Ged Carroll

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  • Wonder Girls

    The Wonder Girls caused me to reflect on pop music as a business. We are so used to manufactured pop music artists by the likes of Tom Watkins, Stock | Aitken | Waterman and more recently Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment. Some of these groups like Wham, Kylie Minogue and Take That had international success. We have gotten used to the dominance of western international recording artists.

    Wonder Girls Daum

     Wonder Girls Korean fan site.

    It is this heritage that makes the Wonder Girls phenomena: a Korean girl-band managed by a Korean team getting a Billboard top 100 hit all the more remarkable.

    Wonder Girls MySpace

    Wonder Girls MySpace page

    That kind of success takes more than talent and good looks – the world music industry is littered with talented beautiful failures. The Wonder Girls are creatures of the internet age, they started off conventionally enough in South Korea and then used their South Korean fan base to spring board into the US marketplace.

    There were two parts in this story which made a great use of social media:

    You could argue that they are a part of the ongoing Korean Wave: a rise in popularity of Korean music, television and film culture which has swept Asia and started to gain popularity in the west like the Japanese film, manga and anime industries before it.

    Wonder Girls Facebook

    Wonder Girls Facebook page

    However where the group breaks rank with the Korean Wave is in the proactive targeted nature of their marketing; which is more reminiscent of aggression and entrepreneurship of the Japanese car, camera and consumer electronics industries which shook things up in the 1960s and 1970s. More related content here.

  • Whole Earth Discipline

    One of the problems that I have with many environmental tracts is that they articulate their message as an anti-science based dogma rather than as a discussion where you can make your own mind up. That issue and Stewart Brand’s status as a nexus point between green issues, counterculture, technology, web communities and futurism made Whole Earth Discipline a must-read book book for me.

    The whole earth of the title is a nod to history: The story goes that Brand inspired by the use of acid started a campaign to get a photograph of the whole earth published. He sold badges with Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet? on them and found a grassroots movement around it. He rightly summised the image would be a powerful symbol. This was a key point in the history of the modern green movement.

    Stewart was responsible for publishing The Whole Earth Catalog and The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link). The Whole Earth Catalog was a regularly published book of useful information not mediated by authority that sprang out of hippie culture – a kind of Wikipedia of its day. The WELL is the proto-social network which connected a diverse range of technocrats, artists and journalists who would go on to play an important part in the modern web and set the libertarian point-of-view of the digerati – its got some great content on there and I would recommend that anyone interested join – my user name is ged if you want to reach out to me there. The netizen mantra that information wants to be free was taken from a speech that Brand gave in 1984 at the first Hackers Conference.

    If you want to know more about Stewart I can recommend Fred Turner’s From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Its a big book but a great read that I completed cover-to-cover one time on a flight to Hong Kong.

    Whole Earth Discipline breaks down into two distinct parts. The first part builds on the famous Environmental Heresies essay that Brand published in the MIT Technology Review five years ago. He brings this up to date by surveying the current knowledge on the planet and the solutions that we are likely to require such as widespread use of nuclear power, the use of solar energy as a personal household level and encouraging populations into cities, away from sprawling suburbs.

    The second part of the book is demystifying some of the current green dogmas like the evils of genetic modification with a critical eye and taking an unvarnished look at some of the most prominent campaigning organisations out there such as Greenpeace and Friends of The Earth.  According to Brand tens of thousands of people died of starvation in Zambia because of a lobbying campaign to the country’s leadership by environmentalists complaining about poison Frankenfoods.

    The book is a thoughtful, engaging, well-researched book on environmental issues that we all face together with ideas on how to address current and future challenges. It is also valuable for communications people working in difficult areas such as energy and biotechnology who are often faced with dogma-based campaigns by well-meaning but misguided organisations. More book reviews can be found here.

  • Kin logo

    Whilst I won’t be dashing out and getting myself one of the Microsoft | Sharp Kin phones. I did like the Kin logo. The logo seems to be completely unrelated to the devices. It’s an atemporal brand design it would be easy to produce on screen, as an app icon or in print and also looks as if it draws heavily on Asian influence. 

    You wouldn’t need to be able to read the characters to at least recognise the brand. With that in mind it would work in markets around the world. 

    All of that is makes for a really challenging design brief and the work done on the Kin logo is very impressive. 

    I’d go as far as to say that the Kin brand and products are unworthy of the Kin logo design 

    Microsoft Kin logo

    There is a noticeable stylistic similarity to the S|Double Studio logo from Shawn Stussy’s new clothing label.

    s|double

    And the S|Double logo reminds me of Asian seal designs used to sign documents and mark the ownership of artworks. 

    seal

    This is roughly what my given name would look like on a seal or chop in Chinese characters. 

    There is also a resemblance to Chinese design motifs in Chinese new year and wedding decorations. The one that immediately comes to mind for me is the double happiness character set that is incorporated into designs. 

    Such motifs are used in a repeated pattern across fabric weave, interior design prints and carvings. There is a certain irony in that the Kin logo: one of the most modern of graphic design assignments going back designs and principles that are millennia old. 

    I am curious to know if the Kin logo harking back to those designs was intentional, based on design research, or if it was happenstance. Both are probable likelihoods for this project. 

  • Data that matters

    Data that matters has impermanence – One thing that springs up periodically is how older electronic data becomes harder to access.

    Apple font pack disk from the mid 90s

    Whether its floppy disks that are no longer readable or optical disks which have become corroded through chemical reaction over time electronic data is generally impermanent.

    I lost a substantial amount of the posts on this blog two years ago when the server I used over at Yahoo! Small Business hosting went into meltdown 90 per cent of my blogging output between December 2006 and January 2008 disappeared. I managed to recover 10 per cent of the content from the Google cache of my blog.

    However it isn’t only digital artifacts that are at risk. I was going through bags of old papers and found my old P60s some of which could no longer be read since they were printed on thermal paper and my first payslip which was barely readable.

    my first proper pay slip

    This was from my first full-time job cleaning and repairing equipment that was rented out to building contractors including lawn mowers, concrete mixers and Makita power drills.

    You can also see paper go yellow from the acid used in its manufacture as well as fade from the carbon paper print.

    I had obviously put it away to keep it for posterity, but I decided to keep it in the cloud as I figure that it might last longer that way now. Though your guess is as good as mine. The thermal paper and Flickr’s business model are both tough things to fathom how robust they will be.

    The problem with this is often the data we don’t want to keep stays like embarrassing pictures on Facebook or a drunken rant on a Usenet forum, whereas the stuff we want to keep too often fades away. So how do we get better at looking after electronic data that matters? More online and internet related posts here.

  • 50 things that make me happy

    Pat Law published her list of 50 things that make her happy, which reminded me of a list I made back in November 2008 on things that made my day. Why 50 tings that make me happy?  The 50 is a challenge and a limitation in the writing of this post. Like Pat, I am not from Bhutan and maybe the wrong person to write about happiness, but what the heck. So this is where I started in coming up with my 50 things in no particular order:

    1. When someone gives their seat up on the tube for an elderly person or pregnant woman. Its a nice reminder that although civic society is on its knees, it isn’t dead yet. Saying that I once offered to give up my seat and the woman attempted to hit me, it seems she was just fat rather than pregnant – but don’t let that put you off being civic-minded
    2. Hallowe’en. Hallowe’en is my favourite holiday of the year. Its celebration doesn’t start in August like Christmas does in most supermarkets, it finishes the following day. It’s has the kitsch of Christmas trappings, but without the expense. Oh and settling down with a bag of popcorn to watch The Exorcist and The Crow is more fun to watch than an epsiode from the James Bond movie franchise and White Christmas
    3. A sunny spring day on Thurstaston Hill. Spring on the Wirral has an immense sense of energy, a sunny day lying on Thor’s Stone watching the clouds coming in from Liverpool Bay like a candy floss armada sailing over the Wirral
    4. Knowing that I love and am loved
    5. Getting to watch St Helens Saints winning games. Rugby league was once described by an Australian writer as a working-class opera and St Helens have been one of the most successful teams in recent years. I only really gained an appreciation of rugby league during my time at college in Huddersfield. Despite the poor performance of the Huddersfield Giants, the town had league in its bones – The George Hotel by the train station being the birthplace of rugby league. Unfortunately I don’t get to see them as much as I would like and the sport still doesn’t get the coverage that it deserves on television
    6. Fly New Balance kicks, my current favourites are the MT580 which I have in various colour-ways
    7. Stussy tops and my US naval aviator jacket
    8. Flying business-class with Cathay Pacific – they won’t go on strike, the food is decent and there is bound to be a couple of films on the entertainment system that I haven’t seen and are worth watching
    9. My MacBook Pro
    10. My iPhone once I discovered the Mophie Juice Pack
    11. Getting to put on my favourite flannel shirt. This shirt is an old workshirt from back when I worked in the oil industry that has been washed a huge number of times, making it unbelievably soft and giving it a faded check pattern that would be at home on My Name Is Earl. After putting this on, you can understand why grunge took off as a style – I know that my Australian colleague Nick Osborne thinks that this is a classic Bogan-style
    12. Getting to watch For A Few Dollars More. No matter how many times I see this film it still gives me an immense amount of pleasure to watch it. It is not as grand as Once Upon A Time In The West and not as well known as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but it has probably the best performances of Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood together on screen
    13. Watching pretty much any Wong Kar-wai film, but I have a particular soft spot for 2046 and In The Mood for Love
    14. Getting some time on my decks. Whilst many DJs have moved on to MP3s and CD players there is nothing quite like the tactile experience of mixing with vinyl records. Being able to read the track by the changes in the grooves, the sensation of low frequency sounds and the feel of cueing a heavy vinyl platter are unique
    15. Eating a slice of freshly cooked soda bread. Unlike yeast bread, I prefer to let the soda bread cool properly first and then tuck in.There is something about the whole tactile experience of eating soda bread with a thin scrape of butter and honey or as a side to some Galtee black pudding and white pudding
    16. A warm autumn day with haze so thick you can smell it
    17. Looking out on Victoria Harbour from the Harbour City branch of Starbucks
    18. My Cuisinart coffee machine in action
    19. Motorway driving at night with The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld or The KLF’s Chillout album on the stereo
    20. Finding myself in an airport on the far side of the world and being able to find a good newspaper stall, and have the time to sit down and read a copy of the Irish Independent or The Examiner
    21. Wondering around the Science Museum with my Dad and have him tell me about the different equipment in there and the machines that he has come across in his 50 or so years in engineering from lorry engines, to ships pumps and industrial motors
    22. Pottering around Gosh Comics and discovering a new graphic novel author. Forbidden Planet feels too much like a supermarket in many ways, whereas Gosh feels like the independent vinyl record shops that are rapidly disappearing from Soho
    23. Watching a good film in a decent cinema, despite all the technology there is still nothing quite the big screen. I love the passive entertainment of the cinema – very un-tech of me I know, but its true
    24. Waking up on a Sunday morning and hearing it raining outside whilst I am tucked up in bed
    25. Taking time out to listen to Sunday Miscellany
    26. The mid point in 50 things that make me happy: Hong Kong-style milk tea though its pretty hard to track down a good cup even in Chinatown, London. Caffiene and condensed milk mean that all the main food groups are covered
    27. Eating with friends in the Tsui Wah restaurant chain
    28. The smell of a turf fire
    29. Getting a new watch
    30. Taking a really great picture, mainly because it’s due to serendipity rather than any skill on my part
    31. Buying vinyl records, I love rifling through the trays at Phonica in Soho, it breaks my heart that great shops with knowledgeable shop assistants like Anthony Cox at the former Flying Records in Soho have been replaced by vegan fast food joints, wine bars and hedge funds
    32. Tripped out visuals like SIGGRAPH CGI shorts
    33. Reading the print editions of Wired (US edition) and Monocle magazines
    34. Shopping at a 7-Eleven in East Asia when the jetlag won’t let me get to sleep – its something about the colourful packaging design, retina-toasting lighting and junk food that they sell which fits in with the disconnectedness I feel
    35. The half-awake feeling you have when your duvet feels like you are wrapped in cotton wool
    36. Walking around Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Its a weird mix of space station and holy place. The light through the stained glass is spectacular
    37. Touch typing on a decent keyboard. How people are supposed to cope with the modern rubbery keys on Apple’s defaults keyboards now I have no idea. How the hell does a keyboard make you happy? I feel at one with the machine, I become less conscious of my own typing. The same goes for using a Kensington Expert Mouse rather than a conventional ‘hockey puck’ or trackpad
    38. Enjoying a modern art exhibition with someone knowledgeable so that you can discuss what you’ve seen
    39. Oil refineries at night, they way they are lit up like fallen down Christmas trees. I love asian cityscapes like Hong Kong island and Tokyo for the information overload and the intricate lights
    40. Going to sleep to the sound of a washing machine, sends me straight off, the white noise seems to give me interesting dreams as well. No idea why
    41. The night sky on  a clear summer night at my uncle’s farm so I can see the delicate star structures
    42. The feeling of smugness that I get after I have cleaned the house from top-to-bottom
    43. Buried in a good book whether its Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, a business book, graphic novel or an old counterculture text
    44. Sitting on my sofa and doing nothing after I have come in from a great night out. I tend to enjoy warehouse and squat parties now more than clubs in London at the moment. Think its the music and the vibe
    45. Finding a really great piece of design, whether its a cool piece of software, website, my Mystery Ranch backpack or accessible product design (like the Red Bull ring-pull with the bull cut out)
    46. Finishing a blog post, particularly if I have been using the post to think a concept out fully. I will often mind-map it in my moleskine as well
    47. Seeing my ideas make a difference, whether its to a clients business, changing the outlook of a course or conference attendee or having someone come up and discuss something articulated on here
    48. Winning an eBay auction, paying less than I had intended to
    49. Going to a really good thought provoking event like LIFT or some of the Barcamps
    50. This has felt like a marathon of a post! The final item in my 50 things that make me happy: when I interact with a bureaucracy and things turn out alright with little-to-no effort

    You’ve heard about the 50 things that make me happy, what would be the 50 things that make you happy?