Week Notes w/c 4th November
My attempts to resume regular week notes has not been successful. It’s not been for want of trying, I promise. The last couple of weeks in particular have been pretty full on. The problem hasn’t necessarily been one of having nothing to say, but more about finding the time to write. I’ve also got a couple of blog posts in various stages of development that I’m desperate to finish. The practice of noticing, collecting and sharing in preparation for Week Notes is working, even if I’m not getting to produce the finished article. Having two or three bigger things to think about and commit to paper is a nice feeling. It’s not always the case.
Here the challenge of time presents itself again - it’s tough to make time to write at the moment. However, some other challenges creep in too. Firstly, sharing. The finished work needs to be shared and sometimes I don’t want to. Alot of the stuff I want to write about is about work-related stuff and post Twitter, post Bluesky, post Post… Linkedin feels like it’s the only real avenue for sharing. I’m not sure I want to place my ideas about my work into such a work-orientated context, funnily enough. My views perhaps do not represent the views of my employer and it’s such a weird platform full of strategic renta-gobs. Never has this been more profoundly on display than in recent weeks when both Burger King and Tesco have launched new advertising campaigns. Both have been met by torrents of what is best described as hot air. Loads of criticism for the executions, the insight…. Never a word given to the things which might actually make a difference to the campaigns and their ability to sell product like media mix, media spend, campaign duration….
Secondly - detail. How much is too much? I’ve really enjoyed writing well crafted, well structured and well referenced blog posts in the past. But - not only is this not required by the medium, but it adds more time to get stuff finished. I don’t know whether I need to write everything as if I’m pitching it to WARC. In fact I’m sure I don’t but my inclination, at least at the moment, is to prepare my work in this way. I suspect some hypertext and some nice imagery, rather than stringent use of the Harvard APA system might significantly drive the volume of output up a few notches.
On the topic of writing - and more specifically, the topic of practice - Kate Wagner’s Own-Work Woodshed was one of the highlights of my reading this week. This line stood out in particular - “the prevailing capitalist idea that all writing has to have a ready-made audience, that it must be immediately polished, good, complete, innovative, and salable is antithetical to practice and therefore antithetical to writing”. Whenever I’m feeling unproductive, I shall come back to this. All writing is practice. And we know what practice makes, folks.
Doing
Barcelona for half term. It’s a fantastic city. Got to spend some time with friends and do loads of culture. P thoroughly enjoyed a visit to Gaudi’s Casa Batllo. Was less keen on Picasso or the Manifesta 15 show at The Three Chimneys. I thought the latter was ace.
Becoming all too apparent that the end of the calendar year is just around the corner and that means there is a need to start thinking about winding down for Christmas. At what point will present-day Tom start making things a problem for future Tom?
Reading
Finished The Trial by Kafka and also rattled through Humanise by Thomas Heatherwick. The latter was bought on a whim, but coincidentally spends a lot of time talking about Gaudi and how ugly (or boring) buildings negatively impact the communities they serve. I like the argument he makes, but find his blanket dismisall of Modernist Architecture a bit blunt. I’ve mentally filed this away under ‘Polemic’ thinking next to Gladwell and Adam Curtis. Both are very compelling story-tellers, but both also require a big suspension of disbelief too. If you look too closely, there are lots of cracks…. Some parallels between Heatherwick’s line of argument and the work that Adam Morgan and Peter Field are doing about the cost of dull advertising. I wonder whether the argument is less about ‘natural, human’ architecture vs. modern architecture than it is about original, creative thinking vs. ‘efficient’, mass-production. Here the parallel with advertising is interesting. In architecture we can’t all be Gaudi. In advertising , we can’t all be the next Hegarty or Droga. There feels like there is a big case of survivorship bias at work. The same buildings held up as case studies. The same IPA papers…Like Martin Amis asked… is the real war actually the war on clichè?
Readwise is stacked with good stuff from the last two weeks. I’ve made a note of so many great pieces on the developments in AI. I’m fascinated not only by the tech itself, but by the side-effects too. Dead Internet theory seems to be having a resurgence. And sludge seems to be making way for slop.
Watching
Disclaimer seems to be slowly improving.
Gangs of London is filling a hole. Not especially nourishing, or indeed pleasant, but it’s reasonably compelling.
Went to the theatre to see Coogan in Doctor Strangelove.
