Spams, Scams, data & the clicky tricks of E-vertisers

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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$13000, 3D, 4K, Airplane Simulation, Amazon, Animation, Aristocracy, Back Pain, Betrayal, BitCoin, Breastaurant, Brilliance, Cheap, Content, Contouring, Conundrum, Crystal Meth, data Cache, Data Science, desire, Diet, Digital Advertising, Divinity, Dragons, Dream, Drink, DRONE, Dystopian, e-vertising, Email Campaigns, Emails, entrepreneurship, Ergo, Exclusive, facebook, Game Changer, gene Pool, Genetic Risk, GOOGLE, GPS, Holidays, Hot, IMAGINATION, Inbox Management, Internet, KETO Slim, Logo & Website Design, love, Madonna, Mist, NEW PRODUCT, Penitentiary, Pigmentation, Pro, Prolapse Disc, Relaxation, Russian Women, Sciatica, Sensation, Shark Tank, Shrinking stomach, Skinny, Sleep, Smart Phone, smart phones, Smart Watch, Snoring, Social, technology, The Boss, Tigers, Tracker, True, Ukraine, Visual Experience, Vitiligo, VOGUE, X Men, X Rated

Nev

It seems we are only ever one click away from digital heaven or hell – the chiaroscuro of polluted data bases, email hijacks, scams, dark trading and the ugly beauty of spam and click-bait either flinging us skyward or casting us down into the digital lava of e-hell.

Internet searches can get dicey even with the most innocent of search terms. So staying vigilant and being careful helps.

God help you if you’re stupid enough to glaze over while scrolling emails [that’ll be me] or even staggeringly dumb enough to click on one that reads ‘Your Amazon Order Update & Competition Exclusive’ [that’ll be me again] especially if, on thinking about it, you weren’t actually expecting an Amazon or any other kind of order for that matter!! [And yes, still Me!]

But Lordy lord does your gut know the minute you click on that icon that you’ll rue the day you ever did. Perviously this kind of stuff would really irritate me – my inbox suddenly filled to spilling with mindless and pointless pap – honking scams, over-promise and tat. But as life goes on, I’ve started to quietly enjoy the spillage and taint of the ridiculous and spurious missives that land in my box.

And I’ve even started taking to building out a sort of emotional logic around them just to amuse myself!

So here is my take on the most recent batch of e-joy that’s popped into my world. I’ve snatched the most important first few lines just to show flavour. Enjoy!

Erase my Back Pain

1 weird stretch DESTROYS Back Pain & Sciatica

Pain Free!!

Delicious! Free anything is good – but PAIN and FREE and two screamers? Wow. I just feel the need to use 13 ‘screamers’ in celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!! And this one’s actually relevant to me. I had a prolapse L1/L2 disc some years back, and the terrible sciatica from it destroyed me. So the chance to DESTROY it back with an obtuse physical gesture makes me very happy.

Get perfect Little toes in as little as 3 days

Nail Vitamin Deficiency

Mother natures recipes

But not as happy as the idea of perfect little toes. Anyone that can save me from my Frodo feet gets a prize. And there is a certain messianic thread to the 3 day promise. And on the third day my feet will effectively rise from their calloused, shoe-stuffed grave to throw light and beauty into the world. Who knew. And that it is Mother Nature doing the raising of my dead feet, all the better.

ACADEMIA

You read the paper Genetic Risk and Reproductive Decision Making:

Read this paper too!

Punchy. And you are correct – yes I did. But that doesn’t mean I would subsequently like you to send me an update every time someone puts out a white paper with the words ‘genetic’, ‘reproductive’, ‘decision-making’ or ’Risk’ in the title or sub-head. Or for that matter any derivative of the above, words – e.g. gene, or risk – or associated key words, compounds, synonym/antonym comparatives – or any random fridge-magnet approach to key word search stuff you may choose to push at me. Come to think of it, perhaps a peer-reviewed White Paper on The Impact on Intellectual Discourse of the Vulgar Monetisation of Academic Mediocrity might be a whizz.

Diabetes will kill you!

Blood Sugar Formula – Mother nature’s recipes

No shit. Will it? I absolutely never, ever knew that. My mother was diabetic – late onset, in her 60s by the time it snuck into view with its thin-lipped, mean-spirited needling and blooding. But she managed it with remarkable elegance and aplomb. And no, it did not kill her. But its presence in her life did really, really irritate her for a while, much like the reoccurrence of all this scruffy E-vertising in my life.

XPHONE

One of the best smart phones in the world

Offers a true visual experience at a very cheap price

Lummey. An X phone. What, like an X Men phone? Incredible. No? Oh, or X-rated? Weird. But strangely modern. Anyway. None of this matters. As this is one of the best. But not the best though? I think your ambitions are a little frail at the end there, guys. Or are we worried about over selling – in email – spam? How can this matter when a phone offers a true visual experience. What does that even mean? Are the pictures and films true to the originals? Like they actually play them without creating untrue versions of them? Do phones do that? Play unreal films? Like, swapping out original content and playing a pirated or faux version of it – to avoid licensing fees? A sort of digital mobile BeKindRewind strategy. Hmmm. This X Phone is a conundrum.

Invest in bitcoin and the life of your dreams

Earn 13,000 in exactly 24 hours riding the bitcoin wave

Only 3 free copies still available

But not as much of a conundrum as deciding what dream life I’m going to take a run at with the 9 bucks a minute I’m earning investing in bitcoin over the next 24 hours. Get In. And, note, it isn’t 23 hours and 49 minutes – or 24 hours and 32 minutes. Be very clear – this is ‘exactly 24 hours’. And it is 24 hours with attitude. This 24 hours is no slacker – no slouch. This 24 hours surfs! This 24 hours carves off the lip of the bitcoin WAVE! How cool is that! Every minute’s worth of that $13,000 – every 9 bucks of it – comes dripping with bitcoin spume. BUT hold on. There’s a sort of Stranger Things thing going on here, no? I could have SWORN that the only 3 free copies still available went weeks ago. So there must be a universal 3 somewhere. Like deities perhaps. Eternal. Invisible. A trinity of Bitcoin Divinity existing only in Upside Down world.

DRONE 4K Camera

Best affordable drone just hit the market

Adventure unfolds with the MACVAIR

Got it. I know how to find out whether the Trinity of Bitcoin Divinity exists in Upside Down world – send in the DRONE 4K camera. And not any old DRONE 4K. We’re talking the most affordable – which means cheap, right? As I really don’t want to be splurging even one cent more than I have to of my 13,000 bucks – no way. But MACVAIR gets that, right? They know that searching for a Trinity Divinity of Bitcoin in Upside Down internet world is an ADVENTURE, right? And that shit is going to UNFOLD. And let’s face it – if I pull this off, find the trinity of bitcoin divinity, convert the 13K in 24 hours [exactly], I am hot stuff. I am off the scale desirable. EVERYONE will be chasing me down. Wanting a piece of me…

Positions available – YOU’RE HIRED

2 position available GOOGLE & facebook

So let’s put it another way GOOGLE. Lets re-frame this facebook. I’ll decide whether YOU’RE HIRED. Hows about that? Not the other way around. Do you know who the actual f%&* I am? I am the wave-riding, drone-flying Bitcoin Trinity Divinity Slayer. I have the last 3 copies, purged from Upside Down World. I DECIDE who hires and fires. Not you. And just by-the-by, if you are going to even dare approach me, I suggest you make that 100 positions available – as I am now obviously worth a hundred of your usual talent quality. Just saying.

Lillian

This drink is the answer to becoming skinny

Your stomach will shrink fast

Shark Tanks new product is a diet sensation!

Oh I see. So you’re implying that I not only carry the intellectual mettle and heroic weight of one hundred people but also the physical mass of them? Well, if the Shark Tank thinks it’s a diet sensation, how could I possibly refuse. These people are the leading, bleeding edge of entrepreneurship and business nous. Sharks, Dragons, Tigers. They are a menagerie of business brilliance. And if they say that this will indeed be the answer to becoming skinny, how could I question that – other than asking on which planet the originator of the delusional waffle lives? A dystopian one liberally scattered with Crystal Meth and freely available prescription opiates, punctuated with double-fronted fixed trailers lying unnervingly close to a breastaurant, a breakers yard and a penitentiary I’d wager. But hell – let’s try it!

Track

Rest easy and never worry about your car being stolen again

Richard Berg says

It works like a charm! CAUTION Make sure you really want to know what you might find out. This thing tracked my wife and her boyfriend into the middle of nowhere

If this push email trail is anything to go by I probably NEED to drink myself skinny, as my united-state-of-largesse has patently rather put off my other half, potentially to the degree that, much like Mr Berg here, if I were to track them to the middle of nowhere I might otherwise find my loved one in fiercely repeated receipt of someone else’s largesse. But hey, you know what? Knowing the exact GPS location of that rutting betrayal completely takes the sting out of it. In fact, it allows me to rise above it all through smartly applied technology. Track allows me to be the bigger person and take the bigger view. Thank you Track.

Stop Snoring device

The mist that stops you snoring

New invention gives hope to all of those suffering from chronic snoring

And now that we’ve broached the issue of the fading and faltering nature of personal desirability, this email allows me to embrace the wider ambition. Why stop at just getting skinny quick to alleviate the possibility of philandering and betrayal. That over-carbureted nasal exhaust is hardly likely to get the lower engine running and the pheromones firing, unless one finds oneself lying furtively next to a member of the Sus Scrofa family. So the misty blue yonder of non-snoring hope is beckoning me.

SMART WATCH

The smart watch that watches out for your health

The smart watch that big tech companies don’t want you to know about

Have you been wanting a smart watch. Well now you can afford one!!

Now, fatuous, fat, snoring, dream-life-living greatness aside, I have never claimed to be smart enough for my phone. I am indeed a stupid man in charge of a smart device. At most recent reckoning I have estimated that I use, at best, about 3% of the functionality of my phone.

So IMAGINE what I felt when I saw that a watch, smarter than my phone even, will look after my health. And what’s more, it will do it TO SUCH DEGREE that Apple and Microsoft just won’t want me to know about it. Wowsers. Could it get any better?

XonePhone

Theres a new smart phone. You can’t ignore its performance and price

Wow-wheezers. It just did. Game change! I agree. It is night on impossible to ignore the words performance and price. Well, that’s what it says in Killing it in the Email Sales Dept 101 Guide to Successful product sales. Helluva key word focus. How do they do it? It would be so easy to stumble into mediocrity in this game, sliding down the greasy chute of indifference towards lowest common-denominator schtick and sleazy selling – but all these guys manage to keep that quality bar so high it makes me dizzy.

Drone X Pro

Limited time sale on drones

Foldable quadcopter with wide angle batteries [US]

Speaking of which, the DRONE X Pro just feels like its going to take me up to a whole new level. Foldable! What the wahoo is that all about? But it sounds really exciting. But if I’m really brutally honest, the thing that hooked me through the lip like some digital grouper is the idea of ‘wide angle batteries.’ Frankly that is simply genius. Not only is the lens wide-angle but the batteries too. I’ve no idea of the technical nature or material build or the power engineering required to enable a battery to both power the unit AND expand the retinal capacity of the lens on the on-board camera. But that’s got to be worth stacks! Thats worth swag-money.

KETO SLIM DIET

Shark Tank Investors LOVE miracle weight loss pill

50 lbs. in 61 days: No New Exercise Skinny Pill melts Belly fat

And swag money is the name of the game with these Shark Tank kids. KETO slim diet is feeling like my kind of miracle weight loss pill. And the Sharks LOVE it. That makes this one hot. So hot in fact, that it ‘melts’ belly fat. ‘Melts!’ How cool is that. A kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nazi-Face-Melting moment…but for belly fat [national socialist or otherwise]. You’d need something pretty powerful if you’re going to lose 50lbs in 61 days so something akin to the power of the Christian faith’s Almighty God as vested in the Ark of The Covenant seems like a pretty sensible choice. I mean it could be a scam but there’s something so trustworthy in phrases like No New Exercise Skinny Pill. It just SMACKS of integrity and professional discretion. I’m in.

Ryan Oliver

Get this new diagnostic Tool and Save Money

Prevent car repair scams …as opposed too online ones…

Hang On. Ryan. You beauty you. Scams! You read my mind. And not just those of the car variety. Car scams. Diet scams. Technology scams. Bitcoin scams. Ryan you are the man of the moment. So, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to suggest something. Might you ever consider getting together with Sheila, MACVAIR, the Shark Tank guys, Richard Berg and Lillian and create one universal Diagnostic Tool that prevents all and every kind of scam? That would be thrilling.

Meet a Lovely Russian Woman Today

RussianWomenDate.com

International Russian And Ukranian dating

Free membership will close in 01:02:47

Now this is fascinating on three levels. First of all I sense there may be a role for the Universal Diagnostic Tool here as the countdown clock seems to be stuck at 01:02:47 – so free may not be as free as you think anymore. Secondly, I find it remarkable that one needs a site to meet Russian ladies. There was a perfectly charming young Russian lady on the train the other day, travelling to the airport with her father I believe. [It demonstrates just how conservative and old fashioned the Russian culture is. A young 20-something Western-European woman wouldn’t be seen dead going on holiday with her father!] And thirdly I am quietly surprised how blatant the Russian Annexation of the Ukraine has become. I mean land is one thing but appropriating the woman as yours seems rather arrogant and presumptive if you ask me, especially if you then flaunt them on a dating site.

Sheila Andrews

Logo and Website design for my business

Attract more new customers …

But bless Sheila for being the absolute antithesis of all that arrogance and sleaze and complex Ponzi style selling schtick. Simple. Straight up. Honest. Logo and Website design for my business. Do you know what Sheila – if I had a slew of small, low-level, low-grade slightly shady, grubby businesses all scrabbling to make a good impression in an on-line world, before I let them send one email, I’d have them sitting in front of you talking logos and websites. And that’s a promise.

Ergo Relax

Best travel pillow that ever hit the market

Rest even in difficult conditions

Phew. All of this typing on trains is making me rather sleepy. Can you imagine then how thrilled I was when I saw this. I am in a chair. I can sit back. It is possible to close my eyes – ergo, I can relax. But what really snagged my curiosity on the broken fence of promises is the fact that Ergo Relax tells me that I can rest even in difficult conditions. Holy Moly. So, though I may have made an inappropriate slur for which someone chose to press charges, I would still sleep like a baby! I could tuck in for 40 winks with flood water rising about me. And a good night’s sleep in the midst of a climate crisis beckons. Amazing. Ergo Relax is not to be sniffed at, either with or without Snoring mist.

3D Airplane games

ProFlight Simulator

Presenting the most realistic flight simulator ever created

I can’t pretend to be anything other than a tiny weeny bit suspicious of this. I have a lot of love for simulation tech in all of its guises. And I know that the track records of the USAF and Boeing leave a lot of room for people who might create superior flight simulations and trainers that prepare people to a] not crash and b] not bomb the wrong people. But when I’m told that this is the most realistic flight simulator ever created I am stunned into humble silence. Perhaps this is the issue. The real geniuses are to be found not in Bomber Command or Boeing’s testing team but here, discreetly and humbly selling the most realistic flight simulator ever quietly in the furrows and margins of the internet and my inbox. No accolade chasers or plaudit junkies them. A small profitable stipend from an email campaign is more than enough.

Herpes Simplex

Medical Mystery. How did their Herpes disappear

Hi If you or a loved person suffer from herpes simplex it is urgent that you do not go another day without the powerful information in the following lines

Didn’t you see the news? Its a revolt!

Perhaps this might explain the shyness of our majestic simulator designers. They may have been so busy creating the most realistic flight simulator EVER that they missed the revolt, the news passed them by and they continued to live another day and another day without this powerful information in the following lines [whatever that might mean.] Can you blame them for choosing to stay rather discretely out of the glare of fame and fortune.

Canvas Print Ads

Add to your holiday collection

Hmmmn. I wonder whether our reclusive simplex flight engineers might just be a little down. Perhaps they might just need a lift of some sort. Something to jolly them up a bit. Digging out a picture of favourite holiday moments and suchlike can be a real tonic especially when rendered across the highest quality synthetic canvas. I know someone whom has two rather fetching canvas prints of themselves throwing what someone mistakenly referred to as a VOGUE shape at the Casino club, Guildford on MADONNA NIGHT, while sporting a wet-suit and a rather fetching fedora. An easy mistake to make but, for the record, they report that they were simply gesturing to the fire exit due to the fact that the person in front of them looked so HOT they thought they might well burst into flames. That the person happened to be both my associates boss and also their bed mate probably explains why said associate got a raise and was fired, all in one 24 hour period. But to be clear, it wasn’t EXACTLY 24 hours. No bitcoin investment there. Nor a professional Reference for that matter

Professional Who’s Who

Nominated for inclusion

On the subject of professional credentials, imagine my surprise when the e-call came to join the rarified ranks of the professional aristocracy. But Who Knew Professional Who’s Who even existed? And a nomination for inclusion no less. I am always up for inclusive action. Diversity is a really strong suit at the moment in corporate circles so nominating people for inclusion strikes me as a very enlightened action on Who’s Who’s part. Thank God their email arrived frankly. I was starting to think ‘What? Is every email a scam or a prank?’ So here’s to your professional rigour and enlightened inclusivity programme Professional Who’s Who.

Ultra Boost WiFi

No More Buffering! WiFi boost speeds up your internet

Your cure for spotty internet

Buffering. I must confess I LOVE this word. [Note to self: beware excessive use of screamers, capitals and absence of punctuation induced by protracted periods of time looking at push emails from shite businesses, products, faux brands and personalities.] Buffering implies a fierce circular attention to something, involving friction and some form of rotation or animation. So I can imagine that once someone’s stopped buffering this liberates a massive cache of energy to apply in some other direction – to power the WiFi connection for instance. That we can give that surge of redirected energy a boost just fills me with utter joy. Currently my wi-fi wheezes along at barely a breath. If I was of a mind to take up contouring as a new face-forward make-up solution, I’d be stuffed. It would take an age to play even the smallest section of a 2 hr 32m Contouring Tutorial – to such degree that I would probably take to spending enormous tracts of time seemingly in a creeping state of tribalism – given that, at any point in the day, the marks on my face would have developed in some really slow flick-book animation of an abstracted patch pattern effect – a sort of snail’s pace Tyson-face tattoo – part Maori part Bobbi Brown part Shrigley.

But nonetheless, all’s well with Ultra Boost. And that it cures spotty internet is a matter for religious level celebration. Hallelulia. No more teenage internet angst. No more screen scrubbing. No more microbeaded bandwidth. Internet spots are gone forever!

De Pigmentation

I am vitiligo free and so much healthier and confident overall.

Vitiligo Miracle

Cure Vitiligo holistically

Much it seems as will be the ones on my hands face and other extremities, very, very soon. As the words set out, I may well be Vitiligo free with this holistic miracle. I have had Vitiligo for a few years and it is spreading. Though I am aware of it, especially when I have been in the sun, it has always been a visual thing for me. So LORD, I never knew that I might be unhealthy because of it? Unhealthy? How? Herpes. But I’ve got news on a natural remedy revolt for that. Obesity? Screw that, as I’ve got two Shark Tank approved skinny making pills and something from a lady called Lillian for that baby. Diabetes? I can kill it before it kills me. Back Pain? Again, one ninja move and a weird stretch and that baby’s history – so not that. Which leaves me little to worry about. My anxiety seems to have ebbed away.

And how amazing – my confidence… has soared! It’s true. I am going to be absolutely fine!

As all of the wonder emails have told me. I am the answer. I only need act. Perfect.

Seems simple enough to me. But hang on. Just got to read the 347 emails that have just popped up in my inbox.

But then I’m getting RIGHT to it.

er compromising on quality

Being organised with time and resources

Utilising available learning

Taking care of EHL property

Making productive use of available technology

Being productive with time

Sharing knowledge

Living the 7 steps of service excellence every day

Ensuring processes are implemented and followed

Meet your deadlines

Understand our business

Be a champion of sustainability

Measure and evaluate the impact of your decisions

Never compromising on quality

Being organised with time and resources

Utilising available learning

Taking care of EHL property

Making productive use of available technology

Being productive with time

Sharing knowledge

Living the 7 steps of service excellence every day

Ensuring processes are implemented and followed

Meet your deadlines

Understand our business

Be a champion of sustainability

Measure and evaluate the impact of your decisions

A New Deal on Data.

20 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Anna Middleton, big data, Collaboration, Consultation, Culture, DNA, GDPR, Genetics, Genomics, Genomics England, Health, Healthcare, Humanity, innovation, Julian Borra, lifestyle, people powered, Precious Data, Science, society, technology, The General Public, Vivienne Parry, Wellcome Sanger Institute

Articulating the contract between science and people

By Anna Middleton¹, Vivienne Parry², Julian Borra³

ARE YOU WITH US?

For most of us it is hard to unpick the various declarations, assurances and guarantees made regarding the sanctity of our data. Even the General Data Protection Regulation still feels quite far removed from the everyday lives of ordinary people and is seemingly absent of any consultation with them. People need to both see and hear proof that they’ve been listened to. And they will act against anyone who seems to wilfully dismiss or disregard them – with every right to do so. With Facebook recently under the spotlight, there is tangible alarm about the use of our personal information by others. A breach of confidence or inappropriate access to data becomes really sensitive when we consider our most precious and personal information. In a health sense, what is more personal than our DNA? It’s what makes us ‘us’.

We broadly know that scientists, clinicians and academic institutions collect, store, research and share DNA and medical information as part of the global endeavours to understand human health and treat human suffering. As part of this endeavour DNA information bounces around the Internet on an unbelievably massive scale, in ways unknown to the person who donated the data.

We probably expect ‘science’ is gathering, storing, analysing and sharing our data with respect, transparency and integrity. Whilst we hope that there is choice in this and we hope that we have actively consented, have we ever really discussed this as a collective society? Is this even possible?

Is it widely known that particularly for genetic research it is only possible to interpret what a glitch in DNA means if there are hundreds of thousands of DNA glitches from other people to compare it to. So, Big Data and DNA go hand in hand and are necessary for genomic medicine to deliver on its promises.

But, if science is truly going to serve humankind in the best way possible we need to be clear on the terms of the interaction and transaction with people, on their terms. And to do that we need a simple and clear conversation; to be certain that we can fulfil their demands or at least understand their desires and concerns.

The need for a PEOPLE POWERED conversation

THE WHY?

A. The world of data is leaky.

B. Society’ hasn’t yet been part of a clear conversation.

When thinking about A. we have to be honest. Nothing is perfect. No data is 100% secure. No system is flawless. No regulation is absolute. No cache of information is 100% bullet proof – and if anyone promises that, they’re over promising.

This is a given that we have got to accept.

The type of data we are talking about here is the purest most precious kind, fundamental to our identity and existence. DNA and linked medical data – the foundational stuff that makes us who we are. Whilst our data might be ‘de-identified’, i.e. our name and address has been uncoupled from it, ‘anonymity’ cannot be absolutely guaranteed, because health information can always be linked to other personal information that is also on the web, and in our increasingly data-connected world, it is entirely feasible that we could, in theory, be identified from our DNA alone.

Which brings us to the B.

There are a lot of companies and regulatory bodies that broadcast commitments and assurances about data use. But as there has been no collective societal ‘sign up’ – so the pronouncements and commitments could be seen as one-sided. Aside from (relatively small scale) targeted engagement initiatives, there hasn’t yet been a global two-way conversation. No complete consultation. No reciprocity. No serious voice given to the most important people and the principal recipients of the good works undertaken with their data.

This is especially problematic when it comes to trying to get more people to share their precious DNA – their genome – to advance medical research and progress healthcare. Which is why the scientists need to ‘go first’ with starting this conversation.

THE CRUNCH

To move forwards we need:

the medical, clinical and academic institutions and the policy makers to clearly articulate the assumptions behind ‘people’s best interests’ and make this available for debate.
society to accept the tiny risk inherent in sharing their data with individuals, organisations.

We need the people on both sides to be in this together – mutually accepting and supporting the power of precious data sharing to make life better.

GOING FORWARDS

Drawing up the New Deal

Simplicity is key. Two clear parties. Two clear beneficiaries. And equally mutual rewards.

Consultation

This is a reciprocal people-powered deal that brings both sides together for better. And the people’s voice must be consulted, heard and written into it.

This will require a comprehensive consultation process involving ordinary people from all walks of society.

This should involve Qualitative and Quantitative explorations and interrogations of the topic and the terms of the deal. It should involve experts in large-scale, population engagement techniques.

How do we start the conversation?

We need a starting point for that conversation – an ‘in’; and starting with the genome isn’t it. We know from our own research that the vast majority of the broader public have not yet encountered the term. However, more than 90% of the public are online and feeding their data into the grid. Thus ‘data’ is the conversation starter that can take us to DNA.

The binary algorithms that once sat invisibly inside tech tools that serve humanity –- have now become visible – data has become a ‘thing’. Something we can point at, hold up, scrutinise and hold accountable. Data and its big brother, Big Data, are now discussed, interrogated and judged everywhere from the Senate Commission to Mumsnet.

So, Data; our relationship with it; and with those who harvest, explore and administer it ‘on our behalf’ gives us a rich area from which to begin.

The conversation needs to focus on how science and humanity collaborate and win, together.

Communication

Language and Tone are everything. Pub and school gate rules apply (i.e. it can be discussed anywhere and everyone can participate). This is a People Powered Deal. Not a Protocol.This is a simple deal that respects and honours every human’s right to control their own data destiny. And confidently go into an agreement where they believe that the terms will be upheld to the best of everyone’s ability. Which means it must be couched in clear simple terms.

Distribution

We need the New Deal to be visible to all at every level. This will require a robust channel strategy – so we would also need to test best channels for spreading the word. And answer some pretty simple questions: Is it an event based news worthy event? Is it a web based platform for commitment with visible partners? Is it a socially driven call for better – a clarion call where we give the New Deal to the people and get them to use it as a lever to agitate for better – a movement.

We feel it is time for science and policy to scrutinise their direction of travel – with less rhetoric about the benefits of research and delivery of science (i.e. going in one direction from them to us) and more about serving humankind, recognising that we are all in this together. We, collectively are a partnership and we need the people of society to feel they sit with the scientists so that the journey into human discovery is one made together.

¹Head of Society and Ethics Research, Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge

²Head of Engagement, Genomics England, London

³Citizen, Founder of Thin Air Factory, London

Fridge magnets, Porpoise & the power of language in Innovation.

15 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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#mayarse, Anarchy, Blackadder, Corporate Speak, Creativity, Digital, Easter Island, Genome, Guttenberg Press, Identity, Idiom, kaizen, Language, Porpoise, punctuation, purpose, Roald Dahl, rote, Slang, social networks, Socialising the Genome, Sound, Tabloids, technology, The BFG, vernacular, Vinyl, Wax Cylinders, Yoda

Words are funny things.

Haphazard, abstract, profound, silly, shape shifting, infinitely playful, confounding, eternally powerful and utterly malleable. Language is a remarkable technology.

Glyphs, scratches and symbolic signing of sounds eventually dragged kicking and screaming into some vaguely coherent order that ticks a few syntactical boxes and language rules and shazzam! the fun begins.

Suddenly these scatters and blocks of marks, letters and symbolic sounds forge themselves into desires expressed, thoughts formed, theories expounded, opinions offered, information fixed, stories told and dreams captured. Sounds cut into the wax cylinder of our minds and played out through sharp stone point, stylus, quill and nib onto cloth, wood, parchment, stone and flax.

And our eyes scan across them and our tongues run along them like a needle in a vinyl groove, transforming them into the sound of speaking.

As time has marched the expression of our expression has been altered by the nature of how we generate the text. We have hopped skipped and jumped from painful rendering every letter by hand over vast tracts of time, illuminated by curlicues, cartoons, motifs and scenes – and the silent furious industry of re-rendering the same again and again for the benefit of a rare few – to carved crafted blocks to be set in lines, paragraphs and pages – inked rolled and pressed into sheets to be shared and distributed amongst the many.

Technology elevates technology as the presses become mechanised and the inks become jets. Vast universal printed broadsheets supplemented by the intimate particular of typing machines that throw metal letters through ink ribbons onto pages layered with carbons for multiple copies. Until the binary marks of programmes on a different ribbon digitised everything at the speed of light.

So we now find ourselves with the ability to use these marks and symbols at the speed of swipe and type in real time to fire them across the world via networks and platforms.

Yes the books still fill shelves and the magazines still scatter coffee tables. But they have become the paper monoliths of what was. The printed word and how we consume it versus how we consume its digital cousin have become fundamentally different.

For your words to be ‘in print’ still carries a deeper value. Words on a physical printed page feel more meaningful, eternal, immortal. They are the Easter Island Statues of the written word. Their digital counterparts the writing in the sand on the beach.

The way new technologies have gamified they way we think and more importantly the way we express those thoughts through writing enables a very particular kind of playfulness rooted in eclectic multidirectional multi channel distribution. The Ephemeral Passing nature of the txt blog tweet and the written content of the live in-flow constant beta site allows everyone to ‘play’ – text as balls to be lobbed tossed kicked, rolled and scattered in every direction, only to return transformed, tweaked, built upon liked loved berated and bludgeoned.

The creativity inherent in the technology of language and subsequently in the technology we use to generate language in flow seems to have two forms when it comes to words and how we express ourselves with them.

Creativity is still as much about liberating expression as it is about liberating distribution. Language as a technology has been tinkered and played with by everyone from the lowest order to the highest mind since the technology was invented. Derivation. Disruption. Disorder. All of these traits have been alive in the spoken and written language since its inception.

New technology does not advance innovation. It accelerates our ability to unpack and play with the given wisdoms and expressions to seek something new and different. This is the fuel of innovation – new technology merely the accelerator. And the role of language in innovation and technology’s ability to accelerate it is remarkable.

Word play – a lightness of spirit and a subversive nature in regards to language – has always enjoyed turning the given rules upside down and back to front – messing with words and language because we can – as a mark of our individual nature and curiosity.

Thats why vernaculars and slang and idiom are so important to individuals – and why corporate language is so disliked avoided and derided by ordinary people. Corporate language and ‘speak’ smacks of an Order of the Few inflicted on the Spirit of the Many.

It is an intellectual door policy – if you ain’t got a ticket you can’t come in – the bouncer on the door of the exclusive club.

Ordinary people like to own and share the language they use to express their most individual selves, in their own way on their own terms. They reserve the right to speak as they wish, express in the manner they feel most comfortable with.

It is unsurprising that fads and trends especially in the highly socialised accelerated age see @everything and #anything already running out of steam. This is not due to the academics deriding them. It is mainly due to ‘rules’ being applied. A new higher order or High Priest of Digital Expression has risen out of the chaos – defining rules of use and relevance. Thankfully it spikes the oldest of human responses. Dissent.

Rules? #myarse.

The intellectualisation of language will always occur while the human nature of assertion and pursuit of social exclusivity remains. We simply can’t help ourselves.

Language gets used to include and exclude. It always has and it always will in some shape or form. It is a tool in our tendency to assert and control. You’re not in our club. How you order sentences. How you punctuate. How you correct and edit yourself. How you use common signifiers of expression. Words and language are the cutlery of expression. How you use your knife speaks volumes about you. And there will always be those that use it against you.

BUT.

If thats the case, I say fill your boots. Subvert at every opportunity. Break a language rule everyday. Smash the shackle.

Start with fridge magnets and madness. before you take one step towards the workplace, make some shit up out of a load of words on the fridge. Set your mind free. Gobbledegook is good for the soul. Have a BFG day. Using phantasmapoppingful words. Go Yoda and reorder a sentence – like someone’s put a Germanic grammar filter on your English. Pop some nonsense in a sensical world. Embrace puns at every opportunity.

And if you’re in business – especially one that involves speaking to ordinary people – use pub speak in board meetings. Ask a 70 and a 7 year old to edit the CEOs keynote. And see the tyrannical use of language for what it is. An ugly veneer behind which mediocrity and insecurity can often lurk.

If you are working with multiple nationalities there has to be some common ground. But at least allow every one to bring a little of their own cultural idiom into the room before you set out on some highly controlled over strung and soul-less corporate conversation. Allow their free mind out as a matter of course. Build a ‘Sling Some Slang’ into every meeting. Allow each nationality to ‘play’ in their own language and share it. You will be far more likely to find yourself with human beings in the room. Much more helpful to collaboration and co creation.

Innovation starts with language and how it is used and embraced. Rote cultures create Rote people. And innovation and creativity withers on the vine. The confidence to ‘mess’ with language shows an ability to break from the norm, to turn something upside down and the wrong way around to take a different view. Mistakes are the fuel of invention. Failure is a central tenet of Kaizen. We should embrace failings in language. Before dispensing with them, check to see if there is anything good hidden in there.

So can everything be chaos and subversion? No. Like anarchy, it only exists meaningfully if there is a counterpoint to it to keep it relevant and focused. If everyone is an anarchist. Their is no anarchy. Just conformity.

A perfect example of deconstructive/destructive language play was to be found in a conversation I had with a friend of mine. Both utterly child-like far to often, we found ourselves discussing Purpose and Purposeful businesses and the manner in which this word has been taken and chiseled into a corporate straight jacket. It has lost its original profundity; replaced with a pompous self-righteousness. We found ourselves having to use ‘cod’ Noo Yawker accents to continue the conversation with any feeling.

So Purpose became Poiypuss. What! Who knoo! Badda bing badda boom. I gotta poiypuss ‘n’ I’m gonna use it.

Cue more cod accenting until eventually Blackadder and the Prince and The Porpoise sketch prevailed. And so Purpose became Porpoise.

Happiness.

PORPOISE. The prefect name for an agency that believes deeply in Purpose but with a profound dislike for the way in which it has been hijacked; made humourless, confined, dislocated; rendered inhuman and spiritless.

Porpoise. Creating Purpose with a difference: purpose with a human touch. Nice logo. Disney meets Vector with a scattering of fun.

Ridiculous. perhaps. But I do have evidence that this childlike view of the world can sometimes create breakthroughs in communication and engagement.

In a recent project – Socialising the Genome – I worked with Dr Anna Middleton to try and unpack the arcane language of Genomic science and the impenetrable academic and clinical terminology it uses when speaking to ordinary people. The objective? To be able to engage with a greater number of ordinary people around the benefits of GENOMIC science and data gathering to improve individual and collective health care.

We found that in almost every qualitative research group people had a tendency to drop the first E in GENOME, and quickly deconstruct it into something far more friendly and more palatable and less scary. GNOME.

So the massed intellect, discovery and genius at work in the world of GENOMIC science and discovery – and the gateway to understanding our most precious personal selves and the data that defines it – was enshrined in a picture of a small bearded man with a fishing rod. Cue Double Helix fish and chats about fishing in our DNA for answers – and the idea that sometimes that fishing just comes up with an old shopping trolley and river bed junk. And sometimes with something more remarkable and enlightening.

So language – a beautiful technology accelerated by newer ones. But it is not sacrosanct. It demands that we flex with it, play with it, mess it up, test its edges. Because in doing so we test our selves and the ideas we have – and through it we find new iterations and expressions.

Which is a good thing, No?

LANGUAGE NOTE: My use of No? at the end of the final sentence is in homage to the idioms of the French “…, nest pas?”, the Spanish “…, No?”, the Scandinavian “…, Nej? and the Glaswegian “know whit ah mean, big man, no?” and ending one’s sentence with an upward inflection “No?”.

And because it really, really irritates purists – as does the doubling up of adverbs like ‘really’.

Big Bags, travelling light & the escalator of life.

04 Monday May 2015

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Conspicuous Consumption, Evolution, Hand Luggage, Identity, Kevlar, Kings Cross Station, Lighter Living, technology, Wall-e, Wheelie Bags

There I was. Kings Cross station. Coming up from the fusty depths of the Northern Line. The station is a little, lets say, mobbed. I see a young woman. A tourist. Spanish I believe. A scientific wonder wheels along at her side.

Its a wheelie bag Jim, but not as we know it!

This bag she wheels is staggering. Its shiny pearled finish is a disingenuous mirage to belie its capacious interior. You could murder people and transport them in this bag.

These are the luggage children of the ergonomic performance fetish. This is the world of the Snugpack Roller Kit Monster 120L. And Kipling’s Youri Spin Suitcase. This is the world of the behemoth ‘hand luggage’ wheelie case.

The super strength outer casing owes more to the military industrial complex than a bag-maker: the box mounted swivel wheels ergonomically balanced in 4 corners bring the soft polymer whoosh of a hi-end Venice beach skateboard to the airport and railway terminus. I half expect there to be some form of skype wall and an MP3 player tucked in the seams somewhere.

I can see the advert now:

Hand luggage has evolved. The New kevlar frame Darwin Wheelie Bag with smart pocketing, GPS, X-ray friendly tech lining and Panic Room. Hand luggage will never be the same again.

Correct.I am uncertain as to whose ‘hands’ this luggage was scaled for? Chewbacca? The Yeti? Bruce Banner’s slightly grumpy alter ego travelling companion? Jack The Giant slayer will be not too far behind this piece of conveyance.

Hand Luggage was originally designed for those that needed to travel lightly through the world. Uncluttered by cumbersome and barely needed debris and the pillars and stones of faux domesticity. Hand Luggage was going places. The athlete of luggage. Striding past the suitcase and the trunk and the ‘Oversize’ Luggage Conveyor. Svelte and lean, packed for speed and efficiency. Slipping effortlessly and seamlessly from plane train to automobile. Not any more.

For some reason I found the girl’s case a wonderful metaphor for the over-sized, over cranked life we lead. The was no shadow of smarter lighter living going on here. The light effortless art of living we once may have known seemed, in her case (pardon the pun) to have been obscured by an enormous weighty bag.

We live lives enabled by all kinds of ingenious brilliant stuff. Feats of engineering abound. Technology haring along at light fibre speed. Apps that wipe our backside for us; and remind us to tell people we love that we love them. Networks that create friends for us. Platforms that plan our virtually parallel lives for us. Algorithms that predict when we might think something all by ourselves. We use the technology to deny the weight we carry. The burdensome, leaden heaviness of it all – made light and effortless by technology – the standing stones of our consumption rendered feather like by an ingenious system of credit weights, tech levers and identity pulleys.

And while the technology works: everything’s great; everything’s cool. Until it doesn’t.

Then watch our little worlds collapse.

Evidence of the increasing stress of our speed of life?

Or is the big bag theory simply proof that we are being rendered about as resilient as an odour eater by our own evolutionary progress?

We seem increasingly to have moments of utter cluelessness about what constitutes a real life lived within a human existence and context.

We are slowly becoming the human race in Wall-e. Spiritually and digitally obese, rendered inert by the kit we surround and submerge our lives in.

The systemic failure that greeted the young woman at the bottom of the escalator was a beautiful demonstration of this truth.

Yes, the genius of the escalator, on any given day, is in its ability to move millions of tonnes of human cargo up and down very steep inclines.

The problem with this one was that it wasn’t working.

Chaos. The expression on her face was one of absolute incomprehension.

While every escalator and lift and travelator works – genius.

And I am certain that the life she carried in one bag like some retro-chic refugee had until now moved effortlessly through the world on its small punk skate polymer wheelie wheels. But suddenly this massive pile of pointless and unnecessary chattels – the debris of a consumer look at me look at my stuff world – stuffed into a bag more commonly used to breezing through the planes trains and automobiles of life, was brutally bought up short.

The absence of movement in the escalator raised a tricky question.

Was she actually capable of carrying (revolutionary thought I know) her own ‘shit’ (to coin a Midwest phrase) up the stairs?

Simple answer. Not a flying chance in hell.

Not in God’s own wildest will could she lift the enormo-bag and carry it up a rather long and currently fixed staircase.

And this to me was a perfect summary of the lives we lead.

The bag and its contents the perfect metaphor for the ridiculously over burdened delusional load we carry either in some blind attempt to ‘show off’ in the gene pool imperative department: or because we’ve actually allowed ourselves to believe that we need all of that stuff to ‘survive’ on the road.

We’re kidding ourselves. Our lives, every square inch of them, from our purses, to our shopping trolleys to our homes, to our wardrobes to our workplaces are over packed to bursting: our every waking hour in fact is over stuffed with a tsunami of stuff we just don’t need.

But its fine while the ‘escalator’ works. Of course we can carry it. We’ve nailed it – sorted. Look at me. Look at me ‘operate’. Look at me ‘work it’. Look at me carry my bounteous life.

Yuh, right.

Until the ‘escalator’ breaks down.

And suddenly there we are. At the bottom. With a spiritual, financial and material ‘credit’ bag that suddenly feels like it’s the size of a small third world economy.

And those little spinny wheels are no good to anyone any more.

And suddenly we’re looking for help from a stranger who might ‘get’ us up the stairs.

And what should that stranger think?

“There, there; we’ve all been there: its tough: let me help.”

“Screw you; grow up; live within your means and learn to carry your own ‘shit’.”

Discuss.

But we seem incapable of ‘letting go’ of all out stuff. Mores the point, we wield it everywhere we go. We bully and tyrannise those around us with the receptacles of our ‘stuff’.

Not enough to blindly turn around and let some of those train and bus passengers ‘eat my velcro kevlar glory

Our funny wheelie bags that we stuff into overhead lockers, poking other travellers left and right. The wheelie bag assertion of ‘I’m here – eat my Me’.

Like the uber baby buggies we’ve all been convinced to buy – the panzer regiments of primary creation: going ‘look at my buggy: look at my progeny: hear me roar” as we cut a swathe through bus restaurant and airport with their ankle snapping, thigh bruising uber-carriage.

These wagons and trucks and freight liners are a like a blunt weapon of our consumptive selves. The shinier the finish. The larger the capacity. The more ergonomic the wheel technology: Christ we’re amazing. And we’ll wheel the bastard at your ankles until you get out of the way.

And lets not forget the underlying logic that validates any size of bag to carry with.

‘I bought a big one ‘cos I’m going shopping when I get wherever I’m going: and I’m going to buy more Me stuff to put in my ‘wheelie’ bag. ‘cos I can.

(Stick it on a card that’ll help!)

Retail therapy is one of those things that represents the gift that stops giving the minute its on credit. The feeling never gets better. It’s simple. You are using someone else’s capital to buy stuff. And when you do, you give them permission to control you. Make you feel bad.

“I just bought some smart knickers, and a bottle of Prosecco: So shoot me”.

Problem is, you did it on a credit card that has 4 grand stacked up in the corner and you’re barely making the payments you’ve got.

Like that super home cinema set up he just HAD to have. Mmnnn. So the sensibility is? You couldn’t pay for the plug with real money: what are you doing buying the set on a card?

But we all need some rewards don’t we??? Its really tough out there working hard for the money to pay the credit card bills. Life is stressful!!! Bleat Bleat.

So we’re going to buy some stuff and make ourselves feel better. And we’re going to put it in a wheelie bag. A great big lumbering barely moveable wheelie bag

And there it all is – in a wheelie bag of joy trundling along side us: shiny. Pearlescent. Spacious. International. Wind-swept and interesting. Until we get to the escalator of life that is – and there’s an engineering fault.

Damn.

Tech, Social networks and & the rise of Inconvenient Desire

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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21st Century Consumer, Adaptive Governance, Apple, Caring about what people care about, Communications, Consumer Activist, desire, ecosystems, Foxconn, Human Rights, Identity, Incandescent Identity, Institutional Investors, Labour Conflicts, NPS, reputation Studies, resilience, social networks, Supply Chains, technology, Value Chains

You’d be hard pushed to find a more powerful source of human incandescence than that of Desire.

Most humans once seized upon by a fierce Desire, (quenchable, drenchable or otherwise) would struggle to not glow like embers or light up like a Christmas Tree.

But equally, incandescence is a volatile and unstable thing in its base form. It is as likely to illuminate a life as it is to burn down a house, so must always be treated with the greatest caution and respect.

A powerful and singular Desire, initially so exquisitely turned out: seductive, rich, complex and compelling, can quickly lose its form, focus and potency, becoming fleeting, deceptive, destabilising, and in some ways almost manipulative – one moment all consuming, profound substantial and irresistible: a twisted echo or hollow memory the next, whispering in our ear.

It is one of the cruel polarities of life that Desire, especially when ignored, demeaned, spoiled or thwarted, can become a very destructive force – one of the most turbulent, psyche-ripping, heart-trouncing, confidence-destroying, life-diminishing experiences in our human condition.

We do not take it well! And it makes us act in irrational, random and unexpected ways.

So Desire. Powerful, yes; BUT its got form. Tricky. Volatile. Fluid. Uncontrollable. Fragile.

A singular Desire is of course not the only model. Desire has many forms, natures and universes. Not all Desire is so singular, egocentric, unfettered and prone to flip-flopping and flailing all over the place, at the drop of a rather existential hat. Some Desires are quiet; considered; evolving over expansive periods of time and frames of context. Others are a dynamic shifting mass: loose ecosystems of smaller desires, likes, preferences, needs and wants; splintered, fractured, fractual. A brilliant constellation with fluid and adaptive qualities.

But for now let’s concentrate on one very particular nature of Desire and the context in which it exists: that of human consumption and the systems and organisations that meet its rapacious and accelerating demands.

Desire in its 20th Century Consumer form was well served by multiple businesses and the brands they created. Most importantly the Desire was one dimensional: of a linear and modal kind. A singular Desire, in the form of an unmet consumer demand for a particular product or service, was either revealed or identified through intuition, experience, market research or in the absence of anything else, confected out of thin air in a marketing consumer insight department and then seeded in the mind of the unsuspecting consumer.

Once identified, every atom of the business was put in service to meet the needs of that one Desire. The whole operational infrastructure and systemic nature and capability of the brand and business was set into motion to against it. The sentiment and sensibility of every other person in the chain other than that of the Consumer – the font of all revenue opportunity – was set aside, ignored, or suppressed; viewed as at best, secondary, or at worst, irrelevant.

The Desires (and disappointments) of any individual or group dwelling in the Supply Chain that provided the material, resource, operational systems and manufacturing tools were also secondary – and someone else’s problem.

The Value Chains that developed around the Supply Chain to extract clear measures of additional value in every link in the chain, were focused wholly on controlling and securing in absolute terms the direct cost of resources (human and material), the executive overhead, operational running costs, the logistics of distribution and the indirect fixed contracting of supplier partners, especially when operating across multiple sites and geographies across myriad countries and cultures.

The ability to secure the base cost of delivering increasing value in every link of the chain was the way by which a company both improved its productivity and profitability. And it did it by controlling everything. Even the desires and the voices of those that worked within it.

The insular unconnected and disparate nature of the old world was highly convenient for those who wished to quash any form of desire that might destabilise that link in the chain’s ability to deliver itself at a projected and secured cost amenable to the larger commercial target and deliverable margin.

The very fact that these various sites and sources of production were localised, isolated and unconnected to every other stakeholder in the chain by anything other than their place in that chain meant that the desires of the workforce and the local communities in which they lived could be considered incidental. They remained for the most part invisible, unheard and often unmet. It is fairly telling that the managerial department allocated solely to ensuring and upholding the wellbeing of people required to populate and sustain any Value Chain were identified as a Support Activity in Value Chain models.

But those Desires cannot be ignored anymore. In the 21st century, the consumer’s Desire is not the only one that must be respected, elevated and pored over.

Technology and the social networks have unchained the value chain, giving voice and a podium to every Desire of every person (or stakeholder if you prefer) along the chain, Supply, Value or Otherwise. And they cannot be simply ignored anymore.

Now, Desire has got a smart phone, 6 email accounts, a facebook page, a twitter, instagram and youtube account. And Desire is getting busy.

Desires, individual and collective, in every corner of the globe are now connected. They’ve got access. They’ve got volume. And they are using the social networks to act with fierce purpose against brands and businesses they feel demonstrate an arrogant lack of respect for the human rights and dignities of their customers, employees, suppliers or partners. Once fired up, these consumer activists will harry and pursue the perpetrators regardless of emollient PR releases and promises – as the likes of Apple and Foxconn found out in no uncertain terms. These massed, noisy and high profile actions are now proven to have a direct impact on the measures of integrity held in high esteem by brands and businesses – NPS, The Reputation Study – and more importantly by the investors who fund their ambitions.

So the volatility, flux and turbulence of kaleidoscopic Desire is now at work in the world along very link of the Chain. And they are testing the resilience of those chains, and buffeting the previously tightly controlled and secured value and margin each link in the chain delivers. Adaptive governance must now include the ability to absorb the turbulence these points of social flux and volatility present.

In this way, the 21st Century world of accessible, affordable tech and the social networks they fuel are giving rise to a new chain – the Desire Chain – a value chain populated by individuals with dreams, expectations and rights as important and potent and ultimately as capable of creating value and growth as the old singular desire of the Consumer in the 20th Century.

So here’s to brands embracing a new chain model – the Desire Chain – one that is made incandescent and more resilient by respecting and elevating the desires of every stakeholder in its chain, to mutual benefit and a more secure future for all.

The essay upon which this blog is based, ‘The Value Chained Unchained‘, explores the nature and impact of technology and the social networks on the old Value Chain models and sets out the need for a new model based upon ever-evolving highly adaptive points of Mutual Desire and Shared Resilience.

The Value Chain Unchained by J Borra is to be published by Shared Value Chain Consultancy as part of a compendium of essays on Sustainable Value Chains. Editor: Michael D’heur

www.sharedvaluechain.com

uber tech, the human condition & the curse of being Super

27 Saturday Sep 2014

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ABBA, Born To Run, Bruce Springstein, Cage Fighting, Carbyne, Evolution, Green Lantern, Jack & Diane, Kinesis, Mutants, Nanotechnology, Pilsbury Dough Boy, Ronal McDonald, Superman, Supertrouper, Survival, technology, telephone boxes, The Human Condition, Vinyl, Wonder Woman, Wurlitzers

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The juke-box was one of the old fashioned ones – none of this fancy new micro aural-fabric wall covering surround sound system stuff.

It was Old School. Renovated Wurlitzer. Vinyl. Beautiful. Real. Music you could touch and smell. Tucked in a corner. Take your 165bpm world and stick it on 78rpm.

A love-struck Romeo plays the streets a serenade…

laying everybody low…

with a love song that he made

A ripple of delight rolled up the cloaked blue back. Lois loved this song.

The PA system rudely interrupts the juke-box, and a few bright chords chime out over the heaving hall.

ABBA!!! Jesus.

He winces: just a little. Like The Man With No Name. Love those movies. To one side of the bar, on the wall, a carousel of ‘original’ movie posters flickered up. Le Bon. Le Brute. Le Truand. Everywhere you looked a screen played your thoughts back to you.

Clark sends the last pistachio shell skittering across the bar top. It scuttles and flips on the escarpment of some old bar top graffiti and spins off into space.

His wrist band buzzed. His heart rate must have increased. Substantially. Its glow took on a purple hue. Pituitary aberrations. Weird.

As if by magic, the barman comes and removes the almost empty bottle of sour mash in front of him.

“Sorry ‘Man. You know how it rolls. Can drink yourself to death for all I care. But not here. They’ll shut us down and sue our ass to next Jesus day if you die on the premises”

The irony of this statement, given that not 10 metres away combatants regularly tried to rip each others heads off and squeeze plasma out of each others eyes, was not lost on Clark. But it seemed to have passed the barman by.

Clark fingered and stretched the polymer blue-black tube around his wrist. One day he’d figure out how to turn this thing off. Ugly little spy. But needs must. No band; no cover; no health and no welfare.

It relentlessly measured his vital signs and a number of secondary organ, enzyme and blood readings, distributing the data at super light fibre speed to everyone from his insurance company to the local hospital to the social welfare office to the barman in front of him via geo-location and face recognition. Latency certainly wasn’t an issue. The information was transmitted so damn fast it may as well have gone back in time.

Maybe he should drink inside the Cage. The bands didn’t work inside it. It blocked the signal. So much for infallible systems.

Hologram Ren belched, scraped back his stool, and stood up, kind of. He was done. Clark nodded, not that Ren really noticed. Wasn’t the same since Stimps got burned. A one man show Ren wasn’t. The music increased in volume.

Su-per trou-per

lights are gonna find me

shining like the sun…

smiling having fun…

feeling like the No1!

One Eyed Mike thought he was real funny.

The music is Clark’s cue to move towards the tired scruffy wired cage at the far end of the bar hall – to the Cage and its sweaty bloody canvas. Made from triple-strength carbyne wire, it measured 30 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet.

What a circus. Mind you given his Victorian strong-man red-pants-outside-blue-tights look, he wasn’t really in position to comment.

The blue and red had seen better days, and the fabric looked positively ancient.

Clark shook down his shoulders. Christ he ached. He stepped up off the stool, his hand going to the site of his deepest scar, just beneath his right pectoral muscle.

The Cage on Highway Number 9 was jumping. Packed to the rafters with some ‘madness in its soul’. It was now legendary apparently; though how a straight-build tumbledown Roadhouse with a liquor & wrestling license in the middle of nowhere became legendary the gods only know.

The even bigger question was how all the other faded Supers had found him here, turning wrestling tricks for a few bucks and a free meal.

Not that it was bad having them here: just kind of crazy. They all felt happy here. Amongst their own. OK, so the Mutant Super thing kicked off every now and then but most of the time, apart from Parker’s web mess sprayed everywhere, getting on people’s nerves, it was, well, ok.

Being Super didn’t mean shit anymore. Everyone was Super now. With their airborne InfoTech, data bytes the size of asteroids travelling just as fast, virtual experiential sensosuits cheaper than a pair of sweat pants, and headspace 360 real-time vision and cyber implants.

There was time when Super meant something. Before everyone got junked up on tech.

Green Lantern was stretching off in the corner of the Cage. Bless him. Like a huge slightly jaded leprechaun.

ABBA’s super euro pop tune drifts out of the PA across the long room around the tables of assorted friends, freaks, failures.

Note to self. Take said pop song and stick it up one-eyed Mike’s new one, freshly ripped.

One Round. That should do it, Pound the crap out of him and bring a House Of Pain down on his head and then the rest of the night would be sweet.

One final super rumble at midnight and then he was free for another week.

He wondered who today’s Cage Celebrity Smack-down pairing was going to be.

Watching Ronald McDonald and The Pilsbury Dough Boy rip pieces out of each other last week, howling and hawking, covered in their own viscera, tears streaking their stage makeup and dough-eyed faces had moved to a place beyond funny.

He flexed his left arm. Shoots and pin pricks again. The Band griped on his wrist.

Clark’s focus was pulling in and out again. Gone were the days of looking through rock and steel. Could barely see through the edge of the Cage.

His vision tightened. Time to get busy. Washed up he may be in the flying universal policeman stakes but he could still rumble with the best of them.

That’s what they could smell. That’s what drew them from all over the US.

This scruffy aggregate of pseudo-super human beings with their fancy tech sophistry were here to see one thing. Good old school violence. The parochial, outside the beer-hall, looking at my girl kind of violence. Blood. Spit. Ugliness. Pain. The possibility of watching a creature suffer.

For all the experiences they could virtually replicate, the one they hadn’t nailed was the sheer excitement, the delicious thrill of seeing another creature, weakened, terrified and humiliated; buckling and writhing with the metallic taste of its own blood gurgling in its throat. Motorway pile ups, public hangings and terrorist beheadings. They just couldn’t help themselves.

And no avatar can replicate that expression: the one that flickers across a creature’s eyes when the bleak finality of knowing that its time has come in the gene pool survival game.

For all their peacocking about their virtual nirvana; and even in the face of the genocidal scale of their virtual battling and gaming, this super-human race had lost the ability to feel anything – pain; pleasure; and fear; especially real fear. This counted as a really big evolutionary Uh Oh in Clark’s book: the reverse Darwinian nature of a smart animal using its smartest inventions to make it the dumbest animal on the predatory block.

Divine obsolescence didn’t strike Clarke as a sensible plan for a species.

He scuffed around the bar, frozen for just for a moment in the light of an Ad wipe (highly annoying kinetically activated advertising curtains that mapped you and ‘robed you’ in some kitsch new designer apparel, took a pic and then immediately sent the pic to all the contacts in your band contact list across every social network in the world – With a ‘Hey doesn’t Clarke look sharp – tell him you like it’ button.)

Changing outfits was something Clarke was kind of done with. Half the telephone boxes disappeared and the ones that were left came with a drug dealer and a splash of voluptuous and rather inappropriately dressed ladies’ calling cards.

The crowd are cheering him in; but he has become deaf to it.

His gaze swings to the right of the path between the tables.

At one of the ring-side tables sits the crazy woman with her young boy. The boy was about 4 years old Clark reckoned; dressed in a forlorn super-suit from some gas station. The boy was fingering his game bar frantically.

Baby Superman. With bits of old hotdog and ketchup stain down the front. The truth always hurt.

As he walked past the boy he saw over his shoulder that the boy’s avatar was in flight mode hovering above the screen.

Christ.

Anyone can fly now. Not like the old school. At least they tried. At least planes actually understood what it was to move through the fluid air under their own power. At least a sky dive flight suit put you up there and out there for a moment, like some deranged flying squirrel. At least it was… …real.

Now everyone knew what it felt like to fly. Right. ‘Felt like’. The actual sensation. Even a so so mid range sensosuit could replicate the exact physical sensation of flying by firing millions of tiny charges across your skin, with different pressure sensors expanding and contracting the grasp of the suit on you to mimic dynamic movement in flight and G pressure. And the MeSq power implants in your head activated the relevant endorphins and adrenalin surges just to make sure you ‘felt it’.

Everyone could do everything. Everyone could see around the world in a second. Through steel and concrete. Everyone could see the future. Everyone could destroy anything with the flick of a finger. Everyone could be in 5 places at once. Superpowers was just so …everyday.

No-one needed the strength of 1000 men to topple a tall building. They could call up the strength of millions and topple a country.

The boy fingered the game bar furiously.

Could do without Diana seeing him that’s for sure

She’d looked a little shook up last time Clarke saw her. He always knew: when she played with her bracelets something was up. Like a change in the weather. When her heart was heavy, the scars on her wrists ached under her Indestructible bracelets.

She hadn’t mentioned the kids thing for awhile. He thought that maybe the pain had faded a little.

All she wanted was a kid. A normal, un-tampered with, straight DNA strand, in body baked baby. But for all the technology in the world it just wasn’t to be.

Anyway. They were cool. Clarke and Dian. Hanging out. It kind of worked.In fact the mundanity of it was a blessing; sweet liberation.

Life was simpler when you were less Super. Less wonderful. Something the new super humans with all their gadgets and advances needed to figure out for themselves.

He was in front of the Cage now. Green Lantern was looking wired. The tell tale pulsing temple and grinding jaw told Clark that he’d junked up on nano-oxgenators – small pieces of in blood technology that multiplied the effect of oxygen and adrenalin into your blood stream to boost resilience, strength and stamina.

Jesus even the Supers were at it now.

This wasn’t going to be quite as simple as Clark had previously though.

Screw it. He just needed to man up. Anyway. She’d be here soon. And everything would be alright.

The Princess and Clark: living the ditty; the Jack & Diane of the 21^st Century, growin’ old in the heartland.

Clark steps up into the Cage. As he does so the sheer blue fabric of his suit catches the edge of the jagged wires. Rip.

Su-per-trou-per

Lights are going to find you

Shining like the sun

Smiling having fun

Feeling like the number 1.

Funny.

Of Knowing, UnKnowing & the creative pillars of polarity. AKA Creativity Pt. 2

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Art History, Bi-polarity, Commercial Creatvity, Communications Industry, Creativity, Creativity in Science, Democratisation Of Creativity, Destructive Natures, Diogenes, Ego & Id, Grayson Perry, Insanity & Genius, Knowing, Mindfulness, Paradigm Shifts, Stephen Hawking, technology

Funny thing. Creation. Everyone’s at it.

(The ‘hey! lets do something creative!’ version that is; as opposed to the Birth and Big Beard Versus Big Bang kind.)

It’s all the rage: like cocaine, Taylor Swift, snapchat and uprisings.

And taking some of the creative people I’ve come across in my own ‘creative’ career as an example, rage seems the most apposite of words for this tempestuous trend.

The creative endeavor as a civilized form of howling at multiple moons is all so ‘Now’, and a lot more populist and less ‘rare’ than it once was.

The infinite collision of technology, accessibility, social collectives, the relentless inspirations of the internet and the democratization of creating offered by the endless tools and networks populating our digital lives is shifting the social paradigm of creativity.

In many ways this is a wonderful thing: but it makes the ‘purist’ creative creature out there very nervous.

For the pure creative; someone who has probably invested an enormous amount of time and energy in developing their otherness this new ‘thin’ democratized creativity is a hellish confection.

To someone who has invested their whole being to all that zigging while others zagged, the ritual disemboweling of the inner Id: all those hours crawling through the primordial intellectual soup of abstraction and expression, little known philosophers, off beat gothic novels, performance art, turbulent emotional algorithms and the most impenetrable art shows, not to mention all that self harming, disorder development, and the habit of watching certain films just because they make other more ‘normal’ people nervous: imagine what horror at the idea of ‘’er next doors being craytive‘ too.

‘It’s just not right‘ they howl moonways: ‘it lacks, well, it lacks commitment’. Being ‘different’ – being of a creative persuasion is to be frank, exhausting, very particular and shouldn’t be for everyone. The democratization of creation: the auguring of an age of everyday creativity is sending shock waves through the existential halls of the mighty.

But don’t panic! If you are in the purist club, there’s always the madness and utter self destruction to fall back on.

The newly democratized creative people out there can get as fancy as they like with their 3D printing Maker movement sculptural maquettes; and their evolving algorithm art music BUT can they take an overdose?

Exactly.

For all of these new sweeping gestures towards ‘social creation’ the old model of what constitutes the white hot crucible of true creativity is still there: the final filter: and one studiously applied by those still inhabiting the rare academies of the creative mind and spirit.

You’ve always got the get out of jail card of being or becoming (certifiably if required) nuts – troubled with a capital T and an accompanying life-threatening addiction of some form or other.

‘Real’ creativity is conflicted.

‘Real’ creativity and the people who hawk it should exist in some hellish b-polar vortex, stumbling through quantum surges of creative doing wrapped in creative being.

‘Real’ creative types must be to a lesser or greater degree consumed by their art or creative nature, usually to some destructive degree.

Twas always thus.

It has indeed always been quite the fashion for the ‘Real’ creative person to be seen to enjoy an innate disposition for ‘explosive’ expression. This is romantic and poetic phrasing for what you or I might call losing it: getting shouty and throwing shit around.

Allowing their ‘passionate’ nature to overwhelm them and most everyone else within 5 emotional yards of them has always been quite vogue for the ‘tortured artist’ (though anyone who has read the conceptual treatise of any Art Installation works recently might say that it is the observer who is in fact being tortured, not the artist.)

Raging is and always has been quite the rage.

This rage it seems has two broad brush strokes.

Sometimes the rage is internal, turned inwards on the person; consuming themselves, their mind fracturing and splintering quietly in a room.

And at other times the rage is of that of the smashing, brutalizing murderous kind. One quick leaf through the stories of Caravaggio and Shakespeare’s contemporaries will find that the quick-tempered madness of the creator is at its sharpest in the act of destroyer – of lives, of chattles, of dreams, of stability, of innocence.

Even in the secondary (or some would say basement) of the creative world – the communications industry – this polarity, once celebrated, and now mostly disappeared, is still visible every now and then, stalking the corridors of the creative floor.

Sometimes the rage is a quiet cold cruel internal force compelling the sociopathic intellectual knife twister to ever-greater heights of creative depth; and much of the product, though very funny or terribly clever, can often seem to be utterly lacking in joy, even with 26 million youtube hits.

Other times, the rage takes the shape of a shambling, fog horn, noisy trousers, whoops where’s that wrap?-chat-chatty, self-conscious-shoe-wearing creative peacock (2 syllables – stress on the second syllable) crashing into their creativity like, well, like an overjoyed drunk into a shut door in Soho House. A krispy kreme variety box of joy with toffee sauce.

This bi-polar view of creativity seems further ratified even with the smallest rummage around on http://www.creativegeniuslunatictypes.com/madness/.

In the rarer and purer atmospheres, regardless of whether the form of creativity is being applied in the sciences, music, mathematics, literature & poetry, drama, engineering, product design or architecture, the polarities at work become even more marked, though only amongst a precious few.

Most of us pretenders scuff about somewhere in the space between these manic-depressive book-ends, floundering around for some premature pop of immortality played out for a very-mortal few days or weeks on a page or a screen – a pantone book of middlin’ shades of creative variation.

(Given 3D printing’s new role in illuminating the creative txt of our invention, the great news is that we can actually render these bookends in pure alabaster; one a polished relief depicting Andy Kaufmann and Steven Wright in a Same Sex Marriage; and the other played out in a bass relief of John Belushi and Jeff Koons Buddy-Jumping from a burning pink plane)

Though highly one-dimensional, as a first-meeting finger in the air Type A Type B approach to identifying creativity in the world, these bookends do a fair job.

Though flippantly rendered, these two types do point towards something of a deeper less facile creative truth.

Take it as a given: this law of polarity is at work in all realms of creative endeavor, their two schools, distinctive and immutable opposites in most every way, still finding time to integrate, interrelate and conflate, sometimes in the same theme, often in the same person.

These pillars of polarity represent the two furthest points of the inventive lateral compass, the divine hyper-tensile high-wire of creativity, strung tight and humming between them.

Standing atop these two pillars are two quite opposite schools of thought, nature and effect.

One is founded on the Scholarly pursuit of Knowing – a relentless curious incremental acquisitive reductive sparse sharpening intellectual inquisition in an ever-reducing space, theme or manner. A spirit level approach to creativity for a Jekyll-like persona.

The other collapses backwards into the Scholarly pursuit of UnKnowing – of breakage and unlearning, fracture, disruption, chaos, danger, bestial, unruly, anarchic – the smashed train-set approach to creativity far more suited to a Hyde-like approach to life.

Yes, there are myriad confections scattered between the two but, much in the same way as with the The Hunting Debate and the discussion of Benefits Cheats, we rarely hear the dulcet tones of those in the middle, trapped as they are between the deafening silence, atomic nature and cold eye of the Jekylls and the clanging-gong parachute silk pants and rocky horror debauch of the Hydes.

On the Knowing campus we find the likes of Andy Kaufmann, Gallileo, Ferran Adria, Robert Fripp, Seneca, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Steven Hawking.

The Knowing are clearly defined in the world, set apart, celebrating their otherness through a celebration of the reductive forensic interrogation, construction and engineering of every piece of what it is they are in the process of creating. Their closed and in some ways highly scientific rational approach to the irrationality of creativity creates the dynamic tension in what they do.

The downside of the Knowing trajectory was beautifully bought to life in the first of the artist potter Grayson Perry’s Reith Lectures – in which he reads out the conceptual treatise from some art work. An over complex, over blown piece of cod-intellectual arcana; like a dysfunctional Rubik’s cube of pompous phrases that could never align to anything resembling human meaning, whichever way you might try and spin them. A corrupted bastard child of the Knowing school.

On the UnKnowing Campus we have John Belushi, Caravaggio, John Nash, Oliver Reed, Diogenes, Byron, Iggy Pop, and Kurt Cobain

The UnKnowing’s ability to traverse the fractured, chaotic randomness of creative disorder, embrace the madness of invention and all that comes with it is an anathema to the average person. The UnKnowing’s capacity for clutching to the edges of life, merrily pumping the visceral, wheezing soul of the moment and of their own mortality is simply staggering. They also demonstrate an appetite for seeking redemption through destruction. In this paradox lies the dynamic tension of their tempestuous nature.

The vertiginous nose-bleed nature of their creative leaping and scrabbling up the stepping stones of madness in search of the creative ‘it’ is reminiscent of the snow leopard character, Tai Lung, in King Fu Panda.

In the scene where he escapes from the Chor-Gom prison, he does so by springing and scrambling up falling rocks, using them as descending elevators to rise back up out of the abyss: against all the laws of nature, his upward trajectory enabled by their downward one, the opposite of all that should be. That is the against-nature nature of the UnKnowing.

But often the most transcendent moment comes when we experience someone who makes the journey or transition from Knowing to UnKnowing or vice versa. Or when someone relentlessly and seamlessly shifts from one to the other.

At its simple journey level, Picasso is a good example of the shift from Knowing to UnKnowing. His skills as an accomplished artist in the traditional mold: his sense of scale and context, his draughts-manship, his painterly skills, brushwork, colourist’s eye and capture of the subject were exceptional. So when he chose to smash the vase of his traditional expertise, reassembling the fragments of what was in a new and abstracted disruptive way, he made the journey from Knowing to UnKnowing.

But in their extremes, especially that of the transcendent form, lies the greatest turbulence and far greater likelihood of a dark mortality.

So to be creative or not to be creative and in which sphere is not really the question. But whether we choose to be of the Knowing or the UnKnowing variety.

Perhaps, if you are creative yourself or know or work with creative people, the question that we should ask is this: am I, or they the Knowing or The UnKnowing kind: or the transcendent other?

Lets start there.

(And perhaps we should also spare a kind thought for those who find themselves imprisoned by these pillars, their only escape coming when the whole edifice collapses upon them.)

DELETE A short film idea about mobile living, the death of memory & why we keep what we keep.

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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A Mobile Life, avatars, emotional fracturing, Gamification, Identity, lifestyle, mobile consumption, multiple identities, psychology, search for self, technology, technology landfills, The Death of Memory, virtual living

ELEVATOR PITCH – In a sentence: Memento on Mobiles – How machines murdered memory & identity.

DELETE

WE OPEN ON A BLOKE, AN EVERYDAY BLOKE. HE’S IN A BED BUT HE’S DRESSED. HIS CLOTHES ARE A MESS. HE LOOKS LIKE HE SLEPT IN A SKIP AND HERE HE IS, IN AN EXQUISITE LOFT APARTMENT SOMEWHERE. EGYPTIAN LINEN. DUSTBIN SCENT.

He’s foggy, wooly. Unsure and half awake.

He starts to quietly wail. He looks suddenly wide-awake and terrified. He makes the physical shape of a small creature trapped in a corner of life.

He is wild eyed. Something is wrong something is terribly terrible wrong. He looks around desperately.

There are picture frames. Many picture frames – in all the unusual and haphazard random shapes and styles you get in a home – but every one is empty.

His hands run around his half standing body – a wallet in his back pocket reveals nothing – it is worn – lived in but empty of everything and anything.

He looks down. His bare feet are crusted and smeared with old blood.

He stumbles towards what he believes is a bathroom adjoining the room. He frantically opens all the cupboards. Nothing. No medication, no shampoo, no bin with old cotton buds and tissues – nothing to make this place – human.

He stops. He looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes search his face. He moves his have draws his hand over his chin, scruffs his hair, tears at his face. We start to realise that he has absolutely no idea who he is – who the fuck IS HE?

He opens and closes the mirror cupboard – his face appearing and disappearing – as if trying to jolt his mind into remembering who he is.

We see his feet as he paces across the floor. As he walks he touches furniture; trying to connect – nothing. He walks down some open plan stairs.

He looks in draws – filled with the bric-a-brac of living but nothing – not one thing held a sense… …of someone… …anyone… …any… … identity

The windows reveal nothing. He could be in a truck by a river next to park in a market town underground – anywhere.

His eyes alight on a half open door. He senses more than sees a large space beyond it. He walks towards and then after a beat through the doors. He is in a large loft apartment styled space. The space is empty. Except for one thing. A piece of furniture? He moves towards it. At the far end: a large chest of drawers

He walks towards it as if drawn towards it – by something. No voodoo. Just something

He slows as he reaches it.

Something in it makes him feel apprehensive.

He touches the wrought metal handles. He runs his fingers across the surface. The wood, walnut perhaps, inlaid with mother of pearl. He fingers the handle and then curls his fingers slowly under it, just the tips. He pulls. The drawer slides elegantly out – this is a very, very expensive item.

He looks in. His gaze is met by what seem like dozens of bits of tech. They are mobiles – mobiles of every style and hue and age. There are mobiles in cases and with trinkets, old palms, crackberries, i-phones, motorolas, nokias HTC’s …Jesus.

He picks up one of the more recent models – couple of years old – he flips it. It’s charged. But phones lose charge? Why’s a two-year-old phone charged? He flicks through it.

No signal – no call logs – no message logs – gallery! – gallery?

There’s some files in the gallery. Pictures, random pictures of places; they mean nothing to him…and a woman…he stares. Nothing.

Up here? Down there? Nothing he feels nothing when he looks at her – she is mad and distracted – in the next, she’s reading in a café.

There’s a film file. He hits play. He can see the woman playfully avoiding the film maker. It’s not in this place. It’s a hotel place – somewhere cool and foreign. A hand comes in from the film maker gesticulating to her. She gives the camera the finger. The disembodied hand gestures. She disappears and the film follows her. As we turn the corner she is right in front of us – creepy – staring. She’s not laughing anymore: she smashes her fist at the lens and the film cuts.

A small fizzing feeling slides across his sternum, up his neck and glides across the right side of is face. A small tremor: was it actually a twitch, fires in his left eye.

The random hand in the film wore a large and quite avant-garde ring on the thumb of the right hand.

The hand he is holding the mobile with. His finger traces a faint shallow but very present impression on his thumb, the inner ridge of skin slightly rougher, coarser – the worn edge of where a ring might once have rubbed and rolled and sat.

Suddenly he frenetically scrabbles through the drawer looking for anything, something to explain who the FUCK HE IS….

He picks up phone after phone: every one. Fully charged. WTF! Now. Where is he NOW.

He grabs what he thinks is the most recent model. He pops the button. Glow, sound signature, mix up. Interface. Gallery. Shit interface. Where’s the gallery. No gallery. Messages? Messages. Picture messages. He scrolls through it. There are hundreds of them. ALl kinds of crap. Girl. A girl. No. He looks closer. Its her. The woman. But she’s younger. So much younger.

He scrolls further. An older couple. Her parents? His parents?

A very sharp pain traverses his skull as a thought crosses his mind. Synchronicity.

He checks the model. He checks the previous model. He knows models.

The model the old her is on: thats weird. Its older than the model the young her is on.

His face fizzes and buzzes again, louder this time.

Stupid tune. Stupid tune. In his head. Not in his head? Wheres the stupid tune? Tune’s in the drawer. The drawer is ringing.

He starts to tear at the mass of mobiles. Which one’s ringing?

Two stupid tunes? No three. Three tunes.

He steps back. The whole drawer vibrates now.

Every phone starts to ring. Too many stupid tunes.

And one voice.

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Tag Archives: technology

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uber tech, the human condition & the curse of being Super

Of Knowing, UnKnowing & the creative pillars of polarity. AKA Creativity Pt. 2

DELETE A short film idea about mobile living, the death of memory & why we keep what we keep.

Articulating the contract between science and people

By Anna Middleton1, Vivienne Parry2, Julian Borra3

By Anna Middleton¹, Vivienne Parry², Julian Borra³