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"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Albert Einstein

"Great brands are like novels that you can't put down"

I saw this quote in a book today. Are great brands really like "novels that you can't put down". I don't think they are.

I'm writing this on a great brand, Apple. Which is also a brand I love. A "lovemark" as some people like to say. I also happen to be reading a trashy holiday novel that I can't put down. A real page turner. So how are they different and how are they similar?

I can put the Apple down, obviously. I really can't put the book down, I have to be dragged away from it at bedtime and I get angry when In reach my stop on the Tube and I forgo the telly at night to carry on reading.

I can't wait to pick up the book and continue reading and it's true I look out for further installments from Apple. does that class as not being able to put it down?

But Apple don't release things that often and they do it in a psuedo secretive way, so they kind of create an expectation. What if it was another brand I admire, like Innocent drinks or Canon or Nokia if you want bigger ones. Can I put them down? Yes. Do I wait for the next installment? No.

You can put brands down. Brands can be great without you even liking them, let alone loving them. A novel ends. A novel only interacts with you on a few levels. You only buy a novel once.

I don't think "brands are like novels that you can't put down" at all. What do you think?

“There are three times a customer makes eye contact"

“There are three times a customer makes eye contact with a crew member on a flight.

This lasts about 15 seconds and is the time the customer/passenger decides yes/no. I will fly them again.”

Jan Carlzon. Ex CEO of Scandinavian airlines.

"These days I get up at 8 and then write until lunch. Then it's time to get drunk."

Sir John Mortimer

"People who look like they may have an accordion at home"

I'v ejust been reading this survey about the Tube. Did you know that 5% of Londoners find the most  irritating about other people on the Tube is people "People who look like they may have an accordion at home".



What on earth is that about? What does someone who looks like "they may have an accordion at home" look like? Any ideas?

"Throw someone a stick and they can be relied upon to get hold of the wrong end of it"

Actually said by Andrew Gimson about Michael Portillo in The Telegraph, but I'm gonna use it to describe the designer / client process.

"Hard work never killed a man."

I believe in the Scottish proverb: "Hard work never killed a man." Men die of boredom, psychological conflict and disease. They do not die of hard work.

David Ogilvy

"Eighty percent of success is showing up"

Woody Allen.

I was at a presentation the other day. A big, corporate presentation. This particular company has offices all around the world. The Head of the Interior Design department was showing us the work that had been carried out last year.

She came to one stunning project, completed in Europe. She told us it was her favourite of the last year. When asked for the best thing about the project she replied, "You know what? It was great because they just did it."

Remember that people, it's all about the doing.

"I'm not made of time"

This is unattributable, but I really like it.

I suppose the answer is to manage your time better, or just say no but failing that this expression is a winner.

"I've heard the printer's broken, so I'm not coming in"

They could have remembered to put the apostrophe in.

"If you're interested in learning nothing will ever be boring"

Whilst at University I won an award. Through that I got to travel down to the DTI and present my idea to 30 industrialists and "fast trackers".

On the journey back my lecturer told me that if you're interested in learning nothing will ever be boring. I loved that, and it's stuck with me ever since.

Never found out what a  "fast tracker" was though.

"Art is not parrots"

My art teacher at school used to say this all the time. We used to think he was mad. Now I think he probably meant there's more to art than a pretty exterior.

But he could have just been mad.

"They know nothing about pumpkins and they know nothing about the web"

Way back, in the dot com days, I used to work for an internet design company. Almost all the clients were dot com start ups. Most of them were crazy. Some of them are still around, kind of.

Shortly after I joined the CTO described the typical dot com start up to me. "A company comes to see us and they want to sell pumkins on the web. Trouble is they know nothing about pumpkins and they know nothing about the web."

Brilliant and true.

"The only CDs I've bought since 1998 have been blank"

It always seems to me that the music industry isn't listening. I went to a meeting with some people from PRS a few years ago. When I asked about downloads and royalties they replied that it was all up in the air at the moment and no one really knew how it was all going to work out. That was 2004 people, "it" had already happened.

The quote is from a bizarre blog I was reading, but I thought it had relevance.

Explore, Experiment, Excite, Enjoy

What you should aim to do every day, in any walk of life.

"They have no shoes"

"A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying, situation hopeless STOP no one wears shoes. The other writes back triumphantly, glorious business opportunity STOP they have no shoes."

The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

"The work doesn’t get any better the longer it hangs around, old son"

This was said by a Chairman I once worked for. The agency had been through a very quiet time and consequently we’d had loads of spare time to work on pitches and briefs. Everything was getting twice the man hours it normally would.

When things picked up a bit, I remarked that there was a better feeling in the agency, a buzz if you like. He replied that it was better when there was more work and less time, "the work doesn’t get any better the longer it hangs around, old son". How right he was.

A good idea is a good idea, and often the more you work on it the more it gets diluted.

Whenever a deadline gets extended I always groan a little. You seem to lose the energy that comes with a tight deadline, living on the edge a bit. Russell touches on the same thing in his post about “charette”.

"Don't water the plant"

I've just got back from a meeting on the 24th floor of a very tall building in Central London. (There aren't that many very tall buildings in Central London...) The views were breathtaking, you could even see the new Arsenal stadium.

However, what struck me most was a green, leafy looking plant right in front of you as you walk in. Stuck to the front of the plant pot was a Post-It note which read, "Don't water the plant".

Humans eh?

90% of the world's population have never made a phone call

826 million people on earth are undernourished