Difficult is worth doing

I only went away for a week and meant to blog about it as soon as I got back but then I got sick (yes, I am – at the moment – always a very poorly child for some reason) and then it was back to work with a zillion things to do and in the evening catching up on those all important TV moments from the previous week. So, all in all, I just don’t know where the week has gone.

I will get round to blogging about the holiday but just wanted to blog about the FABULOUS live Honda ad on Channel 4 last night. Honestly the most exciting bit of British TV I’ve seen in ages. It takes a lot for this marketing-bollocks weary person to get even remotely interested in ads but Channel 4 came up with a cracking idea and Honda were brave to run with it. Probably also helped that it was sky diving which is guaranteed to make me jump up and down like a small child going “again, again!”

Lost in Show Biz? Lost in Some Biz certainly

Found this blog today and it made me laugh and cringe in equal measure. PR people, my colleagues, how can you get it so wrong?!

By the way, I realise it’s taken me three months to actually “find” this blog but you know I could spend all day looking at blogs end up not seeing them all (and likely end up jobless and friendless as well).

Social networking guru*

Just because I’m really interested in all this stuff, I have volunteered myself for a project at work looking at a social networking model for a client. At the moment the most frustrating thing about this will be when I leave this job (in a mere two weeks) and the project gets passed on to someone else. I suspect that between now and then the most frustating thing will be client’s reponse to my counsel that they can’t just pretend to be a punter and post some rather overtly branded communication on youtube hoping that your average youtuber will think “what marvellous advice, I must go and try these products”. I may need luck.

*I would like to point out I am not a social networking guru and that title must surely belong to Suw, however in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.

Not a beautiful thing

This week I am being forced to look at this horribly freaky ad for Pioneer Kuro on the way to work. I don’t like it. In fact it makes me feel quite sicky.

I am not a plastic bag

I have been the proud owner of one of these little babies for quite a few weeks now (thanks B/L – you are a shopping star). Today they went on sale to the masses so I had to have a slight sigh of sadness that I’m not the only cool kid in school (although with a limited edition of 20000 methinks they are still going to be a rare and sought after commodity).

I was rather amused to read on the BBC that staff at Sainsbury’s had been putting the “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” into – yes you’ve guessed it – a plastic bag. A bit of training might be required.

People are being very sceptical about whether a bag like this really will help to reduce use of vile, landfill clogging plastic bags – apparently we use 8 billion every year. Well I’m sure with only a few thousand of them they won’t on their own but it’s all about raising awareness – it’s called PR doh!

As a footnote: I rather hope that the person that tried to nick my lovely fashion accessory in Wimbledon on Saturday didn’t get her mitts on one today.

The joys of the job interview

I don’t get nervous about job interviews any more, for heaven’s sake I’ve been to loads but today I encountered new areas of job interview weirdness. The first was at an interview where I realised pretty quickly that I didn’t have the skill set for the job and – more importantly – I wasn’t particularly interested in acquiring said skill set. So dutifully I reported back to the recruitment consultant and head off what I thought would be the inevitable rejection. A few hours later I got the call that they loved me and thought I’d be really good at the job – go figure.

So on to the second interview which had to be the oddest ever. No chatting about my experience, career to date la la la. No, instead I was treated to a list of very peculiar questions. Well they were okay questions and required me to be quick thinking, demonstrate knowledge and show examples etc BUT it completely ruined any flow. It was like boxed ticked, move on. V odd. The problem is I’d really quite like this job. I have no idea how I did because it was so odd. Oh well I’ll just have to demonstrate patience (not my strong point) until I (hopefully) get some feedback.

Equal opportunity racism

An excerpt from an interesting article by Todd Defren

Here’s what I noticed: these well-off kids, all of whom appear to be raised by conscientious, highly educated, liberal-minded parents, are not blind to race (as they were raised); rather, they make a BIG deal of it; they completely wrap their arms around racial stereotypes to the point where they are rendered ridiculously ineffective.  Not only that, they drill down beyond the “macro” identities (say, “latino”) and get specific (not “latino” but “Chilean”).

Full article here

Sadly I suspect that whilst “well-off kids” may be at ease with the concept of multi-culturism and celebration of differences, that less “well-off” or rather well-educated/well brought up (insert your Daily Mail phrase of the week) kids/adults will remain threatened by the concept of difference. We can educate and preach all we like but it seems that tolerance does not come naturally to human beings and the sad fact is that the luxury of acceptance remains the preserve of middle class liberals.