competition in a 2.0 world

"The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot." Mark Twain

fiending for it; what Kobe can teach business

So it's the finals of the NBA. Boston vs LA. Game 1 was for Boston.

But that's ok, it is after all a best of seven.

So why this post: well because my fav sports writer Scoop Jackson analysed Kobe Bryant and in the process tells us what it takes to be succesfull.

I will leave you with the opening paragraph, the rest you can read here

There's a term used in the community called "thirsty."
It means what you think it means, but it's now being used in different contexts. Only to make a point of the extremes to which some people will go to get what they want. More severely, what they need. Kobe Bryant, for lack of more sophisticated terminology, is thirsty.
His thirst for another NBA title is that of an amplitude we may not have ever seen before. Not in sports, business, crime, corruption or politics. Keeping it community: He's thirsty like a fiend

Have a nice weekend

how to deconstruct strategies and analyze the competition

great video + song and a lesson to be learned (kinda)

stick and stones may break my bones, but don't forget about words

this post may seem abit all over the place, but since I will be out of orbit for a while I just wanted to put some stuff out there that has been festering in my mind of late.


I have noticed a sublte change in my vocabulary when talking to clients or when talking to creatives. To better make sense of where clients should go or what way creatives should view the problem the following changes have been slipping into my vocab and briefing.

1)Coherence vs Consistency


This one has been here some time now, but it's relevance still is great. It is not about the right CMYK codes or the right dimensions of the logo. it's about stuff making sense when it's out there. it shoud fit together like a music album, more then a math formula. the sum of the parts shoud be you (the brand, company, etc) but the individual parts should also be enjoyable on there own and still ouze some of your flavour. which brings me to the second vocab change...


2)Gestalt vs tone of voice

This is by no means a new distinction, but to me it's more and more important/back in vogue. Product parity makes for a use of advertising human emotions, but advertising parity and a lack of attention makes for the need to be recognizable in al the things you do. Gestalt is an old theory explained here. But the basic difference is that tone of voice is about presentation of one self. Funny, sarcastic, cool whatever. Gestalt is about owning something. it's about having a unique (tangible?) quality that cannot be applied to something else. all this is basically been influenced by me reading more about design, art, city plannig etc. Apple being a very easy example of this, particulary with their iphone, pod, ads.

See one can have a romantic feel attached to anything (almost),but for many the feeling of seeing the city lights of Paris from the Eiffel tower is not something that can be transported. That particular zone is owned by the Eiffel tower, due to it's physical elements. So while it's may be contrary to say coherence is more important then consistency and then to say non portable elements are more important then portable, I can just say, yes and yes. Can't explain it better yet. but you gotta be like a diamond, with many facets but still one diamond.


3) Finite solutions vs Infinite

It's all about this generation, this era. the sky is not the limit. How can you make a difference now without trowing everything at the problem but the kitchen sink. restrictions, discrimination are a couple of tools/ideas that are needed more and more to create something that has focus and leaves no burden for the next group to come along.

3)bold ideas vs Big ideas.
Can't realy put my finger on this one but it actually feels the most important. For me when I use the word big this is what I kinda think of.


The complicated, intricate elaborate scheme. Which is great, and can be/is still very usefull. Bold thinking on the other hand gives me a whole different feel, point of entry.

Bold makes me think of



or this



Perhaps this all is thin thinking and not very clear, but somehow bold can be /mostly is big, but big does not always mean bold. perhaps there is more of an rebelious streak to bold ideas then to a big idea. this one I will need to come back to...continue

4)Politics vs people

due to the nature of the problems challenges and demands of the current and future world, politics is more and more important. While the rise of the consumer/prosumer is a much talked about and has had great impact, politics is where the pendelum of true power is swinging back to. it's a realisation that we will not solve growing fuel prices, shortages in food. We, people, are firestarters, we are able to make things roll, but the big Mo come from running with the elected wolves. so what does this all mean? Reading fine print, finding pressure points to help people activate politicians that can move mountains, doing the non sexy stuff. while not every product lends it'self for all out politics, actualy every product does lend its self for politics. now matter how small we all leave a footprint that effects someone.

SO ask yourself, what small print can we use to make changes that riplle through society? just by thinking more about politics, (not ideoligical, but more practical), gets juices flowing that normaly don't move much.


anyways, these are words that have been changing my thinking and actions, as well as the actions of clients. If anybody has some other words that they feel have changed their points of entry into discussions, let me know...


I leave you now with some nice music and a not so sublte message. Dovidjenja!

Heard about the guy
who fell off a skyscraper?
On his way down past each floor,
he kept saying to reassure himself:
"So far so good...
"so far so good..."
How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!

Interesting Amsterdam

Just got my ticket for Interesting Amsterdam !!

So all you guys and gals wanting to see some random but interesting stuff, go on over to pinkair, and book yourself a ticket..

month of may

So here in Holland the month of May is the month we remember the Second World War, the liberation of Holland and the loss of so much life.

So in memory of those passed away, those who survided and those who chose to fight; some chilling, uplifting and spot on quotes to give us (wannabe) planners that much sought after insight in to humans, and perspective on this thing of ours.


* We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

* "Nietzsche's words, 'He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.'"

* "When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves"

* "Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

* "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."

* "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

* "Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary

* "We have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."

Viktor Frankl

the utopia of better advertising

A lot of people have talked and are still talking about the end of image advertising, because it's bad, not working, run it's course, etc. It's all about 2.0, utility etc...but the fact is, it is not, nor will it be, because advertising has got a built in factor that prevents it from growing, gaining absolute quality improvement; humans.

Right now people are kinda falling in the same trap as in the ' 20, during the time of Claude Hopkins. We think that advertsing can somehow be scientied, just because it has more technical tools at it's disposal. People seem to believe that unless you provide a tool within the advertising, you are doing rubbish. We think this we such a zeal that we forget that it's just the hope we have manifested in herd talk. Bit like the neo cons, thinking that they will create a democracy and that oil will go down to $20,- a barrell and all will be peaches and cream, anyways...

The underliying mechanics of advertising prevent this because they are flawed in the sense that they are emotion driven. We look for insight into human beings and we tend to focus on communicating some value/bond between product and and customer. This basic fact allows for inversion of progress. If empowering women works (Dove) let's do it, if degrading them (lynx/Axe) works, let's do that.

No absolute progress is possible, because in order to feel like we are moving we will go in any direction, even backwards.


So why am I writing this? Because I just today talked with an agency who did no advertising, but " created solutions on a business and emotional end" and the talk got 'round to Gorilla ads and the usual bitching began. It was shite, waste of money etc.... They make fucking horrible websites and are gonna piss all over fellows comrades who at least entertained?

Advertising is about communicating something, right now and here. Something that makes a connection so that you will move from a to b.

Method acting looked more realistic and great then the old style stage type acting (and searched for character from an inside point of view/ kinda like the when planning came along), but it's still acting..nobody was any more a doctor then the actors 200 years before the method.


The future of advertising is already here and has been here since it's invention. Sure we will get better at using tools at hand. But it's role will not grow nor will it's quality be better 10 year from now.

That type of change will be driven by industrials, by people who build absolute stuff, who deal with the binary. Fields where once you go forward, you can not go back, because new reality denies regression. 1+1 is 2. It will never go back to being 1. Once you have an cure for something, there is no gain in talking 'bout the opposite.

Call me crazy, but perhaps that's the really brilliant part in Cabral and Fallons thinking; they know their limits and play their part of court jester with great applaud.