Thinking About What to Write Where

A couple of weeks ago I attended an evening at Google for a Firestarters event about content marketing & complexity. These events are curated by Neil Perkin and the few I have been able to attend so far have been excellent. I was looking forward to this one to hear Dave Trott speak. He was brilliant, as were the other speakers, Doug Kessler and Sarah Richards. It was also good to catch up with a few acquaintances in the industry.

For the past several years I’d decided not to worry about my blog’s content. Whatever I fancied writing about and publicly sharing is here. It has been more about my travels than thinking of business lately.

Now I’m working independently, I feel I should write more thoughtful posts. I can tend to be lazy to think and write about it. I find it easier on a client deadline and with a group of people to talk with or present to. I find it more difficult to think by myself in front of a blank page. I want to keep practicing and improving at it though.

Dave reminded us to keep things simple in his talk. At one point he also mentioned that different platforms are probably good for different types of things. He has 140 characters on Twitter so tends to write funny things, that may have more impact and drive the interested people to a longer article via a link, for example.

I also listened to a Q&A from Paulo Coelho this past weekend, and learned the author manages his social media presence mostly by himself. He made an interesting comment about the formats of different online platforms and the kind of opportunities they offered for writers. The theme running on his Twitter account seems to be motivational phrases or quotes, sometimes with images. Ironically his last tweet at the time of writing states:

Success comes to those who do not waste time comparing what they are doing with what others are doing.

I’ll argue I’m not exactly comparing, only noting that his Twitter feed seems to specialise in a certain type of writing that of course fits the 140 character format well.

This is how I’ve been thinking of what I’m writing and where I’m publishing it. In short I’m weighing the merits of a content strategy for my writing while wanting to keep things simple and consistent.

Let’s start with what I tend to write about. I know I am particularly interested in these topics:

1. Strategy, communications, marketing, and business innovation – that’s already pretty vast
2. Tabletop games (board games, card games, role-playing games), and wider thinking about integrating playful elements in other areas like education or business (I am wary of the term “gamification” which can be the object of another post)
3. Travel
4. Science-fiction and fantasy
5. Craft beer and home brewing
6. Personal experiences and stories – which can admittedly blend in with any of the above topics.

I only had to look through my library to make sure I have the right topics, almost every book I own fits in one of those.

Point 6 is what I’ll be focusing on in my upcoming email newsletter, the reasoning is that an email is a one on one message so hopefully a good place to share personal stories while possibly integrating other things too.

I can simply keep writing all kinds of topics here, though a few people have also recommended writing on Medium and Linkedin Pulse. I wonder if those platforms could be more appropriate for some topics or styles of writing.

So far I’ve only reposted things from this blog on there. Linkedin Pulse has garnered far more views on the same post compared with Medium: 83 to 1. That was for my previous post about the newsletter. I also re-posted something I’d written about traveling on Medium and that has 12 views, 11 of which come from posting the link on my social networks. This last post was more promotional in nature and perhaps not of sufficient quality for Medium, or maybe just more relevant for Linkedin. In any case it raises interesting questions about the best platforms for my writing.

Out of curiosity I’m going  to do more testing about this in the coming weeks, and see whether Linkedin or Medium might work better for writing about certain topics, and try out a few things with Twitter as well. It won’t be particularly exhaustive or even that objective research. I hope to discover a few interesting things and share what I find out here. Given my main goal is to write more, that should be achieved whatever the results of the experiments are.

 

 

Ice Cream Sundaes

Header image credit: Sundae on the cruise by Brian Holland

A few friends recommended starting a weekly email newsletter. I’ve been thinking about what I could do that might be different from my blog, different from what others are doing, and most importantly something I’d enjoy writing and sending out every week, which I think would help me keep disciplined.

I’m taking the opportunity here to tell you what this new weekly email newsletter is going to be about, and why you might want to sign up to receive it.

Let’s talk about sundaes first. According to some research, the origins of the dish are somewhat obscure with multiple places claiming to be the originators of the dessert. Everybody apparently agrees it was first created in the United States, in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. A shocker first: apparently the name comes in fact from the day Sunday. In case you hadn’t yet guessed when you’ll be receiving my email if you sign up, there’s an extra hint.

One of the places that claims to have invented the ice cream sundae is Evanston, Illinois, nearby Chicago. The story provided by the Evanston Public Library is that in 1890, the pious methodist community of Evanston passed a law forbidding the sale of the popular ice cream sodas on Sundays. Smart confectioners and drug store operators started selling ice cream sodas without the soda (or fizzy water), so basically ice cream topped with syrup, thus complying with the law. Those became known as the Sunday sodas. Some people, probably the same pious mentioned earlier, objected to the dish being named after the day of the Lord, so they changed the spelling to sundae. The Evanston Public Library doesn’t certify the story is 100% historically accurate, but that’s ok. It’s a good story.

I like it because it demonstrates a simple and ingenious solution to a problem, and that is the way I strive to work with clients. Sometimes we tend to focus on the soda too much, particularly when it’s taken away, when in fact what people really want is the ice cream.

When I think about a sundae I also like the idea that it’s more than the sum of its parts: the chocolate fudge, ice cream, sprinkles, nuts, maraschino cherry and even the high glass all make for a greater whole. On their own, they’re not as exciting. Moreover, ingredients can mixed and matched, and recombined at will to satisfy every want or need. It’s colourful and playful. It’s also similar to when we work together to come up with new ideas and solutions to business and communication problems.  Not too keen on sugar? No worries, you can have a coconut milk base paleo ice cream with dates, nuts, and say a 90% cocoa dark chocolate. See, ice cream for everyone.

When it comes to the newsletter, I’ve been wondering what kind of intelligent sounding marketing related stuff I could write about, or whether I should share links to stuff I’m reading like I see some other successful consultants are doing.

I wasn’t too sure about the links, I don’t know about you but I read a lot of articles and blog posts every week. Even then, I still have way more links than I have time to read. I’m only talking about the ones I’m aware of and know I’d like to read. You will have little to no links in my newsletter – say one to three links at most, with context to explain them. My Twitter feed has links to stuff I’m reading. Twitter, Medium, Fraggl, and many more online platforms or tools provide many many links very well.

I intend to keep writing about marketing in my blog and don’t want the newsletter to be doing the same thing. People sometimes tell me I have interesting stories to tell about my life. It might sound narcissistic, and maybe it is, but the fact is I enjoy writing that kind of stories, so that’s the kind you will receive when you sign up to this newsletter. A pretty simple text email with a relatively short story to read alongside your Sunday papers, possibly with a link for context, and perhaps another leading to the latest going on the blog or podcast.

The first Ice Cream Sundae newsletter will be sent on Sunday 4th October 2015 and every Sunday after that. Please try it out for a few weeks and see if you enjoy hearing about me – if you don’t like it you can unsubscribe any time obviously. You can sign up by filling the form below or clicking here.

See you in your inbox!

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PS: Someone pointed out it’s still not obvious how this newsletter will be different from what I usually write. Obviously I’m still the person writing both so whichever you read you’ll find similarities. I’m experimenting with writing about different topics in different places online or at least different content. I’m loath to state clear guidelines just yet (I’m working on those, wondering if they’re necessary too), though I can say for sure is what will be in the newsletter won’t be on the blog and vice-versa. I hope it helps. In doubt, just sign up.

What is Luxury?

I’m finding that one of the benefits of traveling to London temporarily is that I’m paying more attention to art exhibitions, and cultural events happening while I’m visiting. With that in mind and while I’ve been in London to meet with existing and potential new clients, I also reserved a couple of hours – luckily on a fine and sunny morning – to visit this exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum before it ends in about 10 days. It’s free and I recommend checking it out.

The exhibition, created in partnership with the UK Crafts Council, is an inquiry into the meaning of luxury through selected attributes. The curated craft and design pieces mean to illustrate and interrogate different aspects of luxury.

The first room, “Creating Luxury” featured two exhibits for several attributes, such as passion, exclusivity, innovation, etc. Some of these were pretty amazing pieces, with interesting choices of pieces to present contrast, such as an opulent yet described as very uncomfortable howdah (the chair sitting atop an elephant in India) under the term “pleasure”.

The second room, “A Space for Time” and The Future of Luxury” featured very interesting installations, projects, and design pieces questioning the place of luxury items: carbon based items shaped into diamonds which don’t have the same value as mined diamonds, a machine printing uniquely curated booklets of images randomly pulled from the Internet, a short film tracing the journey across the world and the people involved in crafting one unique luxury piece.

Ultimately, the exhibition invites visitors to consider what their own personal version of luxury is or might be.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop in London as I’m writing this, stricken by a certain duality: feeling privileged and lucky to manage my own time and location, while looking out the window at a continuously rainy and grey street which doesn’t look like anything luxurious at all. Being independent certainly carries benefits, however I’m not sure I’d call that luxury.

Unique and spectacularly crafted items have traditionally been the privilege of the very few, and to a large extent this hasn’t changed. That said, what seems to have changed is that the many are now very aware of what the few have. An entire industry of popular magazines or TV channels are dedicated to the topic.

In consequence, I believe other changes from the past have to do with the aspirations to own the same luxury items as the few, and perhaps growing resentment towards deepening inequalities.

I remember meeting a group of people in Kunming, China, a few years ago and talking with a female student. She visited the hostel where I was staying on a regular basis to practice her English. She was very excited to learn that I was French and grabbed my notebook to write all the luxury brands she could remember, asking me to tell her how to correctly pronounce Hermès and Louis Vuitton. It made me smile at the time, but I also wonder how long increasingly distributed and common items can retain their badge of luxury, or why we hold such as a fascination for a name and a bag or a scarf – even granting it an exceptional level of craft.

It also reminds me of Japanese movies about craftmanship, like this short about a traditional sword maker, or the documentary Jiro dreams of Sushi. They can likely easily fit within definitions of luxury, yet I wonder if the craftsmen think of their work as luxury, I doubt it actually.

The difference between the points above may well be the interest of celebrities and media. If some movie stars decided to start carrying traditional Japanese swords tomorrow, would there be sudden surge in their popularity? I think it is entirely possible, but then perhaps people are missing the opportunity to define luxury for themselves.

As for me, as much as enjoy stuff, I think my own version of luxury is pretty simple: idle time. Time is our most precious resource, so idly enjoying an hour or two of it sitting here and slowly writing this while I watch a busy street of London is the height of luxury.

On that last point, I highly recommend We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider that I am reading at the moment. You can listen to this great fifteen minute long excerpt called “Lazy: A Manifesto“.

"If it bleeds, it leads" - About Photojournalism, the News, and Our Fascination with Horror

Above: Award-winning photojournalist Bulent Kiliç talks through his exhibition at Visa pour l’Image 2015

It is the 27th edition of Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan at the moment, an international photojournalism festival, the largest of its kind in France. I happened to have caught up with an episode of the Freakonomics podcast about why we really follow the news last weekend, and I have been thinking about this as I visited several of the photo exhibits in the past few days. The exhibits cover a wide variety of topics, though more often than not they aren’t happy times holiday photos. The festival selection features stories from the some of most important and horrible news events of the past year: the war in Syria, refugees fleeing Syria, the Ebola epidemic in Western Africa, the earthquake in Nepal, and much more.

As I’ve been looking at these photos I’ve been wondering about our fascination for these photos of human pain, misery, and suffering. I’ve also been thinking about the photojournalists who live through increasingly dangerous situations to cover these stories.

I read a few articles and Wikipedia pages to find out more about these questions. It is ironic that following an exhibition featuring photos of the pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, I found out that it was the Illustrated London News that pioneered the birth of early photojournalism during the Crimean War in the mid nineteenth century. It’s almost like photojournalism came full circle last year.

It is also strange to read the stories the photos relate to, in order to get an idea of the context and background, and then to evaluate or judge the photography itself (composition, colour, light, etc). At first thought, it seems the story and content are an opportunity to relate to the photo emotionally, and that the technical appreciation is more rational.

In the choice of photos published or exhibited, the distinction blurs. What could be considered technical elements of a photo reinforces and conveys emotion in a good one. I caught myself thinking “What a beautiful photo” when the subject is clearly suffering. That is the experience I felt was strange. Even when the subject isn’t suffering, the separate experience between appreciating and imagining the person or landscape being represented and the representation itself.

Shadenfreude is a well known and well researched concept, but not necessarily that well understood. Many theories exist, such as it being a need to pay attention to dangers elsewhere and learn about them for our own survival, or feeling better about ourselves by knowing others are worse-off. On this topic, I haven’t read Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, and On Photography but they have been recommended to me in the past and I’m adding them to my reading list.

Many photojournalists adhere to ethical codes such as the U.S. National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics. Their fourth point reads:

4. Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.

I find the last sentence is particularly interesting, it seems to leave the door wide open to interpret what “the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see”.

The ubiquitous use of social media has seen the rise of citizen journalism, which doesn’t adhere to any code of conduct by definition. Their motivations aren’t necessarily about what people need to see, but rather what they want people to see, and even perhaps more about them altogether. A friend recently called my attention to a creepy new trend in selfies: taking photos of yourself with a corpse in the background, or even making news by murdering someone and then taking a selfie with the corpse. Going even further, terrorist organisations also leverage social media to communicate. They relish in publishing gruesome photos and videos of executions and they are being talked about because of it.

Seeing how virtual reality technologies are rapidly evolving, I wonder what this could mean for the future of photojournalism. Is the future of news people experiencing virtual reality simulations of war-torn areas, maybe seeing and feeling events through the eyes of a sensor-laden “VR-journalist” wandering around? The idea has been explored by several science-fiction authors in different novels, so it seems a pretty reasonable idea by now.

However at that point I think it becomes really difficult to pretend it would be about civic duty for knowledge rather than purely about entertainment. I would say it is a worrying kind of entertainment too.

The McWhopper Proposal

This is a tough one. I think it’s one of the best marketing ideas I’ve seen in a while on one hand, and depressingly ridiculous at the same time on the other. My cynical side is struggling with the exciting possibility of eating a McWhopper, and even the idea of bringing peace and type 2 diabetes to the world one McWhopper at a time! And there goes my cynical side again. I guess I could also go and buy a Big Mac and a Whopper and just put them together myself without waiting for World Peace Day, but that’s besides the point.

It is definitely and already great for Burger King, and I’m pretty sure it’s already unexpected (?) positive media exposure for McDonald’s, and they haven’t even responded as far as I know.

Is it any good for the World Peace Day and the Peace One Day NGO..? That’s just one of the other areas I have doubts about.

My first impression is that the Peace One Day’s message is drowned out. It’s certainly benefiting the burger makers. Let’s say it is about making the world a better place, if so then how are they doing that exactly? Are they handing out some cash on the 21st September? How would that cash be spent?

My second set of doubts come from looking at Peace One Day – I’ve only had a quick look at their site and a couple of video so I admit I could be missing information. Their main message seems to be: ” Awareness creates action, and action saves lives”. I saw it on their website, and on this McWhopper video.

I’m not convinced awareness creates much immediate action. I knew smoking was bad and I kept smoking for years, it’s an easy example and I’m sure we can easily think of similar ones. And certainly not all action saves lives. Some actions even eliminate them, actually.

I also thought of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from last year, and the numbers tell us the viral sensation raised $115 million for the ALS Association. They also produced a nice infographic to tell people how they’ve been spending the money so far. I find interesting in comparison that the whatever you thought of the ALS ice bucket videos, the message was pretty clear and straightforward: Throw an ice bucket over your head, commit to donating to the ALS Association, and nominate friends in your video to keep the chain going. The ALS Association is spending the money on research, patient care, etc.

I don’t see this kind of simple message with the McWhopper Proposal, and certainly not the difference it’s going to make for peace in the world. The ice bucket videos weren’t branded, so maybe it’s just a bad comparison altogether. World Peace is a great ideal but not as simple as researching a cure to a disease, even the most difficult one.

The video suggests Atlanta as a middle ground between two US locations, none of which are or have been at war for a long time. Maybe well played Burger King, but what are you actually going to do in the name of World Peace then..?

I agree that these companies have the kind of size and influence required to make changes on society, but in this context I fail to see how Burger King and McDonald’s can make a positive difference towards peace in the world with a McWhopper restaurant in Atlanta. If anything, it may just be showing how much more people like fast food than the idea of world peace.

I also think fun and play is important, and if that’s only what Burger King has in mind, then great. That said, just tell us what this is actually doing for World Peace, because I don’t think the so called “war” between two fast food giants is what the UN wanted to solve by creating the International Day of Peace.

Or am I being too cynical (for a change)?

Who Does Advertising Serve?

Bronze plate printing an advertising for the Liu family needle shop at Jinan. Song Dynasty era (960 – 1270). One of the earliest existing examples of printed advertising.

I’m catching up on some reading and came across this article written by Tracy Follows: “Cannes Lions: will advertising ever again be about the people it serves?”.

At first I didn’t take any special notice at the title, I might have been paying more attention to the Cannes Lions part of it. I was mostly nodding to myself in agreement at several points made as I was reading. And then towards the end the title question appears again and that’s when I really took notice:

“The question for the future, then, is this: will advertising ever again be about the people it serves?”

You might think I’m being too concerned with semantics, and you might be right. I may well be focusing on a different definition of the word service than Tracy had in mind. In any case, I thought: “Wait a second, when has advertising ever been about serving the people it’s made for? Who does advertising serve?”

Just to be clear, I enjoyed the article and I agree with Tracy’s interesting points made about creativity vs. media and technology, about the fascination of the industry with technology at the detriment of creativity or better understanding people.

At the same time I can’t help but thinking there is a slight leap made in the article that jarred with me. It’s related to the word serving, and the notion of service. I went to read the Wikipedia article about advertising for a quick history overview, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything obvious about the origins and history of the practice.

I picked the image above from there, apparently one of the first still existing examples of printed branding and advertising, for a needle shop in Song Dynasty China, between 927 – 1270. It seems like an old enough example to suit my purpose. Along with the rabbit brand logo representing the Liu family name, the text above and below reads:

“We buy high quality steel rods and make fine quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time”

Who does this serve, first and foremost? I say it serves the Liu family needle shop. Advertising serves the client, the company advertising or promoting their products and services. It doesn’t serve the consumer, not first at least. I don’t think it ever has, so it would be difficult to have it be about that again.

Advertising, the modern 20th century style of it in particular, is about creating demand and persuading people they want or need something, whether they actually need those things or not, or whether it’s useful or not.

 

Both World Wars and cigarette advertising are famously what allowed the advertising to grow into what it is has become today. I remember visiting the Weapons of Mass Communication exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum years ago, which was very interesting in that regard. With what we know about the ill-health effects of smoking nowadays, I find it tough to say those ads were serving the people they were destined for.

I absolutely agree it’s ideal if advertising is made for the people it is destined to. It is better when ads are concerned with real people, their lives, motivations, feelings, concerns, etc. In rare cases I’m even inclined to believe advertising serves the consumers as well as the advertiser.

It is probably part of the reasons most people dislike advertising: everybody knows it’s trying to have them do something, most often buy something – possibly against their will. Nobody likes the impression of being influenced or manipulated against their will.

I’m writing all this because I believe it is possible for advertising to be relevant, entertaining, and even useful to the people it is destined for. I think that’s an important point the heart of Tracy’s article, and if I’m correct in my understanding I agree. I don’t know if there was a time the industry did a better job at that, but I’m sure it can do better now. I aim to help with that in the work I do with clients, though I admit I don’t always succeed as much as I’d like to.

I also think mass communication can be used to make a positive difference for people. I recently found out about The International Exchange and it’s great to see this type of exciting projects in the world, committed to making a difference with the help of communication professionals.

That said, I’m questioning the distinction of who advertising serves because I think it’s important to be honest and realistic about it. The next question could be: if it serves the advertisers, then how can it serve them better by being for the people they are targeting?

To finish on a another thought, I particularly liked this definition of service in the Merriam-Webster:

2c. Contribution to the welfare of others.

Going one step further with this definition in mind, if advertising served the people it is targeted to, then how would it influence products and services being developed by advertisers, rather than the other way round?

22/08/2015 update:

In the middle of an unrelated conversation a day after writing this, a friend reminded me that the origins of the verb to serve and servir (we were talking in French) are from the latin servire, literally “be enslaved”, related to servus “slave”. The meaning then extended to being a servant later on, and then even later into the figurative kind of meaning I used for this post.

Taken in this sense, the title also makes for an interesting question to ponder: Who is enslaved to advertising?

 

Le Coq à l'Ane is Open!

My brother Morgan opened his first restaurant & wine bar on Saturday 1st August, which I was – and still am – very excited about! It is called Le Coq à l’Ane, a playful name based on a French saying which translates best in English as a non sequitur, going from thing to another completely unrelated or illogically. Literally the saying translates as “going from rooster (or cock) to donkey” and the restaurant name can literally translate as “the donkeyed rooster (or cock)”.

My brother told me the saying was used as early as the 14th century in France, and “l’âne” then was spelled “l’asne” and designated a female duck rather than a donkey. The saying originally referred to farm cocks that would have sex with ducks.

As for the restaurant, Morgan liked the sound of it, and he feels it reflects what guests will be experiencing when they visit, depending on what produce are available at the market and his inspiration or mood, one day he might be cooking something very elaborate and gastronomic, and the next day a simple like you’re at home Catalan sausage and mash, or an Indian curry another day. Main dishes can change suddenly with no rhyme or reason, yet you can be sure it will all be delicious and very affordable.

The restaurant is in the small village of Latour-de-France, by a lovely river. The village has a reputation amongst all-natural wine aficionados; while small the village boasts twelve different independent organic and/or all natural winemakers. The restaurant is also a wine cellar, so you can try different local wines and craft beers, or select a bottle and enjoy it at home or by the river with friends. For now he mostly has wines from the village, and he intends to get wines from other regions of France soon enough.

Morgan cooked delicious slow-roasted pork ribs and mashed potatoes for opening night dinner

The opening night was a success and different generations of villagers came by to have drinks and plates of artisan cheese and charcuterie, the atmosphere was great and it was a pleasure to be there. We finished late at night with Morgan’s ex-colleagues from the previous place he worked at, La Coopérative Riberach, a Michelin-starred restaurant nearby.

 

If you’re in the South of France near Perpignan or know of anyone visiting, please come by or tell them about the restaurant! In the meantime, they are regularly updating the Facebook Page with photos and information, check it out! 

Beers & Billboards project - test episode 0 (World Cup 2014)

As some of you may be aware I enjoy craft beers and was also home brewing beer. The interest was shared with my good friend and previously colleague JP in Singapore. Given we had a few evenings of enjoying craft beers we thought it would be a good idea to combine two of our interests, namely beer and advertising, into a podcast or video show.

We only recorded a few test episodes that weren't particularly well prepared (to say the least), though I still think it had some potential. I decided to leave Singapore and move back to Europe shortly after, and while we recorded another test via a video conversation (that I might publish as well), the idea has mostly been taking virtual dust in a corner of my hard drive.

I talked about it with JP and thought we might as well publish it and let people be judge of the potential for some kind of show, or lack thereof. Apologies in advance for the bad video quality, it's raw and was shot with a point & shoot camera. Plus batteries ran out in the middle of recording, we didn't realise until later and we only saved the early portion of it. I'm eating almost throughout - lesson learned, it's not recommended for recording video. Enjoy.

Video advertising credits (also watchable in better quality):

McDonald's World Cup "House Divided" 

Tiger UNCAGE: Joey Pang

Heineken "The Odyssey" 

Kona Brewing Company "Sad Hour"

Kidzania: innocent fun or capitalist wet dream?

I just spent some time in London for work, and a friend of mine who has a small child told me about this brand new theme park attraction called Kidzania, which sounded fascinating and terrifying in about equal parts. Shortly after I walked by their ad campaign in the tube and took a couple of pics. I became even more curious and looked it up.

Whatever I think of them critically, I'm a bit of a sucker for theme parks. I leave my critical thinking at the door when I walk in Disneyland for example. As a game, I spent one time in Disneyland Paris queueing with small children to get all the autographs of Disney characters in a notebook. I was younger than now though still taller than most of the kids at about 20 years old. I also love tabletop role-playing games, and while I did want to be helicopter pilot when I was 6 years old, once I found out I could also be a make-believe mischievous thief or a fire-ball throwing mage in tabletop games that sounded a lot more exciting.

Kidzania, originally from Mexico, and according to their website and Wikipedia page is a chain of family entertainment centres. Each one of their worldwide 16 locations features a fully modern albeit child-sized mock city full of law abiding, hard working playing kids. As I understand it from my friend's description, parents are encouraged to part with their child along with a substantial amount of cash for a couple of hours while they go and play modern hunter gatherers at the mall.

Once the kids are in the non-magical kingdom, they have the chance to train as model citizens of an ideal capitalist society, in other words they take on jobs and earn Kidzania money for it. Each new kid in there has a dedicated bank account, and can withdraw the local Kidzos currency from any of the citys ATMs. The website doesn't specify if or what the currency exchange might be if one child travels to a different Kidzania location. So apparently you have kids role-playing and dressing up in adult jobs like firemen, dentists, journalists, business men, cooks, air host(esses), etc. Altogether over 100 different roles jobs. Once they earn and learn by role-playing their jobs, they can spend their Kidzos on entertainment and items from the Kidzania shop.

'Zupervisors' are there to help the kids in their work play time and of course major brands are there to sponsor activities relevant to their field, hoping to make loyal customers of children at an early age, given when they're 18 years old they never listen to them.

Domino's Pizza, Coca-Cola, DHL, Sony, Nestlé, Danone, Unilever, etc already have branded booths where happy children can 'play work' using their branded products and working in their companies.

While I mostly find the idea of this corporate capitalistic ideal society for children frightening, I'm also ambivalent: it is true that role-playing is natural for kids, and imitation play is as well. Play in all its forms is to be cherished, mammals all learn through play, and we humans are no exception to that. I'm also not too sure the play should be this close to the 'real world' as we know it, and it feels way too close to training kids to being obedient corporate drones to work, earn, and then spend.

Or am I being too cynical..? What do you think?

Learning to drive

My first evaluation driving lesson was driving in snow!

I've been thinking about this post for a little while, just as I've been learning to drive (and still don't have my license) for a little while longer than expected.

Let us start with the fact that I'm a 35, soon to be 36 year old man, and still don't have my drivers license. I know I'm not the only one, but people can still be surprised at that. For a long time I had a canned and ready answer: my parents didn't have the money when I was 16-18 years old, and about that time we moved to the centre of Versailles, and Paris shortly after, I didn't need it living in a big city, and when I started earning enough to consider learning, I thought spending elsewhere would be a lot more interesting. I spent it on holidays instead, basically.

Thinking about it, I hadn't learned to drive all this time because truth be told I'm just not very interested. I've never cared much for cars, and driving seemed to be a hassle. I love to leave my mind to wander while I'm traveling in a vehicle, and to me that seems more important and worthwhile than having to pay attention to the road.

So far learning to drive had stayed in the department of unfulfilled good intentions, though moving away from Singapore to the South of France I knew I'd need to learn, and this was also part of the reason for the move back. I don't think I'll be a full time city-dweller my whole life so until teleportation becomes available cars unfortunately seem to be the best - or currently most popular - option.

I've written a few times in this blog that I've been enjoying learning new skills and trying out new activities in the past few years, such as Thai massage, scuba-diving, or home brewing beer. This year so far is about learning to drive, and it may well sound surprising if you've mastered that a long time ago, but for me it has been pretty tedious and difficult.

Early this year, I was with my little brother Morgan's car in the countryside lanes surrounding the vineyards, to try out and learn the basics. I sat behind the wheel and it felt pretty odd.

I put my hands on the wheel and said something like: "Wow this is weird, I can't remember the last time I was behind a steering wheel..."

Morgan looked at me, raised an eyebrow and replied: "You've never actually sat behind a car's steering wheel, have you..?"

"Well now you mention it... Nope..."

And then he taught me to start the car, and given right in front was an incline, spent time starting it again and again going up a slope - which I learned later isn't necessarily easy. At least I gathered that I could do it.

I began the official process soon after with a local driving instructor. The theory test was easy, that's comfy territory: learning stuff and regurgitating has never been much of an issue for me.

When it came to the driving lessons though it became a little tougher, and recently I've been talking with friends about why that might be, which was interesting. I realised I have a thing going on that I panic if I feel overwhelmed - particularly anything to do with physical coordination.

You can ask me to learn something by heart or type on my laptop while having 5 people yelling different things at me and I'll generally be fine. Add the same people and ask me to cook under pressure and I'm almost guaranteed to hurt myself (I'm a decent cook, just not a professional one).

Last week I burned myself making coffee because I was at a friend's place and unfamiliar with their coffee machine. I messed up making a first coffee, felt embarrassed at myself (no need for the 5 people), panicked somehow, and then burned myself making the second coffee...

In the past few months I've had a bunch of driving lessons, and improved enough to take the test in late May. I thought I was relaxed and confident before starting, and then failed spectacularly. I had all the best conditions for the test, including a really cool examiner, but accumulated mistakes. I've never stalled so much in barely 20 minutes. And apparently stalling in the middle of a busy roundabout is not acceptable...

While I was looking at what had happened, it's interesting to notice that the physical skills I've learned in the past few years more or less require slowly focusing on one thing at a time. It's not that I'm desperately clumsy (not that much, anyways!), though  if or when I feel there's too much pressure and too many things to coordinate at one time, I panic. And hurting myself or failing tasks then reinforces the idea that I'm awkward altogether as a truth.

I'm sure there's a part of talent, and driving is unlikely to ever be an area of expertise for me. That said at the same time it's allowing me to realise that it's mostly a question of practice - there's no particular physical reason for me to be worse than most drivers. In the end, identifying my panic reactions as they happen letting me catch myself in the act, relax when I realise it's silly, and get over it, lets me be present to what I'm doing - driving in the case of this story.

It looks like I won't have a new space to take the driving exam until September, I'll be in touch about the results of the next test. Cross fingers for me. If you have one, please send a 'Don't Panic' towel!