aspire to enquire

GOV.UK

I bloody love what's going on with GOV.UK at the moment.

The scale of the challenge is ridiculous - bring all Government services into one place, unify content structures and make the information useful for the public rather than Civil Servants, all whilst setting up to be futureproofed for a more connected and device neutral web.

It's amazing that even with all of this, there still seems to be an intrinsicly craft-let approach to the project. I just read Ben Terrett's blog about typography, and you should too. 

I think even the beta releases are shaping up to be what would consider to be the best website in the World. In all seriousness. It's completely focussed on the experience, being developed by an awesome team who (appear from the outside at least) have the time, breadth and depth to cover all the aspects of the site that effect that experience. And the project's being developed, communicated and shared in exactly the way a project like this should be.

Truly inspiring.

 

New Cardiff City Logo is way off target

Every now and again I stray back in to a bit of 'graphics', and one of those occasions has recently been for The Barry Horns, who I've talked about before. So it is from that point of view that I write today.

Rebrands are always controversial, and a polar shift such as the one we've just seen at Cardiff City was never going to get through without a bit of friction from the huge and passionate supporter base. Personally, whilst I'm a firm believer in being proud of one's heritage, I can see the arguments for the switch. Ultimately, the club's future is a little bit brighter for the time being.

But Jesus - couldn't they have come up with a better new logo? I appreciate this is from the people who brought us the Cardiff City Stadium, but if you're going to throw out over 100 years of heritage for the sake of £100 million you could at least spend a bit more on a replacement?

A lot of football clubs have awful logos/crests, but that is because they were made in the old days. Keeping a tatty relic of a bygone age reinforces a club's working-class, flat cap rattle-enthused heritage, which is nice to remember in the days of mega clubs and oligarchs.

But now, the Club has re-branded to broaden its appeal in The East, and all we're sending over is this garish piece of clip art that looks like it was designed with the art director (if there was one) at the other end of a 2 minute phone call from the artworker.

When I think of a City like Manchester I think of a strong, forward-thinking 21st Century City founded on a rich and diverse heritage, and this for me is visually personified in the two football clubs' different approaches. Football spreads a city's name and image worldwide. When people see CCFC's new look, what will they understand about the City?

It doesn't suprise me that things have gone this way, but it's another example of a massive wasted opportunity for the City of Cardiff. Of course 'Cardiff' had nothing to do with the decision, but that just goes to reinforce the opinion of many of the fans that the club has very little regard for its tens of thousands of passionate ticket-buyers, who also need a prosperous place to live and work in the global 21st century.

Welsh cultures are flourishing from all angles at a grassroots level, but some of the institutions tasked with promoting and harnessing these progressions seem like they're stuck in smoky 1970s working men's clubs. Nothing sums this up better for me right now than the new Cardiff City Football Club logo.

Look what happens when you give a group of young offenders some expensive camera kit:

This is awesome

Via Lizzy King

Mindless?

So the dust seems to have settled a bit around the UK, after the 'riots' of a few weeks ago.

I think most people have thought a lot about the reasoning behind the violence we saw here, and I've been at a few parties and with different groups of friends where the subject has come up. It largely seems to have followed the Conservative line of "this was mindless violence, the people should be punished, they deserve harsher and quicker sentencing than usual because the actions were so severe"

Well, I've found this rationale a bit problematic, and while I waited for alternative opinions to spread past the blog pages of national newspapers (like this great piece in The Independent and another in The Telegraph) and start influencing real public debate, national attention has seemed to move on to more justifed conflicts further afield.

So I wanted to get my thoughts down and see what responses were, because I'm worried that for the young people who were involved in these acts, not much has changed. And if nothing has changed, this could happen again.

Still from the Keep Aaron Cutting campaign site.

The thing that really struck me wasn't necessarily the 'mindlessness' of the actions, but of the targets. For me it raised some questions.

• What could lead someone to think there is no difference between a lone local hairdresser and a global electronics brand?
• How could someone not differentiate between members of their community and state police? And going further, why are the Police/state seen as the enemy at all?

I believe it's true that many of these acts were not pre-meditated, and many people now in custody probably did just get caught up in the moment. But I also agree that that's not always an excuse. But the idea that kids 'should have known better' doesn't wash for me either.

It seems like the answers to the questions above lead to some pretty long-term conditioning that these kids and their peers have gone through.

If everyone is against you, what difference does it make if you burn Oxfam or Foot Locker? If as soon as you do something, people distance themselves from you and persecute you, why would you ever attempt to reach out and empathise? If at least 1 in five of your friends are out of work and being forced to jump through hoops to receive £2.14 per hour while they look for jobs that don't exist, what faith do you have that polititians are on your side, even before they start calling you 'scum' and 'thugs'?

Just lots of questions really, but I hope that as a country we're able to think about answering them. There's a lacklustre speech from Ed Milliband that touches on some of the issues, but in that very middle-class way that doesn't even come close to the kinds of reform that's needed.

I leave you with this video shot before any of this kicked off:

What do you think?

Market controversy

I've probably mentioned more times than is helpful that I moved to Brixton last September. 

It's good. Really good. Aside from being sort of ideal for work, and having an awesome housemate, I've been lucky to have been here to witness most of the transformation of the Brixton Market area. It's gone from a bustling hub of vegetables, meat, fabric and reggae to a teeming warren of arcades lined with vegetables, meat, fabric, reggae with also coffee, pizza, clothing and art.

It's like some sort of middle class dream. 

Sadly there's some controversy; while the newcomers to the arcades are being featured in the New York Times, the amazing existing traders are battling against all kinds of legal technicalities and rent hikes off the back of this very locally focussed gentrification.

Image from Urban 75 Blog
 

We'll need to keep an eye on it. I really hope that new visitors to the market, drawn in by the new shops, are tempted to try buying from the existing traders as well, and I hope those traders will be able to see this as an opportunity rather than a threat. And behind it all I hope the managing agents will be able as much as possible to let the market evolution mature and run its course a bit before making any snap short-term decisions that could jeopardise the market's multi-cultural future.

That video at the top is from British Pathe, in 1961. If you haven't been to Granville Arcade, this is still a fairly accurate representation. Cheers to James Mitchell for the reminder about this video.

This is what we have got to march for

I felt inspired to pass this video on after hearing so much about it this morning. Gordon Brown has had a pretty rough ride over the past year, as any leader and political party should have. But whenever I've seen him speak in the flesh, the sense of his dedication, commitment and gravitas have been overwhelming. This video goes a long way to conveying that sense. 

I hope I won't lose followers over posting this, but I also hope that if people chose to use their vote this week they'll make decisions based on a fair appraisal of the party policies, the leaders, and the teams behind them and their respective experiences. 

It's going to be a very interesting and exciting night on May 6th.

Social media shepherds

As more and more campaigns and movements conceive themselves online, the kinds of patterns that people like David Armano have been talking about for some time are starting to be widely accepted. The peer-to-peer and bottom-up 'influence ripples' communication methods are starting to openly challenge the top-down institutional channels that many campaigners are still relying on.

This week, a prime example was the #welovethenhs twitter campaign, born out of an emotional and patriotic response to traditional American right-wingism. Becoming one of the highest trending topics over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, the media added to the commotion by picking it up at the end of the week, causing more people to add their voices.

I'm pretty sure that no one at COI or the NHS (or the White House) thought up this campaign. It shows the power of twitter to allow individuals to rally their causes in real time and respond to issues that they feel passionate about. The media and societal response was a campaigner's dream.

But there are real challenges for traditional campaigners now.

On Friday morning we unpacked a typical campaign process, through the planning, implementation and post-campaign stages. Building online presences, taking on fundraisers, analysing data and all manner of other logistical feats that would take a campaign months to gestate.

What do those people do, now that a campaign can take off and die down in the space of a week? In our Friday discussion the idea of campaigners as 'shepherds' was mooted. We shouldn't try so hard any more to hold people in our field - We need to follow the flock, wherever it wants to graze, but we need to be there to keep it together, keep it safe, and keep the momentum. We need to respond whenever something comes up, and hope that the groundswell of support around the issues draws people to particular behaviours or organisations.

To be fair to the Labour Party, that's exactly what they've done this week with their response to #welovethenhs . But in their response there are lessons to be learned for future shepherds.

Did they act to quickly to bring it round to another attack on the tories? Were they right to imply that all these tweeters were suddenly Labour supporters?

I think "yes" and "no" - but we'll see how it turns out. What do you think?

Cake or death politics - Eddie Izzard visits Cardiff

Eddie Izzard visited Cardiff yesterday to canvas the City centre with Labour's candidates for Wales in the forthcoming European Parliament election. Queen Street is the pedestrianised shopping centre of the City for the time being, an archetypal regional high street, and is usually bustling with shoppers. I have many a fond memory of treading its glistening pavers whilst flyering for Tiger Tiger.

There's also a towering statue of the late Nye Bevan at one end, often the perfect place to set up a political stall and talk amongst yourselves. It was in his shadow that around 30 Labour supporters and friends gathered to meet Eddie, after receiving an email tip-off. 

Getting to meet Mr Izzard. It was special.

But let me firstly mention a few things as a point of reference: I am a Labour party member, who believes in a lot of the principles set out by people like Anthony Giddens. I'm into government intervention to assist community social enterprise and small businesses, I'm into the NHS, Sure Start and the Minimum Wage, and firmly on the fence over a number of other issues. I'm into diverse and active communities. I think Clause IV is awesome, but until recently I'd not read the old one. So in theory I'm a perfect 'New Labour' supporter.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a fair proportion of the rest of the UK believe in all those things too. I think Labour politicians still have that at heart somewhere. In my area, our local Councillors do a fantastic job and our MP and AM have been in the area for years, and know the constituents well. That's why I'm still a Labour supporter.

Somehow, though, as all these passionately socially minded democrats have united and governed over the past 12 years under a Labour banner, something seems to have gone a bit wrong. I don't especially mean that something's gone wrong in running the country, although there are obvious points of argument that might suggest otherwise. What I mean is that something's gone wrong when a party with  social justice and equality at its core can be as unpopular as Labour currently is.

I'd love to blame the media and the general trend towards 'soundbyte' news for polarising the public and mis-representing the issues. But based on what I saw yesterday during Eddie Izzard's visit, I'm going to blame the Party. Not the elected politicians, but all the young suited career types waiting to replace them and working for the Party in the meantime.

Here's Eddie talking to the press who'd been invited to cover the event. BBC Wales were there, but haven't yet reported the event. Media Wales, or whatever they're called, were there, but their coverage was pretty poor from a Party perspective. So in terms of the 'buzz' that a visit like this was meant to generate, fails all round. There's not even a mention of the actual candidates' names in either news item on WalesOnline.

The party seem to have missed a few media channels off their press-release list, channels that as we know can be a brand or organisation's most loyal followers and advocates. Interestingly for the Labour Party, they're even more powerful than that, they're voters. And Queen Street was full of them yesterday.

Not that any of them could take advantage of the story as it unfolded. Luckily for me, I got to spend a few minutes asking Eddie why he wasn't standing himself ("I need to kill my career first - maybe in 10-15 years") and if he'd come to Chapter when it was fully re-opened ("Yeah maybe, I tend to just chose places with a map and a pinboard"). But it took a good 20 minutes or so to fight through the placard wavers and party staff to even ask for a picture, never mind spending time actually discussing anything. Did he introduce me to Lisa or Derek? Maybe he assumed I already knew who they were. Did they introduce themselves? Maybe they didn't see us talking behind the balloons.

I wonder if most people on Queen St even knew if we had one of the world's biggest entertainers amongst us. For the most part, we looked more like some kind of Labour Party Roman Legion doing that tortoise-like attack formation with the shields. And with the current expenses kerfuffle and the prior malaise, they knew to use their celtic upbringings and stay well away.

They're going to stay away on June 4th as well. Did you know that that was when the election is?

Here's my suggestion. Lose the placards and balloons - they differentiate us from 'real people'. Lose the Party supporters. You can make us feel far more valued by inviting us to a private show later. Take the 'celeb', the candidates, and some kind of press officer, and actually spend time meeting people. Tell people why Europe is important. Allow a lot of camera phone picture taking. Set up a facebook group in advance. Maybe tweet your celeb's whereabouts as he moves round the city. Get a few flyers done that the celeb can sign for people that also start to engage with some issues. Reach out to people who put their photos online and start some conversations...

...Repeat as necessary. As a media campaign, if it works for T-Mobile it can work for anyone. As a political exercise, you may have just opened someone's eyes to a whole lifetime of engaged political participation, based not on party politics and logos but on issues, and on getting things done. 

We need to celebrate what we're about. If people aren't into it, hopefully they'll still respect your opinions and start some meaningful debates. Let's stop threatening people with the alternatives and have something to say for ourselves that we're proud to shout about. Let's stop faffing about with placards, smear campaigns, dodgy websites and leadership elections and get on with getting people excited and making things work. 

Let's have a party. A Labour Party. With cake. Otherwise, DEATH! 

Innocence lost, and other predictable headlines

This whole Innocent / Coca-Cola thing is tricky, isn't it? 

In case you missed it, Coca-Cola have bought into somewhere between 10% and 20% of Innocent, and I think on the whole I support Innocent for selling. Judging by how much trouble I'm having in deciding what I think about the whole thing, I imagine it was a pretty tough call for the founders to make as well, and what do I, or anyone else who doesn't work for Innocent, know about what was the right thing to do.

Picture borrowed from the Innocent Blog

We've already seen how hard it is to be a smoothie company in the UK, with PJ being discontinued by Pepsi earlier in the year, and I haven't heard much from their new Tropicana offering recently. With people cutting their spend at the supermarket and on the lunch hour, Innocent must have been feeling some pressure. 

So I'm glad they'll still be trading, and that they'll be able to continue to grow into continental Europe.

I'm sure a lot of other people are glad too. I hate that there are going to be a lot of rubbish comments on the Innocent blog and elsewhere that I don't think they deserve.

But people are bound to have a problem with this support coming from Coca-Cola, a company who have been linked to all sorts of ethical misdemeanours for many years past. They've been accused of using paramilitary squads to kill union leaders at the Columbian plants. They've been accused of draining and polluting groundwater (i think). They were a symbol of western capitalism for most of the 20th century. And they make rubbish drinks.

It's funny though, that if this were any other company, I wouldn't be the slightest bit bothered about their financial activities. If HSBC admitted they invested in Arms, whatever. If Gap bought a Somalian pirate clothing manufacturer, meh. There's something about this particular news that's catching my attention though.

I don't doubt that there will continue to be amazingly tasty drinks with witty innocent labels on, and I look forward to enjoying them wherever I travel in the future. I hope that the amazing work they've done on recycled packaging rubs off on other manufacturers as Innocent gain market share. I hope, also, that they make it to the States and blow all the stupid pseudo-health 'added vitamin blah blah blah' drinks brands right out of wholefoods.

Rubbish American drinks, pic borrowed again, from Fitsugar this time. Ironically, I think Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola.

The statement from founders Adam, Jon and Richard says lots of things about the company not changing, which, if they say so, I believe to be true. And they deserve this recognition for 10 years amazing work. Really amazing. 

Amazing!

But I do think something will happen in the minds of even Innocent's most loyal customers now that this news has broken, and I think it's a shame. In the long run it might have wider implications for people's outlook on things.

Tony Blair outside 10 Downing Street on May 2nd, 1997, pic The Guardian

I'm finding it hard to not liken this a bit to the effect of the Iraq invasion by Blair's Labour Government. Here was a hugely popular government who many people felt a lot of enthusiasm for and who many would openly and proudly support in conversation. There are less of those people after Iraq. The amount of people in the States that I told about Innocent, and the enthusiasm with which I told them, well, it was a lot of people and I was very enthusiastic, because I love the brand. As we're always told, word of mouth is hugely influential and a brand asset that can not be undervalued.

So I wonder how many people are going to continue to really love Innocent, and be proud to talk about them, and make such an easy choice at the chiller cabinet. Before this week, it was pretty simple; all other drinks bad, Innocent good. You could rant lyrically about the labels, the foundation, the cow vans, and encourage your friends to get involved. 

Now, I think I'd be worried that people will just say 'yeah, but aren't they owned by coca-cola?' and there's not going to be much to respond with. Maybe I have an optimistic view of the power of branding, but I feel that there's one less thing for people to really believe in now.

Whatever the intricacies of the deal, the variation of different products, I'm worried that people are just going to end up thinking that fruit drinks, just like cosmetics, ice cream and chocolate before them, are just like politicians. They're all the same really.

Earth Hour Cardiff

Earth Hour came and went across the globe this evening, apparently with it's biggest number of participators yet. I went out into Cardiff city centre to see what was being done here

I took a few pictures of some of the Capital's best known buildings.

Cardiff Castle:

Cardiff City Hall:

the National Museum of Wales Galleries:

Cardiff Crown Courts:

and The Millennium Stadium:

I didn't go down to the armadillo, that might have been more interesting.

So anyway two of those buildings had switched off for Earth Hour, but can you tell which ones? 

Have another look.

It was the Millennium Stadium and Cardiff City Hall.

My rubbish-white-balance-camera is probably a bit unfair on these buildings, but I think that kind of proves my conclusions from the evening.

It made absolutely no difference that these two buildings were doing their bit, because of the inescapable glare of the surrounding streetlights. And was the stadium even doing its bit when it had every other light on in the place? 

That is probably another question, to which I would answer 'No'. 

I appreciate that turning the street lights off would probably have all sorts of safety implications, and I know that this is a campaign in its infancy.

But I just wonder about its real effectiveness. What is the point of being symbolic if no one sees it? There are also concerns about power surges when everyone switches back on, and that it doesn't really have a very sustainable message.

I think if I'm still here next year, I'll try to do something about it here in Cardiff. Maybe a bike-powered mini festival thing, with candles or something? And maybe promote it a bit better. Ask the council to turn the streetlights in that area off, and make sure there are enough people about to make it safe for people to walk to.

Maybe I'd give out a flyer at the end asking people to think about what they switch back on.

If it is going to continue past this G20 and that, it seems like something that I should try to help with.