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cultural

Success stories reported as failure

Jul 30th, 2012
by Rich.
2 comments

Something I often see happening in the media is the reporting of success stories as failures.

The scenario is this:

  1. Something unfortunate and unpredictable happens.
  2. The authorities / people responsible clean up the mess and few-to-no parties are harmed, physically or financially.
  3. This major success is reported by the news as a failure.

Today’s story about the keys at Wembley going missing was a great example of this phenomenon. Something very unfortunate happened – a set of keys went missing at a major Olympic venue. But here’s the thing: this fact was discovered instantly, and security protocol was initiated which resulted in all the locks being changed before there was any chance of security being compromised. This proves the security systems are working! A failure would be that the loss wasn’t noticed until it was way too late to know if anyone had got in. And yet the media reports this with headlines like “Wembley keys loss embarrasses police”. Why not “Wembley keys loss demonstrates police efficiency”?

It happened last year with the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Safety systems at a nuclear power plant failed, and a number of meltdowns occurred. But due to the huge number of safety measures, no one died and only 2 people suffered radiation-related injuries. This was a huge success story – something went massively wrong with an incredibly dangerous piece of equipment and no one died.

I think it’s the public’s ability to remember and latch onto the bad things and not to celebrate the good ones, and the media doesn’t help with this.

Think of the Manchester bomb in 1996. People remember there was a terrorist attack that wiped out a large part of the city centre. What they don’t remember is the amazing effort by the emergency services that resulted in not a single life claimed.

And how about the Y2K bug? The number of times I hear people say “well that was a big fuss over nothing, wasn’t it?” No! It was a potential major international disaster that was completely averted by thousands of engineers tirelessly working to fix all the broken code before it became an issue. But of course “Y2K bug fixed; no one hurt” is not a great front page headline.

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Thought for the day: Andy Murray

Jul 9th, 2012
by Rich.
2 comments

I don’t normally write about sport (or indeed, anything, these days) but I thought this was worth a moment.

The BBC is reporting today that Andy Murray’s defeat in the Wimbledon final was his “biggest disappointment yet” because he played better than ever before. And I have no doubt he feels that way.

That’s our culture that does that, not logic or common sense: the better you do and the harder you work, the bigger a disappointment it is when you fail.

Why? Is this a good thing?

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Karaoke for snobs

Feb 28th, 2012
by Rich.
2 comments

Those of you who know me well enough will know I’m a bit of a karaoke fiend. Stick me in a room with beer and some friends and a load of backing tracks and it will be very hard to get me to put down the microphone.

The trouble is: my musical tastes and karaoke don’t strongly intersect.

A karaoke playlist will always have a bit of Radiohead, REM, Kings of Leon… if I’m lucky I’ll find some other moderately popular artists like Mumford & Sons or the Manic Street Preachers. Sometimes there’s an absolute gem like Alabama 3 or Guillemots but this is really pushing it.

What we need is a karaoke bar for snobs. A place where Kylie and Girls Aloud are banned and the playlist oozes with quality songs that really test a singer’s vocal ability.

How amazing would it be to go to a karaoke bar and see more Jeff Buckley, or Antony and the Johnsons, or Kate Bush on the playlist? To be able to choose Super Furry Animals, The National or My Morning Jacket… and to be amongst a crowd of people who appreciate these songs?

What do you think? Who’s with me? Am I nuts??

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Twitter owns @

Nov 23rd, 2011
by Rich.
No comments yet

Here’s a fascinating cultural phenomenon I’ve observed recently: The @ symbol, placed before a word (such as @gourmethotdogs) is beginning to become an instant reference to that username on social network Twitter.

In the same way that the popular early subdomain “www” identifies web sites to the average person without the need for text explaining that it is a web site (or even the http:// part of the URL that specifies the protocol!), we’re starting to see signs and adverts for businesses just identifying their presence on Twitter with their name preceded by @. Essentially, Twitter now owns the @ symbol for the purpose of brand recognition.

What’s even more interesting about this is that the use of the @ symbol was not a Twitter platform feature in the beginning – it was invented by the platform’s users as a way to indicate replies to a user when no such capability existed in the platform.1

This is a great example of collective intelligence, as Tim O’Reilly would call it:

Think of how Wikipedia works, how Amazon harnesses user annotation on its site, the way photo-sharing sites like Flickr are bleeding out into other applications… We’re entering an era in which software learns from its users and all of the users are connected.

– Time Magazine, October 2005

In this case, not only has the software learnt from its users, the users have provided first a branding hook for the software, and later for marketing culture at large.

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  1. Twitter blog: Are you Twittering @ Me? [↩]

My talks at Bettakultcha

Aug 24th, 2011
by Rich.
No comments yet

Bettakultcha is a West Yorkshire phenomenon. Started by marketing genius Richard Michie and speaking expert Ivor Tymchak, it is a night of advert/sponsorship-free presentations on any subject at all, but set to a backdrop of 20 slides at 15 seconds per slide.

I’ve had the fortune to speak at three such events. I’m by no means the star of the show, ever, but I think what I have to say is worth hearing!

Bettakultcha Leeds V, 2nd November 2010

The first time I spoke was on common mistakes in the English language, and mnemonics for remembering how to fix them.

Sadly, the video for this one is forever lost, but I’ve put the slides on Slideshare.

Bettakultcha Leeds VIII, 12th April 2011

At this much larger event with an audience of about 200, I spoke on the controversial subject Why Manchester is better than Leeds (video link, slides interspersed). With tongue firmly in cheek I saved myself from the seething crowds.

Secret Bettakultcha, 9th August 2011

The latest event was held at a secret venue, and was much more low-key. Here I attempted to convey the history of the English language in five minutes (video link; slides are hard to read so are available on Slideshare).

If you’ve not heard me speak before, let me know what you think in the comments!

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Legislating morality

Aug 17th, 2011
by Rich.
1 comment

In the aftermath of the horrendous wave of crime that spread across many cities in Britain last week, we are starting to see something even more despicable: the ever-present threat of “morality legislation”.

I know lots of people have written about the government’s response to the riots and I’m a little nervous about joining the crowd, but I feel I need to add my voice to the clamour.

In a speech on 10th August, our nation’s leader said this:

The problem with that is a complete lack of responsibility.

A lack of proper parenting, a lack of proper upbringing, a lack of proper ethics, a lack of proper morals.

That is what we need to change.

Mr Cameron, I say this: How dare you?

How dare you dictate to me or the other people in my country what is proper about parenting, upbringing, ethics or morals?

We live in a free society, and our freedom to bring our children up in the way we choose and our freedom to choose our own ethical and spiritual path is guaranteed by law. [Articles 8 and 9 of the ECHR]

Those societies where morality and ethics are legislated are generally the ones that have the biggest unrest amongst their local populations. Just look at what’s happening in the Arab world at the moment.

I agree that the crimes committed last week were dreadful, so let’s look at what we can do to prevent them from happening again. Maybe you want to start by looking at why people think that they have nothing to lose by turning to crime… is it because they have nothing to lose, as a result of the failure of the last two governments to look after the whole of our population?

Rant over.

(Full disclosure: Although I am extremely unhappy with many of the attitudes of the current coalition government, I am still – and proudly – a card-carrying Liberal Democrat. More on this in a later blog post.)

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“Smartphones” are not phones

Aug 10th, 2011
by Rich.
2 comments

I’ve recently acquired a Samsung Galaxy S II Android “smartphone”, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

All day long and wherever I am (more or less) I have unlimited access to my email, my social networks, the news, train times, price comparison, my todo list, my calendar, note-taking, shopping lists, sudoku, maps and a hundred other things that augment my life and improve my productivity.

And then once in a while some smarmy git will say to me, “well, my phone makes voice calls.”

And herein lies the problem with the language we use. Phones are supposed to make and receive voice calls, but my device is not a phone. It’s a palm-sized tablet PC with voice-calling capability.

I probably wouldn’t miss voice calls much if my device didn’t make them. I could cope for a few hours without the ability to receive calls but I’d feel awfully disconnected without access to my email. The phone capability is a great bonus, but it’s certainly not the primary reason I own this device.

Let’s stop calling them smartphones and give them a name they deserve. I vote for “robot servants”.

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Now wash your hands

Jun 27th, 2011
by Rich.
5 comments

We were all taught way back in primary school that after using the lavatory, we should wash our hands.

This is not a matter of personal hygiene, it’s a matter of the hygiene of everyone who has used that particular toilet and with whom you have shared germs.

Remember, a lot of nasty illnesses are accompanied by irregular bowel movements, so it stands to reason that shared toilets are going to be covered in nasties.

Now, with that in mind, why is it that whatever shared toilet facilities I find myself in, whether in a dingy bar, a posh restaurant or even an office building, it seems to be fewer than 50% of men that actually wash their hands before leaving the room and spreading whatever they’ve caught to everything and everyone they touch?

Is this a cultural thing? Is it the same in other countries? What about ladies?

Sincerely,

Disgusted from Leeds.

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British superheroes

Jun 21st, 2011
by Rich.
No comments yet

I recently finished The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (a volume comprising the first 13 short stories) and it occurred to me that Holmes is very much an early superhero.

He has immense powers of deduction and disguise, often baffling even the best police detectives (whom he frequently refers to as ‘imbeciles’) and uses those powers only to further the common good and not for his own personal profit. He also shows another superhero trait, that of recognizing the value of all human beings, even wrongdoers, often finding a way to secure their escape rather than face the corrupt justice system.

But Holmes makes a big deal out of his powers being no more than any person could do with the right application of brainpower. He and Watson frequently point out that he, in fact, knows very little about anything other than what is necessary to solve mysteries. He relies on his library to fill in all the gaps.

Holmes has a counterpart across the Atlantic: Batman. Batman is also a brilliant detective, and similarly hates to see people die, but his whole aura and ethos is built up around his own personal mystery and scary tough-guy demeanour.

“Nicer” American superheroes such as Superman still primarily seem to be about strength and physical powers (either by birthright or through technology) in order to bring about the feeling of “necessary force”. In order to be a hero in American comic-book mythology, one has to stand up to one’s enemies.

I was thinking about British superheroes, and the next one that obviously came to mind was the Doctor. The Doctor has the ability to travel through time and space, and several centuries of knowledge built up from his endless fascination with science and technology. People all over the universe fear him, but he hates violence and does whatever he can to stop people from even giving each other dirty looks. His character, like Holmes, is that of someone who knows he has power and can’t help but use it for good, but because it’s fun, not because it’s right.

I had a search for British superheroes and the one that repeatedly came up in searches was John Constantine. I don’t know much about him, but it seems he has superpowers and is almost embarrassed to use them. He wants to prove to his enemies that he can defeat them using his intellect alone.

Something all these British heroes have in common is that they value their own mental prowess well above their physical abilities, and they’re determined to show their enemies this is the case.

Racking my brains for an American superhero with the same outlook I only came up with Jean-Luc Picard. And they gave him a British accent.

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