However at the same time The Sagan Series posted a new video to commemorate the history of the shuttle and space travel. If you haven’t watched or read up about The Sagan Series and its maker Reid Gower, do so now. Beautiful, poignant and simple. Facebook. YouTube. There are a number of episodes. Below is the End of an Era Space Shuttle Film.

I hate dreams.

Yeah, I said it.

Not the “when I grow up…” or “one day I’ll…” or “I’m starting a business making spoons” sort of dreams. The night-time dreams, REM marlarky.

Let’s also not confuse dreams with imagination. Cos I love imagining. Pretending. Playing. Thinking crazy things up. I’d be in the wrong job if I didn’t. Dreams are a different confusing mind-beast.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never been one who has seen something in a dream and gone – “Yes, that’s it”. No flying flaming pies of wisdom for me.

I know what you’re dying to say:

“But like Aaron in like dreams you can like fly and stuff”

And I would retort:

“But then I’d wake up and find out I couldn’t fly and be pissed off. And stop saying “like”, you sound idiotic”.

I’d rather imagine myself flying while awake, then be taken in by such an elaborate deceit.

Y’see, I wake from dreams pissed off at people cos their dream counterpart cheated on me. I wake up feeling sad when a nice adventure isn’t true. Or I wake up more knackered cos of some mental dream spent running from monsters/zombies/aliens. Or having dream-spent a whole day stressed at a job that I haven’t done in years with people I hate, only to realise I’m gonna be late cos I’d left my purple tie at home and there are no buses coming. Or episodic dreams, where you know this has happened before, but you still need to go through the motions of leading that army to the beach to fight lobsters, with the vague hope you might move the story on. Can’t I just have some peace for one night?

And don’t get me started on the whole “they were my friend but not”, “It was my house but upside-down” or the “I just got ready for work didn’t I?” genre of dreams.

I suppose it’s because in a dream everything feels real, even lucid dreaming still leaves a bad taste in my brain. For me it’s not a question of controlling dreams, more that I’d have to. It all takes energy and effort which basically goes toward nothing. Other than messing with me. It doesn’t feel like rest. Which is what sleeping is for right?

Note to Subconcious: To be fair I could do without it.

…………..

UPDATE: I wrote this at 1.30am just before going to bed. I woke up annoyed at my wife for a dream-something she didn’t actually do, and I scowled at her for 5 minutes. Fact.

UPDATE 2: My lawyers are suggesting that I state that in no way do the previous opinions as thus stated in this blography internet letter represent the opinions of other members of Albion and their subsequent love or necessity for dreams. Or any organisation that sells dreams, dream-like holidays or deliciously dreamy products for eating whose business we may want.

I am a gaming fan. I enjoy how you can be more connected to a game than to a film. I like the fact I can create and play cinematic moments rather than have them play out for me. I like talking in the first person about how I killed a vampire and be shocked as I play out my own death scene. I’ve played games as long as I’ve ridden my bike. It’s just something my brother and I did when we couldn’t go outside. From Spectrum ZX, through Super NES to PS3.

However, one genre of game I’ve never been in tune with is the RPG. The role playing game. I’ve just never ‘got’ it. It just took too much time and gave too many options. Why would I be a barman selling flagons of ale and talking, talking, talking, slowly discovering the secrets of the realm, when I can be jumping on Koopas or in the SAS, head-shotting insurgents from behind generic looking crates or barrels?

This includes the whole MMORPGWTF worlds as well. If I can’t drop in and out, or it was not shooty, drivey, jumpy fun I was just not interested. It seemed to be reserved for those who dabble in the Pasty-faced-T-shirts-of-wolves-howling-at-the-moon-wearing-dungeons-and-dragons side of gaming. People who really dedicate time to not seeing real grass or trees. That’s not entirely fair. Let’s not forget that many a boy (my brother included) played Championship Manager to the early hours of the morning – Yes that is an RPG Sean, you were watching numbers change on a screen for chrisakes! Not me, none of it. All those stats. Talking. You hit me. Wait. I hit you. Wait. You hit me. Wai…Boring.

But I’m changing. One thing I have seen in gaming is that RPG elements are making their way into even the most mainstream of games. Not only did we not notice this infiltration into our super cool driving games. We like it. Because it gives our pew, pew games more depth.

Call of Duty. Bioshock. FIFA 11. Red Dead Redemption. Gran Turismo. Assassins Creed. Big popular games, full of RPG parts. Yep. You know it’s true. Levelling up. Crazy customisation. Character creation. Weapon classes. Open worlds to explore. Ambient missions. Multiple endings. Moral choices. Being left on the bench as a season plays out while you watch – damn you FIFA. All things that have made these games last longer and feel more fulfilling, and that I used to avoid like the T-Virus. I now demand them. I feel cheated if I can’t lose myself in these things.

It got me thinking. Am I playing RPG games with great shooting/driving/jumping elements? Or are these jumpy/drivey/shooty games with great added RPG bits? Or is it simply that developers have realised that a world growing up on the internet can handle this added level of choice alongside the shiny graphics? As I type I’m surrounded by buttons and choices every second. In Facebook I create my own character with text, use digital currencies, friend stats and share found treasures everyday. For me, these gaming classifications are becoming more and more redundant as I start to see more immersive entertainment using the best bits from all types of sources. It’s becoming a question of game universe (franchise), rather than game genre.

Charlie Brooker is right, modern games are difficult to describe as anything other than ‘experiences’. And this blurring of the genre lines just emphasises that. One thing I’ve been told is that RPGs are stories you unravel in a way unique to you. But more and more games are letting me do that, without a broad sword in sight.

Most great games are tales that put Hollywood to shame – wrapped up with action, intelligence, subtlety and an even greater ability to make the story your own. I recently played Mass Effect 2… ummm alot. It’s an ‘Action RPG’ and I played it out of morbid curiosity. And got hooked on the amount of subtle things I could do with the game, outside of the ‘action’ bits. I took ownership of my character and defined, in my own mind, what they would and wouldn’t do. It’s big, epic and you still do a fair bit of talking. But it’s also blockbustery, shooty fun.

But back to my main question (I recently posed it to Official PlayStation Magazine. And got a great answer – although I’m not sure my wife would agree) – Am I now an RPG fan? It’s fair to say I am turning into one, but not by choice. I still don’t ‘get’ many ‘pure’ role playing games. Or why I’d sink half my life into them. But I do have a levelled-up appreciation for the RPG. As I said, I’m playing them more and more, without even knowing it. As long as they come packaged with a lot of vroom, screeee, bang, bang, kaplooee, ROONEY!

Olympia is an incredible venue for D&AD and it helped highlight the creativity that was around us. For the first time the Student Awards and Professional Awards were being judged at the same time. Which meant, in the 10 minutes between rounds I was able to walk around and see some of the really great work being entered. I hope you win. I thought yours was the best.

The other thing that struck me was the level of quality presentation from the Students. The craft in many pieces blew me away. Some had made whole video case studies, close to anything I’ve seen a professional deliver at a pitch. One person must have Spike Jonze as an uncle because their film was beautiful. However they did raise the question: Are we liking the video case study and nice music and deep emotive VO, or the idea? After a gentle debate this was (usually) easily solved. In the end a fair bit of the work we commended had no case-study-like video, but were simple great ideas, realised with interesting media choices.

All the judges had spent time prior to Judgement Day whittling down the selection via an online process. This was great because it allowed us to get to grips with the work in our own time and properly analyse it. For me, in the pre-judging two things repeated, both about how some students regard integrated solutions. I was either seeing a couple of press ads posted onto everything from banners to bus shelters or I was seeing 50,000 (approx) little ideas with nothing to hold them together – could it be too many students were working together and couldn’t edit or focus, afraid of upsetting each other? It appeared that way. Some ideas that got through were just better focussed and used media (and PR) that suited a smart concept, and helped tell the right story to the right people in the right places.

This was my first year judging D&AD and I was very honoured to be there and mixing with such interesting and talented people. It was also great to debate with them as an equal. I fought for ideas I felt challenged the brief, client and D&AD. Which wasn’t as difficult, or as heroic of me, as I make it sound, as most of the judges in my inflatable Judgaterium immediately felt the same about certain pieces that were just stand-out and scary ideas. Ideas to be jealous of. Yes we argued over the finer details of certain entries – but that was part of the fun.

One thing to note if you’re a student – be more dangerous. C’mon, we need a bit more “you can’t do that” spirit, it makes us remember your work.

Now, I can’t reveal anything about the results. We’ve been warned by the D&AD police. Which makes it difficult for the Content Pimps out there. There’s only so many tweets one can… err… tweet about the space, the coffee, the pigeon or the mounting – some colleagues have even resorted to insulting each other using the #dandad2011. Which seems about right. D&AD are probably monitoring posts about the awards right now, like the FBI scan my emails for words like ‘bobm’. They do I tell you! So I will not take the risk. Sorry, not even for your handsome face.

One other thing I was privy to on Tuesday was the launch of a new pencil. You probably already know what it is as you’re so tuned in, but as a reminder – The White Pencil. An award designed to recognise ideas that make the world a better place. Is D&AD getting moralistic in its Golden age? Ah, who cares, I can’t think of a D&AD pencil I’d rather win.

Good luck to all the students that entered. Hopefully see you on the other side.

David Mitchell is one the most exciting British authors around. Nominated by Time magazine as one of the ‘100 most influential people in the world’ in 2007 his latest book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, is finally available in paperback. To celebrate the fact Mitchell was present last night on the 6^th floor of Waterstones Piccadilly Circus to read both from the book and some new material.

He started reading a particularly poetic passage from towards the end of Thousand Autumns. Heavily descriptive it evokes the chaotic but vibrant life on the streets of 18^th century Nagasaki and all of the various forms of human life that populate it. At the end of the paragraph Mitchell apologised and said that after a year of reading from the same book he’d quite like to read us something different and that in fact he had first read that passage four years ago at Hay-on-Wye well before the book was finished. He wants to read us something new he’s working on and pulls out a few pages of typed manuscript with a child’s drawing on the back. He notes ‘this is what happens when you leave things on the kitchen table in reach of your five year old daughter’.

The piece he then read, set in London in 1976, described an 11 year old girls’ journey to her aunt and uncles’ house with her father. The father has been banned from gambling by the mother and the young girl tries her hardest to avoid walking past any betting shops. Stopping at one and leaving the young girl in the nearby laundry he bets and wins 45 pounds. They carry on but unfortunately just before they arrive the father spots another bookies and thinks that he should ‘invest’ his winnings. This does not turn out well and they never make it to their destination.  Mitchell was clearly not lying when he said this was something he was working on as midway through reading he asks if anyone has a pen so he might add in some extra punctuation. Then later he says, after describing the young girl as a ten year old ‘wasn’t she eleven a minute ago?’ and again he scribbles on the sheets. ‘Were five pound notes blue in the 70s?’ he asks a moment later.

The reading finishes, there’s applause and time for questions. Thankfully the audience ask mostly sensible questions and Mitchell is most humble, gracious and giving when answering them.

The first question asked how much research he had to do for Thousand Autumns. The short answer is a lot it seems. Initially there was research around the context. Thousand Autumns is set on an 18^th century Dutch trading post off Nagasaki so there was research into the nature of Dutch East Indies Company, the general naval-ness of the 18^th century. But then there were the specifics such as shaving. When was shaving invented? Would a lowly clerk in the Dutch East Indies Company be able to afford shaving foam? What kind of razor would he use? This is what you spend your time researching Mitchell explains.

The next question ‘Black Swan Green was a step away from your previous style of chopped-up narrative, was this a dress rehearsal for Thousand Autumns?’

The answer was, essentially, no not really. Mitchell then explained how he’d not wanted people to think of him as the chopped-up narrative guy and that the secret to literary longevity was a conscious effort to not repeat yourself.

‘I want to avoid becoming like REM, who essentially release ok music but it’s all the same, indistinguishable.’

And how does one achieve this? ‘Omnivoracity’ Mitchell says. Read and explore everything. Think about everything. Essentially do anything that avoids getting yourself in a rut and even if it means upsetting the publisher, never release a book that you feel isn’t a progression from your previous one.

‘Do you have a favorite character from Thousand Autumns and do you ever feel guilty with what you do to your characters?’

Mitchell’s favorite character appears to be Dr Marinus who he says is a kind of immortal figure which perhaps hints that he will be featuring in the follow up book (many of Mitchell’s characters pop up from book to book). And whether he feels guilty about what he does to them, it seems not. In fact ‘sacrifice the characters on the altar of the book’ are the exact words he uses saying that if it makes the story better then unfortunately they have to suffer.

‘How do you develop the characters and give them such a strong voice?

By writing a couple of pages biography for each character, written in their own voice. It establishes who they are but also establishes how they deal or view things like work, their relationship to money, how they view death, sex, god and most importantly language. How a character uses language is probably the most important facet of characterization – the vocabulary they have defines the character more than describing them. If a character uses a word that seems incongruous it just feels wrong. What we say and the way that we say it is how people define us. The way we speak and use language is as personal and unique as say our fingerprints.

And with that our audience with David Mitchell is at an end. Perhaps it was the intimate nature of the venue or the way in which the author meticulously answered questions to ensure that whoever asked something was satisfied with the answer but it really felt like we’d all received not only a glimpse of how Mitchell creates such vivid and exiting narratives but also some very useful tips to take away and apply ourselves. Tips that not only apply to people writing fiction but anyone involved in any kind of storytelling.

The Story, at Conway Hall, has quickly become one of the must attend events for the London thinker set. Everyone from planners to game designers to artists to programmers flock to hear planners, game designers, artists and programmers tell stories about how they tell stories. What is implicit here is that whatever our profession, thanks in part to digital technologies, we are all telling stories. And the better we can tell those stories the more people will play our games, buy our toothpaste, or use our service.

Unlike most conferences there wasn’t a duff presentation all day, which actually makes it quite difficult to round-up. So rather than fawning over every speaker, I thought I’d explain what I took away from the event and then point you in the direction of a bunch of other people that have done roughly the same.

At a fairly recent talk, at Google headquarters, Tony Hseigh CEO of Zappos asked ‘What is the story you want people to tell about your brand?’ and I think this question is at the heart of my thoughts from The Story.

What is the story you want people to tell about your brand?

It doesn’t matter whether it’s you that is the brand or the company you work for; the dynamics are roughly the same.  Too often we accept a given narrative as our own narrative. Self fulfilling prophecy is a powerful force for both individuals and brands, but it is not a given that we are what people say we are. Our stories are constructed of things we say and things we do and, for both brands and people, saying one thing and doing another will result in representing ourselves badly. However, just because we’ve said and done something in the past it doesn’t necessarily follow that we have to carry on the same in the future. We are all the masters of our own destinies and, as the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words. If you want people to think that your company is innovative, the easiest and most likely way is to achieve this is to actually be innovative. If you want to be a game changer, start changing the game.

It’s often difficult to think of ourselves apart from our category, industry or friend group but the reality is that we are not bound by these collective, associative narratives. We each have an individual narrative whose outcome we dictate through our actions. So the question is, what is the story you want people to tell about your brand and what are you going to do about it?

Further reading on The Story:

from attendees

Matt Edgar: Small pieces loosely joined

Rishi Dastidar: The Story 2011

Anne Holiday: The Story Takeaway

from speakers

Karl James: The Story

Mary Hamilton: What shape is a story?

In Mary Meeker’s recent presentation to Google’s thinkmobile conference, she revealed some jaw-dropping statistics that show just how quickly mobile is growing. For example in the fourth quarter of 2010, overall shipments of smartphones and tablets surpassed PC shipments for the first time. And global mobile data traffic is projected to grow 26 times over the next five years. If any further proof were needed, then look no further than the start-of-year declaration by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt that “all of our 2011 strategic initiatives are mobile”.

On Tuesday 8th March the Albion Society will host a discussion between four entrepreneurs who got into mobile early, and are using it to drive business costs down and quality of customer relationships up. They’ll share lessons about what works and what doesn’t, and about the challenges of operating in an environment that’s changing on a weekly basis.
Interested?
Register here….

Mobile photo sharing is becoming pretty big business pretty quickly. Instagram, some five months after launching boast 2m users and have just received $7m funding while rival Path have just received $8m funding (and reportedly they turned down $100m offer from Google).  Fairly early on we at Albion sided with Instagram. Path seems like a great idea but the execution isn’t really there yet.  But what is it about Instagram that makes it so appealing? We asked a few of our people who are using it, and here’s what they said, in their own words.

Charles: I was describing Instagram to someone the other day and the best way I could explain its appeal was the saying ‘a picture tells a thousand words’. Because it’s photo orientated the whole experience is quieter, less obtrusive but also much more engaging. Observing people’s feeds over Christmas gave a much more nuanced window into who they are and how they live than any amount of tweets could.

Glyn: It was lovely to use Instagram over the Christmas holidays, its ‘sharing lovely moments/things’ proposition really came into its own in the season of goodwill.

Corinna: I like the ‘intimacy’ of it – I always thought Twitter was awesome at letting you get to know and giving you access to people (by reading what they read, by listening to what interests them, who they chat to and how they talk) but Instagram is giving a whole new angle to this experience by allowing you to sneak into peoples’ lives on a very emotional level, something very voyeuristic. What I have also watched it do with myself is that I start to discover new things over Instagram – like a book someone took a picture of that looks interesting (and because it was someone I follow that took the photo, it feels like a personal recommendation) or that little hidden and beautiful place in Italy that a girl I follow went to, which I looked up and might consider visiting this year.

Glyn: The people I follow on Instagram are a subset of the people I follow on Twitter. The ones who a) I genuinely like and b) are creative and positive. Interestingly some who Tweet little Instagram a lot, and vice versa. I like the self-forming etiquette too. For example there’s a movement gathering pace where it’s uncool to use filters; better to test your skills. And I like that it’s vague – you have to engage your imagination and empathy to think about why that photo is important to the people who posted it, even  to guess what they were doing (and why, and who with).

Charles: Actually I think the popular page is pretty interesting as it gives quite a good insight into who the users of Instagram are. Really early on it had a very international user base from Japan, Israel, South America and Russia. And it really is a balance of styles from super schlocky pictures of hearts and kittens to great photography (with a healthy dose of artsy photos of cute girls). I think this shows how mainstream the audience is.

Nick D: I use it on my iPad.  Sadly I don’t have an iPhone, but is one of the most compelling reasons yet to get an iPhone. As such I’m not fully down with the social functionality or the take photo functionality What I do like about it is similar to the difference between YouTube and Vimeo. Instagram feels creative, visual, surprising, two way and generous. Twitter is less creative, more one way, and self indulgent. Instagram pics are like little teleports – they take you straight into a moment. Not in a vicarious way, but in a shared experience way.

Mike R: I think simplicity is the key to its success, so I’m going to keep it simple too. It really is just more emotive and evocative than twitter. The social integration is seamless and it makes my old iPhone 3 camera look much better than it really is.

Glyn: Interestingly there’s an even newer kid on the block, Picplz, and it’s already got lots of features like a web interface, APIs, and an Android version. But it just doesn’t feel as nice. It’s got no charm and the brand’s much harder and techier.

Last night was Albion’s 8th Birthday party, which was celebrated with the “Demolition of Disco”: drinking, disco dancing and cavorting at the aptly named 26 Smithfield (26 Smithfield st, Smithfield).

Nick Darken was there dressed as a piece of disco hi-fi equipment whose exact significance was lost on anyone born after 1975, a costume which, in his words, was “testament to the power of a so-so idea executed with unblinking conviction and commitment” .

Andrew Edelston could have just wondered off the set of a Wes Anderson film set.

Jack Gallon was resplendent in a gold lame dress.

Even Matt Roskill was there.

The evening started with prizes.

Winner of the ” Award to the person who gets off their bum most in order to make verbal communication thereby avoiding sending another bloody email” was the very deserving Sasha.

Stevo scooped the ” Award to the person who has done most under their own initiative to make Albion a culturally richer, more inspiring, surprising and altogether less dull place to work”, and celebrated with a sailor’s jig to match his sailor’s outfit.

Petrina pocketed award for the “the person who goes above and beyond the call of duty in order to deliver team success with their happiness, their faithfullness and their gallantness as inscribed in neon on our right honourable reception wall”.

Duncan trousered – literally – ” The gutter trash award to the person most able to end up in a gutter or stranger/collegue’s bed through sheer irresponsibility and utter disregard to self or others thereby earning the term in general discussion of “disgrace”.”

After that a Frank Zappa-meets-David Bedford costumed Glyn showcased his enclycopaedic disco-inspired early 90s house music record collection which got the dancing going.

The shapes were illegal. Nick Darken’s costume, which was never the going to be the most practical of get-ups, was coming off so fast that there was some concern about whether he would stop taking off articles of clothing at all. At times the behaviour frankly scored a zero in terms of appropriateness.

And then Sonny took to the decks.

In his snazzy blazer, shirt and tie combo looking like a man with a PhD in Advanced Disco Studies, Sonny’s set tipped the leg-shaking over into an 11, and that’s out of 10.

The sheer quantity of Jose Cuervo Tradicional meant that memories thereafter are cloudy. There was a very funny drag artist. There was an even funnier moment when we made Nick Curnow think that the drag artist’s chair was a prop for him to use to perform. There were more Cuervos. There was just more. Much much more for some. To quote MJ “don’t stop till you get enough.”

Charles: Starting at a new school is always scary no matter what but changing industry slightly brings a whole new level of terror. The uniform is different. The culture is different. And you don’t speak the same language. So imagine my joy when on my first day Albion partnered me with a German foreign exchange student! w00t. And imagine my disappointment when on our first outing as the Coffee Twins she starts talking to me about Brand Molecule theory. This was no foreign exchange student but a small, precision engineered (it’s ok – I asked) planning mastermind.

We’ve reached a good balance now – essentially, as a Londoner, I show Corinna where the best lunch and coffee spots are.  Where to take your parents to dinner and the best way to cycle from Shoreditch to London Fields without having to go up Hackney Rd. In return she teaches me about the importance of PowerPoint, propositions and purpose ideas.

Corinna and I are not the only people starting at new schools. Dan Hon’s recent move to W&K and Jeremy Ettinghausen’s move to BBH perhaps show that advertising is really willing to play properly with the internet. Or perhaps these types of recruits will help ad agencies evolve into something new. Either way it’s pretty exciting times. And so I find myself, a community manager amongst the admen and women of Shoreditch. Alone. And cold. So cold. But seriously, one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Albion was the fact that they get digital and are naturally social and entrepreneurial. The other main pull was the promise of some good old fashioned intellectual rigor. As much as Albion is about doing stuff it’s just as much about great business ideas, and those, my friends do not grow on trees. They grow on the vines of mind grapes.

Corinna: Starting at a new school is always scary no matter what but changing countries slightly brings a whole new level of terror. The uniform is different. The culture is different. And you don’t speak the same language. So imagine my joy when on my first day Albion partnered me with an English bow tie wearing school teacher! w00t. And imagine my disappointment when on our first outing as the Coffee Twins he starts talking to me about sewing. This was no English bow tie wearing school teacher but a small dictionary full of interestingness and awesomeness.

Actually, I knew a lot about Charles before I even got to London. I knew he had quit alcohol in favour of tea. And I knew about the beard and the bowtie obsession (ask him about his pinnie trauma!). The interwebs in action. His passion for it in action. So now, when he asks me about supposedly smart planning stuff, I ask him why bus drivers never stop on me. When he asks me about how things work around agencies, I ask him for coffee places that might do unicorn milk foam figures for me.

I left Berlin with little luggage and arrived in London with great hope for two things: a new and interesting culture to explore. And to get to do awesome, interesting and useful work beyond what most people in Germany call advertising. So I am excited to have joined Albion as they are a bunch of smart thinkers and doers with a compelling vision and the passion to make stuff happen. Always thinking in solutions, not ads.
Let the fun begin.

Chorus: So despite our different backgrounds and the many miles we’ve travelled to get here we share a view which is perhaps why we’ve arrived at the same corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road at the place in time. And that is a belief that, in this day and age it is the companies with the strongest notion of who they are, why they exist and what their purpose is, that are able to create the most exciting work.