...just finished up Day II. Saw some fabulous work from Asia, particularly out of greater China and Bangkok, work that wasn't revolutionary but just exquisitely crafted and well thought-out. Good, solid work that was both aesthetically pleasing, intuitive to absorb, and groundbreaking in its underlying strategy. You'd never think so much effort could go into making a 30 second spot, or a single print ad, but one of the things that really distinguishes great work is that you can tell a team spent a lot of time laboring over the small details. Immaculate attention to detail separates great work from the stuff that's simply mass-produced pulp, pumped out effortlessly like so much machine-made garbage. That's my rule of thumb for all media, actually. A film like Tarantino's Kill Bill is an example of a work of art that functions on multiple levels, where every frame is thought-out and deliberate, and nothing extraneous finds its way into the final cut. But movies like that are rare, and are really the exception in an industry that churns out a bunch of formulaic schwill that may make money, but are essentially soulless explorations of tired storylines that have no vertical depth to their narrative arcs. Ads are no different. You can really tell when someone's spent the hours and bled time and effort into an execution, as opposed to a piece that came off a standard assembly line, and has a few bells and whistles strapped to it in a half-assed attempt to make it stand out from a million virtual clones....
anyhow, i'm beat. probably getting a little inarticulate. gonna go clean up and then head to a nice dinner with the gang... Word on the street is that this restaurant is adjacent to the best anime bookstore in Thailand, so maybe i'll get a chance to pick up some badass asian comics. I'll let y'all know...
happy friday!
more later...
Friday, February 17, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Sun Salutations
Sun Salutations
So I stumbled out of bed for a complimentary 6 am Yoga class at the hotel’s health club. The instructor was a small, lithe little Thai man who didn’t speak a word of English. The class was pretty low-impact, but there’s really no better way to start a day than to do something nice for your body, and Yoga is high on my list of activities your body will thank you for. Managed to shake off a little jet lag, ran a few kilometers, ate a fantastic breakfast, and headed off to the office again to finish up GPC preparations. Considering how productive we were yesterday, it looks to be a relatively short day, which means we might get a chance to catch some late afternoon sun by the hotel pool… I think we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that all our tech issues work themselves out…
…3:30 pm…poolside…
bronze, baby, bronze
make me brown again, birth me anew
lathered and baked by heat waves,
flesh awakening from beneath the whiplash bite of cold Chicago winds
I watch my fellow sun worshippers as they watch me
a sunkissed waiter in white brings me a tall glass of Thai iced tea
Slowly under sweat I labor to comprehend the connections that brought me here:
a commingling of market-savvy and an accidental adman career
the paths we took are varied but the drive is the same:
to manifest the mysterious power that suffuses brand names…
Food for thought quote:
“It is possible that an Asian entity might emerge in the future, just as the beginnings of European unity have emerged. Nevertheless, as recent problems in Europe have shown, unity requires agreement on some form of shared identity, or at least voluntary progress in that direction. Is there such an identity in Asia’s case? The answer to that does not lie in triumphant generalities about the rise of the TransPacific and Pacific Basin economies…. The very idea of Asia is clearly a mirror-image based on the idea of Europe: the East as conceived by the West, as Edward Said trenchantly argues. Said also points to the fact that, for Europeans, the term “East” primarily denotes the Near East, which they believe should fit their own conceptual framework, while the very term “Far East” reflects the region’s remoteness….
Francois Godement, from “The Asian Renaissance”
After a few hours at the pool, various members of the GPC started turning up. Flights from Europe get in to Thailand in the late afternoon, and as I headed back to my room after a few hours of late afternoon sun I came across Miguel Angel Furones, el Jefe himself. Miguel is quite the charmer, the suave Spaniard alpha-male in greater scheme of Burnett’s creative hierarchy, an accomplished writer, leader, problem-solver, and, it turns out, quite the Sushi connoisseur. He insisted on treating Rosalie, Duncan, Sarah Okrent, Alexandre Okada and myself to a rather expansive meal at Shintaro, the hotel’s deluxe Sushi restaurant. It was quite the spread. I must confess some of the Sashimi pushed my threshold – raw fish, no matter how well cut, how tender, how exquisitely prepared, never really feels like a natural choice. The Bengali river boy lurking in my bloodline would rather see fish covered in spices and fried. But regardless of my tastes, the meal was challenging, the company refined, and the service endearing. A fine way to start the evening…
After dinner Rosalie, Duncan and I took a quick wander up the street to the open air markets lining the road, in the hopes of doing a little shopping. We weren’t disappointed. Everywhere, along both sides of a crowded street, stalls and tables were set up, manned by a solitary artisan or merchant, hawking their wares to passersby. I picked up a few t-shirts, some ornaments, a gift or two, and came across some very intriguing Buddhist wood carvings, and my buddies bought a few items as well. Bangkok, it seems, is still running strong at 10:00 pm. There’s money to be made, tourists to take advantage of, and in countries where culture is a commodity commerce rules the roost. Capitalism looms over everyone struggling to make a living, and in Thailand the necessity of hustling to get by is writ large on the face of all the folks selling their wares to a carefree world. All of us need our clientele, don’t we?....
So I stumbled out of bed for a complimentary 6 am Yoga class at the hotel’s health club. The instructor was a small, lithe little Thai man who didn’t speak a word of English. The class was pretty low-impact, but there’s really no better way to start a day than to do something nice for your body, and Yoga is high on my list of activities your body will thank you for. Managed to shake off a little jet lag, ran a few kilometers, ate a fantastic breakfast, and headed off to the office again to finish up GPC preparations. Considering how productive we were yesterday, it looks to be a relatively short day, which means we might get a chance to catch some late afternoon sun by the hotel pool… I think we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that all our tech issues work themselves out…
…3:30 pm…poolside…
bronze, baby, bronze
make me brown again, birth me anew
lathered and baked by heat waves,
flesh awakening from beneath the whiplash bite of cold Chicago winds
I watch my fellow sun worshippers as they watch me
a sunkissed waiter in white brings me a tall glass of Thai iced tea
Slowly under sweat I labor to comprehend the connections that brought me here:
a commingling of market-savvy and an accidental adman career
the paths we took are varied but the drive is the same:
to manifest the mysterious power that suffuses brand names…
Food for thought quote:
“It is possible that an Asian entity might emerge in the future, just as the beginnings of European unity have emerged. Nevertheless, as recent problems in Europe have shown, unity requires agreement on some form of shared identity, or at least voluntary progress in that direction. Is there such an identity in Asia’s case? The answer to that does not lie in triumphant generalities about the rise of the TransPacific and Pacific Basin economies…. The very idea of Asia is clearly a mirror-image based on the idea of Europe: the East as conceived by the West, as Edward Said trenchantly argues. Said also points to the fact that, for Europeans, the term “East” primarily denotes the Near East, which they believe should fit their own conceptual framework, while the very term “Far East” reflects the region’s remoteness….
Francois Godement, from “The Asian Renaissance”
After a few hours at the pool, various members of the GPC started turning up. Flights from Europe get in to Thailand in the late afternoon, and as I headed back to my room after a few hours of late afternoon sun I came across Miguel Angel Furones, el Jefe himself. Miguel is quite the charmer, the suave Spaniard alpha-male in greater scheme of Burnett’s creative hierarchy, an accomplished writer, leader, problem-solver, and, it turns out, quite the Sushi connoisseur. He insisted on treating Rosalie, Duncan, Sarah Okrent, Alexandre Okada and myself to a rather expansive meal at Shintaro, the hotel’s deluxe Sushi restaurant. It was quite the spread. I must confess some of the Sashimi pushed my threshold – raw fish, no matter how well cut, how tender, how exquisitely prepared, never really feels like a natural choice. The Bengali river boy lurking in my bloodline would rather see fish covered in spices and fried. But regardless of my tastes, the meal was challenging, the company refined, and the service endearing. A fine way to start the evening…
After dinner Rosalie, Duncan and I took a quick wander up the street to the open air markets lining the road, in the hopes of doing a little shopping. We weren’t disappointed. Everywhere, along both sides of a crowded street, stalls and tables were set up, manned by a solitary artisan or merchant, hawking their wares to passersby. I picked up a few t-shirts, some ornaments, a gift or two, and came across some very intriguing Buddhist wood carvings, and my buddies bought a few items as well. Bangkok, it seems, is still running strong at 10:00 pm. There’s money to be made, tourists to take advantage of, and in countries where culture is a commodity commerce rules the roost. Capitalism looms over everyone struggling to make a living, and in Thailand the necessity of hustling to get by is writ large on the face of all the folks selling their wares to a carefree world. All of us need our clientele, don’t we?....
GPC - Day 1
The meeting started today. Rosalie, Duncan and I got there at 7:30 and sorted out the set-up, and by 8:30 the gang had turned up from the hotel, and the room was packed to capacity with an interesting spectrum of talent from across the Burnett network. 30 participants in all, I believe, from various corners of the globe, all converging upon 1 room to learn a little bit about quality control, the perils of creative democracy, and how to best serve a client by telling the best story you possibly can. It’s quite the motley crew, this GPC gang…
Last night I had the distinct pleasure of explaining to a non-native English speaker what the slang phrase “sausage-fest” means. They were amused after I spelled out the definition: any gathering where there are 3 or more times as many men as there are women constitutes a “sausage-fest.” Although it usually refers to a party filled with about 15 somewhat socially-challenged dorks and 3 or 4 misplaced, miserable but often sympathetic women, it’s a phrase that can be used for any gathering with the same kind of gender percentages. The GPC, for all its worth, validity, and integrity, is a definitive “sausage-fest”, a quarterly congregation of egos and tongues and alpha-male posturing that rarely manages to invite any more than a handful of high-powered female creative directors from LB worldwide. It is NOT a sexist institution, the sad truth is that at the highest levels of Creative Departments throughout the ad industry, women are simply underrepresented, for any number of reasons. I won’t care to speculate why (like the infamous and legendary adman Neil French did somewhat apocryphally last year: see here for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_French), but it is somewhat disconcerting to see that the committee is so consistently predictable in its make-up. I’ve wondered in the past if the scores of the ads would change with a female jury, but realized that ultimately, a good ad is a good ad, regardless of who sees it, and shit is shit for all of us….
Anyhow – the first day of the GPC went well. We are way ahead of schedule, Planet Leo worked flawlessly, and the group turned out to be quite a collection of compatible characters and interesting perspectives. The work has been OK so far, I only saw a handful of ads that really jumped out at me, none of which scored particularly well, but I did see one or two pieces that made my day. From Fiat, no less. Hopefully the piece in question will be a 7 after the revote session on Tuesday, but even if it doesn’t make the cut, I doff my hat to whoever dreamed up a car commercial that spoofs the training montage made famous by Philly’s own Rocky Balboa …
Caught a few interesting critiques in the GPC comments. Every now and then the committee comes across an ad that could have been stellar, but instead of being great, it’s bogged down by 3 or 4 misguided choices the creative team made somewhere in the production process. For print ads, it’s usually using too much copy alongside a powerful image, or using a bad tagline, and for TV, well, aside from the pervasive acceptance of poor production values, certain ideas are just not executed to their potential. Not that I know anything about the compromises inherent in producing a good spot, but I do know bad decisions when I see them, only because I’ve heard the same litany at the GPC quarter after quarter, year after year. It’s predictable, really, but then so are the strategies and briefs our creative teams choose to endorse. As in any industry, it is a rare and beautiful thing to come across a truly fresh idea, or to encounter a unique methodology or aesthetic that acts in the service of communicating an authentic human quality. A few of the ads we saw today had that going for them, but you could clearly see where the artistic vision had been co-opted by client demands, and the where a fantastic idea was pruned off to fit into a particular campaign’s clothing. Such is the nature of business, the nature of working for clients you cannot control – compromise and free artistic reign go out the door when the primary concern is market viability. Agencies get paid to build business, and the businesses we build are very often not interested in pushing creative boundaries, but in turning a profit. In all honesty, I believe that motivation ultimately underlies all our actions, on both a collective and personal level…
Anyhow – the day went by fast. Finished up early, spent the early evening at the pool with most of the LB/Chicago delegation, and had a fantastic dinner at the inimitable Spice Market with Rosalie & Sarah. Duncan McIntosh departed back to Paris, after a furious 3 day trip troubleshooting our Planet Leo system, and I realized I will miss this eccentric French-speaking, Barbeque-hawking, boat-loving South African. How often do you meet an IT professional who’s been a carpenter and backpacker and beach bum on multiple continents over the course of their life? Not often, at least not in the circles I run in. Thank you Market Forward for sending such a unique and competent character to help us fix our problems. And to my Capetown connection, cheers!
Tomorrow we’ve got a few more Multinational clients and the work from the Asia region to look at. Should be a great day. I’m gonna try and catch that 6:30 am yoga class before heading to the office, so enough for now… this story’s still unfolding…
Last night I had the distinct pleasure of explaining to a non-native English speaker what the slang phrase “sausage-fest” means. They were amused after I spelled out the definition: any gathering where there are 3 or more times as many men as there are women constitutes a “sausage-fest.” Although it usually refers to a party filled with about 15 somewhat socially-challenged dorks and 3 or 4 misplaced, miserable but often sympathetic women, it’s a phrase that can be used for any gathering with the same kind of gender percentages. The GPC, for all its worth, validity, and integrity, is a definitive “sausage-fest”, a quarterly congregation of egos and tongues and alpha-male posturing that rarely manages to invite any more than a handful of high-powered female creative directors from LB worldwide. It is NOT a sexist institution, the sad truth is that at the highest levels of Creative Departments throughout the ad industry, women are simply underrepresented, for any number of reasons. I won’t care to speculate why (like the infamous and legendary adman Neil French did somewhat apocryphally last year: see here for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_French), but it is somewhat disconcerting to see that the committee is so consistently predictable in its make-up. I’ve wondered in the past if the scores of the ads would change with a female jury, but realized that ultimately, a good ad is a good ad, regardless of who sees it, and shit is shit for all of us….
Anyhow – the first day of the GPC went well. We are way ahead of schedule, Planet Leo worked flawlessly, and the group turned out to be quite a collection of compatible characters and interesting perspectives. The work has been OK so far, I only saw a handful of ads that really jumped out at me, none of which scored particularly well, but I did see one or two pieces that made my day. From Fiat, no less. Hopefully the piece in question will be a 7 after the revote session on Tuesday, but even if it doesn’t make the cut, I doff my hat to whoever dreamed up a car commercial that spoofs the training montage made famous by Philly’s own Rocky Balboa …
Caught a few interesting critiques in the GPC comments. Every now and then the committee comes across an ad that could have been stellar, but instead of being great, it’s bogged down by 3 or 4 misguided choices the creative team made somewhere in the production process. For print ads, it’s usually using too much copy alongside a powerful image, or using a bad tagline, and for TV, well, aside from the pervasive acceptance of poor production values, certain ideas are just not executed to their potential. Not that I know anything about the compromises inherent in producing a good spot, but I do know bad decisions when I see them, only because I’ve heard the same litany at the GPC quarter after quarter, year after year. It’s predictable, really, but then so are the strategies and briefs our creative teams choose to endorse. As in any industry, it is a rare and beautiful thing to come across a truly fresh idea, or to encounter a unique methodology or aesthetic that acts in the service of communicating an authentic human quality. A few of the ads we saw today had that going for them, but you could clearly see where the artistic vision had been co-opted by client demands, and the where a fantastic idea was pruned off to fit into a particular campaign’s clothing. Such is the nature of business, the nature of working for clients you cannot control – compromise and free artistic reign go out the door when the primary concern is market viability. Agencies get paid to build business, and the businesses we build are very often not interested in pushing creative boundaries, but in turning a profit. In all honesty, I believe that motivation ultimately underlies all our actions, on both a collective and personal level…
Anyhow – the day went by fast. Finished up early, spent the early evening at the pool with most of the LB/Chicago delegation, and had a fantastic dinner at the inimitable Spice Market with Rosalie & Sarah. Duncan McIntosh departed back to Paris, after a furious 3 day trip troubleshooting our Planet Leo system, and I realized I will miss this eccentric French-speaking, Barbeque-hawking, boat-loving South African. How often do you meet an IT professional who’s been a carpenter and backpacker and beach bum on multiple continents over the course of their life? Not often, at least not in the circles I run in. Thank you Market Forward for sending such a unique and competent character to help us fix our problems. And to my Capetown connection, cheers!
Tomorrow we’ve got a few more Multinational clients and the work from the Asia region to look at. Should be a great day. I’m gonna try and catch that 6:30 am yoga class before heading to the office, so enough for now… this story’s still unfolding…
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Acclamating
…jet lag…
the drag of recently abandoned time zones on an unsettled body clock…
I stir awake after a restless 3 hours of pseudo-sleep and get ready to go to work…
Something about this scene feels so right,
sitting at a familiar Asian crossroads not far from where I was raised
where my paths and fortunes were first appraised
uncles around the corner
old friends a dock away
back where the sun never fails to show up
where the Buddhist Avatars hold sway
nexus of rivers
a playground for predators
certain places are populated with high percentages of playas
older civilizations have accumulated layers
a certain self- awareness of depth in time
-I live to partake of other culture’s perceptions
Compiling and weaving together pieces of a larger collective Mind…
Spent most of the day at LB/Bangkok, unpacking boxes, setting up the GPC meeting room, inventorying materials, and generally helping Rosalie get settled into the workspace we’ll be camped out in for the next week. We left the hotel with the intention of walking to the office, but got sidetracked along the way, and after 15 minutes of sweating profusely in 80 degree heat we gave up and hopped in a cab. A short drive later we pulled up to the new LB/Bangkok office, in the glittery Sindhorn Tower complex, right next door to the American Embassy. The new office is gorgeous. The old Bangkok office that hosted the GPC in 4Q01 was comfortable and accommodating, but the new space they’ve relocated to is in a much more impressive building, and from the moment you walk through the doors it’s evident that you’ve entered a stimulating creative environment. The building itself is a study in marble and glass, replete with running waterfalls, elaborate fountains, and a lobby that’s built on multiple terraces overlooking each other, which gives an open communal feel to all the cafes and businesses located in the towers. The actual Burnett office is located on the third floor, and is spread out onto a few stories, with wide planes of glass enabling you to see all the folks you’re working with at any given time. It’s a very welcoming layout, populated with busy creative people, and with a lot of natural sunlight streaming in from the outside. Looks like a great place to work, and I’m happy I’ll be spending the next week here…
We spent most of today dealing with the technology issues surrounding the GPC’s implementation of Planet Leo. For the first time in the history of the GPC we are no longer accepting submissions on reels or DVDs, and have begun utilizing a system whereby all of our offices upload their work to a central server. In other words, we’ve taken the first step towards moving beyond hard media, towards a fully digital mindset, which heralds the end of the analog era for the whole global Burnett network. In a few years reels and videotapes will seem quaint and outdated, remnants from an age when media moved at a much slower pace. It’s nice to be near the leading edge of the digital revolution, but unfortunately, we’ve encountered a slew of problems as we’ve tried to make this transition from analog to digital submissions. These problems were to be expected, though, given the sheer number of GPC submissions from 50 or more Burnett offices scattered around the planet, and so Market Forward, the company that powers our Planet Leo digital asset management system, sent us a tech support specialist from their Paris office to assist us with any problems we encounter here in Bangkok. Enter Duncan McIntosh, my new friend, a true cosmopolitan with globe-trotting stories to tell, a breadth of techie knowledge way beyond my comprehension, and an appetite for good beer. Duncan and Rosalie spent most of today patiently navigating the many pitfalls of trying to optimize Planet Leo in our Bangkok office, occasionally cursing, while talking live to tech support in Paris and Chicago. Aside from pervasive bandwidth issues and occasional random system crashes and innocuous error messages, it would seem that we’re ready for this meeting… There’ll be a few glitches, but I think the whole meeting will go smoothly…
After a long day at the office we headed back to the hotel, and switched gears over a few early evening cocktails at one of the hotel bars. A few Daiquiris, Capiroska’s and Singapore Slings later, Rosalie, Duncan, and I had relaxed enough to ease into the evening. The best part of these meetings is getting a chance to talk to and connect with creative travelers like Duncan, whose perspectives color and broaden your own understanding of your place in the grand scheme of international business. For instance, over our evening drinks, we talked a little bit about the Open Source model, which came up as we compared notes as to what kind of operating systems we each use. Open Source, for those who might not know it, is one of the most intriguing alternative business models currently en vogue in creative communities, because it represents the working alternative to the Microsoft business model. In as simple terms as possible, Open Source represents communities of like-minded individuals collaborating on a finished product, without seeking to possess or claim the intellectual property rights associated with the product. It flies in the face of business models which are constructed around very well-defined ownership rights, and to many vanguards of the IT world, it represents the future. The digital revolution has engendered an entirely new approach to the availability and distribution of information, and it is only a matter of time before better methodologies emerge that enable people to share knowledge without fearing the consequences. Read more about Open Source here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
To a certain extent, the Open Source model mirrors what we do at the GPC: we share information, critiques, and methodologies, all in the service of ultimately creating a superior product. It was nice to hear the reasons why Duncan endorses the Open Source LINUX operating system, because it mirrors my own appreciation of that model in the realm of music. As a music producer, the work I create is always more impressive and stimulating if I can incorporate elements of other people’s work, without fearing the consequences of copyright infringement lawsuits. Anyhow, after a somewhat drunken conversation, we went back to our rooms to work for a bit and then decided to meet up for a late dinner.
A few hours later the three of us were crammed into a Tuk Tuk, a three-wheeled Thai auto-rickshaw, headed to the notorious Khaosan Road for dinner and drinks.
(Read more about Tuk Tuk’s here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuk_tuk) Rosalie and I spent several evenings on Khaosan Road the last time we were in Bangkok – it’s one of the most famous backpacker destinations in Asia, filled with international hipsters and bars and restaurants catering to the most bohemian elements of the low-cost traveler set. (Read more about it here: http://www.bangkok.com/area-guide/khao-san.html). Considering the crazy lovable cast of characters we encountered the last time we were there, it was our first stop on our first evening in Bangkok. We had a couple drinks, ate some decent Thai food, did some people-watching, and then headed home after a few games of billiards and a little light shopping. What could have been a nutty night was instead relatively tame, as we all had work to do and had to put in a few more hours before going back to the office in the morning. As we were hurtling back to the hotel on a tuk tuk, breathing in diesel fumes and the pervasive pollution so characteristic of Asian cities, I had a moment of authentic pathos – I was raised in traffic like this, in Bangladesh, amidst the soot, dirt, and raw humanity of masses of people struggling to earn a decent wage. Although in recent years I may have acclimated to the lifestyle of middle America, in truth I feel at home here, even though I don’t speak the language and may as well have tourist tattooed across my forehead. Some places just resonate right, hit all the right notes, and cull forth long neglected parts of my psyche. Asia, y’all… There’s nothing like it, and given recent trends, it looks to be the emerging epicenter of 21st century culture… I’m blessed to bear witness to it…
the drag of recently abandoned time zones on an unsettled body clock…
I stir awake after a restless 3 hours of pseudo-sleep and get ready to go to work…
Something about this scene feels so right,
sitting at a familiar Asian crossroads not far from where I was raised
where my paths and fortunes were first appraised
uncles around the corner
old friends a dock away
back where the sun never fails to show up
where the Buddhist Avatars hold sway
nexus of rivers
a playground for predators
certain places are populated with high percentages of playas
older civilizations have accumulated layers
a certain self- awareness of depth in time
-I live to partake of other culture’s perceptions
Compiling and weaving together pieces of a larger collective Mind…
Spent most of the day at LB/Bangkok, unpacking boxes, setting up the GPC meeting room, inventorying materials, and generally helping Rosalie get settled into the workspace we’ll be camped out in for the next week. We left the hotel with the intention of walking to the office, but got sidetracked along the way, and after 15 minutes of sweating profusely in 80 degree heat we gave up and hopped in a cab. A short drive later we pulled up to the new LB/Bangkok office, in the glittery Sindhorn Tower complex, right next door to the American Embassy. The new office is gorgeous. The old Bangkok office that hosted the GPC in 4Q01 was comfortable and accommodating, but the new space they’ve relocated to is in a much more impressive building, and from the moment you walk through the doors it’s evident that you’ve entered a stimulating creative environment. The building itself is a study in marble and glass, replete with running waterfalls, elaborate fountains, and a lobby that’s built on multiple terraces overlooking each other, which gives an open communal feel to all the cafes and businesses located in the towers. The actual Burnett office is located on the third floor, and is spread out onto a few stories, with wide planes of glass enabling you to see all the folks you’re working with at any given time. It’s a very welcoming layout, populated with busy creative people, and with a lot of natural sunlight streaming in from the outside. Looks like a great place to work, and I’m happy I’ll be spending the next week here…
We spent most of today dealing with the technology issues surrounding the GPC’s implementation of Planet Leo. For the first time in the history of the GPC we are no longer accepting submissions on reels or DVDs, and have begun utilizing a system whereby all of our offices upload their work to a central server. In other words, we’ve taken the first step towards moving beyond hard media, towards a fully digital mindset, which heralds the end of the analog era for the whole global Burnett network. In a few years reels and videotapes will seem quaint and outdated, remnants from an age when media moved at a much slower pace. It’s nice to be near the leading edge of the digital revolution, but unfortunately, we’ve encountered a slew of problems as we’ve tried to make this transition from analog to digital submissions. These problems were to be expected, though, given the sheer number of GPC submissions from 50 or more Burnett offices scattered around the planet, and so Market Forward, the company that powers our Planet Leo digital asset management system, sent us a tech support specialist from their Paris office to assist us with any problems we encounter here in Bangkok. Enter Duncan McIntosh, my new friend, a true cosmopolitan with globe-trotting stories to tell, a breadth of techie knowledge way beyond my comprehension, and an appetite for good beer. Duncan and Rosalie spent most of today patiently navigating the many pitfalls of trying to optimize Planet Leo in our Bangkok office, occasionally cursing, while talking live to tech support in Paris and Chicago. Aside from pervasive bandwidth issues and occasional random system crashes and innocuous error messages, it would seem that we’re ready for this meeting… There’ll be a few glitches, but I think the whole meeting will go smoothly…
After a long day at the office we headed back to the hotel, and switched gears over a few early evening cocktails at one of the hotel bars. A few Daiquiris, Capiroska’s and Singapore Slings later, Rosalie, Duncan, and I had relaxed enough to ease into the evening. The best part of these meetings is getting a chance to talk to and connect with creative travelers like Duncan, whose perspectives color and broaden your own understanding of your place in the grand scheme of international business. For instance, over our evening drinks, we talked a little bit about the Open Source model, which came up as we compared notes as to what kind of operating systems we each use. Open Source, for those who might not know it, is one of the most intriguing alternative business models currently en vogue in creative communities, because it represents the working alternative to the Microsoft business model. In as simple terms as possible, Open Source represents communities of like-minded individuals collaborating on a finished product, without seeking to possess or claim the intellectual property rights associated with the product. It flies in the face of business models which are constructed around very well-defined ownership rights, and to many vanguards of the IT world, it represents the future. The digital revolution has engendered an entirely new approach to the availability and distribution of information, and it is only a matter of time before better methodologies emerge that enable people to share knowledge without fearing the consequences. Read more about Open Source here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
To a certain extent, the Open Source model mirrors what we do at the GPC: we share information, critiques, and methodologies, all in the service of ultimately creating a superior product. It was nice to hear the reasons why Duncan endorses the Open Source LINUX operating system, because it mirrors my own appreciation of that model in the realm of music. As a music producer, the work I create is always more impressive and stimulating if I can incorporate elements of other people’s work, without fearing the consequences of copyright infringement lawsuits. Anyhow, after a somewhat drunken conversation, we went back to our rooms to work for a bit and then decided to meet up for a late dinner.
A few hours later the three of us were crammed into a Tuk Tuk, a three-wheeled Thai auto-rickshaw, headed to the notorious Khaosan Road for dinner and drinks.
(Read more about Tuk Tuk’s here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuk_tuk) Rosalie and I spent several evenings on Khaosan Road the last time we were in Bangkok – it’s one of the most famous backpacker destinations in Asia, filled with international hipsters and bars and restaurants catering to the most bohemian elements of the low-cost traveler set. (Read more about it here: http://www.bangkok.com/area-guide/khao-san.html). Considering the crazy lovable cast of characters we encountered the last time we were there, it was our first stop on our first evening in Bangkok. We had a couple drinks, ate some decent Thai food, did some people-watching, and then headed home after a few games of billiards and a little light shopping. What could have been a nutty night was instead relatively tame, as we all had work to do and had to put in a few more hours before going back to the office in the morning. As we were hurtling back to the hotel on a tuk tuk, breathing in diesel fumes and the pervasive pollution so characteristic of Asian cities, I had a moment of authentic pathos – I was raised in traffic like this, in Bangladesh, amidst the soot, dirt, and raw humanity of masses of people struggling to earn a decent wage. Although in recent years I may have acclimated to the lifestyle of middle America, in truth I feel at home here, even though I don’t speak the language and may as well have tourist tattooed across my forehead. Some places just resonate right, hit all the right notes, and cull forth long neglected parts of my psyche. Asia, y’all… There’s nothing like it, and given recent trends, it looks to be the emerging epicenter of 21st century culture… I’m blessed to bear witness to it…
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
24 Hours En Route to Thailand
ablutions after airplanes
scrubbing out the insides of my brain
cleansed of the crud of two continents
crusted to 24 hour terminal skin
I begin to remember
What Bangkok felt like the first time
Four years back
Couple laps before on the same career track
Capturing the essence of markets in flux
networks redefined – version 3.0 redux
mine is the business of smuggling effective methodologies
I trade in the tools that work and I make no apologies
All of caught somewhere in the cogs of a giant machine
Oiling all the wheels to keep it running clean
Smooth operators and interface connoisseurs
Eying ugly executions and dishing out vicious honest cures
All of us trying to keep the essence pure...
All of us trying to keep our business pure…
Damn I love this hotel…
scrubbing out the insides of my brain
cleansed of the crud of two continents
crusted to 24 hour terminal skin
I begin to remember
What Bangkok felt like the first time
Four years back
Couple laps before on the same career track
Capturing the essence of markets in flux
networks redefined – version 3.0 redux
mine is the business of smuggling effective methodologies
I trade in the tools that work and I make no apologies
All of caught somewhere in the cogs of a giant machine
Oiling all the wheels to keep it running clean
Smooth operators and interface connoisseurs
Eying ugly executions and dishing out vicious honest cures
All of us trying to keep the essence pure...
All of us trying to keep our business pure…
Damn I love this hotel…
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