What's my wonder called?

Tool usage harms brains: Chilling warning to tribes, from top neanderthal opinion former.

2009-02-24T09:20:00.056Z

The increased use of stone tools and sharpened flints is causing serious harm to homo sapiens, particularly the development of their young, according to an eminent neanderthal, speaking at the annual anthropogenesis congress yesterday.

Tools made from stone and flint, when combined with strategies of cooperation amongst groups, are said to shorten hunt times, encourage speedier relief from hunger and as a result encourage lazy hunting and gathering practices.

The claims, made by Maily Daily, a leading voice of the neanderthal 'Movement for Attenuated Development' (MAD), will come as a worrying wake-up call for the thousands of families who had been reaping long-term gains from the use of stone tools as part of their daily lives.

However, Maily Daily has struck a chord with the many neanderthal tribal leaders who are concerned with the technology that is ruining homo sapiens youth. "This new reliance on sharpened stones and group strategies has rendered the younger generation of homo sapiens virtually incapable of understanding the basic need to be able to scrape an existience with only their bare hands whilst living permanantly on the edge of extinction."

Maily Daily went on to explain that, "They are throwing away millenia of experience and tradition for a brief flirtation with these untried technologies".

MAD, the neanderthal think tank, has also argued that these new tools and communication techniques are changing the way that homo sapiens thinks. Crude maps have begun appearing on cave walls reducing the reliance on traditional skills such as navigation by sun, stars and total guesswork. Indeed, homo sapiens has even begun venturing outside historic territory and is being exposed to new sights and sounds, that could threaten neanderthal culture.

Maily Daily concludes, "It is hard to see how this mass participation in the use of 'tools' and 'community' will not result in brains, or rather minds, different to those of previous generations. We neanderthals are not against the introduction of tools and communication, but the inherent risks are simply too great to allow this progress to take hold. If neanderthals don't take a stand now then we may, in just a few generations, be witenessing the sad demise of the overly adventurous and inqusitive homo sapiens"

Peer-ing into the news with twitter.

2009-02-23T21:44:00.018Z

I registered on twitter about twelve months ago, but to be honest I don't think I really understood it. It was like standing in a room that everyone said was crammed with people, but with all the lights out and a set of earplugs in.

Unsatisfying, disappointing and not a little disconcerting.

The simple problem was that I didn't know how to engage. I wasn't sure what was expected of me, what the point was or what I could (or should) expect of everyone else.

Fast foward about eight months and something (I wish I could remember what) prompted me to revisit my stagnant twitter account. It could have been the moment-by-moment reporting of the bushfires in California or the use of twitter by the Obama campaign. Whatever the reason, when I did return to twitter a quick google search showed me that in a very short time things had moved on apace. There was now an almost daunting plethora of advice on how to use Twitter as well as ettiquette tips and tools that could help you ease your way into the 'twitterverse'. Upon closer inspection these articles appeared to come from two distinct sources:

Bloggers/Social media fans who used twitter, were passionate about its benefits and were promoting the medium both for their own ends and for the development of the 'community'.

'Traditional media' journalists who fell into two camps.

There were the breathlessly enthusiastic who reposted the bloggers tips and tools with what seemed an almost obsessive desire to be 'on board' with the 'next big thing'
Then there were those who were so downright dismissive or damning as to appear unbalanced in their irrational hatred of twitter and it's uses.

Keen to get on with Twitter, see what all the fuss was about and what I'd been missing; I took full advantage of both groups. The Guardian and the Telegraph provided handy 'get started' articles and the blogosphere provided the rest. Not to mention the frequently quoted, linked and promoted applications and tools designed to make the twitter experience a richer one in every way.

Within a few weeks I was up and running with an active account and, having followed advice from those in the know, found a group of people to follow who were 'influential' in areas of interest to me. There weren't that many people listening to me yet, but I was getting regular updates from a group of interesting influencers and opinion formers.

It was around this time that I realised that Twitter was starting to change the way I behaved online. An avid reader, browser and devourer of aggregated news - I was spending less and less time on these sites. I was getting more up to date and RELEVANT stories from the group I followed on twitter.

I began to understand the 'marmite effect' that twitter was having amongst traditional media.

Thanks to twitter, news is being curated and edited by the people, the news readers not the news writers if you will. In the same way that I get music recommendations, based on my likes or interests, from last.fm or spotify.com - I now get a large part of my world view curated for me by those I follow on twitter. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. A quick look at stories such as the Hudson River plane crash illustrate how powerful this communication tool has become as a result of its low bar to entry (anyone can post a story, from their mobile, as soon as it happens). For traditional news media this must be a scary proposition. The result seems to be a rush to proclaim the new (media) messiah or denounce the devil of triviality and narcissism. Whichever best suits your personality or world view, it appears.

Interestingly, thinking back, I got my first 'in' to Twitter from the traditional news media and whilst I might get the 'breaking news' from my group of 'twits' we are almost always sharing links to 'established' news sources.

I wonder if it is time that more news media outlets took a balanced view of twitter and saw it for what it is. A large community, chatting constantly. Twitter isn't the news, it doesn't make the news and it can't reliably report it. But it can help break it and monitor it. With journalists on board it could be the best, peer moderated, aggregated news feed available.

QR codes. I thought as much, but will it last?

2009-02-18T22:34:00.013Z

This time two years ago I was happily handing out a set of business cards with little more than a bizarre matrix of black and white blocks on them. Aside from my vain and pathetic desire to maintain an air of mystery there was a method to my madness. I posted on this back in april last year, Can you read it? Yes you can!

The QR (quick response code) gave me, at the time, a two-fold benefit. It appealed to geeks like me that enjoyed what it did and got a kick out of knowing that and being able to use it. It also created interest amongst those who couldn't give a toss about the technology but just had to ask the question; "what the hell is that?" I was remembered but not necessarily read or understood. But then we all want to be misunderstood and remembered, don't we?

Perhaps that time of 'QR difference' is over. The current Pepsi campaign is clearly developed in the knowledge that within a year almost every mobile phone held in the sweaty palms of their target market will be able to read QR codes. It uses them, explains them and is contributing to bringing them into the mainstream. There are plenty examples of household names now citing QR codes as beneficial in their engagement, and particularly recruitment, strategies.

Which is great; because they are fun, practical and versatile. (I have to confess here to giving a 21cm sq. QR code to my girlfriend in place of a valentine card this year. It led, via her Nokia N95, to an apologist's love-blog. We are, amazingly, still together). The Pepsi and Sun campaigns also put the technology front of the mind for many consumers; something to be used by everyone. The mainsreaming of QR codes leaves this question for the smaller, cutting edge brands that must innovate in order to maintain an edge. Where next?

I can't wait to see what they do and I hope I have the foresight to run with them.

Sustain-a-what?!?!?

2008-04-02T21:41:00.013+01:00

twelfth man's first foray into the world of facebook applications is proving to be an interesting one. The closest analogy we can find is that of releasing a single by an unknown artist and then, in ones and twos, taking feedback from listeners and changing the lyrics, beat and melody until it finally gets enough support for radio play and a place in the charts, albeit the indie charts.

If you want to skip the background you can check out the application here.

Or, if you're interested in where the idea came from and what we are trying to achieve, read on. The application will still be here when you finish the post.

We have been working with a group of Sustainable Development (SD) practitioners at the University of Bangor to help get the SD message out there and at the front of people's minds, especially business people. What became clear when we looked at all the communication on the subject of SD was that it means something different to everyone (or nothing to anyone), even governments haven't got it straight in their heads. So your man on the street really doesn't stand a chance.

To date, the SD field has been dominated by well meaning intellectuals (who talk about the problems instead of to the people that can do something about them), governments, (who are hamstrung by the next election - more on this in a later post I feel) marketers with no bravery or vision who seek to maintain the status quo by putting a 'greenwash' on their brand, and a few big businesses who actually have the capacity for long term vision and are putting in place programmes of innovation to protect their futures (albeit in an often less than perfect fashion).

So into this field comes twelfth man, with a belief that it is not government or big business or marketers that will effect change on the major issues facing society today, but the consumer. The man in the street who frankly has no clue what sustainable living means, even less how to work towards it, or in fact WHY to work towards it. These are the people we need to convince, for it is they that elect the governments and support the brands that fund the corporations.

Hence the facebook application. A drop in the ocean? Maybe. But an interesting test of how to challenge people's perceptions of SD and effectively get across the, very simple, message of being environmentally sound, financially stable and socially responsible. It's not a difficult concept, but with all the confusion out there we felt we needed to cut through the crap and bring it back to basics, with our tongue, firmly, in our collective cheek. Our ambitions for the application are, on the surface, not great, we simply want it to create an understanding of the most basic, but crucial, issues facing the modern, global, society. However this is the first step on a long road to encouraging individual action and behaviour change. People need to understand before they can act. The time for talking was the sixties, the time for action is almost past.

Sustain-a-what?!?!? is our first pebble in the ocean of inaction.

Check it out here and let us know what you think.

Can you read it? Yes you can!

2008-04-02T14:43:00.006+01:00

Well, if you happen to have a suitable camera phone with barcode reader software you can.

So what's the point? Well, imagine you see a poster or an advert while you're out and about, it takes your interest, but you have neither time nor pen to take down the details. Just scan the code into your phone and you, almost instantly, receive text, a URL, a phone number or an offer code to save and look at later.

Little used in the UK outside of supply chain management at the moment (you regularly see them on envelopes) but surely as compatible handsets become standard the promotional and informational use will increase.

QR Codes. Just for supply chain management or a promotional and communications tool for the future?

If you see any good applications of these let us know, or even better if you can think of a cool use yourself.

Welcome, and what is my wonder?

2008-04-02T12:56:00.002+01:00

Welcome to the twelfth man page and thanks for dropping by. We're going to be using this space to explore some of our ideas, maybe test some projects, get feedback and have a place for anyone interested in innovation, sustainability, and the BIG IDEA to get involved, agree, tell us we're wrong or just plain sound off.

So, why "What's my wonder called?". Well it's a question that my 22 month old daughter asked me a couple of days ago and I haven't been able to put the idea down since. I don't think I can actually name my wonder but I can maybe explore what keeps my wonder wondering (or wandering for that matter). Seeing as twelfth man largely gets paid on the basis of ideas I guess we should be pretty good at wondering and helping other people to wonder and maybe even find the wonder in things. Hence the name of this page.

Hopefully the ideas and thoughts we explore here will always have that question driving them. I doubt I'll ever be able to answer my daughter's question. I doubt she even expected an answer or remembers asking it in the first place. But at least she has given a label to that which drives anyone who is fond of ideas and creative thinking.

So, we'll post some thoughts and ideas on innovation, marketing, sustainability and creativity and you can agree, disagree and let us know what you think, but most of all we can all wonder.