Francis Ford Coppola on Big Society

The cinema language happened by experimentation – by people not knowing what to do. But unfortunately, after 15-20 years, it became a commercial industry. People made money in the cinema, and then they began to say to the pioneers, “Don’t experiment. We want to make money. We don’t want to take chances.”
Coppola, Marrakech International Film Festival, Morocco

Although he was referring specifically to the film industry here what Coppola says holds true in the general case – during a time of disruption, as the moving pictures obviously were to therather staid arts world of the time, there will be great advances, but at a cost of predictability. There is a human need to reduce risk. Particularly once a disruption has turned from something inexplicable and chaotic, into a neatly boxed and apparently understood ‘thing’.

Take the disruption around the dawn of the welfare state. Another time of great change, moving from a previously very set class system of society to one where merit not background decided what you could accumulate in life. Continue reading ‘Francis Ford Coppola on Big Society’

“One in 50 US Troops is a Robot”

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First Mover Advantage: When Copycat Doesn’t Work

How perceptions of Being Bigger may not always play out in reality.

First Mover Advantage. A popular adage in this era of perennial web startups. Equally as strong has been the thought that established players – the big fish – can simply move in on the small fry’s niche patch and bring it to the mass market – the Free Rider effect.

Groupon is arguably a case in point. Out of nowhere the young gun from Chicago has been described as the world’s fastest growing company and a $6bn gamble, only for such heavyweights as Google and Facebook to begin to muscle in on it’s coupon territory, sensing their already huge ecosystems will at least make the new guy irrelevant.

This is the textbook case. What happens when the innovator is somewhat higher up the foodchain? We may be about to find out.

Continue reading ‘First Mover Advantage: When Copycat Doesn’t Work’

Understanding Typography


I thought I knew what typography was about before. I mean, I never claimed to understand the need to appear obsessed over it. But in general, yeah sure, some types are easier to read than others. Some have a character of their own. Don’t choose comic sans. And a few other heuristics that steered you in a generally correct direction.

However as someone who takes a pretty guerilla approach to the matter I’ve never been exposed to anything approaching the Zeitgeist of typographic design. Continue reading ‘Understanding Typography’

Faux Data: Infographics

The theoretical physicist Geoffrey West criticised existing accepted thought in urban theory before coming up with a set of constants that defined the relationship between city size and the output of it’s citizens (Each time a city doubles in size it’s per capita innovation, income, etc increases by 15% – and likewise the negative social actions of crime, pollution…). Previously he found a similar efficiency in biology where the larger an organism was the less energy per unit mass it required to go about it’s life.

It’s this track record in reducing a problem domain to a simple set of rules & constraints that is so impressive. The way in which theoretical physics practitioners go about solving for x – the sense of minimalism that drives the crunching of gigs of data and seemingly chaotic environment into understandable, predictable systems. It’s raw data visualisation in it’s purest form.

And then we have the humble infographic. Continue reading ‘Faux Data: Infographics’

Why America Wins

and yes, I know it’s just Budweiser.

Government Information Flow Online

bit.flow image courtesy Marc Wathieu

A grand title, considering the relatively niche aspect of government communications that piqued my interest in the subject. But it’s something that should perhaps be given much greater emphasis as society increasingly interacts with the state online.

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Fullscreen Web Browsing in Iphone

Often wondered how the iphone safari browser renders pages and found out sometimes the zoom settings means visitors can miss important pieces of information around page edges.

Selected Belfast Festival

10 years in the city I decided it was time to have a look around me. The Belfast Festival at Queen’s is quite high profile in the media but outside of the fanfair I knew little of the content. Turns out they put on a pretty electic show. I went for the Bateman play National Anthem, a Floodlit Belfast photo opportunity, a discussion about Carson, retro gaming exhibition and book talks from both Keith Jeffery on MI6 & Lord Ashdown.

Continue reading ‘Selected Belfast Festival’

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How to Opt Out of Targeted Behavioural Advertising


Behavioural advertising involves the tracking of a web user’s surfing and displaying advertising that matches this data. I find the tracking of my surf history unnecessarily obtrusive personally and today found the online tool that will prevent marketing companies from collecting this data and profiting from it:

http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

Incidentally I came by this information by way of Rapleaf, Continue reading ‘How to Opt Out of Targeted Behavioural Advertising’