RobSog

Debt collection

Think you're 'ard? A bit tasty? Nah – meet OptaDesign's debt collector. OK, not really. But that really is a hyena by chumly. Link: Boing Boing

Some of my best friends are machines

More snippets from the book collection:

In a carefully argued passage of his seminal work The Third Policeman, the Irish writer Flann O'Brien described a syndrome, to which he claimed country policemen were especially prone, whereby constant contact with one's bicycle over a long period could produce an unfortunate and irreversible molecular interpenetration between rider and steed leading, it was said, to an exchange of characteristic behaviour.

Thus the rider might be observed from time to time leaning against the nearest wall with arms akimbo in the handlebar position, as it were – and his bicycle, while not exactly being seen to move of it's own accord, might be found to have edged its way into a cosy niche inside the house, though everyone was quite sure its rider had left it outside the front door.

O'Brien advanced the belief that some riders might find themselves, if not alerted to the danger in time, more than one third bicycle by the age of 50. Applying this to the designer computer relationship we could envisage the former developing a tendency to converse in a series of clicks and bleeps, and the latter displaying all-too-human fits of the sulks whenever the designer leaves the console to attend a call of nature or make a cup of tea, having to be coaxed back into decent machine behaviour.

From a paper given at the Pira/RSA Conference on Design/Technology/Communication, London 1990 reprinted in 'A word in your eye', Reading University 1996. Ken Garland.

Competitive pitching – the numbers game

Some recent digging through the book collection resulted in a rare find – a few words of promotional writing for a design agency that made me smile. This is not a common occurrence. Overwhelmingly I find myself gagging on the usual 'strategic blue-sky thinking eyewash' (hang on, can you gag on eyewash?). It concerns a topic I've posted on before, that being pitching. These words are by the irrepressible Graham Hart.

Everything in life has a mathematical basis.1 Mathematicians tell us this – and they should know. Having proved that a golfer's swing, the patterns on a butterfly's wing and your chance of winning the lottery are all determined by maths, they have told us to turn our attentions to a new field: competitive pitching. While everybody knows that there are no clear formulae for success, mathematicians have been trying to prove the opposite.

There main arguments surfaced in a recent academic paper in which four theories were postulated.

1. The m and ms ratio
This supposes that m is a measure of pleasure or surprise and is relative to an amount of money. See the example below:
Cost of a pitch = £4,500 it follows that £4,500 = m
Value of project on offer = £145,000 or mmmm!
Note 7ms = ooooooh

2. The pitch yield formula
This is a slightly more complex piece of algebra where:
a - b = c
a = number of presentations made by agencies
b = number of proposals accepted by client
c = number of unhappy agencies
Note if a = more than 4, and
b = 1, then
c = number of very unhappy agencies

3. The law of second-place probability
This resulted from empirical research undertaken by Stephen Oliver Doward who wanted the law named after him. S. O. Doward discovered that:
number of suppliers in pitch           percentage of winning
3                                                      33%
4                                                      25%
5                                                      20% . . . infinity
However
number of suppliers in pitch           percentage chance of coming second
3                                                      95%
4                                                      95%
5                                                      95% . . . infinity
Notes: Doward reported the phrase 'we really love your ideas but you came second to a company we have used before,' was used in 75% of rejections. The one agency that was told 'we hated your concepts and you came fifth out of five', is now working on PR material for the President of France.

4. The 'new number'
Mathematicians love discoveries and this was a special one. It was noticed that the cost of a pitch was made up of four elements:
cost of pitch = l + m + n + o, where
l = cost of creative time
m = cost of materials
n = cost of project management time
o = cost of new (little black) number
Note It was seen that o, the (little black) number, increased in direct proportion to the number of women on the team.

So that proves it then.

1. One of my cover from my Cambridge University Press days. A long time ago.

Podcasting and iTunes

Just started using iTunes new Podcast corner, and in particular I'm going through the recent segments from IT Conversations. I'm in the middle of cropping, touching-up and colour-correcting a huge bundle of pictures for a new book Malcolm and I are designing, so in an effort to keep me sane, I've been listening to Paul Graham, Peter Norvig (Director Search Quality at Google) and other tech luminaries riffing on their specialised subject(s).

The whole IT Conversations idea about presenting talks (albeit it without supporting visuals – sometimes a good thing?) from conferences I'll never be able to attend is such a good idea. Must throw some coppers into their 'tip jar.' However, not all the posts are formal presentations. Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing fame (amongst other things – damm this man knows a lot of stuff) is a good listen, though I'm not sure how he can keep up that machine-gun chatter for that long without chemical aids.

And the book I'm working on? Well here's a potential typographic treatment for the cover using Jeremy Tankard's quirky Shire Types for the title, though this might change on further reflection. Why use Cheshire for the titling font? Well it just seems to nicely reflect the dramatic landscape of that part of Kernow. Will post alternatives if any come to mind (mine or your's for that matter).

WiFi and flower boxes

Nicholas Negroponte on WiFi and a economic model to sustain 'universal availability':

Think about it. If you put a flower box outside your house, you're first of all using your own money to buy the flowers. You're hanging it out there. You're doing it for your self-esteem, for the beauty of looking out the window and seeing the flowers, of decorating your house and making it look well. But it also, if everyone on the street puts nice flower boxes out, makes the street look nicer. It happens a little bit on Beacon Hill, it happens a lot in European cities.

Now the theory of flower boxes, if there is such a thing, could be taken to WiFi. I put in a WiFi system in my home for my own use, but it radiates out into the street. There's no incremental cost for me to let other people use it. There really isn't. ... If everybody does that, then the entire street has broadband. Every park bench has broadband, every convenience store has broadband, and so on.

So it you've got a flower box, please leave it open. I do . . .

Persiflage

More Douglas Adams

Is there an artificial God?

Transcript of his speech at Digital Biota 2, held at Magdelene College Cambridge, in September 1998.

Designers as editors

Rick Poynor on designers choosing how and what to say. Or is that what and how to say?

Penguin suits me

Wednesday last, Mr Forbes, Herr Tomlinson and I went to see Phil Banes chat about 70 years of Penguin covers at Heffers in Cambridge. Not having seen the book until the evening in question, it was a real eye-opener to see Phil show some examples I've never seen before. Even Mr Typoland hadn't seen the Abram Games examples which still look so fresh. Quality never goes out of style.

Here's my own memorial to those 70 years of great design. Not sure that I should really rest my feet upon the work of Tschichold, Birdsall, Schmoller, etc . . .

Lots of conversations

Some interesting numbers from IT Conversations:

RealNetwork's Rob Glaser said that in a given month, over 90% of Rhapsody's one million songs are played at least once and the top 100 songs make up only 1% of the listens.

I wonder how these figures compare to iTunes? Is 'variety the spice of life'. I really hope so.