Monday 27 June 2011

Searching for my Miss World crown…

I love that beauty pageants always ask the girls what they would do if they ruled the world. End poverty, end AIDS, end hunger, it’s always the same ole story with these lasses. I reckon I could be a strong contender for the title of Miss World because I have the best answer.

I would put an end to self-aggrandising job titles. Having seen CVs from business school alumni, who claim to have been the Senior Vice-President of Marketing for their volleyball team, and meeting consultants who are Associate Partners only to be told “it’s not that important, there are thousands of us in the firm”, I believe we have entered an age where job titles have become meaningless.

I propose that everyone in management should have their old title deleted and we’ll start again from scratch. If your company has 1-20 employees, then the top job can be Managing Director, 1-100 and you can have a CEO, 1-1,000 – a President. More than 1,000, you can throw some Vice-Presidents into the mix and if you have over 10,000 staff, you can probably sub-divide them by adding in some Senior VPs and maybe some Associates too. If your company has more than 100,000, then perhaps a couple of partners (not too many though).

If you have over a million staff (and yes, amazingly these companies do exist), then the big boss can have the title Lord and Master, just as long as he (for it is usually a he) doesn’t actually believe that he’s personally managing his employee base in any kind of meaningful way.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problems with these people. But to be honest, if your company is the size of a small country and you’ve worked that hard to get to the top, then you should enjoy the opportunity to kick back with a large whiskey. Because isn’t that what it’s really all about?

Friday 17 June 2011

Craft(ivist) Work


Howdy all.
Here is another article from the archives. Last year I interviewed the lovely Sarah Corbett, who runs the Craftivist Collective, for House magazine. House is a quarterly magazine, which goes to members of the Soho House group. If you can't read the text clearly in the picture above, then you can access the entire magazine here.

Monday 13 June 2011

Dots the Film


Last October I wrote in RWD magazine about a new graffiti documentary coming your way. And then, I forgot to post it on my blog. Doh! So here is the article with a link to three of the sections that are now available to view on Babelgum. Check out James Jessop, Rowdy and Cyclops as they cover New York, Australia and India and the power of street art.

The Dance of Attraction

Zzzappp. There it is. That spark of attraction. It hits you the first time you spot him. You glance at him, quickly scanning him up and down, checking for any flaws or imperfections that might cause you to think twice, but nothing catches your eye in a negative way.

Your eyes meet. You smile.

If he smiles back, you raise your eyes to meet his again. If not, you let your brain move to the next thing on your agenda for the day.

But he does smile back. So now you want to properly take him in, but it would be too obvious now to let your eyes lazily wander across his body. So you allow your gaze to occasionally dart in various directions, trying to piece each snapshot into one cohesive picture, while maintaining eye contact.

He introduces himself. This is your one big shot. Within, your internal organs breathe a sigh of relief while simultaneously tensing at the prospect of you messing this up when you open your mouth.

For oh, tis a merry dance we dance.