In this Sydney Morning Herald article, Clemenger’s Mr Morgan complained about how an ABC TV series The Gruen Transfer had demeaned and trivialised the advertising industry.

Maybe the ad industry felt threatened by the thousands of reader-created mashup ads on the series’ website. Or perhaps by the sheer amount of ordinary people who jumped at this opportunity to serve some back at the ad companies …

Here are some ways to make a difference to the world, using Tim Berners-Lees as an example: A World Wide Web of Ideas.

My take on the key concepts are:

Altruism – giving something away returns far more, and enables more people, in the long run.

Influence – a personal story attracts more attention than the best message-managed PR gloss.

Freedom – the freedom to explore ideas is a …

“People say that a joy shared is a joy doubled. And a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. So what happens when you share something with the entire world?”

This is the premise of i-confide. Go look, and confide something.

(Disclosure: I was the designer of this application)

Artist Chris Jordan has created some amazing prints that really rubs home the consumerist madness that is the US, with us in Australia likely not that far behind.

If you have children, be very very scared for their future.

Spotted by way of this post by John Maeda.

Is that email from Microsoft promising to give you $5 every time you forward it on for real? Is poor little Jimmy with no head who really needs your love and $10 really in Bethesda Private?

Great tips and a few fun hoax email generators can be had on the Break The Chain website. This stuff should be Internet 101 for everyone.

Related true story:

Once upon …

I am still totally amazed by photos like this. This is a totally alien world, one I will never be able to set foot on in this lifetime. Wow.

If we as a species can do this, nothing truly is beyond us; except what we choose to not give a damn about.

(Incidentally this is the original photo which caused the recent “Martian Big Foot” …

Like the honourable Japanese whaling luncheon meat type of research, this one involved death.
Unlike the honourable Japanese whaling luncheon meat type of research, this one is not edible.

My friend Stilgherrian has an interesting experiment going involving the bits mentioned in the title. As per usual, it comes with great observations, is well written, and is illustrated to boot. See:

Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, Day …

We generally subscribe to a set of beliefs about what makes “good business sense”. This is part of the belief that business is a set of activities dedicated primarily to the making of profits, and is divorced from life and devoid of emotions.

In Western Australia, tonnes of top quality potatoes are being tilled back into the ground or turned into cattle feed. Enough potato to feed cities are …

Despite best efforts at the global standardisation, the experience of a product or service can vary greatly depending on the local culture. It is coloured by comparisons with local competition, and local cultural perceptions of the product’s originating culture.

This post has been sparked by spotting this book:

My initial reaction was a somewhat ho-hum one. I simply don’t associate Starbucks with amazingly good coffee. (No, I …

By 2010, the Unicode Consortium believes that the languages used for global commerce will be thus:

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Spotted on chinglish.com - yes I know, serious website, unfortunate name.