Posts filed under 'culture'
The return of rhetoric
Emily Pitts writes:
King’s Place in London held an elegant discussion last week on the art of rhetoric, led by Tony Benn, Simon Schama, Polly Toynbee, Geoffrey Robertson and curated by English PEN. The panel examined whether a speech is made great by careful use of rhetorical techniques, or whether the art in fact lies in choosing the right point in time for the speech to occur.
Three of the four panellists argued against the power of rhetoric, stating instead that dramatic speeches occur at dramatic points in history. The moment, they said, defines the language, rather than the other way around.
Simon Schama dissented. He argued that Obama is the best modern-day example we have of an artful rhetorician, citing the use of iambic pentameter in his inaugural speech; “I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors”, and his skilful use of the plural personal pronoun; “We can do it, Yes we can”. There has of course, been much written on Obama’s exemplary use of rhetoric – take a look at Max Atkinson’s blog for in-depth analysis.
During the course of the discussion, various other politicians came under scrutiny. It was suggested that the restraint of Gordon Brown’s language contributes to the perception of him as an inaccessible personality. Similarly, the “everyday Joe” language of Nick Griffin and his active oratory in local communities could be a significant factor in his success. Tony Blair was touted as the inventor of the ‘verbless sentence’ – a rather brazen grammatical omission – which allowed him to offer a promise without ever, in fact, making an actual commitment. “Our education system – a beacon to the world” is one example.
It is clear that artfully constructed language can be hugely powerful, especially when the point in history is hungry for words that can lead and provide strength. But more recently, blogging and instant communications seems to have had a ‘content over form’ effect on language – just getting the message “out there” has often become good enough.
However, with high-profile figures such as Obama leading the way, I suspect we may see a reversal of that trend over the next few years. We could see a return to more traditional values of well constructed and stylistically sophisticated language, both spoken and published. In the UK, the possible introduction of US-style televised political debates might raise the game for politicians and the language they use. It may not be Cicero, but the art of the spoken word could be about to resume an important place in public life.
The image is from Allan McDougall’s blog, and is used with thanks.
Add comment 30 November 2009
Eight tips about segmentations
Sarah King writes:
At The Futures Company we do a lot of segmentation work, for organisations trying to get really new insight into their audiences – who they are, how they behave, their attitudes and values. Segmentation helps our clients to drive genuine customer orientation across their businesses, with a shared perception of customers resulting in far more relevant offers. We shared some of our current thinking on how to get the most out of any segmentation project at a breakfast briefing for clients earlier this week.
Here are some tips from the presentation:
- Understand what you’ve already got – companies have plenty of data already, and it’s almost always more cost-effective to build on this. Add it to our insight and it can give you a real head start.
- Make sure you know what business question you’re trying to answer with the segmentation.
- Plan how you’re going to implement the segmentation before you begin – make sure you have a clear view of the end from the starting line and design your segmentation accordingly.
- If it’s your first time or there is a lot of change in your category, consider whether you need some exploratory qualitative research to help you understand how people divide and what questions you need to ask in your survey
- Remember that the segmentation work sits inside the business, which needs to be engaged in the process – before, during and afterwards. Bear in mind that you will have to resource embedding it in the business – both socially and in your daily business processes. You might need to access budgets other than the Market Research one.
- Avoid “the big reveal”. Get senior sponsorship for your project and take people along with you as you go, rather than trying to surprise them with the brilliance of the insight at the end. Less dramatic, more productive!
- Keep the segmentation story as simple as you can, without compromising the quality of the insight or the data. It makes a big difference if people in the business can keep the segmentation in their heads.
- Choose names for the segments which show respect for your customers and don’t caricature them. As the segmentation gets used by the business, the names will end up framing the way you think about customers.
It’s also worth looking at the post about segmentation in the public sector, based on an IIPS event held in the spring.
The cartoon is by Jake Goretzki.
Add comment 9 June 2009
Sounds like the future
Andrew Curry writes:
Anyone with a passing interest in modern jazz knows the ECM label, now 40 years old, with its distinctive roster and innovative design. To mark the anniversary it has released 40 of the best from its back catalogue as ‘Touchstones’ – with performers ranging from Pat Metheny and Keith Jarrett to John Surman, Anouhar Brahem and Jan Garbarek. The price is low (“at download prices”) and the packaging reduced.
It’s a move which pushes some obvious buttons. The €9.90 price is a response both to the digital download market and also to the recession, the card covers more environmentally friendly than the typical jewel case. But it also touches on some less obvious trends. The packaging design reduces the amount of space the CDs take up, in an age of decluttering, while also evoking the glossy look and feel, if smaller, of the original LP sleeves, creating a kind of nostalgia for the future. It can only be a matter of time before ECM’s new releases follow suit.
The picture is of pianist Chick Corea and vibes player Gary Burton, both on the Touchstones series.
Add comment 20 January 2009
Repairing the material world
Emily Pitts writes:
Demos’s recently launched ‘It’s a material world’ argues for the social value of heritage conservation, at a time when budgets for conservation courses are being slashed and the future of the discipline seems threatened. It calls for a national conservation strategy that includes education in schools, involves local communities in preserving the public realm, more support from government and a call to arms directed at professionals in the conservation and cultural sectors. If we don’t make the effort to be inclusive in how we look after the public realm, they argue, and make choices collectively about what to conserve, then social capital also declines.
An increasing interest in preserving social capital and a renewed vigour in community life is something we have been tracking for a little while, and early signs are that the economic downturn is increasing the extent to which we think of collective good. According to Yankelovich Monitor, 41% of American consumers define being a good citizen as ‘Not buying a home that is larger than you really need to help reduce energy usage’ compared to 34% just a year ago. Our data from the UK, whilst not directly comparable, hints at a similar sense of personal empowerment and responsibility, with the majority of consumers agreeing with the statement ‘I feel that I can make a difference to the world around me through the choices I take and the actions I make’. Interest in community life is also strong; according to our Planning for Consumer Change survey, since 2005 more people agree that the quality of life is better improved by looking after the interests of the community than those of the individual.
With changing attitudes towards community in evidence, the time might be right for the cultural sector, and conservation in particular, to push away from the individualistic outlook of the early ’00s and emerge in the schoolrooms and town halls of every community as a mainstay of our society. But is it possible for conservators to be more professional and more inclusive of the public at the same time, as Demos asks? Resolving conflict between public priorities and those of the experts could prove tricky, but rather than seeing these clashes of opinion as either/or tradeoffs, can we instead look to them as latent energy areas for future innovation?
The image is of the filming of the final of the BBC series ‘Restoration’ Village‘at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. More images can be found on their Flickr site.
Add comment 22 December 2008
Beyond the human
Stacey Yates and Denise Hicks write:
Stelarc is an Australian artist and post-humanist who believes that the human body is obsolete. He is acting on his belief, using his own body as an experimental laboratory. So who better to have on a panel at an event organised by Kinetica Museum about the convergence of art and science within the realms of robotics and cybernetics?
If the human body is obsolete, the only way forward is to embrace our already co-dependent (at times dependent) relationship with technology. Stelarc believes that it’s time to create a new design and architecture for the human body. To demonstrate its potential, he has been growing a left ear on his left forearm since early 2007, with the goal of making his body ‘internet enabled’.
After a year and a half, the ear is only in relief on his arm, but a third operation will lift it from the arm, giving it better definition. After that, he plans to implant a miniature microphone into the ear, connected to a bluetooth transmitter, enabling a wireless connection to the internet.
The microphone and transmitter will allow people to hear what the ear is listening to, wherever they may be. When electronically complete, it will form part of a distributed Bluetooth headset.
The body becomes internet enabled. The extra ear becomes an internet organ.
Although this all seems extreme, technology is increasingly being used surgically in cases of disability, such as cochlear implants for those that are deaf or hard of hearing. A quarter of teenagers say they are willing to go under the knife to improve the body they have (according to Great Ormond Street Hospital), and the quest for everlasting life (or at least a youthful glow) is a permanent feature in cosmetics aisles. Corrective laser eye surgery has become commonplace. If artists see the extremes of the future more clearly than the rest of us, Stelarc’s work suggests that it is only a matter of time before able-bodied consumers turn to technological ‘improvements’ to break through through the flesh-bound limitations of their body. Is it ‘man’ or ‘machine’? The question is already out of date. It will be both.
1 comment 8 December 2008
Grant Park’s tipping points
Editor’s note: Walker Smith, who runs The Futures Company’s Yankelovich division in the United States, has sent a long post reflecting on the 40-year context of Barack Obama’s Presidential victory this week. The conventional wisdom is that blog posts should be short and pithy. But we think that from time to time it’s better to give an argument the space and time it needs to unfold. Walker’s short essay is one of those occasions.
Walker Smith writes:
Barack Obama’s victory on Tuesday night was not unexpected. Three weeks out, political pundits knew that Obama had a lead that has never been overcome in modern political history. (Horse race political junkies will enjoy my favorite campaign resource, www.fivethirtyeight.com.) The real drama came an hour later when Obama took the stage with his family to honor this historic moment in his moving victory speech.
Chicago’s Grant Park, the scene of the victory rally, is a beautiful, expansive park bordering Lake Michigan that to this day still stirs up grueling memories for Baby Boomers like me, of the police violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The question that hangs over Barack Obama’s election is whether it really does represents the end of a 40-year cycle of deep political and cultural division, even though his electoral victory was built on effective party-political organisation rather than cutting across party-political lines.
1 comment 7 November 2008
Marketing and art
Emily Pitts writes:
The late work of Mark Rothko is currently on show at the Tate Modern, and much has been written about the innate spirituality of both the artist and the work. Rothko was one of the last of the Modernist artists, a contemporary of Jackson Pollock and de Kooning, and many of his ideas and painterly practices looked back rather than forwards. As the critic Robert Hughes observed, he believed that his ‘painting could carry the load of major meanings and possess the same comprehensive seriousness as the art of fresco in the 16th century or the novel in 19th century Russia”.
Rothko at his best should allow us to contemplate, as the shadows of the colour open and close before us with luminosity and movement. Indeed, the artist was very careful in stipulating how his work was shown, hung, and lit because of the importance to him of its impact on the viewer. To experience his low-lit, enveloping canvases is often described as similar to stepping into a cathedral, and reviews and critiques tend to be peppered with religious language.
But visiting the exhibition, one of the striking features is the lack of reverence to be found among the visitors. This is not to say that the work on display is not spiritual, or fails to convey a sense of the sublime. Instead, it is the all but inevitable result of the business of blockbuster art shows. Earlier this month, an article in Marketing Week (not available online without subscription) argued that marketing had ruined art. At the Rothko exhibition the visitor is accosted by the usual array of extras – headsets, printed guides, the line of merchandise on the way out. Because of the large volume of visitors, entry is operated on a timed basis. So perhaps it’s not surprising that visitors are wont to race round, listening to commentary rather than looking at the work, and picking up some postcards at the end. The marketing and packaging of the show doesn’t help the work find its audiences. Instead, visitors seem confused as to how to approach it. There is relatively little of the usual reaction of thought and quiet reflection that are normally associated with Rothko.
This all begs the question of the role of marketing in art; can marketing devalue the work it attempts to promote? If culture becomes just one more way to consume, does art become as disposable as consumer goods? Germaine Greer was quoted in Marketing Week as saying that ‘the art form of the 21st century is marketing’. This may be true, or may be grandstanding (although her example of Damien Hirst creating such a strong brand on a ‘conspicuously threadbare rationale’ resonates) – but when marketing overtakes the art in question, the works seem to become secondary to the gloss of marketing, and the cachet of an exhibition lies in visiting it rather than absorbing it, perhaps marketers have to ask themselves what it is they’re trying to achieve by marketing.
The picture at the top of this post is from The Swelle Life – which has an entertaining post about the Tate’s merchandising of Rothko. (They’re not fans). The Tate Modern exhibition runs until 1st February 2009.
Add comment 30 October 2008
Saatchi looks east
Zhang Hongtu
Emily Pitts writes:
As the leaves start to turn, so the cashmere and champagne crew turns out for the start of London’s art fair season. Amid the annual Zoo, Frieze and Scope art fairs, a particular attraction this year is the opening of the new Saatchi Gallery at the Duke of York’s HQ on the King’s Road. Its position just off Sloane Square, together with the elegance of the 1804 Soane-esque architecture and the sophisticated interior, belie the thoroughly modern approach of the new gallery.
The Saatchi Gallery has long been famous for its position at the forefront of the contemporary art movement and for providing a space for work by artists who are regarded as promising rather than established. There are, however, two particularly interesting aspects to the new gallery. Firstly, it is providing a ‘real-world’ space for artists who have submitted work online. When we talk about trends, we often talk about the blur between the real and the virtual world, and here is a great example of an art institution embracing that trend and bringing the virtual into the tangible surroundings of a world-class gallery.
Secondly, the subject matter that has been chosen for the inaugural exhibition; new Chinese artists. The recent return of China as an economic and political power after after two hundred years is being mirrored in the art world (and in culture more generally), as it takes its place at the cutting edge. So it’s in with the new, out with the old, as we witness Damian Hirst consigned (if £95m richer) to the auction halls of Sotheby’s, as China and its young artists become our new ‘sensation’.
The picture shown is Zhang Hongtu’s “Long Live Chairman Mao Series #29″. The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art is at the Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London SW1, until 18th January 2009.
Add comment 10 October 2008
Learning from your staff
Andrew Curry writes:
Visiting the British Museum’s Hadrian exhibition on a wet Sunday in August isn’t perhaps the most sensible thing to do, although the exhibition is striking even when it’s teeming with visitors. But the trip was at least as educational about the BM’s approach to customer service.
While waiting to buy my timed tickets, the screens behind the ticket desk advertised to me the benefits of membership (‘Join today and see Hadrian free’). I had some time to do the sums, and it seemed like a reasonable offer. So when I reached the desk I asked if I could buy membership instead. Not here, apparently, but over there – at a desk with another long queue at it. Having waited several minutes already, I bought the ordinary one-day exhibition tickets instead. Lost revenue, lost relationship, from the Museum’s point of view. ‘It doesn’t seem sensible to advertise membership here and not to sell it’, I observed, helpfully. ‘I know’ said the woman at the counter. ‘We have mentioned it to the management’.
Being a wet Sunday, I had an umbrella with me. It had been pretty visible when I bought the tickets, since umbrellas aren’t the sort of thing you tend to hide unless you’re a hitman. When we got to the entrance of the Hadrian exhibition for our timed entry, 40 minutes later, the attendant told me that I couldn’t take the umbrella in; it would have to go to the cloakroom. ‘I could have been told that when I bought the tickets’ I pointed out, both to the attendant and later to the man in the Cloakroom. ‘I know’, said the man in the Cloakroom. ‘We’ve been telling the management for the last two exhibitions, but they haven’t done anything about it’.
Of course, the British Museum’s not unique in not listening to its customer-facing staff. Lots of organisations forget that they’re the first to hear (often the only people to hear) when their customer-facing systems aren’t entirely customer friendly. Usually managers are too busy telling their staff about new instructions to find the time to listen to them.
As for the Hadrian exhibition, it’s open until 26th October. But don’t go on a wet Sunday. And if you do, don’t take an umbrella.
Add comment 18 August 2008
The commoditisation of sexual relationships
The image is a plot of the sexual relationships of students at Jefferson High School occurring within the preceding 6 months
Trevor Harvey writes:
Over the past few years, society has moved stealthily from viewing sex as a commodity, to the commoditisation of sexual relationships – the ‘free availability’ of the relationship surrounding and driven by sex.
The development of technology has facilitated easier sexual relationships, including changes in pornography and sexual material. Top Ten Reviews reported in 2006 that 43% of internet users viewed porn, and 35% of all downloads were porn, while porn sales themselves have been dropping rapidly over the past few years. Technology means that anyone with a mobile camera can now be a porn star or producer.
In fact, technology has touched all aspects of sexual relationships – from user-generated content sites such as XTube, PornoTube and Gaydar, to the public spat between Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia co-founder) and Rachel Marsden (the end of whose sexual relationship was played out in Wikipedia and eBay), to the re-interpretation of pre-arranged marriages through online sites where daughters are promoted by the parents. MMOEGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Erotic Games), which provide a safe haven for people to have sex virtually, are showing a rise in numbers – showing perhaps that while sexual relationships are increasingly treated as commodities, we’re still concerned about their safety.
And for good reason. The effects on health and well-being are alarming. A 2007 BMC Public Health study showed that a third of 16 to 35-year-old men and nearly a quarter of women questioned said they drank to increase their chance of sex. HIV infection rates rose sharply (by 48%) in the US between ’05 and ’06, according to the US Center for Disease Control, and also increased (less dramatically) in Western and Central Europe in 2007, despite years of public health and education campaigns. Other disease infection rates are as alarming: the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV reported that sexually transmitted infection rates have risen rapidly over the past 12 years, with incidences of Chlamydia and HIV both tripling, gonorrhoea doubling, and syphilis increasing by twenty times.
There have also been disturbing changes in the sexual relationships of children and young adults. UNICEF reported last year that more children in the UK have had sexual intercourse by the age of 15 than in any other country. UK Government figures show that the UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Western Europe, while the sexual health of young adults in the UK has deteriorated over the last two years. In the US, the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. Meanwhile, by way of further evidence that the commoditisation of sexual relationships is affecting teenagers and young people, media reports say that the number of teenage girls having breast implants have more than doubled in the past year in both Britain and the US.
Sex is a powerful motivator in human behaviour and society and when it comes to analysing trends we must understand it as a significant driver of change. But as a rule sexual relationships are something we prefer not to think about in this context. If we are to seek a rounded view of the behaviour of consumers, we need to consider the increasingly apparent commoditisation of sexual relationships, which is starting to raise moral issues for brands, and for products and services, as well as for society.
Add comment 1 July 2008
