So – not stalking at all. Phew!

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This was started in London and has spread to quite a few University towns in England (and even to other countries around the world). Ellen Dowell and Kathryn Harkup asked me to join them in helping to produce this event in Guildford. The first event was on Monday 30th January and played to a full house at Bar Des Arts. And just to give you a measure of the quality of the evening – the biggest laugh went to the punch line “mass spectrometry”. Below are some of the highlights…

The next event is tonight (I know – not much notice). It is again, a full house, sold out a couple of weeks ago – so I’m afraid you won’t be able to join us. However, I do hope to have a highlights vieo up shortly to tease you with what you missed.

So the officious Guildford councillors saw fit to decline planing permission for the Guildford Guys. The official reason was:

Despite a total lack of any precedent or evidence, Guildford police made the assertion that the work would be a catalyst for crime and disorder which the council chamber seemed incapable of interrogating beyond a superficial “well, if the police say it, then it must be right because they are experts”.

Councillors were more interested in a small part of the Guildford Guys narrative – that which (surprise, surprise) pertains to them: the riots. Of course, the riots were caused by officious Guildford councillors in 1863 in the first place, who called in the army to stop the biggest cultural event of the year that had been taking place since 1605 or thereabouts (I’ll check and get exact dates from Gavin Morgan – local Historian, author of the Guildford Guy Riots, and colleague tonight in speaking in favour of the sculpture) after the gunpowder plot went belly up.

One councillor made a highly emotive speech about Croydon riots and policemen having eyes ripped out – and how dare anyone think of creating a monument to rioting. Another spoke of  how we should be focussing on the positives of Guildford, perhaps to PW Jacob – the mayor who brought in the police to put an end to the Guildford Guys (what a suck up!) or to the technological success of the town.

(Irony alert) The biggest technology employer in Guildford is… EA Games who are gifting the work to the town in the first place. Apparently they’d be better off suggesting sticking a huge EA Games logo on the roundabout in a narcissistic, capitalists wet dream. (They actually really want to create something worthwhile, rather than just some railings along the street as other companies have done – perhaps in frustration at town planning regs that prevent doing anything of any interest whatsoever).

It reminds me of conversations with brand managers who are obsessed with ‘showing the benefit’. The result, of course, is an anodyne waste of the life put into making the drivelling piece of crap that eventually gets broadcast. It neither offends nor engages. It just saps life and energy from anyone who comes into contact with it.

It shocked me how our policy makers were so blind to the irony that the Guys were once again being expunged from the history of Guildford by their chamber. And it was amazing for me that they could not see that this is not a part of our history, but a part of the ongoing narrative of the town.

I remember the meeting where I saw Theresa present the work for the first time. I was sat next to my good friends, the chaps from Kane FM. They had set up Kane FM as a pirate radio station, been raided and had equipment confiscated on a number of occasions. But they kept investing their time and money in their musical community and hobby. They helped encourage disenfranchised youth to invest their energies in creative pursuits – music, art, technology etc. Now, finally, they have a community radio license. They do nothing different except now they are not raided by the police and can earn a living. Now they are legitimate. How kind of those in authority!?

I spoke, alongside Gavin Morgan, Theresa Smith (the artist who designed the sculpture – presenting it here) and Susie Campbell (South West Surrey’s area manager for alternative education). Unfortunately to no effect. Apparatently our expertise is worthless in comparison to a police statement.

My own contribution was, in summary:

Obviously, public art has a primary role – to massage the inflated sense of self-importance of our pubic officials who pronounce with the abducted authority we have given them… without listening to us.

Perhaps I’ll steer clear of the politicians in future. Utterly disappointed.

Here is Theresa talking about the work and showing the latest version of the sculpture in response to feedback.

He is organising this amazing event this Sunday on April 1st (no joke). It is the worlds first iPad Life Drawing session and is for practised and beginners alike. He is organising it our favourite venue in Guildford: Bar Des Arts.

Pecha Kucha Guildford is hosted by Simon at Bar Des Arts on a quarterly basis, and brings together creative, talented and interesting people to share their work, ideas and stories.

The event has inspired a wide range of inter-disciplinary collaborations including The River Of Lights, The Secret Artists Society, and the development of science based games and toys…

You can find videos of previous talks in the blog section of this website. And you can find details of upcoming events and book tickets via the homepage.

Submissions for speakers is ongoing – so please feel free to get in touch if you would be interested in taking part.

EURO RSCG, the global lead creative agency for the Pernod Ricard owned premium whisky brand Chivas, asked Human Zoo to run a workshop for the global marketing team and representatives from their lead agencies.

The workshop provided the team with a new vocabulary to describe their brand and to ensure that they were able to communicate the tone of voice for each of the Chivas brands (12 year old, 18 year old and 25 year old).

As a result of other successful projects, the internal communications team briefed Human Zoo to develop a brainstorming session to understand what needed to be communicated to whom at what time in order to support the implementation of the parcel tracking services.

Communications needed to be developed to address a range of issues to cover postmen, depot managers, post office staff, drivers, corporate account managers, and many others, and the task seemed to be overwhelming.

The assumption by the Royal Mail team was that in order to run a successful brainstorm we would need to keep the number of participants to around 12. We advised them to invite representatives from every department involved in the project including front line staff who had never experienced this sort of work before, representatives from the Trades Unions, senior management, and representatives from each part of the logistics train.

The half-day workshop created a role for every person to co-create the internal communications that went on to be recognised in the International Visual Communications Awards. The workshop also created the foundations for a training programme that went on to win a UK training award, and identified a mission critical problem that required changes to working conditions which was resolved during the workshop through a collaboration between senior executives, Trades Unions and senior managers.

Ruby is a comedienne best known for her brash and forthright interviewing style which informs her leadership and communication development for corporate clients. She has a special interest in mindfulness and how our thinking affects behaviour.

In contrast, Simon looks at how our behavior affects the way that we think. His leadership and communication development is informed by anthropology and observations of behavioural strategies combined with improvisational comedy.

Simon and Ruby played ying and yang to each other, with Ruby representing thinking and feeling, and Simon the doing and seeing. Amidst the laughter was sanity.

The 2 day workshop was delivered to members of the marketing team including creative teams, production, brand managers, and media planning, and helped them to redesign the creative process and the creative brief itself.

Our task was to find ways in which to produce better work with less effort. The workshop was designed to start at the end – and then work backwards.

Delegates discovered that the more certainty they designed into the up front processes, the more uncertainty resulted in the high stakes, high pressure production phase.

Conversely, the more uncertainty they allowed at the start of creative development, the more certainty was generated in production.

The team designed a flexible approach to creative development which encouraged cross-disciplinary meetings from an early stage.