Cultural Cartography

Everyone needs an Arthur

I went to Russell's coffee morning this morning. It's the first time I've been, up till now I've just been lurking on the outskirts or lurching with jet lag when I could have gone. So it was great to go today and enjoy such a festive occasion.

When I was talking to Richard, he asked me if I had an "Arthur", who for those of you who don't know is Russell's great little boy. I had to answer "no", at which point he said "Everyone should have an Arthur". Bt the way I think Richard's Arthur is called Thomas. I understand what Richard meant, but then I started thinking about it a bit more. And I think he's right in a much deeper way. It's not just about the joys of being a parent, it's about what being with a child does to the way you think. This isn't the most original theory but it just struck me again today.

I'll give you an example. Russell had kindly bought some crackers which we all pulled (I didn't get anything apart from a very lame joke) and Athur got one of those puzzles made up lots of different coloured triangles, which you are supposed to fit together to make a square. Arthur didn't do that, he decided to make a man using the different coloured triangles.

So he took something and looked at it and then tried to make something new out of the same starting bits that anyone else had. And came out somewhere completely different - it was a brilliant man by the way. I think that's what children do best, apart from being very cute of course. They aren't circumscribed by the rules of society and convention so they just do things differently. And in a way that's what we should be doing as planners as well. Making men out of coloured triangles, instead of squares.

PS. I also talked to Helen as well who was great and confirmed my theory about qual researchers and planning, it's all the same thing really.

PPS. I would have liked to put a picture of the real Arthur up here, but I'm not sure whether that would be appropriate. But the real Arthur is great.

PPS. I was very disturbed to see the new Star Wars figures. They are so much more cartoon like and completely unfanciable in the case of Han Solo.

The writer

A new piece of work has appeared outside my block of flats. I have no idea who it is by or why it is there. I only know that I would like to buy it but have no doubt that I couldn't afford it. Why do I like it so much? Well, I've christened it "The Writer". Look at the pictures first and then I'll explain why that talking about this piece fits with the aim of this blog.

The writer sits on their own but is embedded in their environment. They are isolated but in touch. They concentrate, looking outward and inward at the same time, just like the look on this statue's face. And things grow out of them, maybe out of their mind but maybe out of their body. And they and the words they use are made up of all the words and writings written before. They cannot separate themselves from the past and their environment.

Culture is made up in the same way. We are all individuals but we cannot separate ourselves from our environment. A cultural object grows out of these individuals. And yet it is made up of all the signs that existed before and the meaning which they construct.   

Translators

I was at our company Xmas party last night which was surprisingly good. At one point I found myself talking to a younger colleague about a bit of a professional dilemma he was in. He is wanting to move into planning and yet has found himself working as an account person. I gave him the benefit of my small amount of wisdom as to what I thought he should do. I realise now that what I was actually doing was translating the experience that I have had in my career into useful nuggets for him. ie. always sell the benefit, make it easy for your boss, decide what kind of person you want to be and be it. etc. I also realised that I was translating and interpreting situations and comments in his life for him. ie. if your boss says to you "Maybe you should think about that some more," that can mean you haven't thought enough or you should think some more because it might be worthwhile.

An ex colleague of mine was very good at this. She was able to extract herself from the detail and talk about the meta level. She could therefore explain how someone was positioning themselves in a meeting and why.

I also thought that anyone who is interested in training and mentoring might find "translation" a useful metaphor. You take something you know and translate it into someone's elses language or frame of reference.

Don't know whether my comments helped my colleague though. I was slightly inebriated and very convinced I was being brilliant.

Hanging on the telephone

Is it just me or is there still a more intimate feel to a call conducted on a landline. I know that when I'm travelling I never feel quite like I'm really connecting to my loved ones, because not only am I miles away and often in another timezone, but because there is no physical connection to them.

All the traditional words we use around telephony are to do with tangible connections: the line, connection, to get through to some one etc. And the iconography is even more powerful: you can't strangle someone with the reception from a mobile phone. The tense moment in whodunnits and thrillers where someone has to wait for a call next to the phone because the cord is not only the connection but also the limiting factor; it stops you taking the phone away with you.

I know that the mobile phone has given us lots of other things. But that sense of intimacy and immediacy and sometimes threat which comes from being physically connected by the phone cord is being lost.

 

Urban graffiti

What does it say that the thing you want to paint over is telling you not to paint over it? And that the authors and their band (!!) also reference the meta linguistic nature of the graffiti