Some reflections as the year draws to an end... please view in your browser to enjoy the vids
Bangtidy buzzwords 2012
Meggings anyone?
Bangtidy: of exceptionally good quality
Goat's cheese curtain: an imaginary line of urban sophistication that encircles the CBD at a radius of between 5km and 10km, depending on the city (penned by Bernard Salt, nice one)
Hangry: irritable as a result of feeling hungry
Hypermiling: driving a vehicle in a way that reduces the amount of fuel you use (I am officially obsessed with this practice, hello savings!)
Humblebrag: a statement in which you pretend to be modest but which you are really using as a way of telling people about your success or achievements.
Meh: a multi-purpose response, primarily used to imply a degree of indifference
Meggings: male leggings (yes there are Tumblr blogs on it)
MILFs: mowers I'd like to fix
Running latte: running late because you stopped for a coffee
Twitchfork: an aggressive form of organised protest via the Twitter short messaging service, or via other kinds of social media
Selfie: a self-portrait usually taken on a phone (Kim Kardashian has Obsessive Compulsive Selfie Disorder)
In my quest to create useful content for clients, it has been fantastic to collaborate with The Nous Group and the very clever director Charlie Ford on a series of graduate recruitment videos. (It helps to have gorgeous inhouse talent like Yaelle Scarr who stars in this Nous piece.) Am really looking forward to playing producer/writer on more projects in 2013. It's a no brainer way to get messages out there.
Bilingual media training in Phnom Penh
Emily Ross Bespoke's main pro bono work this year has been with Hagar, an organisation that works with survivors of human trafficking in Vietnam, Cambodia and Afghanistan. I was lucky enough to work with key Hagar staff and clients in Phnom Penh in October; offering media training, writing services and other bespoke-y things, as well as participating in a justice tour of the city - viewing courtrooms, the Killing Fields, shelters, child protection agencies, and meeting with trauma counsellors, key legal figures and other key players in the process of restoring the lives of some of the world's 21 million modern day slaves. Fingers crossed I'm back in June 2013... In the meantime,
GIVE this Christmas, Emily Ross Bespoke has. A very generous Hagar supporter in Perth is matching every donation, a great thing to do in the midst of Australian bacchanalean Christmukkah celebrations. Donate now.
Emily Ross Bespoke will be hosting a fireside chat in February with some of the Hagar team who will be out from Cambodia. Contact me if you/your staff would like to come on Thursday, February 7. You'll get a real insight into what it takes to rebuild broken lives; and you'll meet some brilliant Hagar people.
Um, how NOT to use corporate Twitter accounts
Dear KitchenAid, please get a Twitter policy soon. I can help you with it. Lots of love and happy baking, Emily Ross Bespoke
To TED or not to TED
In 2012, I had fun training my first client for a TED talk, the modern day equivalent of the Shakespearean soliloquy. My client nailed it, but boy don't underestimate the skill and preparation involved in that 15 minutes of fame. If you have time over the break, read this fantastic New York magazine piece "Those Fabulous Confabs ... Are We Running Out of Things To Say?" about the whole TED phenomenon. Some interesting talks:
My Subversive (Garden) Plot
How Dinosaurs F**k
The Hidden World of Box Packing
Mathemagic
So guys if you are planning public speaking in 2013, you've got your work cut out for you - especially now it's acceptable to sit through a keynote titching* on an iPad. I can help you get match fit.
*Titching is my homemade word for farting around on the Internet.
The science of not being distracted while you work
A dorky confession, in 2012 I started listening to long YouTube clips while at work. I started doing this after listening to a lecture on alpha waves. The so-called alpha wave, a slow brain wave with a cycle of 100 milliseconds, seems to play a key role in suppressing irrelevant brain activity. As you can see from this newsletter, I need to suppress irrelevant brain activity.
This one is not for the kiddies, but this SNL clip is still damn funny. Kristen Wiig, yeah!
Cool collaboration
Emily Ross Bespoke has worked on the next annual Open Field iPad magazine that won this year's Melbourne Art Directors Club Award for Best Digital Content. Watch out for my piece on the coolest, cleverest artist in Oz, Nell.
Feeling creative, motivated and specialised?
So which of the 175million+ members of LinkedIn don't say this stuff in their profile? I love helping people pimp up their LI profiles beyond this list and actually explain what they do. It's become a cool 1-2 hour ERB service.
SOURCE: MASHABLE
Real stakeholders stand up
I have to confess, sometimes I submit corporate jargon to Don Watson's brilliant Weasel Words website. I'm definitely a signed up member of the plain English army and sometimes I need to vent! Here are a few to make you do a little vomit in your mouth.
> incentivising stakeholders
> innovate and grow stakeholders
> disbenefits
and these doozies from the NHS: "There was not currently a gap on the spectrum of adequacy sufficient to conclude that the provision of pharmaceutical services is not currently secured to the standard of adequacy" NHS North Staffordshire
"Building in equality and risk impact assessments the options are taken through a process to arrive at the content for an output based specification and benefits foreseen as a result of the implementation" NHS again! Read More shockers
SOURCE: THE DAILY MAIL; WEASEL WORDS
Donuts and the truth about social media
Still spot on, via @Typing_monkey
Sorry but it's still awesome
Not sure how many of you are over Gangnam - sorry not me. There is something about it. Pensioners in the park are doing it every morning in Ho Chi Minh, I got to do it with a whole store full of people in Phnom Penh, prisoners in Cebu have rocked it, Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei did a parody (with added handcuffs as an act of protest over the Chinese Government's efforts to silence him. Naturally, the video has been blocked in China).
My current favorite Gangnam version is a respose to Weiwei's censorship by uber brilliant sculptor Anish Kapoor and friends across the world so I'll share that version with you as my end-of-year Gangnam spot.
Happy holidays
"Wonder is not a disease." ― Alan Watts
Very, very big thank yous to clients, friends, family, Baker, St Edmonds and weak ties. It has been a massive year personally and professionally, a year of change, clarity, beginnings and ends. It's great to be in one piece, looking forward to some R&R, a fantastic year in 2013, and seeing the cherry blossoms in Kyoto in April. Great new projects, collaborations and experiments await. Wishing you a very prosperous and happy year ahead.
