Author Archives: Julian Stubbs

OK, I have to start by coming clean. Six o clock Friday evening arrived, the start of my ‘black’ non technology day and I duly started switching off all of my various bits of tech, when my iPhone started ringing. The number recognition technology (see it’s really useful stuff) showed the name of a business colleague, ringing at precisely 6pm. Was it a test? Should I ignore it? Instinct took over and I answered. Two hours later and I was still working on my iMac, helping deliver some information for the person in question. So my black day actually started at 8pm and became a black 22 hours, but I reckon good enough for a first attempt. In those 22 hours I’ve actually had some interesting moments. Such as a debate with my 8 year old son, Jools, over whether we should play new Monopoly, with electronic credit cards and no real cash or classic Monopoly, my set from 30 years ago with good old fashioned honest to goodness fake money! (we went for the old fashioned game in the end). I realised that I had to make an important call Friday night, and we started looking for a phone box in Stockholm. Forget it. We looked for ever – there are none or at least none we could find. I guess in a country where there are more mobile phones than people it’s to be expected. Added to all this I have been cut off from BBC Radio Four for 22 hours of my life, which really is a major deprevation. But the very worse thing is when you have a question. One of those not terribly important but niggling little questions such as which city was the original game of Monopoly based on (I knew the answer – Atlantic City NJ, but frustratingly couldn’t prove it to Anne and Jools). With the internet everything can be answered. I love it. What I also realised was how utterly habit forming technology can be. We decided to go for a walk and I put my jacket on and Jools asked me what I had in my pocket. Nothing I replied. He shook his head and dipped his hand into my pocket to pull out my iPhone which I had taken with me through force of habit as I was about to leave. I think I have a serious case. Anyway I’ve spent my 22 hours of ‘blackness’ happily enough, playing a bit of football, reading a book about the Mitford girls and attempting to fix the broken toilet in our Stockholm week-end apartment – and failing. Luckily a friend popped in and recorded some of it with a few pics. I’ll post them on Facebook. So we’ve decided to do this once a week (and for a full 24 hours) and once a month go the whole hog and do without electric lights, cars or any electrical consuming technology – which puts us back about 120 years or so. Now if I could just convince a few million other people to do the same I’ll have done my little bit for the planet I guess. I might even help put the population in a few western countries up – if you get my drift. A very satisfying thought indeed. Switch off to turn on…so to speak. Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Discount Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Order Windows 7 Ultimate Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Sale Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

Mid-August to mid-September is white. At least it is for me. One of the few Swedish habits I’ve adopted in my time since moving here is having what the Swedes call a white month. Basically that means you give up alcohol for a month, which I must admit isn’t too much of a hardship as I only tend to have a couple of glasses of wine at week-ends and that’s about it. But it seems like a good idea and so I have three white months a year. Now this leaves a few of my friends, mostly Brits, mildly horrified as they think Sweden is starting to do strange things to my head. They reckon it’s the effect of eating too much pickled herring. I was on the phone last week to one of my good Swedish friends and told him of my month off drink and he ended the conversation by saying ‘I’ll see you when you can drink again.’ Great support. Anyway last night after dinner and over a glass of carrot juice (yum!) a new idea was proposed along the same lines as a white month. We were watching a movie on iTunes (Ferris Buellers Day Off, which actually disproves some people’s theory that mid-westerners don’t have a sense of humour – John Hughes was from Michigan and a genius) and my dear wife Anne started off down a path that she had been exploring for a while. Technology. Her thought was that maybe, just maybe, I’m a technology junkie. What me?! Admittedly I was sat there browsing on an iPad and answering the odd text message as we watched the movie, but doesn’t everyone? Anyway my wife (who also happens to come from the flyover zone herself and has a pretty fair sense of humour) pressed on. And she had facts to support her argument. She pointed out we listen to all our music via iTunes on the iMac we have on the kitchen bar. Well actually one of the two iMacs we have on the kitchen bar (I feel we need two – for multitasking) and we have three additional work computers. We don’t really watch TV anymore as we access all our media via our macs, listen to BBC Radio over the internet, have iTunes for TV and movies, Spotify for additional music and use social media as our connection to keep in touch with distant friends etc. Um, just maybe she has a point. So then came the moment. The big proposal. She paused as she took a sip of her chilled sauvignon blanc (she’s not on a white month). Why not have a day a week when we don’t interact with any technology what-so-ever. Twenty four hours of zero technology. She’s serious as well. Anyway, it’s now Sunday afternoon and after considering it I think she has a point. A technology free day could be a good idea. Not easy, but good. It’ll be a bit like my non-drinking white month – except far more difficult. But the question is if I have a white month for non drinking what colour should a technology free day be? Green? Black? Blue? I’m leaning towards black, as in black hole. Anyway, I’ve decided I’m going to do it. I’ll text Anne right now and say Saturdays, starting next week. However I might just need to take up drinking again to get through the day. So any other ideas on the colour a technology free day should be, please let me know. Text me or post it on my Facebook or Linked-In pages. But just don’t do it on a Saturday. (P.S. I’ve set up a page on Facebook for like minded souls. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Non-Technology-Day/146409755399240 Order Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Order Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

Sweden, like most other civilised nations, has a national weather service. They go by the name SMHI or, to give them their full handle, Sveriges meteorologiska och hydrologiska institut. Very nice, as long as you don’t have to say the whole mouthful. Anyway as the saying goes ‘everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.’ Anyway SMHI are driving me crazy. Have been for several months. I mean I understand that trying to predict what the weather is actually going to do can’t be all that easy, but it is actually their job. And they don’t even come close by a zillion miles. I’d have a better chance of getting an accurate forecast by listening to my aged Mother’s daily predictions after peering into her morning cup of tea and watching the tea leaves. This morning was a good example. They predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms all day. I peered out of the window and the sun was shining brightly in the sky. I asked myself do they ever actually open the window and stick their head outside? Anyway, this brings me to a more relevant focus for this blog. Marketing. As these weather related thoughts were running through my brain at 6am this morning, I was reminded that when it comes to marketing and branding we all too often don’t stick our head out of the window. There is nothing like leaving your warm comfy office and actually getting out amongst where the action really is. I had a client years ago who insisted that before you could work on his account you had to spend several days walking the isles of a supermarket watching consumers taking his product, or not, off the shelves and really look the consumer in the white’s of their eyes. Very good advice I’ve never forgotten. I still find too many people expect to understand consumers from ‘lifeless’ market research reports. Get out and see it like it really is. And right now the sun is shining, so I’m going to pop outside and prove the weather men wrong. Again. Sale Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Order Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

Apple’s mobile advertising platform, iAd, has now been officially launched in the US and is generating immediate interest. Steve jobs introduced it at the launch session for the new iPhone 4. Nissan, Unilever and Chanel are among the advertisers that have committed to spending a collective $60m on this new approach. The system promises the emotional punch of television but in the mobile advertising sector, something that advertisers have been lacking for some time. This is when it gets interesting. Discount Discount Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Discount Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Order Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Order Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Order Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

Gave a short presentation yesterday evening on the branding of Stockholm (The Capital of Scandinavia) at one of the Stockholm Love 2010 events. The royal wedding is this coming Saturday in Stockholm, and there are celebrations and events happening all week. The venue for last night was right on the waterfront by the Royal Palace and we had a full house. One of my fellow speakers for the evening was Ingrid Rudefors the film commissioner for Stockholm. It looks like the Stieg Larsson book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor in Swedish) will be remade in English with an all star cast and that will certainly be good for Stockholm. We have been pushing for some time to get some big international productions made in Stockholm – the place looks like a movie set already, so it’s about time. One of the guests at the event was Lars Rambe a new Swedish crime novel author. With the success of Stieg Larsson the whole crime novel genre seems to have really taken off in Sweden. Check out the latest book from Lars Rambe ‘Skuggans Spel’. He’s working on a release in English shortly. I was at the book launch a week ago, picture below with Lars. Sale Windows 7 Ultimate Order Windows 7 Ultimate Discount Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Order Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Cheap Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Sale Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus