Archive for the ‘Howard Parry-Husbands’ Category

Democratisation of politics

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

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What is it: Get Up is bidding to win a surfing lesson and breakfast for 6 with Tony Abbott. They plan to give that lesson to a refugee so that Abbott will be confronted with a real person telling him first-hand about the realities of life as a refugee.

Why is it cool: Get Up’s campaign is a great example of the democratization of politics and campaigning.Obama’s use of internet is another  great example.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands

That a parasite can have a significant influence on personality is pretty cool, but that those millions of influenced people could shift a nation’s personality is nothing short of mind-blowing. Certainly myriad other factors influence local culture, so the world’s cultural differences cannot be simply described by the parasite… or maybe that’s what it wants us to believe!

Affluence is effluence

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

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What an affluent planet may look like

What is it: A new report from a consortium of Australian, US and Singaporean Universities has ranked countries in terms of their impact on the environment. The key finding was that increased wealth was linked to increased negative environmental impact.Or simply put: the richer we get, the more shit we cause.

Why is it cool: This effectively puts paid to any notion that rich nations can afford to alleviate their polluting ways. The methodology includes land clearing and species extinction – which effectively gives the ‘old world’ a better report card but, European damage is done.

This has important ramifications for attitude/behavior change research in Australia, lets not do any more damage!And the buck (mostly) stops here (America, Asia, Europe and Australia)!

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands

Islands of floaty crap

Monday, April 19th, 2010

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I knew I should have taken a left at Albuquerque

What is it: A huge vortex of flotsam debris in the north Pacific

Why is it (not) cool: If we truly want to understand the scale of change required to move to a sustainable way of living it’s worth noting that this patch of floating plastic waste and chemical sludge is twice the size of Texas. Think about it – that’s a lot of plastic bags! And that’s merely a percentage of the worlds plastic and ‘floaty’ debris – the amount of waste we generate every day is huge and increasing and we are being confronted with the reality of our profligate and irresponsible modes of production and disposal. Once legislation begins to kick in to mitigate humanity’s harmful wasteful practices there will be a huge economic opportunity for those who can help to engineer change.

Right now, however, this is right down near the bottom of likely-to-be-fixed-in-a-hurry environmental issues – but it’s a timely reminder that we just don’t know the half of the mess we’re in just yet!

Where to find it: here! (and bobbing around in the north Pacific)

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands

Going green

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

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All aboard the green train!

What is it: Green recycled rubbish bags on Qantas aircraft. When they serve you the in-flight food/snack/drinks you get a wee green bag to put your recyclable rubbish in to on the flight.

Why is it cool: Pollinate’s “Green Pulse” study demonstrates that people ‘own’ the packaging after purchase. So when Qantas give you a free meal they actually leave (some of) us with packaging guilt. If you asked the flight attendants what happened to unused materials from each flight they told you that it all got chucked away – nothing was recycled. What waste! What ‘green’ guilt! This initiative is probably unlikely to significantly reduce Qantas’s footprint – but we should recognize that it is an initiative that will have cost money and operational change to manage. What it does do is remove passengers ‘guilt’ about disposing of their waste. Perhaps more importantly, it sets up an expectation that you should recycle on Qantas flights… much like kerb-side recycling established a ritual behavior that makes Australians one of the world leaders in participation with household rubbish recycling schemes.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands

Transmedia

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

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...and if the branding doesn't work, maybe we can hurl lightning bolts at them...

What is it: Transmedia is a way of telling a story in multiple narratives across media. Note how all the channels collectively create the story: like singers in harmony to create a melody – the total sound is dependent on the harmonious interaction of each voice.

Why is it cool: Transmedia marketing is psychographic, not demographic, and aims to create a mythology around the brand that transcends barriers and grows organically. From the article:

“The reality is that many agencies are not equipped or set up for success in this regard. Transmedia vehicles cannot be confined to a predetermined media plan or buy”.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands

A formula for viral success (?)

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

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What infectious artwork might look like

What is it: An article about viral videos where one creator says he’s cracked the “formula” for making things go viral.

Why is it cool: The snake eating its tail is the formula for viral going viral… but that aside, the claimant of this “formula”, in his most recent viral success (the wedding dance), gave no presence to the sponsor (Ricoh). This begs the question – if there is no brand message or impact, is it just “art” rather than a “commercial”, and if so, isn’t it a waste of clients’ money (unless it’s purely a philanthropic act – as rare as that happens)

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands

A future for publishing

Friday, February 27th, 2009

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Howard Parry-Husbands, John Cucka

The "Sage of Monticello" would greet you in his robe and slippers to help you feel more comfortable in his presence. Remember that when you see the "Shaman of Sydney" in his jeans and t-shirts

What is it: San Francisco’s major daily newspaper, the Chronicle, has closed its doors. What is a city without its newspaper? Some journos and other publishing insiders started a wiki to brainstorm the future – imagine newspapers without the paper, substitute the internet and mobile devices, and what do you get…?

Why is it cool: Recall Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote,

“…were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

It is the “news”, not the “paper” that people want and require, which is important when you consider that it is the “paper” which holds the costs to society:

  • Newsprint uses a vast amount of pulp/wood/forest
  • Production uses huge amounts of energy and water
  • It’s a very polluting industry
  • The forests that provide pulp are mostly mono-cultures with terrible consequences for biodiversity/soil/water/ecosystem health

We wish good luck to the Post-Chronicle efforts to develop the new business model for news creation and delivery.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: John Cucka and Howard Parry-Husbands

Towards a sustainable economy

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

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Howard Parry-Husbands, John Cucka

What a state of balance might look like

What is it: When GDP was first advanced, its proponents vociferously argued that GDP should never be used by politicians as a measure of societal success, which of course politicians duly did and have done ever since ad now we belive that economic growth is a de facto ‘good thing’.

So we now embrace strong, continuous economic growth forecasts as a ‘good thing’ …whilst strong, continuous biological growth is called cancer. Some like David Suzuki argue that economists are dangerously out of kilter with the natural order of things.

In 1972, the seminal book Limits to Growth by a group called the Club of Rome claimed that exponential growth would eventually lead to economic and environmental collapse. Most economists rubbished the book, but a growing band of experts today continues to argue that we need to reshape our economy to become more sustainable. A CSIRO scientist has compared the book’s predictions with the latest data and confirms the data is in line with the predictions.

Why is it cool: We must get off the growth path of business as usual, and move to a steady state economy, stopping population growth, resource depletion, and pollution. Changing our view of economic (or even societal) success from being about “growth as success” to being about “steady state as success” is the challenge of the 21st century.

Where to find it: here and here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands and John Cucka

Wisdom of crowds

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

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What a council of wise advisors may look like

What is it: Just how good are people are predicting their own choices? How much better are they at predicting what most other people are most likely to do? Prediction markets proved their mettle in recent US elections, showing that “the mob” can deliver predictions as accurate, or better, than the so-called experts, and better even than an aggregate “meta-poll” analysis.

For example, here is a list of the final polls before the election. Although the winner looks likely, the share of the vote looks far from accurate. By comparison, the Iowa Electronic Markets reveal a prediction of final vote share much closer to reality, and when converted into an winner-take-all-odds, more certainly predict a winner than the other polling and predictions.

Why is it cool: The “wisdom of crowds” is clearly evident, and suggest that research has an opportunity grow – away from the static, traditional questioning similar to the typical polling, towards a more inclusive approach. Imagine tracking the predictions of the crowd, as part of predictive tracking.

Where to find it: article here!

Submitted by: Howard Parry-Husbands