Hugh Garry

Parody videos - the start of an important conversation

Last night I spoke at a great event in Manchester about audeinces. I talked about the how they are in a constant state of flux and how you can never fully understand your audeince because they are constantly changing their behaviours. The best you can do is get amongst them rather than learning about them via powerpoint. The life of the parody video is a great example of this. Their place in fan culture fascinates me.

I was speaking to a group of students at Salford University earlier this month about the cultural value of parody videos. Even the terrible ones. I made the arguement that the really terrible ones may be more important than the really good ones.  

Let me explain.

As I pointed out yesterday most people are waiting for permission to make their moves. As social creatures we take our cues from those around us. We are a nation that needs nudging. We like to copy. Mark Earl talks about this in his book 'I'll Have What She's Having'. 

I explained to the students that for every terrible parody video on Youtube there will be hundreds of super talented viewers saying to themselves "I can do better than that". The terrible parody video is what it took to kickstart their creative career.

So a few day later I was at the Futures of Entertainment conference at MIT in Boston listening to Dorian Electra being questioned about her music videos. "So how did you get started?" came the question. "Oh, you know, I saw a really terrible parody video on Youtube and thought 'I can do better than that'".

In a networked culture everything you make will be part of an ongoing conversation. The conversation will take what you've made to the most unusual places creating scenarios you could never have imagined. Quite often the results can be magical even if your cultural artefact isn't so. 

The media makers are just the starting point of that conversation. Designing for an 'audience with an audience' is a new way of thinking that embraces the power of audience as a 'circulator' or a 'multiplier'. It's easy to dismiss how we label our 'audience' as semantics but putting the labels at the centre of your thinking helps focus on humans and human behaviours and should completely change how you design your experience.       

Stop waiting for permission

Last night was the second in my series of Shoreditch House Events on the subject of 'where good ideas come from'. This one was on combinatorial creativity, remix culture and why creators need to stop beating themselves up over stealing the ideas of others. Apologies are not necessary. As Mark Twain said "All ideas are secondhand".

I mentioned the moment I first heard Grandmaster Flash's 'Adventures on the Wheels of Steel', a memory that will live with me forever. It sounded so fresh, so new and original, like music from another planet. Incredible given that its component parts were old tracks. The secret of the record's impact lay not in the stolen component parts but in the combination with a new way of vocal delivery - in this case cut up vocal samples from Chic and others, the glue that held the track together. This new way of making music was a revelation. 

When Einstein said "Imagination is more important the knowledge" the imagination bit he was talking about is the ability to see the connections, it's about pattern recognition and being able to join the dots. It's a great quote but I'm not sure I agree that one is more important that the other. You have to have the parts on the table to be able to come up with interesting ways of putting them together. As Jay Z points out in his brilliant book Decode, those parts were the record collections of hip hop's missing fathers.

"We were kids without fathers…so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves…Our fathers were gone, usually because they just bounced, but we took their old records and used them to build something fresh."

What I really like about about the birth of hip hop is that it arrived with an attitude that was unapologetic about stealing other people's work and creating something new with it. It was almost like hip hop gave artists permission to steal. Once the gates were open remix culture flowed and new heroes were made as a result of appropriating the work of others and combining those elements in fascinating ways. Once the permission was granted creativity flourished.

I wish more would be honest, open and ballsy about their influences. Why hide your sources? Make them visible? Pay tribute to what you've built upon. Or as my maths teacher would say "Show all your working out in the margin so that I can see how you arrived at your answer". Imagine if every film maker produced one of these.

Earlier this week I was working on a project with a group of women who had waited a lifetime for someone to 'give them permission'. Someone to say "It's OK to...". How differently their lives will be as result. It's such a pity that someone didn't give them permission years ago. Sometimes waiting for permission is as pointless as asking turkeys to vote for Christmas - you'll be waiting a long time. When the people in power are protecting the problem that they are the answer to then only you can make the change that you want to see.

Lies, promises and white yolks

Today is our last day. And what a day it will be, not just for us but for the people of this village. These people have been lied to time after time, year upon year. It's got to a point where you can't walk down the street now without bumping into someone who tells us how happy they are to see action rather than talk.

The politicians deliver campaigns full of promises every five years that never materialise once they are in power, whilst offers help from occasional visitors and NGOs evaporate in the afternoon heat as they leave for somewhere else never to return. So when we stood up in front of them all just 6 mornings ago and told them that we would make and build a business by the time we leave in 7 days it was easy to understand and forgive their initial cynicism. After all one of the things we are trying to change is a mindset.

Last night the roof was yet to go on. They were planning to work late into the night to get that finished. As we left they were debating who it was that was going to sleep in the barn for the first 2 weeks to make sure the temperate is consistant for the chicks. It's a vital time for them.

The bad news is the rain. Despite being in the middle of a long heatwave and threat of serious drought across East Africa in the coming months, the selfish me would like to hold off just a few more hours. I'm not sure how that will impact on the building work, I just hope it hasn't dampened enthusiasm at such a vital time. There is so much to do if we are going to have an opening party at 4pm. The roof needs nailing down, the doors and windows need to go in and the inside needs painting.

The outside needs rendering too so that won't be dry until after we're gone. Pity. We plan to paint it bright yellow (the business is to be called The Golden Egg) as a way of making noise. We want people to know it's arrived. Nothing in this village dares to shout about itself. Functionality is the only concern when it comes to business - advertising and marketing simply doesn't exist. Wait until they find out that when we return in 6 months time to build an egg shop in the middle of the village the building will be the shape of a giant egg. People will come from miles around just to see it.

So today the women are beginning their agriculture studies kindly donated by the local college. This is something they would normally have to pay for - a fee way beyond their means. We met an angel when we found Lucy. Likewise when we met our chick supplier, JR, whose funded by the World Bank to stimulate farming in africa. What a find. He's promised to visit every Saturday to train the women in quality control. He'll ensure that the women produce the finest organic free range eggs you can buy in Kibaha and beyond. If only we had them already, I'm getting sick of these white yoked eggs I've had for breakfast all week.

Dinner and Disruption

So yesterday has been about making sure that the five women selected to run the business fit the criteria we set out. They need to be in dire need of help, highly motivated and passionate about the community spirit. Having spent a lot of time over the last 3 days observing and talking to women of the village the first couple were easy. We wanted the final few to be chosen by them. Doing this was a reversal of something I have to do often when facing a tricky customer - you know - when you have to make a decision but convince someone else it was there idea in order to make it happen. In this scenario the women would face future animosity by other villagers for not picking them so we wanted to blame to lie with us. We talked to the women about potential strengths and needs of other women in the community and settled on the final group. If challenged they can blame 'those guys from England'.


In the evening we invited the 5 around to dinner at the hotel to go into greater detail about the project and the bigger vision and ensure they were aware of what was expected and were prepared for the commitment. We also asked them to start thinking about a pledge that they would produce to set out the rules for the business and it's place within the community. It's the same set of rules we expect elders, community leaders and all future benefactors to agree to.

It was an amazing night. Sitting with five women who when they woke up at the start of the week would never have imagined they would finish the week as business women. They were all so happy, appreciative and excited. They've already been helping with the build and now can't wait to get stuck in to the marketing, relationship building and planning that goes into the the making of a business.

The highlight of the night, and something that will probably stick with me forever, was when I asked them about their concerns. Leah explained, through our interpreter Seb, that she was worried about how the men of the village would react. I asked Seb to explain to them word for word that whilst being respectful and understanding they must change their mindset. This belongs to them. It does not belong to the elders and it does not belong to the men of the village. If they are to make this work and see the plan through they must think differently. They must break with traditions. They must change the way things are done. They must take ownership and disrupt. Seb translated word for word and as the last syllable of the last sentence left his lips the women let out a huge cheer.

Time might prove otherwise, but it felt like a big moment for these women and for the village. There are many battles to be fought, and some may be lost, but for tonight these women were ready to take on whatever obstacle was thrown in their path to make the vision laid out for them a reality. Not just for them but for the good of future female entrepreneurs of the village.

Day 2 in Photos

It's late. I'm tired. Expect more pictures than words. Today we dug some trenches, mixed some cement and laid some bricks building the foundations of the first farm. We met some local businesses at lunch then finished the day meeting a group of women with business ideas we hope we can help to develop. It's hard to believe that 2 nights ago we stepped off a plane and began knocking some ideas around over dinner for a co-operative that would turn the women of village into business owners. Today we did this...

# Trench dug first foundation stone in place

# Broken bones won't get in the way of a bit of hard work

# The water to mix the cement arrives

# This is what happens when I do manual work... People laugh

# Women with dreams

# A dress maker? A doctor? A restaurant owner?

# The local barber

# You know we picked up the shovels just for the picture, right?

# Getting a commitment from the women of the community

# End of day 1 - foundations in

24 hours in Tanzania

It's quite remarkable what you can achieve in 24 hours. The first big lesson for the villagers of Bokotemboni and Timiza was that you can achieve the unimaginable if you believe.

We slept on the idea of a chicken farm, creating 5 female entrepreneurs to begin. They start with 100 chickens. When they are in profit we invest in another 100 for another 5 women. The farm has the capacity for 500 free range chickens. The profits go to the women with a percentage going into a community fund to create future entrepreneurial enterprises for women. We woke up ready to hit the ground running only to find that surprisingly the community could run faster. We were blown away by the support we got, not just from the villagers but from the Government.

So here's what we achieved in day 1:

1. Met a number of village residents across all age groups and understood their needs.

2. Had a meeting with the community developed a sustainable business idea that can be implemented in 7 days that will feed the local community, give them an income and enough to invest in future entrepreneurial ventures

3. Got agreements from the community, village elders and local government to make this happen and sustain it over the next year.

4. Challenged the mindset of the villagers to become more agile and entrepreneurial, having a greater belief in what can be created in a seven day period

5. Written a business plan

6. Obtained large enough land needed for a chicken farm that will start with 100 chickens and grow to 500.

7. Raised the funds to buy livestock, food and building material to build a free range chicken farm that will be budged to develop until self funding in 6 months.

8. Made contact with the community develop manager for the Kibaha Education Centre which provides a series of different training courses for the local community to set up their own business.

9. Obtained land to build a school for entrepreneurship in 2013.

10. Secured ongoing support for the school which will teach the women of the village the skills required to become entrepreneurial.

It's early morning and I'm writing this over breakfast as the villagers collect the truck donated by the Education Centre to pick up the bricks for building the farm house. Meanwhile another group of villagers are marking out the land for building upon. I feel a bit of a fraud sat here tickling this keyboard as a write. But that will all change in the next hour and today we'll find out if all the hard work and promise of yesterday can become a reality. We'll know more about the villagers commitment and work effort, which will inform us greatly as to how much they value the project and how ready they are for a hard work in the future. Lets hope this all goes to plan.

Back in Tanzania

Two years ago I went to Tanzania with a gang of people I met on Twitter to distribute footballs to some of the poorest villages and schools in the country. We kept in touch with our driver for the trip, Seb, who recently reached out to us asking if there was anything we could do for the women of his village. Myself and one of the gang Darren found that an offer hard to refuse.

The aim of the Great Football Giveaway was to 'Put smiles on children's faces', a worthy aim given dire poverty and poor health many of them were living in. It was an instant hit with instant results. After a few conversations with Seb it became clear that whilst money would go someway to changing the lives of many in his village, knowledge would stretch much further. As I pointed out here, the distribution of knowledge can be a very low cost solution, a resource that can last a lifetime. 'Teach a man to fish' and all that...

So we booked a couple of flights and landed yesterday. After a short rest followed by dinner with the elders of the village it was clear that there could be some short term wins easily achieved. When you are faced with that kind of situation you want to do the most obvious thing as quickly as possible. But we surveyed the pages of notes made during our meal and decided to sleep on them knowing that there were another thousand questions to be asked tomorrow.   

We came to Tanzania with the following aims:

1. Empower the women to find a way out of poverty for their families.
2. Inspire belief by changing the poverty and dependency mindset.
3. Get every child in the village into school.

Yes, money is going to be needed, but so too are the skills and knowledge required to create a village of female entrepreneurs that will generate income which will go back into the village for the benefit of all. So I'll make no apologies for reaching out to my network over the following days, weeks and months for help in many shapes and forms. 

Connectivity permitting I'll keep you all updated on the visit over the next 7 days. 

The smartest people...

I like this. Jason Fried talking about a visit from Amazon's Jeff Bezos to the offices of 37signals...

He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.

The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking...

What trait signified someone who was wrong a lot of the time? Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view. If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time.

Pop-up Ideas Shop - Manchester/London

I'm running a series of pop-up idea shops in Manchester and London. It's not really a shop - more like me at a table in a cafe with an empty chair waiting to be filled. It's free ideas for anyone who needs them. I've never done it before, and I don't know if anyone else does them, but I'm giving it a go to see what happens.  

So here's the idea...

This Friday (November 16th) between 1pm and 4pm I'll be sat at a table in Fyg on Tibb Street in the Northern Quarter, Manchester. If you need ideas, a new perspective or a fresh set of ears for whatever you're working on then do drop in. You might be taking your first steps in digital or social media and don't know where to start. You may need help shaping the story of your brand - come say hello. There's no charge for this. I may be able to help you or I may not. Either way I'm happy to have a brew with someone new if you are. 

Why am I doing this? Many reasons. Because I'm in a position to. Because when I have free time I don't mind helping people. Because I spend a hell of a lot of time in cafes anyway. I can also learn from meeting people who work in different fields. And partly because of this which says that 56% of charities struggle with digital because they need training. 

Who am I? Briefly, I spent 15 years working in digital at the BBC. I have my own digital media consultancy. I'm also a creative strategist at Storythings. I run a series of events at Shoreditch House on the subject of Where Good Ideas Come From. I specialise in helping companies tell stories about themselves and teach them how to get better at generating ideas. I've spoken at various conferences including a couple of TEDx events. Occasionally I lecture at Salford University.

Who is it for? Anyone really. Charities. Small businesses. Big business. Media organisations. Creatives. Jobless. Idealess...

So if you want to come along, or know someone who you think might benefit let them know. You can get in touch with me on twitter (@huey) if you want, otherwise just turn up. I'll try and make myself noticeable somehow. I'm heading off to Tanzania next week but will set up something for London end of November/early December.

A tool for listening to culture

When hip hop broke in the mid 70's Levis, not recognising the full cultural impact, chose to ignore it. The cost of the company's culture not being aligned with that of its audience is alleged to be somewhere in the region of $1 billion. US electronics store Best Buy stumped up $700 million for music retailer Musicland in 2001 failing to recognise that the teens with Best Buy Saturday jobs were using Kazaa and then Limewire to get their music. Best Buy ended up giving it away years later. The lesson here being that you have to spot shifts in culture as they happen and adapt your company's culture to fit.

Listening to your audience isn't something that started when digital culture exploded, it's just been made easier thanks to the vapour trails of data left by people using digital products and the rise of analytic tools. Good analytic tools have become an essential part of the kit for trying to understand your audience - they are great at what they are made for - that being analysing data that will enable you to look for patterns. The problem is that they're deaf to culture and won't help you build an algorithm for curiosity. Spotting trends is different from understanding culture. If you don't understand the culture of your audience then you'll have problems slipping seamlessly into their lives.

To understand an audience you must go beyond hearing a really start listening, a differentiation many struggle to grasp. Hearing is simply taking stuff in whereas listening is processing and knowing how to act on the information once you have it. I recently heard someone describe a good listener as someone who doesn't need to be given a christmas present list from their partner, they just know what to buy and why their partner wants it. There is a difference between knowing someone and knowing about someone. 

The question most people want answering is how do you listen to culture when there isn't an app for that? Paying attention to curators is a good starting point. I spent 15 years working at Radio 1, a network whose culture is perfectly matched with that of its audience. How do they achieve this? Easy. Management constantly surrounds itself with curators. The DJs are curators. Many of the networks producers are either DJs or club promoters. Some run their own music websites and many blog about their culture. There are curators at every level. The audience culture runs through every corridor and office in the building. 

In an information age curators are a great filter to help us make sense of culture. They enable serendipity, can find usefulness in useless knowledge and point us to the stuff we didn't know that we needed to know. They are not just aggregators. Over time they have built up a set of tools for unearthing the things that make life interesting and developed a tone that is both inviting an reassuring. These are skills not acquired easily or quickly.

The rise of tools like Tumblr and Posterous are behind the much talked about 'rise of the curator', which has muddied the water a little. Having a Tumblr does not make one a curator. Pointing at new things does not make one a curator. Pick your creators wisely and recognise the difference between curators and those who label themselves coolhunters or trend forcasters.  This is not a judgement, simply a differentiation. Curation is a skill that is journalistic and editorial, creating a frame around the content they share, adding depth and understanding. They add context and a point of view.

So if you want to build a toolbox for listening to culture, which you really should, start by adding a few good curators.