For example: I find the nature of BA’s on-board service (long-haul) is neatly summarised by the warning noise that sounds throughout the ‘plane just before the aircraft turns its engines on to full at the beginning of the runway for take-off. Here are my reasons for this:

1. It’s not designed to benefit passengers (we are already strapped in to our seats). It’s for the crew, to tell them to sit down. Much of BA’s service seems centred around what suits the crew rather than the passenger.

2. It sounds awful. It would be hard to find another two-note sequence that has such tonal dissonance. It manages to sound hostile at just the point that passengers need the opposite. Dissonance and hostility are wider themes in BA service too.

3. It is laughably out of date. The timbre of the sound is unlike anything I’ve heard since my ZX81 computer got thrown away in 1982. BA’s service hasn’t moved with the times either.

I could go on (I really hate this noise) but won’t. The point of this example was not to go deep into BA, but to explain the concept behind the word I am looking for. The noise is just one small thing but, for me, it represents the wider issue of which it is just a part, rather well.

So, what’s the word? I have spent some time searching for this of course, but haven’t quite found an answer that seems right yet. Some contenders have emerged though and I list a few here together with the reasons why I don’t think they are right:

Microcosm. Probably the closest, but implies that the thing is really a miniature version of the whole thing, which is not what I’m saying. I’m looking for something more conceptual than this. Back to the example, saying that the noise is a microcosm of BA’s service doesn’t seem right.

Epitome. In the sense that it means “the perfect example” then it is not wrong, but the thing here is not the perfect example, it is a perfect capture of its characteristics – and that’s not the same, I think.

Synecdoche. I read this piece in The Guardian at the weekend that suggested to me that this was the word I crave. But my OED suggests that this is more a linguistic term – a substitution of a word describing a part of the whole for the word describing the whole – than a way to describe a more abstract concept.

Now, I’m holding my hands high in the air at this point in admission of my ignorance. Perhaps one of these words is indeed the right one, and no doubt there is some word – obvious or not – that describes what I seek. Please, readers, make your suggestions in the comments section below.

But the reason I am searching for this word is not just out of intellectual curiosity (although I admit that’s part of it) but because the concept is an important one in the professional world of brand consultancy and design. In fact, it is the perfect way to describe what we do. We define and create things – words, identities, communications, objects, events, etc. – that are conceptually representative of the broad intent of the wider proposition to which they belong. When audiences experience these things, together or in isolation, their experience is therefore representative of the wider proposition, i.e. to have the experience of the thing is to have the experience of the organisation, company, or brand of which they are part. Because the human brain looks for patterns and consistency, positive experiences will build positive expectations for similarly branded experiences, driving willingness and enthusiasm to engage – ergo, business success. But by the same token, negative experiences will create wider negative expectations, and these may prevail over positives (that’s a human brain thing too) so consistency across all experiences is important too. In the ideal brand, every experience of every thing is, in itself, representative of the whole; experiences are interrelated and multi-dimensional, spider’s web on spider’s web of interconnected threads. There are tangible things, like products or buildings; intangible things, like customer service or social media; meta-things, like brand identity or how an organisation engages its own people in its brand; and, micro-things, like a small detail on a piece of packaging that just makes everybody smile. Each one of these is a representation of the brand and needs to be properly aligned.

There is a really important distinction to draw here between brand consultancy and management consultancy or, to put it better, those consultancies that have a design capability and those which do not. We both start out by setting out the master proposition at the organisation-wide level. That, in itself, is a complex and involved task. But where I am convinced that band consultancies, like The Partners, offer far greater advantage to clients, is that we then translate the proposition into the things that audiences actually experience: the things that take strategy beyond theory, and make it real. We create things that embody the characteristics of the wider proposition of which they are a part, thus making the proposition more compelling, more desirable, and better understood.

Now, if only there was a word for that…

Starting on the journey in Farringdon

If you’re anything like me then you’re likely to spend an inordinate amount of your life plugged into a day-dream playing inside your (cavernous) head where you’re living out an alternate reality, traveling the world, experiencing new and wonderful places every day.

Imagine my delight when a colleague showed me a new internet site that brings my day-dreams to life (well, photo imagery at least) and shows me these places up close and on my screen.

Some smart folk have developed the ultimate Google Street View hack game/application where you can shuffle randomly through the streets of cities, in countries, on every continent*. Like a Chatroulette for globetrotting geeks.

*the continents that have Google Street View (5 currently)

One minute you’re exploring the back streets of Hong Kong and in the click of a button you’re whisked off (safely in your seat) to the winding mountain roads in Spain and…..*click*……off to the long, seemingly endless, stretches of roads through Central Africa. For a day-dreaming wannabe explorer like me it’s a great way of nosing around new places without the need for jabs and a moneybelt.

It’s incredibly compelling also just for the childish excitement that, at some point, you may happen across something really unusual and stunning (or rude!).

Go on, go and have a play here…and if you do find something particularly exciting then let us know by posting it on here. Thanks.

Missouri

Hong Kong

Spain

Africa

Australia

Denmark

The mystery of phantom traffic jams explained

If you’ve ever wondered why you can spend an aeon in a traffic jam on a motorway with no apparent cause, why we’re so intolerant of each other when we’re driving and why we think it’s ok to speed but never to go through a red light, then I’d recommend the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt…

As well as being a compelling account of the crazy paradoxes of the psychology of driving (for example SUV drivers are more likely to be talking on the phone and not be wearing a seatbelt because they feel safer, which means they’re actually much less safe than those in smaller vehicles), I’d also recommend the book to any fans of behavioural economics. In place of conventional economists, the too-rational target in this book are traffic engineers, who continue to plan road systems in the blithe belief that humans are completely rational beings. The book, sometimes hilarious sometimes tragic, shows us that we’re not, and that this has a huge impact on the way people live their lives alongside, and too often under, motor traffic the world over.

The book does have one hero however, in the shape of Hans Monderman who pioneered the ‘shared space’ approach to street design in the Netherlands. This concept of street design compels us as drivers to take more care by manipulating our sub-conscious to respond to a lack of rational information. A powerful example of ‘nudge’ psychology in action, Monderman’s approach is the reason why we now have more raised junctions for example, and that there’s a trend away from the compulsion of signs and markings to more effective ways of shaping driver behaviour. While this type of progressive design is seen mostly in built up environments, it’s the two-way, high-speed country road that’s the world’s biggest killer. This is becoming a massive issue for humanity as tens of millions get into cars for the first time in countries like China and India.

Ultimately, this is a fascinating book about how our pre-historic brains are incredibly bad at calculating risk within the sort of timeframes demanded of them while at the wheel of a car.

Ever since Jobs and Co. created the iPhone, there has been intense speculation that Apple were going to re-invent the Newton, with all kind of rumours about what the device would be and what it would be capable of.

For those of you that have been living in a bunker, the iPad is what Apple describes as a bridge between the world of the smartphone and the laptop — a third ‘mobile’ space that sits between the two. Indeed, at first glance, the iPad looks nothing more than a giant iPhone — it features the same glass multi-touch display (albeit a huge one at 9 1/2 inches), the same buttons – it can even run the same applications.

So many are wondering, well, what’s the difference; “Why do I need one of these shiny new toys when I have an iPhone and a laptop?… I was expecting an all-singing and dancing device that could read my thoughts and intiate command for me on the impulse of a brain wave! …This isn’t the JesusPad I wanted!” Yes, many of these points are true. But what people are forgetting to remember is that content is king, and just like the iPhone and the iPod before it, if the content is good, (in the case of the iPod; huge libaries of mp3′s versus a cd, and the iPhone with the app store full of entertainment and usefulness), then it will be a must-have product.

So let’s look at the killer app, and with a screen this size, it has to be publishing — anything from books to newspapers and magazines. Both Sony and Amazon (with the Kindle) have made significant inroads in to this new area with eBook readers: devices that are like carrying whole libaries in the space of a paperback. But these devices look a generation old compared to the user experience of the iPad – gimicky it may look, but simply turning and flicking a page on the iPad instantly feels more real. The printed book is all good and well, but it’s in the magazine and newspaper area where this product will excel. Take a look at this digital version of the Sports Illustrated magazine and try to say to yourself that you’d rather have a traditional magazine:

It’s been forecast for many years that the ‘death of print’ cometh. Maybe with the iPad and devices like it, we’re at the beginning to this new era. This fuzing of new-media and traditional print publishing into a new and interactive form is going to be exciting for both consumers and designers alike, hopefully reigniting what is a shrinking industry. Take a look at this concept video for a product called Mag+ by Bonnier R&D and their digital design partners BERG – it shows off the potential experience for what a product like the iPad can deliver:

No doubt the iPad will open the flood gates to millions of copycat tablet computers, all hoping to do the same thing. Will I be getting one? Well, I’ve always said; never buy the first gen of any Apple product; but if content as rich as this comes out, I might have to change my mind.

Welcome to Manchester

When considering my journey, I flirted with the possibility of traveling first class in order to be able to get some work done. I’ll admit, I was seduced by the idea of a quiet haven where you could focus on your work, undisturbed other than to be offered coffee at your seat, and would generally be made to feel as though you could just get on with being ‘terribly important and busy’.

So, 2 weeks before I was due to travel I popped on to thetrainline.com and looked up times and fares for the date I needed. £66 for an off-peak standard day return. Lovely. Seems reasonable.

My eyes scanned down the page to where the first class fares were listed…

What was that?

Sorry, what was THAT?

£355 for a day return?

Wrestling my eyeballs back into their sockets I began to contemplate what one would get for their £355 ticket. Seeing as I could fly BA (return) to Milan and have a night in a 4-star hotel for the same price, I imagined that a train company commanding the same money must do something pretty special. Do we travel via Capri with a night in a luxury villa, where I’m massaged to within an inch of my life and fed fine cheeses and cured meats until I burst? Do I get to dress in black tie, be drowned in expensive champagne and flirted with by top supermodels for the entire journey whilst, in the background, the London Symphony Orchestra play a collection of my personal favourites? Nope? What do I get then?

A coffee and a newspaper. Fantastic. For the bargain price of £289 I can get some coffee and a newspaper.

I’d be intrigued to have a chat with the head of the particular train company in question and ask him “So, Richard, how do you develop your pricing structure exactly?”

I wonder what the answer would be…

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

Hot on the heels of Helvetica the movie, comes a new feature length documentary from Gary Hustwit entitled: Objectified – a film about industrial design. It explores everything from the toothbrush to the latest tech gadgets and generally “cool” objects. The film investigates our relationship with form & function and those that are constantly trying to reinvent the way that we use things to make them better. The film features a bevy of  the world’s leading designers, including Jonathan Ive: Senior vice president of industrial design at Apple, who you can blame for such objects as the iMac, iPod and my favourite: the iPhone.

The film is due for release in the early half of 2009, but in the meantime, check out this trailer. You can find out more about the film here: www.objectifiedfilm.com

Having also visited the new Westfield mall in west London recently, it’s clear that to compete with online shopping, the retail experience must offer something extraordinary – theatre, entertainment and um, toilets. Although sad to see them go, we won’t miss the crap shopping experience of Woolies et al.

One more thing on Westfield, what is it with THAT logo? Eek…