All Points North

ALL CAPS, missing apostrophe, images in an email footer, all crimes that should be referred to the European Court of Human Rights. I’m not kidding, they seem to cause so much harm and misery to so many on Twitter, Facebook and blogs that I have come to the conclusion that after child exploitation, pedophile rings and war crimes they should be next on the list of things to fix.

Get. A. Fucking. Grip.

A PR missed an apostrophe in a release about a new mouse and you find it necessary to take to Twitter and state categorically that you have binned the release on those grounds? For. Fucks. Sake. Please, please stop with your moral justifications, right now because if an email came from the Apple PR office and it said:

HI [INSERT NAME] we have some interview’s time with Tim Cook and thought you might like to speak to him for five minutes on any subject you choose, on the record naturally, PLEASE BE TO EMIALING ME BACK.

YOU WOULDN’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK. Even if it was set in Comic Sans.

Now, go get a life and stop moaning about things that barely matter a jot. Yes, there’s a standard and a tone and all those appropriate things that you should do, but for the sake of all humanity please put those things in perspective. So there was an apostrophe missing or someone wrote to you in all caps, ask yourself this: Does it really, truly, completely matter*? If it does to you then I pity you.

*it does and that’s ok, but most of the time it is not a matter of life and death.

I read with much interest this post from Matt Gemmell about simplicity the other day and agreed with all of it. I disagreed with all of it too, but I’ll get to that. It’s not that I think Matt is wrong in his conclusions, but, well, I do and here’s why. To me the important thing is the outcome of your work not the method or surroundings of its creation. That’s what I mean by him being both right and wrong. He makes stuff in his way. I make stuff in my way. Neither is correct or best.

The picture below is of my office, it doesn’t always look like this sometimes it’s much less tidy.

I’m not entirely sold on the idea that simplicity is any more powerful than complexity and too many times people have told me that what I need to be creative is simplicity and focus perchance some elegance in my life. Well, I don’t write well without some distractions, I find that if I sit down to write with no sound, no diversions, I fidget and lose track or the voices in my head become too loud for me to concentrate. As I write this Twitter is constantly updating on the left screen and I can hear my children playing downstairs. The amount of ‘rubble’ on my desk means that I have little room for manoeuvre. Were my room spotlessly clean with few distractions I’d simply hate it and I’d be less productive. When I sit in an empty room my mind goes as blank and flat as its surroundings.

When you’re creating a piece of work, your audience is your readers, or your viewers, or your listeners, or your customers. You still have the right to say no. You’re free to delete an email, and to filter the sender straight to the trash. You’re free to unsubscribe from a blog. You’re free to mute, unfollow or block someone on Twitter. You’re free to not talk to someone who’s consistently, unproductively negative.

I agree with the sentiment here, but all this changes radically when you are creating work for a company and not yourself. As an employee of a magazine the option to delete an offensive email without reply or the option to not talk to a consistently negative and unproductive customer isn’t always there. I speak as someone who had to reply to a customer outraged by our choice of font in a publication. 23 emails. Twenty. Three. Learning how to deal with the unproductively negative is a great lesson and in my opinion is better than simply pushing it way and ignoring it. How do you know you’re not missing their point without entering into discussion? The printed word can be very confusing and is easily misunderstood. Not dealing with those people is simple, I agree, but better? I’m not so sure.

… provide much-needed perspective, or allow you to declutter your workspace and your thoughts. It can also make you happier.

I think perspective is often warped by simplicity, binary distinctions are what kill debate and the endless need for our political classes to define everything as simple option a vs. simple option b is a prime example, but I fear I’m taking Matt’s simple mantra to it’s most extreme and being a bit unfair. However, as I’ve already mentioned decluttering my thoughts and workspace is the last thing I need. By far and away and I  mean by an order of magnitude the two things that have made me happiest are Niamh and Toby. Two of the most incredibly complex and clutter inducing things known to man. Or, as I like to call them ‘The kids’

There’s nothing better for your work and your life than a quiet, focused mind.

As I said, I don’t buy this assessment I think there’s nothing better for your mind than some chaos and pressure, that focusses the mind. Perhaps I should I say it focusses my mind.

Years ago, someone, I forget who, described the British attitude to the EU something like this:

“Britain is like the angry drunk husband locked out of the house. He bangs and bangs on the door demanding that he be let in, shouting all sorts of obscenities through the letterbox at his family inside and then when the door is eventually opened for him to enter he stands defiant, arms folded refusing to come in until those inside apologise and bend to his demands”

I wish I could remember where I heard that. It just rings so true.

Is it just me or is there a new trend in being absolutely right about everything? I’m not talking about the normal level of circle jerk, but a new more subtle circle that pretends to be less jerky, but somehow still is? Feels to me like the cool kids have discovered the Internet and they aren’t afraid to use it the way it should be as defined by them. Right phone, right applications, right way to browse, right way to listen to music, right way to make iPad magazines. Let’s group together and be right together back-slapping sites?

Snarky, tedious and self-righteous all knowing bullshit is oozing out of the primordial soup of the comments section and slowly but surely crawling up the page. I know I’m right about this. Maybe.

I’m going to be a judge for the Global Mobile Awards 2012, there’s lovely.

See you in Barcelona?