Rax Lakhani’s blog

If you’ve had the pleasure of taking a trip recently on a London Bus, you may have noticed these little fellas displacing the usual monotonous local council ads that coat the interior of our red people carriers.

Using cute looking cartoon characters to distract you just long enough for your wallet to be half-inched by an ASBO-medalled feral yoot, this is Transport for London’s bid to get people to be more considerate to their fellow passengers. Makes you feel all warm inside, doesn’t it?

The more cynical bus-riders amongst you may not have noticed the direct correlation between the appearance of these cheery posters and the drop in commuter anti-social behaviour. My response to you as I turn down my iPod’s blaring gagsta rap, casually dropping my burger wrapper onto the floor by the feet of the elderly blind-lady standing by my seat is this:

Stop tutting, roll-back your eyes, store-up your passenger peeves and take them online.

Yup, TfL has just launched it’s own social networking site: TogetherforLondon.org.

The idea is seemingly well intended: A little thought from each of us. A big difference for everybody.

In their own words:

We’ve all got ideas of how to make London a better place - like ours for more considerate travel.

Here is the place to get talking - we don’t even mind some friendly disagreement.

You can turn your idea into a campaign, and even create a Little Londoner to feature in it.

tfl1.jpg

So that’s it in a nutshell. Create your own cutesy avatar (see mine below) and then unleash your citizen spirit upon the Capital. You set-up a discussion, monitor the feedback and then, if you’re up for it - kick off a campaign. To be clear, it isn’t all about transport although it would seem that the majority of chatter is about commuter experiences. This may change as the site self-populates. There are actually twelve categories to choose from when searching for active discussions:

• Amenities
• Workplace
• Education
• Community
• Behaviour
• Safety
• Tidiness
• Courtesy
• Environment
• Transport [there is it is!]
• Language

mylittlelondoner.jpg

There’s not too much you can do on the website, but that’s what I like about it. It’s not complicated. It’s easier to navigate than a self-service Oyster ticketing machine.

But will the website be able to get people in to sign-up by the bus-load? I doubt it. That said, it’s already started to host some key discussions which are important for Londoners.

If you’re looking for a glimpse into Red Rax, you can check out my pet peeve here.

The site also has a few active polls which attempt to extract some kind of London ‘barometer’ with a question of the day.

Interestingly enough, the majority of people polled today say that they do at times talk loudly on mobile phones. Tomorrow’s poll will presumably reveal that bears actually shit in woods (worth noting only if you’re travelling on the Central Line to Epping Forest).

The verdict:

I actually do like the thought that has gone into this site but it’s still early days and I think that the community will struggle to convince most Londoners that this is the destination network for anything other than offloading your commuter gripes onto a group of sympathetic individuals.

What would make the difference would be some simple book-marking tools like email this to a friend or share this on Facebook, which would give genuine campaigns much wider visibility and scope.

Something that I’m not quite sure about is the concept behind the shop. On one hand it allows your campaigns to have a physical presence off the website. Having your campaign slogan and avatar printed on a mug, T-shirt, hoodie (how brave?!), shopping bag or mouse-mat may do it for some people but I can’t help feeling that the currently inflated prices may deter many from exploring further.

All in all, a nice idea, adequately executed but not one that will drive much traffic. Presumably because the traffic’s stuck behind a broken down bus.

Oh dear.

To celebrate Ogilvy’s 60th birthday, the Bold Ogilvy Company, together with Shaya Hansen and Yannis Petritsis recorded their very own Ballard For David*.

[*An Ad Man from A to V]

All I can say, is watch it now and then please help me out…

OK. Come out from behind the sofa. It’s over.

Surely, this has to be tongue-in-cheek, right? Right?

But even if that is the case, did it success in making you laugh? No? Me either.

So why (o’why, o’why, o’why, o’why)?!

Someone please explain… because I’m kinda freaked out by this video.

You were our David so bold and avid [pronounced Ay-vid]

An Ad Man from A to V…

For sixty years you’ve been our David

You’re still with us Dave Ogilvy

Whaaa? Yup I know they’re probably going for ironic naffness in an aren’t-we-clever kind of way, but this is Ogilvy - the brand-meisters. David Ogilvy’s concept of 360 Degree Brand Stewardship, which he defined as “a willingness to use the broadest array of tools and techniques to understand, develop and enhance the relationship between a consumer and a brand” clearly has fallen off the agenda in the rush for YouTube fame.

Ogilvy has officially become Wernham Hogg.

Is it a coincidence that Yannis Petritsis (the one who drove the lyrics of this car crash) is an anagram of Insanity Priests? Poor Dave. Mad Men, indeed.

The final screen cleverly (?) ends with the following quote from the Big Dave:

“The advertisers who believe in the power of jingles have never had to sell anything”

So…

Were these guys trying to make a video so bad, SO weird that it would help them understand the viral nature of the medium of the online clip (regardless of associated negative comments)? To what end? At what cost to their brand?

I can do tongue-in-cheek, but this is more a nose-in-arse/punch-in-face insult to one of the great founders of our industry.

The once legendary Ogilvy seems to be four letters short of a full alphabet.

W-X-Y-Z is the new S-H-I-T.

[apparently]

Inerested to hear your thoughts on this, as always.

Technorati Profile

onlinefire is a creative online PR agency based in London that specialises in stimulating positive word-of-mouth and online buzz. Joint MD Graham Lee features in this niftlily edited video, saying what I’ve been saying for the last few years (except Graham says it a LOT better than I ever have).

Onlinefire is also the home of Melanie Seasons of fakeplasticnoodles fame.

It seems that Melanie, Graham and the rest of the onlinefire team have already set the UK ablaze with their impressive client roster which includes MTV, BBC 5 LIve and Virgin (media and mobile).

Loving the new blog guys! Keep up the social media evangalism…

This blog’s not even half a week old and it’s already become involved in a web meme… Thanks (I think) to the wonderful Gill from Minxology for nominating me to join in the latest Three for Three Web meme which was originally started here by Jed Hallam the Rock Star PR.

The original idea  is that Three for Three consists of three top three selections which are then passed on to three people for them to each pass it on to three more people… you get the idea.

Why? Good question.

Anyway, here are my Three for Three:

Top three non-work websites:

1. 1. Ted.com - Awesome. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. I defy you to visit it without coming away feeling a wee bit more inspired (and a lot more insignificant compared to the colossal brains that feature on the site).
   2. i am neurotic - the scary thing about this site is how much of this nuttiness is actually familiar to me!
   3. Watch Family Guy Online - not even sure if this is legal, but man - it helps put a smile on my face after a shitty day at work!

Top three karaoke songs:

1. 1. Bob Marley - Redemption Song
   2. Eric Clapton - Wonderfoooooool Tonight
   3. Oasis - Wonderwall

[all three of which I have shamelessly mangled at various Karaoke bars around the planet]

Top three weekend cocktails:

1. 1. It’s got to be a Moscow Mule made with the world’s number one Vodka brand (Hmmm… what could I be talking about?) - other brand are [apparently] available.
   2. Chilli and Passion Fruit Martini - too good. tooooo good.
   3. Cup of tea. OK - so, not exactly a cocktail* but my Sunday afternoon wouldn’t be the same without my pot o’ tea and a stack of Rich Tea biccies!

*although techically, a cocktail is any drink which mixes three or more ingredients (so, tea, water, milk and sugar should satisfy that rule whilst making me Britain’s biggest consumer of cocktails)

and now…

I tag the following Three lucky peeps:

1. Michael from LitmanLive (keen to know what your Karaoke classics are!)
2. Jaz Cummins from the fantastic Jazamatazz
3. The clog-o’licious Epicurienne

Jonathan Macdonald puts Seth Godin’s Idea Virus into context at the NetImperative Publishers Summit back in September.

I love the way Jonathan speaks from the heart. When he speaks, we all need to listen.

Hear that? Yup - it’s a new school of though being born. Somebody cut the cord… it’s ALIVE!

To hear more sense, click through to Jonathan’s site here where you can take part in the Communication Ideal Challenge (well worth it, I promise you!).

The first trailer from Watchmen, due out early 2009. Widely considered to be the best graphic novel ever made, Watchmen has been in various stages of production hell for over 10 years but is finally making it to the screen, courtesy of Zach Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 300).

Check out the official film trailer:

You know that box-file that you’ve got at home, finely balanced on top of a wardrobe somewhere? Or perhaps it’s wedged under your bed or has been fashioned into some kind of bookend on a shelf in your front room? You know, the file with all of the paperwork that you’ve decided is too important to throw away yet not quite urgent enough to justify a respectable ranking in your week’s to-do list?

Well friends, that’s kind of what this blog has come to represent. Something that yearned to be written yet never manifested due to thinly disguised excuses and months (nay, years) of procrastination.

As somebody who is firmly grounded within the world of social media, it is perhaps slightly strange that it has taken me so long to put dust off my QWERTY keyboard and to start practising what I have been preaching to clients for some years now: getting involved in this blogging lark.

But is it so strange?

I see it like this:

* My optician recently contacted an eye-infection from keeping her contact lenses in too long
* My hairdresser has an unkempt head of hair which could benefit from a swift short-back-and-sides
* My GP smokes cigars
* My dentist has halitosis (Not only does he ‘not do NHS’, it would appear the he doesn’t do Wrigley’s gum either)

Yet (and this is the thing that surprises me), I consider them all to be great at what they do.

I’ve been ‘consuming’ blogs now for five years. Google Reader is my life-support. If I go a day without reading my RSS feeds, I am left with over 1,000+ posts to sift through. It takes a few hours every day to read my feeds. I usually take an hour in the morning, half an hour over lunch and then my commute home to catch up on what’s going on out there in the big wide Blogosphere (note to self: NEVER use that word again. It’s an ugly word. In fact, anything with -o’sphere added to it is clearly wrong and dare I say, lazy!). It’s an addiction. An obsession. I love it.

Yet up until now, I haven’t been a blogger.

I have justified this with the following logic:

A film critic, inhales films. He eats, sleeps, breathes cinema. He may go to his local Odeon three times a week, buy all of the film review magazines, religiously follow the latest DVD releases, have his TV locked to FilmFour and he may have IMDB set as his permanent homepage. He may even at a push be able to recite by heart all of the opening lines of the collective works of Woody Allen. There would be little doubt that this fella is an expert in film. What he isn’t though, is a film director.

Extending this logic to my own situation, I would argue (and have done so ad nauseum for the past few years) that whilst I consider myself to understand the anatomy of a blog and the way that the wider community works, I don’t have to fully immerse myself in the medium in order for me to do my job.

Right?

(Well maybe)

All I know is that you can only ignore that box-file of paperwork before you have to make a decision.

Good friends and worldly wise bloggers have been a great support and source of encouragement for me to start up this blog. Thanks to Jonathan Macdonald, the guys at ShinyMedia, Ewan Macleod and others who make it look so easy. A recent blogger engagement event that I helped to organise on behalf of a client made me realise that I’m no longer happy to watch on from the sideline: I want in. And here I am.

For more info about what all this is about, go here.

Now that I’ve started this blog, I’ll probably never get around to clearing out that pile of paperwork. Oh well… can’t do it all, you know.