Of course, there’s some debate over the Messiah’s CV; both the job title and skills are disputed by some. Others even question whether, like Jive Bunny, the person really existed. Before anyone comments with furious and lengthy humanist, metaphysical or historical justifications, I’m not here to dispute the CVs of either of these people/the leporine producer(s).

It did, however, get me thinking about LinkedIn – particularly as I’ve noticed that people have been recently accumulating ‘skills’ on their profiles like a toddler hoarding Lego bricks. I myself have a diffuse list on my own profile. The truth is, as our professional universes become less hierarchical and more lateral in nature, we’re all developing a much wider range of related skills.

LinkedIn profiles have always been somewhat questionable – they’re essentially how we would like the world to view us professionally. For example, one I know of (I won’t name-and-shame, other than to say it’s not me) is practically a work of fiction. So how to solve this conundrum?

The answer could be to make it a Wiki and then watch fascinating Edit Wars play out.

Bob: ‘Ted, I’ve amended your entry where you say you were responsible for winning a £200K project, because I happen to know that you f**ked off down the pub while I wrote it, and then speed-read it and made a few minor amends.’

Ted: ‘Bob, I’ve changed your edit back, because actually I was at the pitch and that means I helped win it…’

Bob: ‘Ted, sorry, I’ve reinstated my edit. Yes you were at the pitch, but you turned up with a massive hangover and didn’t know which slides were yours. I had to kick your ankle under the table.’

Ted: ‘Bob, OK you SOB. I’ve been on your profile and deleted ‘strategy’ and ‘copy writing’; one slide with a few ‘social’ icons on it and responding to a company round-robin with six strap line ideas doesn’t count…’

Bob, Ted, and their agency, are a work of fiction – but in a world of self-edited personal profiles, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? To what extent are our profiles communication, as opposed to self-validation and autobiography? My favourite LInkedIn profile to date simply said: Mother/Manager of not-for-profit organisation.

Ian Allison

Were this blog written by a spambot (or indeed Yul Brynner in character as King Mongkut of Siam) then this is almost certainly how it would begin. Ever since receiving a number of similarly worded, strangely charming auto-comments on my blog, I began to think about what forms future storytelling might take. A spambot-authored novel, for example.

Nasa recently announced that a planet has been identified, 600 light years from Earth, which enjoys the scarily precise orbital and environmental qualities necessary for organic life to be possible. As we know, one ‘light year’ is the distance that light travels in one (Julian) year-ish. In other words, if one travelled at the speed of light, it would take about 600 (Gregorian) years to get there. Really got me thinking about the Great Flood myths, that one. I’m thinking maybe a cross between ‘2001 – A Space Odyssey’ and ‘Noye’s Fludde’. If you sell it, I’ll be very reasonable re: royalties.

I’ truth, I’ve started to think about storytelling a lot recently; we are, after all, approaching the time when we celebrate one of our most enduring stories. A contemporary Joseph and Mary need not travel to the place of Joseph’s birth to take part in a great census; now officials will be able to do it for us, with almost gynaecological accuracy, using our shared medical data. Future myths may not be built around fragments of papyrus – the stories of our lives will be found in the delicate weave of our personal data.

Unless there’s a power-cut (but I did sustainable energy last time).

Speaking of great journeys, Charlie Brooker, one of my favourite contemporary chroniclers, continued exploring his enduring fascination with The Wizard of Oz via this week’s Black Mirror (I’ll leave you to work out who was Dorothy this time). The basic conceit was that a popular princess has been kidnapped, and the ransom demand is that the Prime Minister (a magnificent Rory Kinnear) has to have porcine carnal knowledge, shared via live national television. Essentially, Brooker was enjoying making his favourite sandwich. One of the narrative threads was, of course, the Prime Minister’s own approval rating – his brand.

Brands are essentially stories – and the internet is our very own aural tradition. We use our social networks to shape their stories collectively. In turn, brands use our data in increasingly sophisticated ways to evolve in concert with their changing environments. Just as storytelling moved from spat pigments, to song, to quill and so on, stories are finding new and exciting ways to be told.

So, as I am saying earlier my friend, I have genuine opportunity to read something that is good for you and much cheaper than anywhere else. I will certainly bookmark this for my further use.

Ian Allison

It’s a truly revolutionary idea (yes, I did mean ‘revolutionary’ – I’m not peddling that word in the way people wave ‘awesome’, ‘incredible’ and ‘stressed’ around, like a baby wielding an electric bread knife).

His passionate, rational and well-researched argument is well worth reading. However, it doesn’t stop there. He believes that this, like the industrial revolutions before it, will also alter our consciousness – from a geo-political mindset to a collaborative, super-continental one; largely because the new economic structures and modus operandi, founded on energy-sharing, domestic nodes, will demand it.

He places his faith in emerging ways of thinking; in particular young people who – he says – already eschew political and economic models that are hierarchical, opaque and broadcasting, for lateral, collaborative, transparent and egalitarian ones – the ambition that many of us still share for the internet, a concept that I believe is still in its exciting and open-minded infancy.

Now, I’m not here to nick Jeremy’s work or borrow his thinking. Read his book, go and see him, or watch the talk I saw here in a few days. It got me thinking though. As he says, if we were to convert our society to truly sustainable forms of energy, which could be traded using an enhanced internet infrastructure – and the implied supply-chain, this could create literally, laterally, millions of jobs. Awesome. But as interesting to me, are the implications for our ‘industry’. There were lots of general references to scientists, engineers, IT professionals, SMEs… but what of those of us whose job it is to assist in communicating things?

At the moment, for all our posturing, our industry is still largely small, linear hierarchies structured to help larger, linear hierarchies dabble in being open, collaborative and egalitarian – with varying degrees of integrity and effectiveness. It may be time to consider the deeper implications of adopting an emerging mindset, a philosophy that today’s ten-year-olds are growing up with, as they nonchalantly and naturally collaborate globally via Club Penguin.

How/would we service a world of smaller, laterally collaborative economic nodes? We’ve already seen, in the past five years, branding practice turned on its head to become a user-defined concept; and I believe that’s just the beginning.

We may be witnesses to a mass extinction – but it will be economic dinosaurs that fall this time.

Incredible? We need to talk.

Ian Allison

History shows us that the times of greatest need catalyse the greatest leaps in development, and this You tube demo caught my eye. Perhaps Doc Brown’s  “flux capacitor” is not so far fetched after all. Faced with a barrage of technological discoveries; neutrino particles that can be in two places at once and the speed of light violation that Professor Brian Cox discusses here.

Our perspective on the universe is being challenged; our perspective on money has also shifted seismically. In my lifetime we have moved our thinking from an ‘only buy what you can afford’ doctrine to the ‘buy today and pay later’ mentality – and now we have finally discovered that we cannot continue to hock the future or the financial system will collapse. Additionally, at this time of great pressure, we are asked to give of our time gratefully and for the greater good of society with ‘The Big Society’ thesis. This at a time when the definition and structures of society itself seem to be in flux.

Great Britain has a deep and proud history of, and is known globally for, astonishing and paradigm-shifitng innovations across science, technology and the arts.  The question I’m asking is, can technological breakthroughs lead us out of this torpor? And more acutely, if we have the wit to solve the mysteries of the universe, surely we also have the means to solve the current debt crisis?

Alan Bell

Essentially the crowd’s response seems to be the model for most major organisations’ approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Just as families struggle to pay their bills, the utilities make eye-watering price rises. Just as remuneration struggles to keep pace with living costs, transport costs soar. Even the Oyster card has been shown to be quietly over-charging the very people who trusted it to deliver more cost-effective, convenient travel. Banks fail to lend to the very SMEs that could pull us out of recession – it is, after all, ordinary people (us) who spend their wages on FMCG, holidays, clothes, food.

Over-simplistic, perhaps; I understand that energy is costly (hey: why don’t we invest properly in innovative, local, sustainable sources, such as wave power?). However, my point is this. Corporate Social Responsibility – a wonderfully passive piece of jargon if ever there was one – should actually comprise two ideas: corporate community responsibility and corporate social activism. CSR is not about creating a community garden, funding a mural or hosting a family fun day, pleasant though these things can be (except the mural – always a bad idea).

Companies have an active responsibility to the communities that support them – and that means taking an holistic view of the impact they have, maybe sharing the lean times as well as the good? We could deliver the era that shifted the UK back from ‘me’ to ‘we’. Step forward the brand brave enough – that would be truly impressive.

‘Truly impressive’ are not words I would use to describe the new UK campaign created by Mother. Innovation is great – Britain. This campaign is great – not. I can’t help wondering if the reported half-million spent on this campaign replaces or adds to the many initiatives that were already underway to promote UK innovation, tourism etc. (before the coalition scythed through existing contracts with creative and marketing agencies).

Leaving aside the creative/strategic merits of the campaign itself (unlike most boys, I don’t hold Mother responsible) I’m troubled by the short-termism, the adding of clutter rather than the development of existing resources. The missed opportunity to re-engage with the UK’s struggling creative sector. ‘Norman’s an ambulance! Norman’s an ambulance!’

Rant over.

Ian Allison

Am I the only person who thinks that The Specials should re-release Ghost Town? The sentiment and lyrics capture the zeitgeist perfectly, and if you can’t be bothered to listen to the words, there’s a thumping/exquisite bassline, depending on which side of the KFC/Prêt å Manger divide you sit (personally, having just read Fast Food Nation, I sit on neither – but that’s another blog).

Plus ça change… The more Information Architecture I’m involved in, the more tangible the parallels with physical architecture become. As ever, there’s often a compromise to be made between brand strategy, marketing strategy, actual content, usability, accessibility, available technology, budget and internal politics. If this feels like a challenging daily reality to you, look into the shenanigans surrounding the design and build of the Sydney Opera House. You are not alone. But how to create a truly transformative user experience?

An essential ingredient is a spoonful of lovin’ in the form of effective collaboration. It can make the difference between Thomas Heatherwick’s Seed Cathedral and the ‘communal space’ in a typical 60’s high-rise development. And of course, there’s no point hoping for the Taj Mahal, when you have the budget for a Wickes shed.

There’s nothing wrong with a bloody good shed (the secret to many a happy marriage – not personal experience, I hasten to add; my shed’s so small that the spiders have kicked the tools out). Let’s just be pragmatic and create one that’s big enough, resilient enough, well positioned and well built – and while we’re at it, let’s be honest about what it needs to be used for, and ruthless about how much stuff you really need in there.

Architects and designers as diverse as the unknown creators of Stonehenge, Capability Brown, Sir John Soane, Norman Foster and Thomas Heatherwick (to pick just a random handful of UK examples) have taught us that utility and creativity need not be mutually exclusive. The ideal of information architecture is to create virtual structures as accessible, intuitive, useful, robust, totemic and loved as any great urban space or building. In years to come, will we visit virtual spaces – even if they have become über ghost-towns, such as Pompeii – with a sense of wonder and admiration?

Ian Allison

Financial institutions of one flavour or another have been falling over themselves in recent months to manage reputations justly and unjustly smeared with the ordure flung violently far and wide by the economic meltdown – which we shall hereafter refer to as ‘The Event’ (with apologies to Mitchell and Webb). Unfortunately, for the most part, these brand positioning exercises have largely been the marketing equivalent of peeing on a bushfire.

It’s time you looked beyond your roster, guys.

Perhaps the most baffling, and amusing (even taking into account the recent, ‘We’re going to publish an open and honest report about how brilliant we are – crikey, it says we’re brilliant…’ exercise by Natwest) is the Halifax’s ‘…if we were a radio station, what kind would we be..?’ project*. I would have loved to have attended that particular lunch… I mean brainstorm.

So, what did they choose? A song by The Lightning Seeds. A sound, for me, synonymous with the lost opportunity that was New Labour; the administration that appear to have introduced the concept of ‘turning a blind eye‘ to financial regulation. The people who didn’t just stop at borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, but decided to borrow from Peter’s grandchildren too and then sell them back their empty piggy bank in return for a series of easy-to-manage payments – for life. Oh lucky us.

Sonic branding as afterthought.

So what should the finance sector do with their brands? The winners in this race will not be the ones who tell us that they have transformed their businesses, but the ones who are seen (and heard) to have done so. The ones who wake up to the fact that brands are now built by customers, not by advertising agencies spanking their iTunes favourites. The ones who listen instead of wearing a giant, f**k-off pair of ‘don’t stop me now, I’m having such a good time’ headphones. The ones who understand that brand is an equal partnership of promise and experience.

Oh, and remember that brands do have a sound – even if it is the sound of an egg being cracked onto a face. Sound promising?

*Google this ad yourself – I was going to provide a link, but chickened out; some of the invective it has drawn is quite eye-watering, and we live in a very litigious society…

Ian Allison

So, it turns out that iTunes doesn’t just become a permanent digital monument to your poor taste in music (or that time you were a bit pissed at your dinner party and downloaded ‘Samba Classic Vol 4’); it – along with its accomplices iPad and iPhone have been accused of KEEPING INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR MOVEMENTS (Da-Da-Daaaaa!). To be honest, I’m quite touched – the last person to keep data on my movements was my postnatal Health Visitor.

According to a BBC News blog by Rory Cellan-Jones, this was discovered by Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, described as ‘security experts’ – or earlier by other people, depending on your sources. But as any security expert will tell you, context is everything. Yes, I suppose divorce lawyers could be interested in what technology you possess, but I frequently walk down Long Acre, WC2 and I’m pretty certain that I didn’t start the Black Death.

This ‘non-troversy’ reminds me of the fuss over personal ID cards. Yes, I was uncomfortable with the idea of ID cards – but not because I thought that the Government would do anything with my data,

Anyone who has frequented Whitehall will tell you that Departments often struggle to keep up with what’s happening on the floor below – never mind what magazines you purchase (and, although we don’t like to admit it, most of us have lives that are simply not interesting or controversial enough to excite the authorities’ interest). NO, I just didn’t like the idea of being reduced to a number, and then have someone hoard pointless details of my life like a stalker that demands tax.

Added to this, writers of series like Spooks would be deprived of a very handy plot device if it weren’t possible for devices to be tracked in this way. If we introduce laws to prevent this, what next? Hordes of marine biologists being given twenty years in Broadmoor for tracking whales?

Where I do take issue is the idea of anyone sharing this data without my permission. Advertisers in particular would have to be nuts to think that I’d be anything other than annoyed and appalled that they’d used such data to make clumsy guesses at ‘products and services that I might find interesting’. I mean, because of my history of gift buying, Amazon still think that I’m interested in My Little Pony accessories and books on Satanism. They’ve obviously profiled me as a cross between Violet Elizabeth and the Antichrist.

Can and should Apple be able to share such data? That remains to be seen, and possibly tested in Court. For now, I refer you to the Merchant Of Venice (or, to précis – you can have the pound of flesh, but this contract says nothing about spilling blood…).

Ian Allison

The first episode has attracted some negative comment, but I think it’s worth watching a couple more. The premise of two bodies spread across all six internal surfaces of a room like Robinson’s Strawberry Jam in a sandwich designed by M C Escher was quite imaginative. And I’m a sucker for gothic lighting.

And pantomime. Criticising this programme for being far-fetched is like criticising Iron Maiden for failing to confront the urban zeitgeist in their canon. However, what really caught my imagination was Eve’s handset-based, instant DNA profiling: we can accept GIF, JPEG or Deoxyribonucleic acid. Instant paternity testing: the new i-Didit.

Such online collaboration at speed, DNA profiling notwithstanding, is going to become the norm rather than the exception. In a fascinating article in forbes.com – From Social Networks to Collaboration Networks: The Next Evolution of Social Media for Business (Peter Neely) – a distinction is drawn between the older ‘broadcast’ generation, and a newer ‘collaboration’ generation.

For me, one of the tantalising possibilities presented by the collaborative potential of online social networks is the way they can join minds, side-stepping some of the apocryphal distractions (the dark flipside of which is that some office invertebrates become psychotic digital monsters having shed their corporeal form via the medium of email, blog or even telephone).

As Goya reminded us, “The sleep of reason breeds monsters” (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos). Collaborating via social networks is not just promoting new ways of innovating, new ways of working. It needs new etiquettes and demands active engagement; it’s not for no reason that we used to start creative workshops by pointing out a few simple rules of engagement.

Developed, implemented and used responsibly and respectfully, collaboration networks have the potential to develop ideas further and faster than ever. As Ivor Cutler said: “We have a beautiful cosmos, you and me…”

Ian Allison

Bell’s managing partner in China, Christie, was asked recently to speak on ‘brand Britain’ in China, and asked me what I thought the key brand issue was for foreign entities hoping to build a UK-facing brand. I think that one of the main points is that the UK is not one, homogenous ‘people’.

One of the key challenges facing UK-facing marketers now is that traditional models are less effective because of the rapid fragmentation of the socio-economic demographic of the UK. This has begun to be addressed by the web’s capacity to enable the formation of communities of like-minded individuals (until such time as the population stabilises again for a while, at which point such communities will evolve into new and interesting entities). However, this phenomenon has also given rise to an unexpected change. That is (brand gurus look away, you know this bit, but I need to share it with everyone else) brands are no longer solely defined by top-down, pyramidal hierarchies of professionals – they are shaped by the consumers themselves.

This means that the foundations of your brand have to be all the more unique, robust and defendable; online forums are merciless with the ill-defined or disingenuous. Brands are now designed with the 1:9:90 rule firmly in mind (amongst other factors). I imagine that this will be something of an anathema to the traditionally prescriptive, hierarchical Chinese audience – who would, ironically, probably have warmed to the didactic nature of late 80s/90s/early noughties brand building. So, actually a positive message for UK brand architects really – the UK picture is much richer, and more complex, than they might suppose – and taking a heavily didactic, partially informed approach to brand-building will probably miss the mark by some distance.

A senior government official from Chongqing asked me, in Shanghai, how Bell (a UK agency) could hope to create brands in China, as necessarily, a key component of brand is cultural. I said that this was an excellent question, and replied that we couldn’t, alone: our approach is collaborative, and my vision was of achieving a blend of local expertise and western methodology. He replied that this was a good answer.

China needs a local specialist such as Bell, that has its finger firmly on these multiple UK pulses, changing month by month, or they run the risk of being not just alien, but irrelevant.

Ian Allison