Archive for June 2009

Apparently when the Romans used the term Genius they referred to a disembodied thing that lived  in the walls of an artists studio. The artist was a channel for this being  and when their creativity bombed it took the heat, when they soared they were kept in their place by the assumption that they were part of this process but not the foundation for it.

I found this out via this little gem with Elizabeth Gilbert, a writer and loved her view on ego, creativity, struggle and the role of hard slog and luck.

Guillaume is here, our new art director and a maestro of multimedia and graphic design. He is an inspired artist, working away from the dayjob on a number of digital projects.

Guillaume stood out in interviews as a most talented, kind individual with a fascinating career backdrop. He has worked in places as diverse as Mexico, where he re-designed the façade of the World Trade Centre, to the British Council, where he loitered on the contemporary art scene.

We were  firstly attracted to his digital expertise: what clinched it is that he is also  a fantastic art director. He has worked for the likes of Damien Hirst,  BMW, and some jeans company called Levi’s…and loads more.

He is getting on with some great work for our nascent digital business e-Bee. Thanks Guillaume for joining us at Hive, and for putting up nicely with us calling you “Giam”.

Jackson’s impact on American pop music cannot be overstated. His signature vocal style, dance moves and military-inspired fashion sense also influenced pop culture worldwide.  Thriller will alway remain for me the one album  my parents owned that was skill.  

Last night saw us all head up to Taste of London, a brilliant food filled evening. Despite a security alert which caused late opening, all of us celebrated having a great few months filled with cracking work for great brands.

We sampled dozens of dishes, favourites being; the sardine pie, scallop and cauliflower puree from Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, the Pork from the Cinnamon Kitchen. Pretty special English Chapel Down Pink fizz started us off with a dozen or so oysters and Guillaume our digital guru ended us with viognier that was from just down the road from his parents house.

Our ever loving ears hearken once more to the digital pitter patter of patient empowerment.  UCB Pharma have partnered with patientslikeme.com to bring an Epilepsy community to the site.

Patientslikeme.com is a privately owned initiative that encourages patients to post details about themselves. This real world, outcome-based data is shared with individuals and organisations who work to improve health outcomes, including pharmaceutical companies, research organizations, and non-profits.

30% of epilepsy patients are refractory to treatment, so this move is good news for patients, HCPs and even competing Pharma. Over 37,000 patients are already registered on the site as well as 3,000 caregivers. Any epilepsy community should include the voice of caregivers, as a significant proportion of epilepsy sufferers are elderly or have learning disabilities.

Patientslikeme.com doesn’t just collect data from patients, it provides quality information and allows them to blog and communicate with peers. It’s a site that really does seem to have patients’ interest at heart. That’s why we like it – and so congratulate UCB for being a part.

But it should be. Buried in amongst the papers this morning was the announcement from Sanofi-aventis of their intention to donate 100 million influenza vaccine doses to the developing world via the WHO. Well done Sanofi. See if you can find it on the BBC.

Sanofi-aventis to donate 100 million doses of pandemic influenza vaccine to WHO
Sanofi-aventis CEO Chris Viehbacher announced Wednesday that the company plans to make a donation of 100 million doses of influenza vaccine to the World Health Organization to help developing countries confront the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. Speaking at the Pacific Health Summit, Viehbacher stated that “the future of our industry is linked to the healthcare solutions that will be found for emerging countries,” and added that the donation is being made in support of WHO Director-General Margaret Chan’s “call for common action to fight the pandemic.”

A study conducted by a team of researchers at King’s College London has revealed that public understanding of basic anatomy is extremely poor, and has not improved in 40 years.

The researchers asked more than 700 people to look at outlines of both a male and female body and identify which of several shaded areas was a particular organ. The results are shocking. Less than half the respondents could correctly place the heart, while under one-third could place the lungs in their correct location. Interestingly, even those respondents for whom the organ had a relevance performed poorly – for example, more than half of those with renal problems did not correctly identify the location of the kidneys. These findings don’t exactly fit with the picture of the modern, tech-savvy, informed patient that lives in my head.

The researchers also said their findings raise concerns about doctor-patient communication. No shit. Try having a meaningful conversation with a quantum physicist about string theory, without knowing what strings are or where they live. I tried. It’s difficult. Especially when drunk.

And, with the introduction of patient choice in healthcare, concerns about health illiteracy are only become graver. Should Joe Public, who doesn’t know his prostate from his pancreas, really be at the helm when it comes to his healthcare? Would you let me, a copywriter, service your car? Didn’t think so.

This, by the way, is not an argument against patient choice. But, let’s get realistic. The patient needs advice, information and support before being able to take on the role of ‘healthcare chooser’. Or, at the very least, lessons in basic anatomy.

Play Me, I’m Yours is an arts project by artist Luke Jerram and  part of the mayor’s Sing London event, and has already been successfully run in Birmingham and Sydney. Each piano is decorated by an artist with a site-specific motif, attended to by a full-time tuner who bikes from place to place ensuring a clean middle C, and accompanied by a songbook.  The instruments are essentially be left to their own devices across london with the public “trusted” (lucky us) not to vandalise them.

Here’s a  one of  our finest who stumbled across our local piano in Broadwick Street after a hearty lunch.

Something both exciting and unique happened to me in 1991…….

I bought my first 12 inc record album. The band was called The Prodigy and the album was called Experience and I had managed to purchase a limited edition white sleeve special. The slick minimalist style of the cover contrasted vastly with the atmospheric colouring and transient use of typography within the inner sleeve. The music was an array of cutting edge sounds and lyrics mixed with mesmerising beats and a unique series of piano keys. Fast forward 18 years and the band are once again proving that they see design as an essential ingredient in expressing their music.

The use of animated graphics in the new video for Warriors Dance  is truly magical and inspiring….

A report today by the BBC confirms what many of us have been expecting. The NHS has a big problem looming. Now I’m not an economist and my understanding of the financial levers required to prop up the economy in a downturn are pretty non existent, but I do understand what has happened before. Recessions hit tax revenues (less people working) and so the Government has less to spend. Even if we ignore all the other stuff like quantitative easing and budget deficits the simple fact remains, money is tight, and its going to get tighter. Add to this an ageing population, the threat of pandemic viruses and a grossly over-administered system the impact on the health service has no choice that to be considerable. Inevitably the spectre of large scale cost cutting, drug tariff pressure and even new drug prescription caps become the norm. There is no doubt in my mind that our industry and our clients business are in for difficult years as soon as the election is called. The policy maker the BBC interviewed called it 7 years of pain from 2011 . In my humble opinion the industry future requires us to be more innovate in the way we plan and launch new treatments, more cognisant of who needs to have meaningful relationships with medicines and more accommodating of the multiple layers of influence that will become normal. It’s true that innovation normally is more prevalent in crisis and whilst no one welcomes what is going on, I am confident that through adversity will come opportunity. We need to mirror the radical reform that our principal customer will undergo, recognise that doing what we have always done will not change anything and embrace the need for new thinking. Thankfully, that’s sort of why we set up…

When you kick off a new business you end up with responsibilities for office services that you would rather do without. In the early days, due to my inability to say no to the rep I landed stationery. Those who I worked for at Shire Health International will know the hilarity of this – I have come full circle – I am sure next week will see me run out and put coins in metres for account directors!

In the less busy days of early last year I grabbed every order of paper, pens, and flipcharts as an indication that we were growing like mad. In the more recent days we all order from our desktops preventing me from any clear sign of growth. Alas I am only left with the P&L and feel from the office on our progress!

My paper guys of choice were Viking – always on time, always in stock, cheap as any and returns were near effortless. A valued if commoditised supplier, products that did what they did and communication that focused on stock lines and deals.

Then out of the blue came an email from Nigel, Viking’s Online Community Manager with an invite to climb aboard a platform on which all of their customers interact, discuss and share ideas on how they and the stationery industry as a whole can get better.

Like most I haven’t aired everything I have felt on stationery. Starting up has been a busy time and stationery although important is pretty low down the list (except when we run out of recycled laser paper during a pitch). Items on this website – span recommendations for ‘Start-up’ kits for new businesses, conference packages, more automatic ordering systems and alternative approaches to pricing.

Kicking these ideas into the business is a team of back office ‘Idealists’ whose job is to investigate the most popular ideas and report back on them on the site and I hope push them into the business.

For a supplier of commodities I thought this was at least a progressive move, a potential pragmatic source of innovation and at most a potential brilliant business driver. See what you think here.