and as if by magic…

Ahhhhh, the traditional Christmas blog post. It’s the one post of the year when one leans back and reviews the past year and excitedly peaks around the corner to have a look at the next.

I’ve done both, and trust me, everything was and will be ok.

I’m pretty sure this will be the last post on and as if by magic until early February; I’m a bit tired and there is some exciting stuff going on here that requires my urgent attention. It’s also Christmas and I’m off soon on holiday with Eva and the girls.

I just wanted to thank you all for your support this year; for reading the blog(s), for commenting, the emails, the phone calls and the fun. It honestly means a lot to me, so thank you.

So to you all; I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Behave yourselves; somebody has too because you know damn well it’s not going to be me.

Much love,
Marcus.

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Ah, the weather was lovely here yesterday. A crisp blue Bavarian sky told us to go up into the mountains so we did. We went up to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and got quite close to Wank.

Stop it.

I’ve never been so close to Wank before, so I was quite excited. Eva has experienced glory of Wank before and didn’t find it as exciting as me. The Wankers we very nice to us - but the garage was closed, which I found disappointing:

Look. Will you stop giggling  like children.

As the sun moved behind the tips of the mountains and things became a little darker we considered staying in The Wank Haus. But we went home instead.

God, I love Bavaria.

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Bless you. Bless you all.

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How many times have you wasted an hour of your life in a rubbish presentation? It’s horrible isn’t it? You sit there, glued to your chair whilst some suit stands in front of you droning on about something. I’ve thought about it and I’ve come up with something like 900 hours – that’s 900 hours of my life being killed by PowerPoint. Now, as Rob has written, PowerPoint is just the tool, but in the hands of a rabid salesman it can quickly become a weapon of mass narcosis.

I been thinking about this a lot recently and Breitenbach has been pushing me to write this post. If you think about it most of the presentations you have to sit through are actually quite insulting. What really makes me angry is when the person is trying to sell you something “bespoke” (now a banned word on Breitenbach and Brown) and tailor made whilst churning out point after point of a standard presentation that they pulled off of their server.

We sit though it, and do nothing. We tolerate it all at best, at worst we doze off. It’s a waste of our time (not theirs). It’s a sorry state of affairs and I think we, the Presentation viewing public should bloody well do something about it. I’d like to suggest a little bit of presentation anarchy.

From now on I’m going to follow the following rules whilst sitting through a presentation:

1. When the presenter says “this is interactive, please ask questions if you have any” I’m going to stand up and ask him/her why he’s/she’s here. In fact I intend to question everything.
2. If he/she starts using words that I have banned or don’t understand I’m going to stand up and ask what the word means. I will do this because I am convinced that they do not know what the word means.
3. If the presenter is boring me I intend to tell them (not show them), and I intend to tell them why.
4. If the presenter reads the bullet points word for word then I will join them. I will read their bullet points word for word too. In fact I may sing along.
5. If the terms “ducks in a row”, “pushing the envelope” or any other bullshit terms are used in the presentation I will stand up and turn my back to the presenter and wait for an apology.
6. If the presentation reaches slide 32 I will leave the room.
7. If the presenter has slides with more than twenty words I will stand up and demand pictures and a hand book.
8. If the presenter shows me a list of clients, or worse a slide full of client logos I will stand up, take out my wallet walk to the presenter and show him pictures of my children.
9. If the presenter hasn’t managed to make me laugh within the first 2 minutes I will start laughing.
10. If the presentation is a corporate template I will leave the room before the presentation starts.

I will, of course be fair, and inform the presenter before hand of my 10 Presentation Anarchy rules, but the rules that I give them will not be the rules above. I’m not that fair.

I’d just like us to remember that it’s our time, and I don’t see the point in wasting it in an insulting presentation. So, you can either make up a list of rules of your own or use mine.

Let’s put a stop to death by PowerPoint.

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This is not an exit post. I’m not leaving this blog but as you have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks, things have changed around here. And I’m quite happy how it’s all going.

No, this isn’t an exist post. This is a post to tell you all that something rather special has happened. It happened a while ago actually, on a very chilly September evening (19.09.2007) in Munich to be precise. It was the first time I met Breitenbach. It was one of those rare occasions where you immediately get on with someone even if you’re arguing with them.

Over the course of the last year we have both noticed that we complement each other. We’ve done a couple of projects together and we feel that the work we have done together is good and interesting. For me, at least, I started to realise that I needed a partner. I need someone to kick me, help me, push me and calm me down. And I need a partner that I can trust.

Breitenbach is that partner.

So, we’ve decided to set up a business together and the business is called Breitenbach & Brown. We’ve decided that we want to develop the business out in the open, right from scratch and track our progress on our blog. It would be great if you came and visited us to see what it is we’re planning to do.

This blog will continue in it’s own nutty little way. But as of today I will be concentrating on Breitenbach & Brown.

I can’t tell you how bloody excited I am.

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Hang on! Whoah! Hang on for just one bloody second. What the hell is going on here eh? I hop and of bed to get a glass of water only to find Dodds in bed with Eva! What the hell is that all about eh? What’s a man supposed to think when his favourite no-eared rabbit snuggles up to to the woman he loves?

Well, I gave him a bloody good talking to. Damn right I did. I talked about honour among men and the relationship between a man and his stuffed no eared rabbit. Things you can do, and things you can’t do.

I think he understood.

Eva just laughed at me.

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I’ve decided that the Rabbit without ears is going to be called “Dodds”. Dodds is the perfect name for a rabbit without ears. I found out a few things about Dodds today. I found them out on the way home.

I discovered that Dodds is very impatient; although we only had to wait 1 minute for the tube he caused a fuss and made a scene. I think it was may be because it was his very first tube journey (actually his second - but his first was spent inside the darkness of my bag).

I also discovered that Dodds was more interested in the sporting section of the newspaper than the business bit; Dodds couldn’t “give a flying fuck” about CitiBank and he told everybody in the tube that he couldn’t.

He also reads faster than I do. Tomorrow he gets his own bloody newspaper.

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This is a „kein Ohr Hase“ – It’s a rabbit without ears. It comes from a film called “kein Ohr Hase” – rabbit without ears. Eva has bought me one, because she knows I’m a sucker for stuff like this (as some of you know I own a Hello Kitty lunch box).

So I now own a kein ohr Hase, and I love it because Eva bought it for me. It’s in my bag right now, in my bag, under my desk and next to the shredder.

I might get it out later, you know during my lunch break, and show it where I work.

I love it, but it doesn’t have a name (I think it’s male). Any ideas? Suggestions? I was thinking about calling it “Dodds”.

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According to Rob an air of sanity has crept into this blog.

Have a good weekend.

PS - Piggy came third!

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picture owned by Bowbrick

I’m in bed. Blogging. I’m feeling a bit poorly you see, but not poorly enough not to be blogging. I fire up the laptop and spot a tweet from Mr. John Dodds (pictured above with Mr. David Burososoalalaso or what ever his name is - David is the one with hair) reporting the following:

Depressed that most twitter links lead to stuff I already know (but wont make some poncy reference to signal to noise ratio at this point)

Obviously this tweet worries me. I’m not happy about John being depressed - that is, after all, my job and I am most certainly not happy about the prospect of a signal to noise ratio post. So I thought I better do something about it. So I’ve tried to find some things that Mr. Dodds may not have seen before.

1. The Walking House.

I’ve only just discovered this myself. I’ve never heard of N55, but I have now and this looks pretty cool. It’s a walking house:

If, like me, you’ve never heard of n55 go and check them out. It’s all a bit nutty, but my old Social Context gene went all loopy when I checked out their manuals. (Found this over at Riesenmaschine).

2. Knitfiti

I’m not sure if John may have actually spotted this. But I think it’s smashing. It’s called Knitfiti (again, I found this on Riesenmaschine). I like Knitfiti alot.

3. Loriot - Vicco von Bülow

I’m a huge fan of Loriot, he’s brilliant at summing up everything funny about the Germans and is a constant reminder to me that the British do not have a monopoly on humour. I’d like to share 2 clips with you. If you don’t speak German, just turn the sound down a little and watch. Watch the way the people interact with each other - utter genius.

and this, Weihnachten bei den Hoppenstedts, is my favourite piece of comedy. Ever:

4. A Marvels guide to Manhattan

Now, this is just brilliant. It’s a guide to Marvels Manhattan (big version here). How brilliant is that? Found here, via laughing squid.

5. The Wooster Collective

Their blog says:

The Wooster Collective was founded in 2001. This site is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world.

And that’s exactly what it does. Cracking stuff.

So, I hope there was some things there that Mr Dodds hasn’t seen before. I hope that I’ve cheered him up. If you’ve got some things that you make think John hasn’t seen before, why not let him know.

If you’re wondering where the Kaiser has gone - read this.

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