Friday 29 August 2008

Steve Jobs is NOT dead....Technology gets premature!

The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary yesterday — and inadvertently published it in the process.

Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation. The Times weighed in on the matter as recently as last month, when columnist Joe Nocera spoke with the secretive tech executive.

But news organizations routinely prepare obituaries in advance, even for the healthy. And if Bloomberg readers had seen the internal story slug, "testjobs," their jitters might have abated.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

The Battle of the Boarding Brands Continues!

Finally the UK has been hit by the ongoing battle between Mattel (the owner of the game) and the developers of the online version Scrabulous.

Today, we'll witness the chaos & fallout of those who have turned on their computers, logged into Facebook and realised that little icon is no longer in their 'applications' menu. Confused and frustrated with not being able to get their daily fix of the game, office workers will wander the floors aimlessly, rock in their chairs Arthur Fowler-style and forever wonder what their next rack of words would have been (and if they could have in fact got a triple score with Q, U, Z and X!

For those of you who are true Scrabulous gamers, there are a few countries left where the game is not banned...but heading out to India to get a triple score is possibly too much for most of us, especially after a bank holiday weekend!

Thursday 21 August 2008

Collective Tennis

Collective Tennis

A troupe of sporty Collectivites blew off the cobwebs this Wednesday with some tennis in the park. Some took it more seriously than others, with Omar and James setting the bar high with some intense rallies.

Collective Tennis

While Petter and Emma went for style points.

Collective Tennis

Joe was a fantastic ballboy (until he got tired)

Collective Tennis

And the crowd went wild...

Collective Tennis

Bring it on again next Wednesday. Well, we need to work off all the jam tarts and sweeties somehow.

Monday 18 August 2008

Diet tips

Need to lose a few pounds? Get some sound and practical diet advice from our very own 'skinny-fat' Office Manager Leila.*

Diet tips from Leila

*Don't really follow her diet; unless you have her metabolism you'll probably get pretty fat.

Having said that, the Collective office diet as a whole is going to the dogs. Despite a lovely healthy fruit box being delivered every week...

Fruit

...we still revert to our inner five-year olds at the sight of old-skool candy.

Candy Friday

It's all Leila's fault for pushing her awful diet on us. Don't tell our mums.

Friday 15 August 2008

Collective Culture Shocks*

serena and wrestler
*with less of the culture

This week we’re ...
... Singing the egg song
... Lining Sir Richard’s pockets at V Festival
…Still longing for another night out at the coolest club in town
… Hanging out with sweaty men in spandex
…going hobbytastic: learning Japanese, going fishing and inventing secret sauces


Collective Guess Who
Betcha don’t have a clue! (Answer to be posted in comments)

1. Who would you invite to a dinner party?
Frankie Boyle – he’s the funniest man alive.

2. Which two things could you not live without?
I should probably say my wife but cheese and ale take no.1 & no.2 slots.

3. If you were an animal which animal would you be?
A cat – sleeping is my favourite thing (apart from cheese and ale).

4. What is your earliest memory?
Having stitches taken out after an operation on my leg when I was 3 years old.

5. What was your first ever album?
Shakin Stevens – Green Door. Not sure that I was of sound mind back then.

The walls have ears …

Adam Cousins: ‘My late dog Rosie met Rolf Harris’

Thursday 14 August 2008

Olympic logos

Scott Hansen of ISO50 has compiled all the Olympic logos from 1924 to now for a side-by-side comparison. It's very interesting to see how they've changed over time. Try and guess which decade the following logos are from (names and dates removed, obviously)...

1.

2.

3.

4.


Click the link to see if you're right.

It remains to be seen if the much-debated London logo will really be a product of its time too...

New Media Age - Jazz new breaks!

Wednesday 13 August 2008

The Digital Nomad gets a new toy (that lasts just that bit longer)

"I want all-day computing (wherever I am!)"
As connectivity and mobility have evolved over the last few years, a new working segment has emerged, known as the Digital Nomad. Their working space, although still with some roots in the office space, has grown into more of a virtual one. Security, VPN and connectivity technologies have all had major investment in recent years, with impressive results, however, the item that is most crucial to our work, our laptop, has always fallen at the hurdle of having a reasonable lifetime away from a power source or plug socket!

Even with more plug sockets being made available to our Digital Nomads in their virtual workspace (you can even get these on trains), we still end up playing the laptop version of Russian roulette as the figures drop on the power-source indicator (has anyone really managed to squeeze the last amp/volt out of their machine without some critical data loss?)

Today, Dell has announced its latest range of Lattitude laptops, claiming a battery-busting 19 hours of cable-free computing (thats your average day in advertising!). In a market that's expected to tip sales figures of around 1 billion over the next five years, the question is "could this be the next 'big' thing' that hardware manufacturers will be jumping on?" (over and above the current "how slim can we make it" and "how fast it is" sales pitches) to beat their competitors off the knees of the Digital Nomad?

Dell clearly considers this to be a coup for them, investing almost 2 years of research (they say almost 1 million man hours!) to get to the point where the cost to produce allows them to sell the new Lattitude computers for between $800-1400.

They have certainly been thinking a little more out of the box (or perhaps in this instance, 'away from the lap') realising that more mobile means more likely to lose their hallowed machine. They claim almost 17,000 machines were lost or left away from the office last year, and to try and resolve the nightmare of losing your laptop, they're adding more security with biometric scanning and the ability to trace and disable your machine if lost or stolen!

Friday 8 August 2008

Get out, get snapping and upload!

08-08-08 isn't just lucky for the Olympics!






Today we'll also be snapping and uploading to the Flickr888 Day, a repeat of last years very successful event where we all share a digital "day-in-the-life of" our nation.

Thursday 7 August 2008

Collective Culture Shocks*

Tea party

* danger: high voltage

This week we’re ...
...thanking Leila for our Friday Afternoon Tea Parties
... having our cake and playing with it
... travelling east for Field Day fun times
...appreciating real ale at the CAMRA beer festival
...reading about The Greatest Sci-fi Movies Never Made – including James Cameron’s ‘Spider-Man’ and Schwarzenegger in ‘I Am Legend’


Collective Guess Who
Told you this week’s would be harder! (Answer to be posted in comments)

1. Who would you invite to a dinner party?
Tom Waits, my grandparents, and the guy who continually parades down Sutton High Street dressed as Gandalf.

2. Which two things could you not live without?
My Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Three DVD box set and a good 2B pencil.

3. If you were an animal which animal would you be?
I avoid animals. Certainly wouldn’t want to be one. If you twisted both my arms and pinched my left ankle, it would have to be something extinct. Just to freak people out when they see me walking around. Let’s say a zombie dodo.

4. What is your earliest memory?
Playing with my Star Wars figures on my lonesome well past bed-time. I was probably six. Some things never change.

5. What was your first ever album?
‘Psychocandy’ by The Jesus & Mary Chain would be a lie. ‘Read-along-with Bambi’ would be the reality.

The walls have ears...
Farhan: “So Kenta, why did you join Collective?”
Kenta: “Mostly for the free bread. They didn’t give us bread at my old company.”

Collective Poker

Jubilant!

The first Collective Poker Night was a night of highs, low, tension, frustration and joy. Rank amateurs (most of us, really) were pitched against more established players in a battle of wits, deception and pure luck.

Kenta and Silke took an early lead....

'Lucky Corner'

...but flew too close to the Sun and lost it all to eventual champ Katie.

The spread

Thanks to Stephane for the venue and amazing feast. Same time next week at Jeff's?

Wednesday 6 August 2008

That old devil Six Degrees of Freedom!

For a good while now, I've always wondered how the theory of Six Degrees of Separation has been affected (or perhaps evolved) into a lesser figure through the explosion of social networking and our predilection of lowering barriers to making friends within the online space.

For those, like myself who considered this to be a reasonably recent theory, it actually goes way back (pre-interweb) to the late 60's and some research by Stanley Milgram and Jeffrey Travers, who engaged in a study where people were asked to send a letter (via acquaintances) to a Boston stockbroker. Of the 300 or so letter chains that were sent, the average number of separation degrees was 6.2!






















Rather than changing this figure (one would initially consider it being lowered), the internet has merely gone to validate (beyond doubt), that the theory is correct and that we are all connected in this way.

Probably the most conclusive research recently undertaken was using online chat, where Microsoft researchers studied the addresses of 30bn instant messages sent during a single month in 2006 through their instant messaging application....a more planetary research piece than the localised one carried out 40 or so years previously!

So with this theory well and truly validated, we really can say "It's a small world".

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Collective 5-a-side victory

Collective kickabout

Never mind the China Olympics, last night was the major sporting event of the year, when Collective played digital agency Fortune Cookie at 5-a-side.

After a shaky start, and going 5-1 down to Fortune Cookie, Collective fought back heroically to win 10-6 (or 9-6, recollections vary...)

Thanks to the guys from Fortune Cookie for the game.

Collective are now ready to take on all comers. Bring the noise!

Monday 4 August 2008

Pimp our Barry

Oh, Barry. You should have known what to expect when you send round an email like this:

They say that you should never judge a book by its cover, but if we didn’t do it there would not be a proverb to warn us against such rash judgement.

With this in mind what does my ‘cover’ say about me?? Have a look at the attached image and see what comes to your mind.

I would say the following:-
Bland
Boring
Uninspiring
Dull
Couldn’t be more uncreative if it tried
With this in mind I would like to throw the creative gauntlet down in the creative pit and shout ‘pimp my face’!


With that in mind, here are some 'creative concepts' for the new Barry...

Barry resplendent as a Victorian Gent. It's 'soooo now'.



Heeeeeere's Barry



What can I say, we all have Batman fever.



Dame Barry - love the pink rinse.



A bit of a nip and tuck...



The poor man is now on the verge of an identity crisis and is talking of going to Nepal to find his true self. Help him out by voting on which look is best.




 























Friday 1 August 2008

Pass The Jazz: Be a star for a day

passthejazz.co.uk

Our microsite for the forthcoming new Honda Jazz launched this week, and it gives you the chance to take over the Jazz home page for a day – another exciting first for Honda.

We want to hear your Jazz stories – those adventures you’ve been on together or simply the way it makes you smile every day. All the stories will appear on our site and one Jazz driver will be chosen to personalise our home page. Be a part of it:

http://www.honda.co.uk/newjazz/

Collective Culture Shocks*



*Committed to leaving no shocks uncultured


This week we’re ...

... looking at tourist attractions in a new way

... feeling warm and fuzzy inside after the Collective family outing to see Wall-E

... listening to Danny’s band, exlovers – coming to a sweaty live venue near you soon

… unleashing our inner Rolf Harris on our new free-for-all art wall

…doing anything but chilling at the Big Chill Festival



Collective Guess Who

Can you guess who it is yet? (Answer to be posted in comments)


1. Who would you invite to a dinner party?
David Attenborough
Stephen Fry
Jonathan Ross

2. Which two things could you not live without?
Beer + sleep.

3. If you were animal which animal would you be?
A cat – all they do is sleep and eat.

4. What is your earliest memory?
Going to see Chelsea play.

5. What was your first ever album?
Think it was a Madonna album.


The walls have ears …

Barry: “I have at least three different stories about broccoli … I won’t bore you with them right now.”