a design problem

The traditional toilet is a classic of design functionality. Design tutors the world over have doubtless spent many a happy moment expounding the simplicity of its design while at the same time marveling at its embodiment of the Bauhaus principle of form following function. Indeed, Walter Gropius is rumoured to have included prunes with every meal during his later years, not only to aid his peristaltic action but also to give him reason to visit one of the true monuments to his life's teachings: the toilet bowl. It cannot be emphasised enough that if you had designed the classic toilet potty you could have retired there and then, content that you had reached the zenith of your intellectual and creative abilities and would never have to worry about earning money again.

And then someone had to go and mention that we use too much water when we flush the toilet.

Now, call me a cynic if you like but we live on an island that has been deluged by floods these past few years. The Saudis can extract water from the sea, desalinate it and drink it without any problem. We, a so called advanced country, leaders of the Industrial Revolution, surrounded by water and besieged by Biblical rains 10 months of the year, can only do what we are becoming world famous for and create an inferior version of something that already performed faultlessly. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the modern water saving toilet.

On the face of it, the water saving toilet is an improvement on the classic design. It serves the same function but spares the Earth's most abundant resource. But is it really an improvement? Let us consider another simple and timeless piece of design: the snooker table. What could be simpler? A flat surface, 6 pockets for the balls to fall down. Marvelous. Imagine if someone decided to improve the humble snooker table by redesigning the pockets. Now, instead of the ball dropping down into the pocket and disappearing, the ball drops onto a small shelf where it sits until you manually remove it or poke it into the hole with a brush. Imagine further, if you will, that snooker balls have a soft brown outer coating and that the shelf that they land upon in this 'new and improved' snooker table is made of white porcelain. Suddenly the act of potting the brown has resulted in you having to perform two further operations: removing it from the shelf and cleaning up any residue it almost certainly left behind.

Now come with me if you will to a world beneath the sea. Here you will never see fish swimming up to the underwater flora and sniffing it. There are two reasons for this: fish don't have nostrils and you can't smell anything under water. That's right, you can't smell anything. However foul. Deposit it beneath water and you are spared the olfactory distress. This was another feature of the classic toilet design. Pretty much 99% of deposits ended up beneath the water line. Introduce a stopping off point on this journey to the North Sea and you lose this benefit.

I trust nobody needs pictures to understand these design flaws...

Courage and creativity part II

‘Courage, also known as bravery and fortitude, is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation.’
Wikipedia

There’s one word that really stands out for me in the Wikipedia definition of courage: uncertainty. In business, as in most aspects of life, we are expected to make the right choice, do the right thing, behave the right way. The flaw in this thinking is that it assumes there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between. Decision making is not always so clear cut. Often there may be several possibilities where the outcome isn’t certain either way, but the potential for moving beyond the status quo justifies the risk.

What is required is less judgement and more consideration of possibilities. Unfortunately creativity is deemed the preserve of people with long hair and Bench T-shirts, not the bed fellow of enhancing the bottom line. How do you introduce a culture of creative thinking into a company? I’ll ponder that one and get back to you. There are companies who value creativity and courage, to the point where they employ expensive business strategists and futurologists to do what they could be doing themselves. If only they were brave enough.

Courage can be defined as the ability to confront uncertainty. Creativity thrives on the uncertainty of an outcome to generate new ideas. Therefore, it can be said that creativity incites courage. Or put another way, creativity encourages people to be brave.

What are we teaching our kids?

I'm going to my first school parent's evening tonight. Nothing unusual in that except my kids don't start school till next year. So why bother? Well, the school invited mrs pigs & bees and myself along to meet the teachers and ask any questions we might have. This is a lot different to how it was in my day when you presented yourself before the headmaster to receive your school tie and a pep talk on what was expected of you. You're 4 years old, you have responsibilities now. But have things really changed that much? Getting 15 GCSEs at A * grade is easier than getting to £32,000 on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?', everyone has a degree in 'Media Studies' or 'Women's Studies' or 'The Study of Studying' yet once they start work people behave the same way they behaved 50 years ago. So what are we teaching them? Or more importantly, what are people learning?

Edward de Bono has spent his life promoting the need to teach people how to think. No, not people who have had an axe stuck in their head and need to relearn the basics. You. Me. Everyone. His argument is that schools don't teach kids how to think yet with a few hours tuition people can really unleash their potential creativity. Ah, but I'm not creative, I hear you say. Well, actually you are. You may not be a Van Gogh or Da Vinci but creativity isn't something bestowed upon the chosen few, like a hump on the back, it's a skill that can be learned just like mathematics and reading and writing. Check out Dr Ed's website for more info: http://www.edwdebono.com

This got me thinking to what else we might never have been taught at school. Now, if there's one thing that anyone in this crazy business needs it's a firm belief that they've got a set of stones on them like a pair of granite space hoppers. (Yes, especially the women.) Yessiree, when it comes to courage creatives are kicking the Army Rangers out of the way. We know no fear. We laugh in the face of failure, sat here in our world of comfy chairs and marker pens that smell like Bakewell Tart. Unlike the people we work for. Clients, we sometimes feel, are bereft of even the smallest plums. A distant cousin to the jelly fish, as my art teacher at school used to say. But can we really be that different? We are all trying to do well. All worried about paying the mortgage.

Is courage something that you can learn? I don't have the answer but welcome comments.

Fork in hell

The common or garden fork is an often-seen creature at this time of year.

He spends most of his time nestled amongst the other members of his brood in a little compartment in the cutlery drawer, but a couple of times a day the humble fork leaves the confines of his nest and goes out to feed.

This is when sightings are most common. The fork loves to frolic with his close cousin, the knife. The knife is an altogether different beast, although she sleeps with her family in a compartment just a couple of inches from the forks.

Together they feed, plunging together into steaks and vegetables and sausages, rubbing against each other in a merry dance, celebrating the pleasure of food, and being cutlery.

There are some foods, however, the knife and fork do not like so much. Nachos are always difficult, and so is soup. For these, the plate must be cleared by the Great Speckled Spoon, who sometimes returns after the main feeding has done and helps with pudding.

However, though the fork and knife are indeed similar, they differ in a few important details. One of these is that only the fork is allowed to venture into the mystical land of The Mouth. This is sacred ground on which the knife must never tread. She must hold back, lying discarded in the gravy while the fork, his tines plunged deep into a juicy piece of pie, heads onwards and upwards for the land of The Mouth.

Despite this, the fork is unhappy. He mourns because he must spend his life upside down. He is sentenced to this punishment by the evil Table Manners - the same mysterious powers that decree that the humble knife should never venture to The Mouth.

You see, the fork evolved over millions of years into a special shape which makes him ideal for scooping up food. His tines curve gracefully upwards from base to tip, creating a perfect recess for holding porridge, or beans or rice.

How he would long to carry food to the land of The Mouth nestled in his scoop-like shape, but the evil Table Manners have decreed otherwise. Throughout his long life, since his birth in Sheffield (all forks are born in Sheffield), the Table Manners have forced him to carry tiny, insignificant portions of food balanced upon his back. Over and over he journeys to The Mouth, dreaming of the day the evil Table Manners will be overthrown.

You can help poor little forks the world over. Would you use a spade upside-down? Then why do something equally silly with a fork?

Help us liberate forks the world over - turn them back the right way up and scoop away to your heart's content.

The menswear department? Yes it's just up the stairs...

...through children's wear, ladies' wear, homewares and DIY, then carry straight on through the home entertainment department, past tools and DIY (DIY is so popular we've devoted two areas of the store to it), straight through the food court and you'll find it right in front of you.

This is how some people treat Google keywords advertising, assuming that you'll jump through hoops to see if their offering is actually the product you want. Well I, and millions of others like me, don't do hoops. We know what we want and if you can't show it to us we'll go elsewhere. Bye bye.

It's not hard to have people land at the page of the thing they are searching for when they click your sponsored link. If you don't know how to do it, visit our website and send us a message. We'll tell you how.

Training flight

I want one. Hours of fun with the theme from Airwolf playing on surround sound as I take chunks out of the paint on the ceiling.

Chocks Away!

Tally ho chaps, a fine day for flying, what?

Ten hundred hours: Pigs & Bees HQ, station scrambled. New Company Helicopter arrived. Rather a poor show on the first flight, a few near misses and whatnot, but with the addition of some precision blue-tack ballast we soon had her flying.

Ten Thirty Hours: Refueled and took on a scouting mission downstairs. Extended flight with Flight Lieutenant Bob at the stick. Jolly good show!

Twelve Hundred Hours: Papa Alpha Bravo One flew a recce over Ubergruppemeister Mike's Giant Pie of Mass Destruction. Wing Commander Phillips was at the controls when the crate got into a bit of a scrape down the back of the cupboard. A full scale rescue mission had to be launched, but proved to be successful.

Thirteen thirty Hours: Refueled and ready for flight again but all evidence of Ubergruppemeister Mike's Giant Pie of Mass Destruction has disappeared....

I know how Hans Blix felt.

Roger and Out.