Zen and the art of Zombie special operations.

A PhD in Operation Market Garden? That'll do nicely

My name is Ed Fowler; I am a long term computer game addict. There I’ve said it. Not exactly controversial to those that know me but it’s still a strong statement of position. It’s not a harmless vice, It’s not without real world effects as well. For example during a blissful three months “gardening leave” when the dot-com bubble collapsed I had an extended period of doing bugger all at home. I could have used the time to up-skill, learn a language, get fit or actually do some gardening.  I spent it getting Zen-good at Return to Castle Wolfenstein. An admirable investment in total pointlessness I'm sure you’ll agree.

Cereal, Obol, cartoons and Fortean times in Bournemouth

Hello, is that the BBC? it's Aliens I tells you, Aliens!

It’s a bit of a portmanteau posting today, frankly I'm mildly hungover and still a bit confused over the depth of thought my daughter has put into her view of the perfect milk-to-cereal ratio.

I want it all, I want it all and I want it now!

Here's one I made earlier and yes the shape is damn near impossible.

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small parts”-- Henry Ford

I admit it, beneath the suave, urbane façade I present to the world, I'm a bit of a geek. Probably a lot of other things as well, but certainly a geek about certain things. I love culinary technology, I love sci-fi, I think games are what computers are made for and I when I want a gadget I want it now.

the dark side of marketing and analytics

too perfect for words..

“Data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” Neuromancer: William Gibson

As I’ve mentioned before, once you get enough data in one place you can throw processor cycles at and reach some interesting conclusions pretty fast. What’s stopped us from doing this in the past was two simple factors, not enough accessible data and the price of processor cycles.

Twit, tweet and edgy marketing

I’m enjoying the cautionary tale of the latest ham fisted twitter marketing campaign as reported by the Telegraph here: Twitter users angered by Rio Ferdinand's Snickers 'adverts'. I’ve always found it amusing how quickly common sense goes out of the window for marketers and celebrities when that locus of time and money gets tight enough.

cake, process and efficiency

are you sure this is the expenses process?

There is a creative process I go through to write each day. It might not look like a process, involving numerous cups of tea, bottles of diet coke, the odd cream bun and the occasional cake, but it’s a process trust me on that.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

Hellooooooo?

“I have this vision of hoards of shadowy numbers lurking out there in the dark, beyond the small sphere of light cast by the candle of reason. They are whispering to each other; plotting who knows what. Perhaps they don't like us very much for capturing their smaller brethren with our minds. Or perhaps they just live uniquely numberish lifestyles, out there beyond our ken.” Douglas Reay

Today I’m thinking about infinity as compared with the limitations of human understanding, specifically the limitations of my own understanding.

Why a systems architect needs cufflinks

There are some days when I'm glad I'm so lazy that I can’t even get up from the sofa where I'm typing this whilst watching Mythbusters blow something up for the three millionth time to find my wallet. Otherwise, if I were more go getting and active, I might have got up, found my wallet and dropped £200 on this pile of geek-crack.

Pay attention 007, just in case your presentation is too big to email...

I want it now

As a society I think we have rather got used to things happening quickly. We’ve all this automation, all this IT, all this production line manufacturing and with the rapid maturation of technologies like 3D printing this is only to get worse. Just about the only area we expect things to take more than days or weeks is construction and even then there are exceptions to that:

15 days? Strewth!

In memoriam for the documents I knew before...

What did I do with that report?

I overheard a comment today from a colleague who was referring to an article from IBM, I don’t get all of it, just the memorable phrase “SharePoint; that document coffin…” which started me thinking. Is SharePoint where we send business content to die?

Innovation, this time it's personal

ooooh curvey!

I’ve been thinking about innovation today. It’s a hot potato for some people and a “tick-in-the-box-next!” question for others. Most of the procurements I see still have some demand for you to illustrate and even enumerate your approach to innovation and what they can expect for their innovation dollars. But what do we mean when se say innovation? How does it help us and our clients?

Peace and quiet

Is your data really as complete as you think it is?

Today is one of those quieter days, which generates rather mixed feelings, on one hand I can get on with a tonne of stuff and finish off this nightmarish proposal but on the other hand the reason the place is quieter is that my daughter has gone back home to her mother’s and the place feels a little too quiet.

A quiet pint

and which one are you?

A day off, well part of a day off anyway. Proposal documents don’t abide by the usual tempo of the working week. Anyway a few hours to read, relax and tune out the mind. In short I could go to the pub. Hopefully to avoid the pillock from a local council with his insane ideas to inadvertently humiliate or enslave humanity in the name of road maintenance.

Marketing in the digital age

I'm a taking a break from completing a proposal. Frankly I’ve been looking at this response template for so long, I'm vaguely afraid I’ll get the bends if I look at something else but it’s time to come up for air. I'm still looking in awe at IBM’s* marketing content from the sixties and seventies. Look at this slice of pure awesomeness.

It really shows that IBM had a distinctive and futuristic in house style but it begs the question, who was this marketing aimed at? In fact it begs the question who is all enterprise marketing aimed at?

The paperwork explosion

In 1967 IBM's office products division commissioned Jim Henson and composer Raymond Scott to create "The Paperwork Explosion," a four-minute advertisement for the MT/ST word-processing machine. It’s frankly NUTS. With jarring dystopian settings, unsettling cast of serious corporate heads, strange music and a bonkers old coot for context. This is how technology should be sold. A four minute mini movie with contemporary orchestral score for a word processor? Brilliant!

Initial post

I suppose it's time to start a blog, a sensible blog, one I can attach my real name to rather than the incoherent drivel I've been writing under various pseudonyms over the years. I can't promise much in the way of insight, quality or indeed legibility but it might occasionally be amusing. Anyway, here it is, enjoy.