this is a bench

This is a bench. It's located about eight feet from where I'm moored on the canal at the minute, meaning that when I'm onboard I see or at least hear whoever inhabits it. In the past seven days we've had young French men eating takeaways and drinking pilsner from sunset to late into the night.  Fathers teaching their sons how to fish. Arguing couples, of all ages. Retired couples bringing a home made supper and small bottle of wine to share together, along with sharing two hours of silence. Young Euro architects stopping off after a night of clubbing in the early hours to discuss life love and London, and staying until the sun had long since come up. Gangs of local youths who's use of English was far worse than their behaviour in reality, rambling alcoholics with only super strength cider for company, a nightly visit from the canal bin man and his portable World Service broadcast to announce his arrival, and just about everything in between (it's in Kings Cross after all). If it wasn't for the bench they probably wouldn't stop, as a sit down in the nettles isn't quite as appealing. But they do stop, and take a short, sometimes long, break from where they're going to or coming from. They stop and have proper conversation, or just think for a bit. They sit and spend some time with now.

 

If benches hadn't previously been invented a long time ago I think we'd be getting pretty exited about them right now. They'd be the subjects of blog posts listing what brands can learn from benches, they'd probably attract Governmental funding. We'd call them 'social media for society' and look for monetization opportunities. But we just take them for grantage all those benches, all those conversations, all those stories.

 

bring on the apocalypse

 

Everyone's seems a bit worried about the collapse of capitalism and the ensuing apocolypse. I think it could be a good thing in reality, because it will cause us to become self contained again for a while.

 

Take Cuba for example. They had their own apocolypse when the communist revolution caused them to be isolated from the rest of the world. This in turn caused them to become self contained quite literally with import/export bans put upon them. In theory, and practise, freezing them in time. I went to Cuba a fair few years ago and you get a very real sense of just how frozen in time they are. The fact that all the cars are old American Cadilacs for example, the trade embargos put a stop to many further automobile updates so they just carried on driving what they had. But 50 years later those same cars are still moving, because they have no other choice than to keep them moving.

 

And take for example my boats engine. It's 25 years old but it still keeps my boat moving. As Steve my engineer says "they're good old girls if you keep them happy".

 

So rather than the world coming to an end. We might just learn to live with what we've got for a bit longer. And get self contained.

zocalo's

 

Zocalo is the mexican word for town square, a place where the local community meet to eat, drink, sit and talk. I heard a great story by this chap last week of a community movement in Brighton to create their own Zocalo event once a year, in which local residents are simply asked to put a chair or two outside their front door for the day and chat to anyone who wants to join them. It's called Zocalo Brighton and was set up in 2001 by the group White Dot as a way of encouraging people to watch less telly closed off in their living rooms and form more meaningful relationships/entertainment with the people they live around. Again another great example of social media with not a hide nor hair of that Facebook or twitter stuff.

I've recently been experiencing the same effect on the canal. Having limited inside space your front and deck quickly become your extended living space for eating, reading, smoking and sitting in nature. This then very quickly and naturally leads to conversations with passers by and other boat dwellers. Here I am buttied up to Jesse and Max behind Frank and just down from Tim, all of whome I speak to a few times a day.

 

Perhaps we all just need to sit outside the front door a bit more.

 

lessons from the canal #4

You've got to put the hours in to actually get anywhere.

 

 

Sounds obvious but the days I've started late, had lazy lunches and pulled in early I've clocked up far less miles than when I get going. It's all about the hours.

 

lessons from the canal #3

The best things in life can be free.

 

 

When you live off grid you quickly appreciate how much electricity the stuff you rely upon uses. And principly when it's using more than you're creating.

 

Then you realise that other people actually give their electricity away for free. So you can charge up on their plugs, and use it up onboard. In this example the third floor of the National Theatre, which is sporting a wonderful view of the river today, also free.

 

what does The Big Society actually look like?

I've been involved in a few Big Society type things over the past few months, but like most people I haven't really got a clue what it actually looks like. I've had a breakfast meeting with Lord Nat Wei about it, I've joined The Peoples Supermarket (which Dave thinks is a great example of Big Society) and I've got involved with The Ministry of Stories (also on Dave's Big Society hit list).

 

 

The closest I've got to understanding it all though is another lesson from the canal. The Goverment are planning to turn British Waterways (who currently manage the canals) into a brand new charity. Being a resident of the canals I've been having a look into my prospective new landlord and found the best picture of Big Society yet. Here it is below, it's the blue bit in the below chart. That's all the financial value that will be delivered to the new waterways charity over the next decade by the Big Society. Like it's name it's going to be big, and like it's creators it's blue.

 

 

And just incase you were also wondering what a sustainable business looks like, here's another great example from the same report. It's a business in a circle, like this.

 

 

There we have it.

lessons from the canal #2

Timing, and the last quarter inch.

 

 

When navigating a lock there's always a frustrating delay for the last quarter inch of water to fill inside the lock so that the level of water inside is perfectly aligned with the level outside. It will often look like both are at the same height but if you're a few cm's out the lock door isn't going to budge a millimeter for love nor money. You're pushing against a few hundred tonnes for canal water up until the time when the two levels are perfectly balanced, then and only then the lock gate will easily swing open.

Sometimes you have to wait for things to have their perfect time to work at their very best. Sometimes it looks like it's the right time bit it isn't, and as much as you try to push on through you'll be in for a lot of effort for very little results. But if you keep your patience and plan your timing right you'll be off to the races. It's the reason that some ideas fall flat on their face in their first release to the world, but a few months or years later the exact same idea will take off beyond imagination. Or using time and patience, rather than being completely single minded about 'new shiny things', can see ever increasing results.

lessons from the canal #1

Just as Dan brough us his series of country hazards I will now attempt to bring us lessons from the canal.

 

Number one: parts + labour equate to money.

 

 

I've quickly found that any work done under the bonnet of a boat involves the phrase parts and labour. And when you're broke down you need both, and have to pay pretty much what it takes for both. It's an interesting analogy for all this advertising and marketing stuff. We're all very good at selling labour (services) but far less good with the parts, the products. Sure a 30 second ad could be classed as a product (and everything around delivering it the labour), but it's a very transient product. There's no real upgrades and replacements. No physical things. No warranties, guarantees or 'you get what you pay for'.

 

I'm thinking the very rare examples like BBH's lla alarm. Parts that can be paired up with labour and turned into value.