Clare Townhill

Brain Plasticity and Tiny Breakdancers

A truly amazing video from TED's Chris Anderson on web-taught dance and the effect of video on learning. Astounding stuff:

 

Where am I?

Since SXSW I've developed quite a crush on Genevieve Bell. She's the cultural anthropologist at Intel in the Home Technologies Group. This is her talk 'Context is Everything'.

Marcel the Shell with shoes on

I just adore this little video. Like the brilliance of Pixar's best characters Marcel's cuteness, hopes, dreams and desire for a dog lull the viewer into the bliss of suspended disbelief. Enjoy.

"Pop Not Broth"

All hail the return of Alan Partridge. Alas I'm still no more likely to ever drink Fosters but I'm pretty interested to see if anyone else starts to.

Markets of Britain

Ok Go

What a great way to start the week. So good that I just don't know where to start.

Brand love beyond reason

Two examples of the triumph of brand over reason: Coke and Apple. Coke: despite the silliness of the over-zealous and now shamed coke-exec regarding the literal and cultural diet-coke-mentos explosion, Coke have always been honest about what they sell. They're not in the business of selling syrupy, fizzy soda; the thing they're selling is dreams. Beautifully iterated here by the latest Coke Happiness Machine on a London campus:

Apple, they may make tech (some would of course argue that they just make gorgeous remote controls for the rest of their eco-system) but what they really market is edible design.Happily reacquainted myself with just how funny and true this is:

One video from a brand: one UGC that generates a backlash of wrath from the Apple-lover. Both indicate the kind of money-can't-buy feeling that most companies would kill for yet fail to attain in their pursuit of the brand and product positioning rather than a generation of emotional feeling and brand belonging.

Virginia's iPad

I just love this. I've struggled several times to try to teach my 90 year old Grandma Joan to use a computer: the mouse is a very tricky object for shaky, arthritic hands to manage, let alone the less than intuitive OS that is Windows. The ancient computer in my Grandad's office/'glory-hole' may as well be miles from the warm, comfort of her favourite chair by the telly. This fills me with hope, it also reminds me very much of Jeff Han's TED talk on using touch interface rather than legacy laptop OS for education in developing countries. 

Brand U.0

Watch Personal Branding, David Armano, Critical Mass in Technology  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

King of the Fools

Rick-rolling is all well and good, but this was my definite favourite of the April 1st shenanigans. The Flying Penguins skit from the BBC was a lovely idea, and like all good jokes had a decent amount of effort and craft behind it. I've been really impressed with the positioning and differentiation of the iPlayer within the YouTube market: Making the Unmissable Unmissable. Both a good antidote and complement to 'Broadcast Yourself'. And yet of course, the irony is that I need to go to YouTube and rely on a user to broadcast themselves in order to make the unmissable unmissable beyond the iPlayer site.

Flying Penguins