NeilCocker.com

Flaming Lips, live at Green Man. Taken by "CZMJ", licensed under Creative Commons.

I’ve just returned from Green Man Festival. I loved it. I’ve had the opportunity to go several times in the past, but somehow fate has always conspired to stop me. And once I wimped out simply because the weather looked as bad as it was shaping up to be this weekend.

As it happened, I found myself driving off-site on Sunday afternoon with a heavy heart and slight case of sunburn. I tuned into Green Man radio as I drove away and wished I could have stayed another night. The signal from the site held on bravely until the outskirts of Abergavenny when it disappeared into a haze of white noise. I genuinely felt quite sad.

Pete Lawrence, founder of The Big Chill and credited by many as the daddy of the modern “boutique” festival, recently wrote about how festivals are losing their heart and soul. Not Green Man. I was instantly bewitched by its mountainous backdrop, eclectic music policy, and friendly crowd. It felt very much like the early events that Pete used to organise, but on a grander scale. I was told that the capacity was between 10 and 15,000 people. Despite it being clear that there were a lot of people there, it “felt” a lot more intimate.

Highlights included John Grant (I’m a new fan – what a voice), F**k Buttons (brilliant), Race Horses (is it me, or are they all about 12 years old!?) and Flaming Lips (now that’s how you do a live show!). But mainly it was just fantastic just ambling around the beautiful site, bumping into the many friends who’d come up from Cardiff and the rest of the UK.

It got me excited about festivals again, and how they could bolster your faith in the human spirit. And on that note, I’m even more excited about Festinho this weekend, and my company’s involvement in it! A little less mud than there was at Green Man, and I’ll be happy….

Oh, and I gave a short talk in the Einstein Gardens while I was there. I promised a few people I’d upload the presentation so they could check out some of the links in it. I’ll add the script/notes when I get a spare minute. Without them many of the slides will make no sense…!

Also, last week I received an intriguing package (including a stick of rock) from Sam Pointon. He’s seven years old and, as he explains in this BBC News article, the Director Of Fun at the National Railway Museum. They start them early these days. Behind the “stunt” was London agency Nonsense who were also behind the 24 Hour Startup I wrote about a while back. Clearly they were hoping that I would write about it, thus gaining them some small coverage in the “Twitter/blogosphere”, and in that respect it’s worked. I think it could be an example of marketing agencies returning to using real-life “things” for promotions. I know first hand that a million views on Youtube, for example, doesn’t necessarily equate to any actual income. It’s useful to be able to go to the press and say “hey, we’ve had a bazillion tweets and 14 trazillion myspace plays, but that still doesn’t mean anyone’s going to buy your record.

So I predict we’ll see a move away from purely digital marketing activities (I’m sure it’s already happening anyway!). I’m sure someone will find the perfect mix of the physical and the digital.

I implore you to watch these two videos. They take a total of 10 minutes to watch, but I GUARANTEE they will change the way you behave today and, hopefully, tomorrow.

Take a few minutes out of your day to watch them without distraction.

Don’t be put off by the fact that the first video has “poetry” in the title. Note – it also contains a few swears. The second one is just beautiful and humbling…

Edit: A few people on iPads and iPhones report not being able to see this second embedded video. Click here to watch on Vimeo.

Hat tip to Dave Haynes for the first and, I think, Duke Stump for the second.

Thanks to an invite by Hannah Waldram, the Guardian’s Cardiff blogger, I spent most of the day today working in a floating office. The guys behind it are selling these brilliant, airy spaces for £60,000. With mooring costs of about £2,000 a year it could be a really cost effective way of having some great office space. And the cost of relocation to any mooring space in the UK being very cheap, you could decide to move your whole operation anywhere at the drop of a hat.

The video doesn’t really give you the space and light that one of these units has.

Some of you may remember my blog about Indycube, a co-working space just outside Cardiff. Indycube is up and running since that last blog, and a brilliant place to work. Well, you could comfortably fit 6 to 8 people in here (the inside can be configured in many ways). So who’s up for chipping in? It could be another perfect co-working space in a city that’s crying out for them.

Also, I chatted with the company directors about the potential for living in them. It’s a real possibility, apparently with the relevant modules and partititons being simple to put in. With the units being so cheap in comparison to most of today’s housing, and the environment being so pleasant (you get used to the *very* gentle “swaying” very quickly, and having families of ducks and swans floating past the enormous window), I could very happily see myself living in one.

Thanks to directors Steve and Andy for their lovely hospitality and the interesting chats about the huge potential for the future of working (and living) on water…

Edit – Hannah liveblogged her experiences with more photos and video. Check it out here.

Last weekend I bought the Daily Mirror for the first time. And all because there was a free Prince album given away with it. And it’s not very good. But then I wasn’t really expecting it to be.

In my teens I was a huge fan of Prince. I still believe him to be about the most influential artist of his generation (even if he was the less visibly successful than some of his peers). But, most would agree he peaked in about 1987 at the age of 29. From the late seventies to the late eighties he produced a string of stunning albums, all genre-mashing, boundary-pushing, politician-scaring stuff. Here’s a radio documentary I wrote and produced about that period.

I don’t really own more than a few of his albums beyond the early nineties because he seemed to stop producing complete albums of high quality material. Some would argue that if he didn’t put out so much material (his discography hints at an incredible 24 albums released since 1990), and that if he put one out every 4 or 5 years, there may be more consistency.

I think it may be more to do with his age.

There are so many artists who set the world alight as young men or women, who never quite manage to retain that creative edge, that innovative streak. At 52, Prince is very definitely a middle aged man, and no matter how much his appearances suggest otherwise, I’m sure he’d normally prefer to curl up under a blanket with a herbal tea and a good book, than be trying to concoct an irresistible groove and pen provocative lyrics.

But Neil, I hear you cry. What about Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Marc Bolan? Surely these icons of rock and pop greatness would still be pushing the boundaries, being rebels, and railing against the establishment if they were alive today?

Nope. They’d be trotting out (admittedly very high quality) pop and blues numbers to stadium audiences like their contemporaries who were equally ground-breaking in their day (see Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Pete Townshend who hoped he’d “die before I get old”). Even arch-punk John Lydon is selling butter.

We all mellow with age. And while some genres of music, such as classical and jazz, value talent and experience over youthful verve, almost no musicians can keep that fire in their belly for long…

Will you be able to retain your fire?

Having said all that, I often use DJs as a good metaphor for the importance of perseverance in business. Surely DJing is the ultimate “young man’s game”? Well, having been there and done that I can definitely say that it is. But, and it’s a big but, if you think of the biggest name DJs and dance music prodcuers in the world, the ones who’ve been at the top of their game for a while now…. Who are they? Fatboy Slim? Carl Cox? Pete Tong? They’re 47, 48, and 50. Hardly young men any more.

My point is that these guys had been doing it for a long time before they became “famous”. Their age is synonymous with perseverance and experience. If you’re good enough,you have enough self-belief, and you stick around long enough, you’ll vastly increase your chances of having your “big break”. And this is comparable with business, enterprise and all creative endeavours. It’s just a case of whether you’ve got enough passion to stick with it when all around you are giving up and going for the safe option (whether that’s hanging up their headphones, or packing in the startup for a “proper” job).

You so often hear of people finally making a success of their fifth business. That’s not necessarily because the previous four businesses were rubbish. It just took them four businesses to accumulate the knowledge and experience necessary to start and run a successful one. Of course, some strike the golden formula on their first go, but most aren’t that lucky.

Just think of the band Pulp, heralded as overnight successes with their 1994 album His n’ Hers. Nobody mentioned the albums they’d been releasing for a decade before that, and the countless gigs in sweaty backrooms of pubs they’d played in order to get to that point

What have you started, and how long are you going to stick with it?

I was chatting to a few people I met today and they invited me out on Thursday night. I replied that I had swim training every Thursday, but that I’d try to join them afterwards.

Them: “Oh, what are you training for?”

Me: “A triathlon”.

Them: “Wow, that’s incredible!”

Me: “Not really. I’ll be happy just to drag my gasping corpse across the finish line. I have no delusions of being particularly competetive”.

Them: “Even so, it must put you in the top one percent of people in terms of fitness”.

That got me thinking…

I briefly talk about my reasons for entering a triathlon here (12th September in Weymouth, if you fancy coming to cheer me on!), but I neglect to mention that a lot of it really is just about fitness. I enjoy being fit, but I find it easy to find reasons not to go out and train. I’ll put it off, and then put on weight, and feel worse about myself. But having something to aim for is always a good motivator. Besides, myself and my co-triathlete Steve have a decade of music industry excess to shed!

But when I thought about it, I thought that the top one percent is actually something worth aiming for, and that it’s achievable for all of us. We idolise those who achieve excellence and often assume that such heights are out of the reach of us mere mortals. But I think that being average shouldn’t be a barrier to doing great things.

I consider myself to be pretty average in every way, but looking at it through the eyes of the people I met earlier today I can see how they think that doing a triathlon is special. And after a bit of consideration I suppose that I am in the top one percent of mid-thirties men in terms of fitness. Or thereabouts.

To acheive that top one percent may seem extraordinary. But to be better, to do more “incredible” things, than 99 percent of the population (or your age/peer group) doesn’t take any special skills or talent. It’s just a case of putting your mind to it. By just deciding to do something you already put yourself ahead of 90 percent of people. Then by achieving your goal you’re ahead of the the remaining 9 percent.

Of course, there’s always going to be the naturally gifted, and exceptionally committed, (those like Gebrsellassie, Messi, Bolt, Federer…) who make up the 0.001 percent of people. But there’s nothing stopping any of us achieving the top one percent in fitness, business, academia etc. It’s just a case of deciding to do it, then just doing it.

Don’t be shy. Tell me what you’re in the top one percent for…

*No actual mathematics, calculators or statistics were used in the formulation of this blog post.

OK, so it’s the worst title for a blog post ever.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending some time sitting in the office of a middle-aged, and very successful, “traditional” businessman. And by that I mean he ran a company in the service industry in which, on the surface of it, many of us wouldn’t consider particularly exciting. His company has a turnover in the millions, and was growing rapidly.

He was smart, engaging, open-minded and over the course of two meetings we struck up a good rapport. It occurred to me that he would make an ideal business mentor. Many entrepreneurs swear by their mentors, and rightly so. For most in the early stages of their business lives they are an invaluable source of support, wisdom and advice. But one thing that’s never really discussed is the benefits that the mentor could get out of the relationship.

In my meeting with the successful businessman he mentioned how he felt many of his peers were staid and negative in their approach to business, and that the business scene in Cardiff was lacking in inspiration. I replied that he needed to meet some of the people I chat to on a regular basis. Some of the most creative, innovative, and inspirational “young” people I know are living and working here in Cardiff, building exceptionally exciting businesses. I wondered how much he would benefit from coming to a TEDxCardiff or NOCCI event, which are characteristically attended by early adopters, ambitious startups, entrepreneurs, web-heads, and people at the innovative, cutting edge of what Cardiff has to offer.

So here’s my proposal – what about a scheme that pairs up younger and older entrepreneurs? The wisdom and mentoring would still be “passed down” from the older of the two, but the younger would be able to reignite their passion for innovation, introduce them to new technology and ways of working.

I was in Ireland last weekwith Mediasnackers, helping people learn about social media, and how to engage with their audience on a really personal level. Many of them were from the generation above mine, and once they had the opportunity to see new technology and media in action and play with it (rather than just seeing it referenced in newspapers), they were absolutely blown away at the potential. Until that point they had seen the new web/media landscape as this insurmountable mountain of buzzwords and brandnames. But once you can sit them down and show them, they understand very quickly.

And so imagine what would happen if once a month (or however frequently suited them), these two entrepreneurs sat down over lunch and chatted. That one-to-one aspect is considered integral to the success of mentoring, so surely it could benefit the more senior of the pairing too… The wealth of business experience would flow one way, and the knowledge and access to exciting, innovative businesses and products would flow the other way.

Good idea? Who could we get to set this up and support it?

And who would you like to be your mentor, and what would they learn from you?

There’s two videos here that I think every new (or old) business should watch. The first one looks at why we do what we do. It’s very powerful and I imagine everyone who watches it re-appraises their business or project. Thanks to DK for introducing me to it.

The second talk is by Duke Stump from last year’s Do Lectures. I was lucky enough to be in the audience for this talk (and sing drunken sea shanties later that evening with Duke). Duke has serious brand expertise from working at the likes of Nike, through to his own brand consultancy focusing on sustainability.

There’s so much great stuff in this talk, and while it’s not instantly clear what the talk is heading towards, the second half builds towards talking about creating a “bonfire brand”, something people gravitate towards in order to get warm and have conversations around. There’s lots of little gems scattered throughout, too, often touching on our responsibility to the world around us.

“If you have a company of meaning, of value, you have created effortless loyalty”.

“Great brands have great cultures”.

“If the US National Electricity Grid was 5% more efficient it would be the equivalent of taking 53 million cars off the road…”

“People don’t want perfection, they want honesty”.

To watch the video, and find out more about Duke, click here.

A few little bits.

1 – Apparently, according to Business Insider Magazine, I’m one of Wales top 25 young entrepreneurs. Which is nice.

2 – If you have an intersting idea and would like to present it at The Green Man festival (Ignite / Pecha Kucha style), and get a free ticket in return, you should download this PDF and have a look.

I think this is fast becoming my new maxim.

We’re in the process of designing and building a brand new site for Dizzyjam, and throughout the process we’ve been keenly spotting opportunities to remove a paragraph here, strip out a step of the sign-up process there, and just delete pages altogether. The simpler it is, the better for our users and customers.

But it’s something I’ve been trying to install into my life as well. Yesterday I was in a really crappy mood. I was tired anyway, but I just had too much to do, and as a result ended up doing very little of it. For the last few months I’ve slowly been dealing with the aftermath of moving house, getting rid of unwanted stuff, changing address on accounts for things I’d forgotten about etc etc. And over the last few days I’ve had the quadruple whammy of having to sort out the MOT for my car, get a new tyre, inform the DVLA of the address change, and start getting quotes for insurance. Partly due to my inefficiencies, and partly due to the inefficiencies of the systems used by those organisations responsible, the whole thing has eaten up a considerable chunk of my week.

And all for what? A car. One solitary possession, albeit a fairly major one, had taken up all that time just to maintain. Imagine what all the other myriad possessions are doing to my time in terms of storage, upkeep, renewal, disposal etc etc. Never mind the environmental and ethical implications of every purchase. The emotional baggage with each possession is enough to drive most of us into the ground!

I gave a talk a while back about my desire to simplify my life, and the last few days have been hammering it home again. Could I rely on public transport, and hire a car when I needed to? Maybe.

But I stumbled across a great article about fell-running, which explored the themes of risk, the wilderness and personal challenge. The following few lines really made me sit up straight. I read them over and over again. And yes, apart from the challenge, this is EXACTLY why I love running, mountain walking and exploring off the beaten track. Some of the wisest words I’ve ever seen written, and all tucked away in the online archives of a newspaper….

“Later, taking a last peek out of our tent door in the hope of discerning a star or two in the cloud-black sky before sinking into the sweetest of exhausted sleeps, we concluded that this was the nub of the matter. We are richer now than we were in Brasher’s day, richer than our parents or grandparents were; but we are also more stressed, more deeply in thrall to the addictions of getting and spending. We have more possessions, and they tyrannise us. Each new mod con must be shopped for, maintained, insured, upgraded; each new thing must be stored, kept track of, kept secure, tidied; each new debt must be serviced; and the whole package is paid for in overwork, time poverty, 24/7 availability and 24/7 insecurity. We have more, and we have less.

In such a world, freedom is both more precious and more elusive. And one of the few surefire ways of liberating ourselves from the tyranny of the consumer society is to put ourselves beyond its reach. This is one of the attractions of all long days in the hills: you escape from all those things”.

And the thing is, we constantly strive for more. For the next thing, promotion, acquisition… And when we get there? The target moves or changes. The grass becomes greener just over that hill. We constantly have a target. And we’re never going to reach one that completely satisfies us, are we?

As an entrepreneur my life is a constant set of targets and goals. But I do them for the challenge and the excitement, not so I can acquire more stuff. But it’s an interesting dilemma. Entrepreneurship is so often about the acquisition of wealth. I want it to be about the acquisition of life….

Photo Credit: “Sunset Runner” joshjanssen @ flickr. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

Those who know me, know that at the end of last summer I attended the Do Lectures (the first of my posts about it here). It was an incredible weekend, and reinforced the concept of “Doing” in my mind. Everyone there was a doer. They changed the world in varying ways, and always for the good. Sometimes just their presence somewhere was enough to have a positive impact. And recently I’ve been thinking more and more about the impact on any given community of the doers within it.

This blog is a small celebration of a handful of people in our community who do cool, creative things that other people benefit from.

Lisa Heledd jones

I bumped into Lisa Heledd Jones and Ben Partridge a few days ago, and they told me that they were off to Machynlleth Comedy Festival as volunteers. It’s the first year for the event, and I’m assuming that it couldn’t survive without the help of volunteers. Lisa and Ben gave their time, all for the love of being involved, and for the good of the community.  I loved reading their tweets from Machynlleth – it sounded like an excellent weekend. And they freely gave their time despite the fact they have enough on their plates as it is. They run The Junket Club, what I can only describe as a series of utterly brilliant “bijou” comedy events that take place in a variety of weird and wonderful locations. They bring top comedians to planetariums, artists’ lofts, churches, and then give all the money to charity.

When you’re at one of their events you feel part of something truly special. Partly because you meet new likeminded people, partly because there’s a real sense of community, partly because it’s just so much fun! And if were to ask Lisa and Ben why they do it, I’m sure their answers wouldn’t be “for the money” (they give it all away, anyway), or for the attention. I’m almost certain their answer would be that it’s for the fun of it. For the love of comedy. And the love of being part of their community and seeing people have fun.

Lisa also co-founded Scrabble Sunday, which has seen many a tile-freak sweat over a triple word score………

Olwen Moseley

Another example is Olwen Moseley of Cardiff Design Festival, another non-profit event that brings the local design community together. And if that’s not enough, she spends her weekends clearing up other people’s litter.

And Matt Joyce, an integral part of the Designer Violence collective who aim to instigate collaboration in the creative community, notably through publishing free magazines of brilliant illustrations just for the joy of sharing what others can do with ink and paper. Alongside that there’s this website he co-curates which has free, beautiful desktops for anyone to download. I only discovered it yesterday, and I’ve already changed my desktop 15 times because there’s so much to choose from!

There’s Claire Hill, co-organiser of Dirty Protest, a regular night of theatre and comedy that showcases some of the best local talent in town. And she’s an integral part of the “arts and crafts” scene (which is probably the un-coolest way I could possibly have described it), getting stuck in with her own range of jewellery.

Matt Joyce

And what about Geoff Rogers who set up Thing A Week to bring photographers of all levels together to have fun and hone their craft? And Claire Heat and Chyrelle Rayman-Bacchus who set up Cardiff Girl Geek Dinners to bring together the local female web/tech community as an antidote to their male-dominated industry.

The thing about these people, these instigators, doers, makers, is that by their very actions they bring people together. They enable us to connect on a more human level, when we live in a super-connected, but less personal world. It’s all very well being able to invite all your friends and family to something cool with the click of a button on Facebook, but there’s got to be someone out there organising the stuff for us to do. And, interestingly, you’ll usually find that these people aren’t just involed in one thing, but several.

It’s become more and more clear to me over recent months and years that life is far too short not to get out there and do fun stuff. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve forced myself to go out to do something with friends when all I wanted to do was sit at home and watch TV. But not once have I ever got back and wished I’d stayed in to watch re-runs of QI. And Facebook, Twitter, and the host of other social media sites/applications out there make this so easy now, and it’s good to have people to give us things to do! There’s even a Facebook group just to bring all the fun stuff together…

So what makes them do what they do?

I wish I knew. Malcolm Gladwell would call them “Connectors”, probably. In his Tipping Point book he describes them as the people who “link us up with the world … people with a special gift for bringing the world together.” They are “a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack [... for] making friends and acquaintances”.

But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s about the desire to have fun, the desire to do something. Anything. To change the world around you, from the most trivial to the most astonishing ways.

And of course, we also see this trait in scientists, charity workers, volunteers…. But I’m talking about those people around us who make the world more fun, more colourful.

This short celebration of the “Doers of Cardiff” is just a handful of people that I happen to know of, and that came to mind. There are many more I’ve missed, and doubtless forgotten.

Please add your doers in the comments. They all deserve to be recognised!

Anyone who knows me, or follows me on Twitter, will know that on Wednesday night I co-organised TEDxCardiff in Wales Millennium Centre. It was an evening of talks and performances by brilliant people from all over the UK. People travelled from as far away as Bournemouth and York to be in the audience. We had people watching live online in far-flung places such as America, Portugal and the middle east. And the whole thing was pulled together in our spare time by Claire and I, with the help of a small handful of brilliant volunteers.

TEDxCardiff is part of a scheme run by TED.com, that allows people to run TED-like events in their own city. If you’re not already aware of it I’ll leave you to discover the brilliance of TED in your own time. It’s basically a conference where brilliant people deliver amazing, courageous, jaw-dropping, inspiring talks.

I’m really looking forward to the talks from our event being edited and going up online so I can share them with those who couldn’t join us on the night. And so I can watch them all again in a more relaxed state!

Firstly, I want to personally thank the speakers and performers for generously giving their time and expertise to give us such an entertaining and inspiring evening. And the sponsors who were so generous with their time and resources. And finally our amazing volunteers who painted, carried, filmed, stapled, ran, bought, designed, created and worked for many, many hours. I am truly in awe of all of them for their commitment.

I learned quite a lot during the process of pulling together:

1.People’s capacity to commit their time for nothing in return, other than to be involved with such an event, is nothing short of amazing. The speakers, sponsors and volunteers all have my undying admiration.

2.If we do this again, we need a bigger team. It was just too much for Claire and I to do just on our own. I took most of the week off and put 45 hours of work into in just the first 3 days this week, and the day itself was incredibly stressful. And things such as press and PR just fell by the wayside while we concentrated on the practicalities of making the event happen.

3.People who don’t pay for tickets, or pay very little, don’t value them as much and are much more likely to not turn up. We had an overwhelming demand for the tickets (they sold out in record time), but on the night we had empty seats in both sessions, which was a real shame, knowing that there were other people who would loved to have been there.

4.The decision to hold the first session at 5pm might have been a little flawed. It’s a bit too early for people to get there from work (and may have accounted for some of the empty seats if people were held up in the office), they haven’t had a chance to get changed, eat, and have a chance to unwind before coming along. That’s possibly why the second session crowd was bigger, and seemingly more responsive.

5. Maybe a Saturday session is the way to go in future. We could do a longer day, with bigger breaks, and some breakout sessions to give people more chance to mingle and “network”.

6. The person who develops a universal presentation software format will earn a fortune, and I’ll personally give them everything in my bank account (£4.67). It was by far and away the biggest source of headaches over the course of the evening. And without DK and Andy, it would have been twice as hard!

7. We probably need to communicate the restrictions of the TEDx format a bit better. The feedback we had often mentioned a desire for Q&As with speakers. Something which the TEDx license doesn’t allow us to do, for example.

8. Having said that, the feedback was almost entirely positive, which is a huge relief. When you’ve put so much time and effort into something for no return, it’s easy to be hurt by any criticism. But there didn’t really seem to be any! Here’s a quick overview of the results:

I’m quite happy with that graph, of course!

(Updated 19/04/10)

Photos courtesy of Ali Gibbs and Rob May. Plenty more here!

Here’s a list of thank-yous. We couldn’t have made this event happen without them:

Wales Millennium Centre – Sponsor
Ed Truckell – Sponsor
Sequence – Sponsor
Multistream – Sponsor

Ian England – programme design
Andy McKay – programme printing and AV assistance
Laura Howe – Set design
Jo Burnett – Runner / Volunteer
Lynsey Jackson – Runner / Volunteer
Kirsten Loza – Runner / Volunteer
Rob May – Photography
Derek Russell – Intro videos
Alistair Gibbs – Photography

And finally, our speakers – DK, Matthew Cashmore, Paul Clarke, Tara Busch, Dave Haynes, Steve Robinson, Wendy Sadler, Ruffstylz & Beatbox Fozzy, Jo Taylor and Robert Simpson.