NeilCocker.com

I’ve had a great 24 hours.

I went to a preview screening of The Social Network last night. It’s a great film about Facebook, it’s creator Mark Zuckerberg, and the lawsuits that followed. It was written by Aaron Sorkin who wrote The West Wing, my favourite TV show of all time. It’s such a smart piece of cinema, and one I expect will comfortably have a massive opening weekend. Harvard law professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig agreed, but thought it slightly missed the point. His review makes some interesting observations about the reasons behind the phenomenal success of Facebook, and where Zuckerberg’s genius really lays. Regardless, the film comes with my hearty recommendation.

Today I was already in a good mood due to having had our big new offices to work in – it’s so nice to not be in cramped surroundings any more – and having watched the 3rd Chilean miner rescued from the bowels of the earth. I know that the news channels have taken a bit of flak for their 24 hour rolling coverage of it, but I was quite happy to have such a positive story oust the daily drudgery that we’re normally subjected to. It was a joy to hear news of every miner released. I admit to having shed a tear or two on watching the miners being reunited with their families. In my head I could hear David Tennant’s Dr Who exclaiming the brilliant, tenacious, wonderful, altruistic nature of human beings! Stories like these warm my heart, and give me hope.

But the day got even better. I went to see “Alvin Ailey – American Dance Theater” at the Wales Millenium Centre. I’ve seen quite a lot of contemporary dance over the last few years, and thoroughly enjoyed all of it, but this was among the very finest I’ve ever seen (maybe only topped by a performance that included this piece by Sylive Guillem).

It was stunning. Warm, smart, funny, and sexy. And it had buckets of soul. And I don’t mean to use “soul” as a lazy tag for “black” (Ailey’s company are almost exclusively african american, and perform to Nina Simone, gospel choirs and jazz-funk). I mean it to signify the humanity the performance was imbued with. Contemporary dance can often feel slightly “alien” and disconnected from reality (e.g. this piece I saw in London a few years ago), as if the dancers are recreating other-wordly movements, a purely athletic and artistic exercise. But Alvin Ailey’s dancers feel warm, and human, and perform with undisguised joy on their faces. It was an honour to be within a few feet of them for a few hours. They earned and deserved their lengthy standing ovation.

I’ve decided to close down NOCCI in its current form. It’s been a while coming, but it feels like the right thing to do.

The network started in the summer of 2007 in Cardiff as an antidote to the many business networks that seem to be populated by middle aged white men thrusting business cards at each other, only interested in where their next sale was coming from. At NOCCI events (which was  called “Pollen” in the early days), there was very little agenda – just the chance for likeminded creative people and entrepreneurs to come together, have a drink on us, and make some new friends. It was a huge success and hundreds of people came to the early events in Cardiff.

Since then we’ve run NOCCIs all over the UK, had people meet at them that have gone on to form businesses together, seen hugely productive business relationships established, firm friendships forged, and been asked to help everyone from marketing agencies to the Welsh Assembly Government with communicating with people in the creative industries.

However, in the last 18 months my time has been increasingly pulled towards my main business, Dizzyjam, and I’ve had little to no time to put into NOCCI.

I realised that certain things needed to be improved with the network and website for it to flourish and fulfill its potential to be a creative industries network that was useful for anyone and everyone who wanted to be part of it, wherever they were in the world.

Firstly it needed some strong editorial input. Secondly it needed to be a central “calendar” where anyone could post relevant events. And thirdly it needed a better profile management and search system so that people could find likeminded people in their desired location in order to collaborate with them.

But with no time to devote to it, and with NOCCI having been set up as a pure labour of love, it needed an investor of some sort. I spent a lot of time speaking to potential investors, but ultimately it was a difficult sell. And without the backing, I found it difficult to administrate the network, set up new events, respond to the requests to run events from all over the world, plus justify the expense of adding the required functionality to the website.

But in that time there’s been a few other sites that have launched and/or come to the fore that are doing a brilliant job of either offering those services or improving on what NOCCI does.

Firstly, Creative Boom has loads of great articles about the creative industries and has started running events around the country, too. It’s also a fantastic looking site.

Secondly, Creative Everyone has just launched, which fulfills a really important function that I wanted NOCCI to have. Namely, to provide a place where anyone can list an event they’re running. There’s so many great events running around the world, it’s fantastic to have somewhere that lists them all.

Also, I’ve often had ideas that I haven’t quite had the skillset to fulfill myself. And it’s been difficult to know where to find fellow entrepreneurs who have those skills I lack, and might want to join me to bring them to fruition. It looks like new startup Matchfounders might just be the place I’ve been looking for.

These sites all fulfill important functions that I wanted NOCCI to have. I wanted NOCCI to be all these things and more. But with them all appearing to do such a great job it seems silly to spend a lot of time and money bringing NOCCI up to speed.

An honourable mention should also go to Pete Lawrence‘s new project, PicNic Village, which promises to be really interesting.

However, the work I’ve been doing in the creative industries will continue. I’ll still be running events that bring creative people together, most notably Ignite Cardiff and TEDxCardiff, which I organise with Claire Scantlebury. I’ll also continue to help out any organisation that needs help with creative business, creative entrepreneurship and the creative industries in general.

Huge thanks must go to Claire Heat, who was a massive source of help and support in the early days when we were setting up, and Jo Burnett who was constantly helpful and willing to lend a hand. And also Bob in Middlesbrough, who started running events there that were the most successful of any NOCCI events outside of Cardiff.

I’ve had an amazing time running the network, met some incredible people who’ve gone on to be great friends, and I just hope it was of some benefit to the thousands of global visitors to the site, and the many, many hundreds of people around the UK that attended its events.

Thank you!

Edit: I’ve set up a new website/blog to cover this topic: Blackspotting.com.

Thanks to the many people who read and commented on my last blog about needing some time away from technology, the web, and social media.

It helped clarify a lot for me, and it gave me two ideas:

1 – Being someone who likes a physical challenge, and having not been able to do a triathlon this year due to injury, the thought of doing something relatively physical whilst getting away from it all appealed to me.

The current plan is to walk the length of the Taff Trail and back. A return trip from Cardiff to Brecon, in other words, along the Taff river and through the foothills of the Brecon beacons. It’s about 110 miles all in all. I may even make a small detour to climb Pen Y Fan. Just me, a small tent, a few books, and enough provisions to see me through. No phone, no laptop, no communications technology.

I plan to do this before the end of the year. The only problem is that I anticipate it’ll take 3 or 4 days, and I’m not sure where I’ll squeeze that in. The only weekend I have completely free before November (when the thought of doing it gets a little less appealing) is this weekend. Which makes the next 24 hours a bit hectic, if I’m definitely going to do it.

If anyone has any thoughts on campsites, places to stop, things to do on the way, then please let me know in the comments. I’ve given this incredibly little thought so far (it really is just an idea at this stage, but may be a fullblown plan by tomorrow morning), so any thoughts about how much food etc I should take with me, or whether there’s enough shops on the way, and all that kind of jazz would be very useful. It’s been a good few years since I planned an “expedition” like this, especially at such short notice. I walked a very hilly 62 miles in 24 hours once, so I reckon I could *just* do it in 3 days at 12 hours of walking a day. Or maybe I should take a more leisurely 4 days? Suppose it depends on where I can camp….

2 – Maf’s comment about a regularly enforced blackout, and the possibility of a local cottage where you could go in order to get away from it all, gave me an idea.

What if I found a space/venue/hall/cottage near Cardiff where a bunch of people could go (once a month?), hand in all technology at the door, then enjoy being “offline” for a few hours. It would maybe need two rooms (one for chatting, discussing ideas & books etc, and one room for silent reading, thinking, “cogitating”!), and possibly a few simple rules. These are just off the top of my head, and it may be that after some discussion they are completely without merit or totally un-needed.

e.g.

• You have to commit to attending for at least, say, four hours there – no point just nipping in for half an hour to say hello to everyone and then leaving. Nobody benefits from that.
• You have to spend your first 30-60 minutes there in the “quiet room” in order to calm down from the outside world. You can spend all your time there, if you like.

So, what does everyone think?

Your ideas for my walk, and for the monthly “digital switchoff” in the comments below, ta!

Edit: I’ve set up a new website/blog to cover this topic: Blackspotting.com.

I’m sat in my Mum’s kitchen, looking out over the Cotswolds. I grew up around here. It’s beautiful, and reminds me of why I love getting out running, biking and walking in the countryside. Something I do criminally rarely these days.

I’m also wondering why I’m on my laptop when I could be out there.

I read Charlie Brooker’s excellent piece the other day about Google Instant, and how it’s probably indicative of our dwindling attention spans as we suffer our daily digital onslaughts. These distractions, combined with procrastination, are a guarantee that nothing gets done, he writes:

“I entered the room at 10.30am. Because I was interested in the phone-hacking story, I’d set up an automatic Twitter search for the term “Coulson” (eavesdropping, essentially: he’d hate it). Whenever someone mentioned his name, a window would pop up in the corner of my screen to alert me. Often their messages included a link to a webpage, which I’d end up skim-reading. This was on top of the other usual web distractions: emails, messageboards, self-deluding “research” on Wikipedia, and so on.

By 1pm I’d written precisely three lines of script. Yet my fingers had scarcely left the keyboard. My brain felt like a loose, whirring wheel that span with an audible buzz yet never quite touched the ground.”

This all sounded incredibly familiar. I’ve spoken publically about my inate procrastination, and the deadly combination of social media and lack of self-discipline. And I know I’m not the only one. Google Instant seems to be the next step. But one that’s completely un-needed. When Google Instant was launched I tweeted that I felt it was breeding impatience. But Brooker (as usual) communicated our shared inability to deal with the onslaught far more eloquently and intelligently than I ever could.

“My attention span was never great, but modern technology has halved it, and halved it again, and again and again, down to an atomic level, and now there’s nothing discernible left. Back in that room, bombarded by alerts and emails, repeatedly tapping search terms into Google Instant for no good reason, playing mindless pinball with words and images, tumbling down countless little attention-vortexes, plunging into one split-second coma after another, I began to feel I was neither in control nor 100% physically present. I wasn’t using the computer. The computer was using me – to keep its keys warm. (Apart from “enter”, obviously. I didn’t even have to press that.)

By 5.30pm I’d written half a paragraph. I went home in disgust.”

Oh, Charlie. You’re in my head.

I walked around a village fete earlier with my Mum and girlfriend. Despite it being a sunny day, and being with loved ones climbing on a fire engine and laughing at morris dancers, I couldn’t resist a cheeky peek at Twitter on my phone, and to log in to see how many t-shirts Dizzyjam had sold today. None of this solved anything, made me feel better, or indeed more enlightened. I discovered that John was driving over to drop a boxset back to Jonny. But, y’know, so what? (sorry gents!).

Also, I’m increasingly conscious that these forms of social media play merry havoc with your ego. It’s all too easy to get drawn into the trap of caring how many followers you have, or actually planning the best time to post a blog or tweet to get maximum coverage. I know it’s crossed my mind before, and I hate that. I don’t think it’s healthy, and I want to engage in the positive parts of the internet and social media, but without deluding myself that anyone out there (apart from a few friends and family) is actually that fussed about what I think. Blogging for me has always been about getting my thoughts down, rather than blogging with a particular purpose or, worse, to gain a wider audience.

So, something needs to change.

I need to enforce a digital blackout for 72 hours or more. I need to cease all social media communication, all email contact and, maybe, all telephone contact. A complete shutdown. A means of “resetting” my need for constant informational update. Maybe if I can go without for a period of time, when I return to it I’ll have a little more “control”. It’ll also be an interesting experiment, I think.

Here’s where you come in. I need suggestions. I want to be away from social media and the like for between 3 and 7 days. I want to be without phone or laptop. I want to have a few books, a pen and some paper. But equally I want to do something. The weather’s getting worse, and the nights are drawing in, but the idea of cycling up to North Wales, or hiking out to Pembrokeshire appeals to me.

But, I’m completely open to suggestions. Maybe you know of some cave that I can go and hide out in, or a monastery that might have me for a few days….

I’m often aware that life is steadily and inexorably passing by, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Like it’s water leaking from a dam and I’m a Dutch boy whose finger isn’t big enough to stem the flow. The incessant trickle of time can’t be stopped.

And the only reason I worry about it is because I want my life to have been a full and exciting one, and I’m frustrated when things I’m involved with seem to be taking too long. I’m very lucky to have led the life I have. I can safely say it’s not been boring so far.

As humans we’re target driven. We’re constantly looking for the next best thing. Always comparing our circumstances to those of the people around us. But this will never bring lasting happiness because there will always be somewhere nicer to live, a bigger car to own, a better job to have. The grass will always, always be greener.

Daniel Gilbert gave this fantastic TED talk about why we’re wrong about we think makes us happy. As a stark example, he compares the self-reported happiness levels of lottery winners and spinal injury victims 6 months after the lucky/unlucky event. They’re both about the same. In other words, our circumstances contribute to our happiness levels much less than we would expect.

To highlight this fact, the site GlobalRichList.org allows you to input your salary then tells you where you stand compared to the rest of the world in terms of wealth. If you earn just £24,000 you are in the richest 2% of people on the planet. Do you feel in the top 2%of happiest people in the world? With all the money and stuff we have aimed for, then acquired and consumed, are we truly happier?

The more statistically minded among you may enjoy this link: The economic view of happiness – Wikipedia

The reason for this slightly introspective post is that I’m writing this on the day of a funeral of a friend, Chris, who died in a cycling accident last week. It also marks what would have been the 36th birthday of my best friend, who’s sadly no longer with us. Alongside this, I’m starting to notice more and more of my friends are questioning their lives. Is this it, they ask? They see themselves spending the next 30 years sitting behind a desk, to come home every night to TV and a bottle of wine, before retiring and just waiting to die.

Life is short, and we can spend much of it chasing after things that will only make us happy for a short while before we start chasing the next thing. I think the trick is to discover what really makes us happy, and not confuse it with what gives us (inevitably temporary) pleasure.

Or, as John Lennon once said, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

As a so-called entrepreneur I’m inevitably target driven, but I’m constantly reminding myself that reaching these targets isn’t necessarily what will make me happy. That next bit of business progress might give me short-lived pleasure, but true lasting happiness will come elsewhere. Friends, family, relationships, charity, security etc?

Maybe.

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.