NeilCocker.com

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.

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.