Who should I support in Euro 2012?

With the Euro 2012 tournament in full swing - well, they have started, if only with a whimper, not a bang - it's that time again for the Scots. 

No, not to get the kilt and the Scotland top on, and the passport and two bottles of beer stuffed into the sporran. It's a long time since we got the chance to travel with our team to a major tournament.

And trust me, it feels much, much longer.

It's decision time for all Scots. And as a Scotsman, I have to make a decision. Who do I support?

The decision is made. I will be supporting England. You shouldn't be surprised at this. They are, after all, the nearest thing we have to a local team, and I was brought up to support the local team whoever they are.

In any case, you shouldn't believe that scurrilous rumour put about that Scottish fans support two teams... Scotland, and whoever is playing against England. It's simply not true.

We will always support England - unless, of course, they are playing against a country with which we have a lot in common.

Ireland, for example. Another Celtic nation, a land of romance, language and literature, just like Scotland. So when Ireland play England, we tend to favour the Irish.

And Wales. We've got to support Wales - they're Celts too. So that's Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

And in England's first group match, it was France. Because of the "Auld Alliance". France and Scotland were friends long before we became friends with England. Assuming, that is, that we're friends now.

So that's it - Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France. And Canada - we've all got aunties and uncles in Canada. And Australia. And New Zealand. But luckily, they don't play in the Euros. 


Nor do USA. But if they did - cowboys, hamburgers and Bugs Bunny? What's not to like?

Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the USA. 

As long as they don't play any of those countries, we're with England all the way.

But Germany - we've got to support Germany. Come on guys, it was a long time ago. Get over it. And the same goes for Argentina, were this the World Cup. A long time ago, and they were a long way away.

So that's it. We'll support England forever, unless they play Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Germany or Argentina.

Hang on - Italy. Italy? Pizza, Pasta and Pavarotti. You can't go against the Italians.

Or the Spanish - remember the girl in Marbella that summer?

So to recap, unless they're playing Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Germany, Argentina, Italy or Spain, we're singing for England.

Come on England!

(Wait a minute. Holland. Everyone likes Holland, don't they?).

Ziggy Stardust Changed My Life

It was summer, 1972. East Kilbride, a "New Town" near Glasgow. I was 13 years old, and just getting into pop music.

I had  favourite new song, which in the classic, cliched manner I heard first on Radio Luxembourg, under the bedclothes, with a tranny clutched to my ear.

I should explain, in those days a tranny was a transistor radio.

I didn't know if the song was by a man, or a woman, a band or a solo artist - and with the fading and interference that characterised the signal from Radio Luxembourg, I certainly couldn't make out all the lyrics.

But it sounded completely different from anything I'd ever heard in my life before. Everyone has a song like that, I imagine. Something that just sounds completely different, completely new, and completely exciting.

Thursday nights, of course, were for Top Of The Pops.

Unmissable, because in among The New Seekers doing the song from a Coke advert, the Pipes and Drums playing "Amazing Grace" and Benny Hill gurning his way through "Ernie, the fastest milkman in the West" (all of which had been number one that year), there was every chance T Rex might appear.

But that Thursday night I wasn't in front of the TV. I was upstairs, packing a rucksack for the next day's Scout camp, when I heard my dad calling me down to "come and look at this weirdo". Actually, he may not have used the word weirdo.

As I knew TOTP was on at that time, I galloped downstairs, and threw myself on the white, leather sofa in the sitting room.

Actually, it wasn't leather, it was leatherette. And it wasn't the sitting room. In our house it was the living room.

And on the screen, David Bowie. Singing the song, My song. "Starman".

And I could make out the words. More importantly, I could make out the meaning.

He sang "I had to phone someone so I picked on you, hoo, hoo", looked straight down the camera, and pointed his finger out of the screen, into the ether, and right into my eyes.

He was singing this strange, spacey, powerful lyric and he was singing and pointing directly at me!

And in that moment, everything changed.

Someone leant over my shoulder and turned a switch from "mono" to "colour".

I don't mean on the TV. I mean in East Kilbride. In Life. In The World.

From then on, I wasn't a kid, I was a teenager. I liked things my teachers didn't. I cared more about what I was wearing when I went out. I even started to wash.

And I understood cool. Just a little bit - I was never that cool. But the "Ziggy Stardust" album under your arm (big, on old style vinyl) made me feel just a little bit  more cool. More knowing. More aware. And the same was true later with Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Scary Monsters. But obviously not "Let's Dance".

Of course, I realised from later interviews with pop stars that he was also singing and pointing directly at Morrissey, Adam Ant, George Michael, Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet, Boy George, and everyone who ever formed a punk band or became a New Romantic. 

But that's what makes "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars" so important. Not just the album itself, but everything that flowed from it.

Glam rock, but with a knowing perspective. White Soul Boys who got into the sound of Philadelphia. Punk Rock, and thence Brit Pop and Indie.

Ziggy was released forty years ago, on this very day in 1972.

Virtually nothing of note from those days remains relevant. Except, perhaps, The Queen, who must currently be nursing the mother and father of all hangovers.

Ziggy changed everything for me. It lifted my eyes beyond my immediate surroundings. It showed me possibility.

Everything I know about showmanship and showing off, creativity and creative people, gender and gender politics, the understanding that if you want to change things and do things for yourself, you can, I learned from that great album and those two genius performers, David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.

Years later, we played a track from Ziggy Stardust at my Dad's funeral, because after taking my young brother and me to see one of the last Ziggy live gigs, he fell for David Bowie too.

I hope they play one at mine.

Sick knack Paddy whacked by Kenny Harris

Sick knack Paddy whacked by Kenny Harris

Does the sign on the door help or hinder creativity?

Back in the day, in many agencies the principle of demarcation was as strong as it was in British Leyland.

There was a job for everyone, and everyone knew their job. And everyone knew their place as well.

Account Handlers handled accounts and creatives created. 

The only ones with a foot in both camps were the planners. Planners were – and may still be - a super-race of intellectual giants who not only knew what sold, but why.

In one of the best guidebooks to advertising that I ever read – Advertising for Account Handlers by Nigel Linacre – there’s a whole passage on what account handlers don’t do. 

They don’t write, and they don’t draw. They don’t have the final say on what the ad looks like or sounds like. They don’t buy media, they don’t produce. 

They don’t even look after the project as it makes its way through the agency. That’s the job of traffic.

In the first couple of agencies I worked in I was fascinated by this split between the various people whose job was, after all the same – to contribute to great ideas.

The first time I walked past a sign saying “Creative Department”, I was sorely tempted to look on the back of the door for a corresponding sign saying “Uncreative Department”. 

You know, to signal where ideas ended and boring people started.

Like the inscription “Here be dragons”, but “Here be normals” instead.

When I moved into sales promotion, I found the battle lines less rigidly enforced. Here, creativity was as much a function of account handling as it was of the creative department. 

And that suited me perfectly.

I believe that creativity – and the skills and attitudes that lead to great ideas – need to take root throughout any agency, client company or consultancy. 

And in this belief, I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. Two of my favourite Sirs, Ken Robinson and Martin Sorrell, are firm believers in “integrated creativity”.

An integrated creativity that is encouraged in everyone, not just those bearing the title “creative”.

If you want a sign to replace the one that says “Creative Department”, I have one for you. A sign you could put on the door of every meeting room, conversation space or board room where brainstorms might take place.

It’s borrowed from an organisation called “Toc H”, set up in the First World War to allow soldiers and officers to meet, converse, and share on a completely equal footing.

And it says “All rank abandon, ye who enter here”.

Who's asking? Starbucks, that's who.

This isn't a blog about customer service, although I do post the odd thought now and again when I've had a bit of service that has been brilliant, or awful, or just funny.

But after I put up the piece below, about customer care, I saw an ad in the paper saying that Starbucks were about to start asking for customers' names, so that the baristas can label our paper cups.

OK, I thought, I see where you're coming from. Make it a bit more personal, build a relationship, create a community, get us all a bit more touchy-feely about our daily latte.

Personally, I'd feel a bit more touchy-feely about Starbucks if they didn't insist on opening one on every corner of every town. (One of my favourite scenes in Shrek is the one where the townsfolk flee a branch of Starbucks only to run straight across the street into another).

Then I heard John Holmes on BBC R2's "The Now Show", and his brilliant explanation of how the new Starbucks' policy wasn't really welcome in Britain.

Apparently, John was in his local Starbucks during the first week of the "...and what's your name?" request.

"...and what's your name?", asked the guy behind the counter. "Stick it up your **** mate", came the reply.

And it got even better, a couple of days later.

Back in Starbucks, they are persisting with the "get the name" policy.

" ... and what's your name?" asked the guy behind the counter.

And someone from the back of the queue called out "Don't tell him, Pike".

Customer care. Do you care?

I've been reading one of those books that makes you want to jump right up and do something else. "Raw Spirit", by Iain Banks. Subtitled "In search of the perfect dram", it's a series of journeys around Scotland, visiting some of her well-known, and less well-known, whisky distilleries.

I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't a thirst for whisky I developed. It was a thirst for travel. And specifically, a thirst for travel around the islands and highlands of Western Scotland - across to Islay, perhaps Mull and Skye, and up through Argyll to the Western Highlands.

So when I found myself in Glasgow recently, I thought I'd take advantage of the Tourist Information booth at one of the main stations to grab a timetable for the Cal-Mac Ferries that run from the Scottish mainland to, and between, the Islands.

Ahead of me in the queue was a group of young women - Spanish, I think. They had just arrived on a coach or bus, and had one simple objective in mind. To shop. Happily, they had arrived in Glasgow, perhaps Scotland's most stylish city for shopping.

They get to the head of the queue. Young man in uniform (well, a tie and jumper - smart, though) says "Can I help you?". Someone must have told him that in Customer Care Class - that, and nothing else.

"Can you tell me where the best shops are?" said senorita number one.

"Shops?" he replied, "Erm, they're everywhere." he replied. True, I suppose, but a literal answer rather than a helpful one.

"Where is the best shopping?" she continued. "Here," he said, taking a map of Glasgow from a pad behind the desk.

"And everywhere." he said as he moved his hand across the map. Taking in, I kid you not, the whole of Glasgow city centre. No suggestions, no directions, no further explanation. Just "everywhere".

As the girls wandered off, none the wiser, someone in the queue stepped over and said "Can I help you?". He proceeded to point out one of the main shopping malls (visible through the windows at the far end of the station) and then suggested a couple of other areas where they might find "Scotland With Style" (the current strap-line of Glasgow Tourism).

I don't blame the lad behind the counter. I blame his bosses. Customer care isn't just about knowing which brochure (or price, or catalogue) to hand out. It's not just about information, or rules, or regulations. It's about caring, really caring. The training should emphasise this. Teach people to think about the customer, to be creative in helping them, to care.

Do I care about this customer? Do I care enough to help them in a way that makes their experience, their journey, their life, better? When they walk away from this conversation will they feel that I have really tried to help them?

When the guy stepped out of the queue, offered to help, and really did so, I suspect those visitors to Glasgow thought a little bit more of the "The Friendly City".

I suspect they didn't feel the same after the conversation with the guy in the uniform.

More gags, one-liners and creativity quotes

Wherever I go, whatever I read, it seems I can't avoid bon mots, musings and quips. The things people say that make me think "I wish I'd said that".

You know the sort of thing - the witty comeback, or well-phrased barbed comment that I only ever think of about half an hour later.

Here are a few favourite ones I have heard, read or come across recently.

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, and learn to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen".
John Steinbeck

"I'm not a Catholic. But I gave up picking my belly-button for lint".
Emo Phillips

"Creativity is contagious. Pass it on".
Albert Einstein

"In the gym the other day I laid down on the mat to do some sit-ups, and woke up two hours later. I felt fantastic, so I treated myself to a frothy coffee and a chunky Kit-Kat".
Mickey Flanagan

"I can't understand why people are afraid of new ideas. I'm afraid of old ones".
John Cage