No man can serve two masters

The practical alternative to work

The stonecutters

Three stone cutters were asked about their jobs. The first said he was paid to cut stones. The second replied that he used special techniques to shape stones in an exceptional way, and proceeded to demonstrate his skills. The third stone cutter just smiled and said, "I build cathedrals."

From Ricardo Semler's Maverick

Copy culture: wii / wu & hi-phone / iphone

It looks like copying is hot news at the moment, and not just in the ads game. The video above shows us the hi-phone - a high-tech knock off of the iPhone. You really can't tell the difference.

And then you have the wu!

I have a friend who is convinced that the modern age ended in 1996, and everything since then is just a remix of everything that went before. I mean even our wars are re-runs.

Maybe this is what they meant when they talked about the end of history?

Eight things that terrify Account People

Khayal : Stressed out, originally uploaded by KhayaL.

"If you're an agency exec (AE), face it, everyone hates you. Your client is smarter than you about the industry and thinks you're an idiot. They complain that your agency and your creatives never come to them with any truly breakthrough thinking.

Your creatives hate you because you obviously don't get it, and you are interfering with them creating their pièce de résistance, their homage to film noir via streaming video and Flash that is going to make them famous so they don't have to sell out anymore.

Your CFO hates you because you don't bill your client on time. Your management hates you because you are not extracting enough value from the client, and you're using too many agency resources.

In fact, your spouse and kids probably hate you because you're spending too much time at work. So why do you even bother? Why don't you just stick your finger in a light socket and be done with it?"

Well there are plenty of reasons - but that's not the point. This is the warm-up to quite a well thought out piece on iMediaConnection. Despite the demotivational intro, there are apparently 8 things that really freak account people out. I'm not sure there are only eight, but these make a good start.

• Client being acquired
• Agency in review
• Winning business the agency can't handle
• A tight job market
• A new chief contact at the client
• Massive short-term increases in budget
• The traditional agency pitching interactive ideas
• The client makes a pass at the AE

Got a big idea?

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How much is an idea worth?

A guy I was talking to a while back sold computer systems and information screens to hedge fund managers. He uses a value based pricing model. In essence his company establishes how much they think the service will be worth to the client, and charges them that. What it costs them to make it, provide it and maintain it doesn't even come into the equation.

This sounds brilliant, and moving away from the bind of selling time is something that communications companies have been wanting to do for a while. It massages egos of the scions of adland to think that their best ideas change the fortunes of companies, and make the owners or shareholders countless millions (billions?) of pounds. This is of course true in many cases.

The dream is to sell communications ideas (ad campaigns if you're still in that mindset) based on their value to the client. The story of the old man who billed a ship owner $10,000 for tapping his broken engine with a tiny hammer because he knew where to tap springs to mind. Only $2 for the tapping, and $9998 for the nous.

Microwave pain gun

AKA the 'goodbye gun', and tested in secret for 10 years, it elicits "highly motivated escape behaviour" from subjects. Here are the results to some very interesting human tests

This combined with the Vomit sound ray means we will surely be free from dictatorship for years to come. I wonder how long they've had one at Guantanamo Bay?

Noney makes the world go round

Noney is a new currency, with each note being a hand-drawn, hand-printed and hand-signed piece of art. Each note can also be traded for things. Like all money, Noney is for people to circulate. The result is a combination of performance, public art and printmaking. Obadiah Eelcut draws prints and issues Noney.

www.noney.net

Threshers wine voucher

Is anyone else thinking that maybe this Thresher thing is a bit of a scam? Not an actual scam mind you, just in the sense that it's a very clever marketing campaign.

No marketing person in their right mind is going to release a three week long voucher in PDF to the internet without at some point going - "hang on a minute, maybe people are going to email this to each other". In my experience it's the ONLY thing marketers are worried about with vouchers online.

Given that Hugh MacLeod advises Stormhoek, where it first became big news publicly, maybe the whole thing isn't as accidental as it looks. I'm sure Threshers is a big account for Stormhoek, and they wouldn't promote it as gleefully as they seem to on their website, if they were worried about pissing them off.

When you consider that Threshers are giving 33% off a number of lines anyway, maybe they're not too bummed about the extra 7% for all the free publicity they have had.

If you have been living under a rock, here is the voucher.