Operating a computer with a flick of the hand will become a reality in the next few years- so says Professor Chris Bishop, the chief research scientist at Microsoft in Cambridge. It's an astonishing thought that if cars had improved at the same rate in 1900 as the computer, it would be possible to drive round the world 200 times on a single litre of petrol. And what's equally remarkable is that Moore's law ( which states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit board will double every two years) has held true for well-nigh forty years. Nor, one feels, will 2009 be an exception.

   New technologies are coming thick and fast at the moment, not least of which is the Mind-controlled Nintendo E3 2008 Announcements Wii. Not available until 2010, it will use brainwaves to control gameplay. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction and it may well have applications beyond gaming: interactive movies, adverts or even brain-wave controlled cars. Golly!

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Agencies of all sorts are famous for their use… over use, of words. Words in agencies seem to come cheap.

But how often do we really think about the words we say and write. Look again at those words we use, their effect, their meaning, how they work together. Copywriters might do it more than most, but arguably everyone should be as considered.

Words are powerful. In law courts they can put people behind bars. In battles, they can condemn people to death. In politics they can get you elected.

Words are uniquely human. The power of speech is one of our defining skills, alongside the size of our brains and walking on 2 legs. 

Strings of words can change the world and how we see it.

Film makers appreciate the power of words on culture and society.

 And speeches in films are remarkable examples of human connection.

Demonstrations of how to create emotion, feelings and behaviour in our fellow man.

Here are some fine film speeches.

They all enshrine the architecture of good speeches and use of words:
     -passion
     -purpose

This creates an effect at 3 levels
     Move the audience
     Create momentum
     Make us feel part of something

Hope these film speeches do something to you.

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The Shawshank Redemption- Red’s parol board review

Blade Runner- The ‘C beam’ speech

A Few Good Men- trial

Mad Men- The Carousel

The Digital world can appear remote and overly technical. It’s easy to lose sight of the real opportunity and purpose that technology provides.

It’s easy to focus on the means not the ends, the ‘kit’ not the ‘lift’ it can provide to real people in our real world.

We are human, with sets of values, emotions, feelings. We are irrational.

Digital can deliver against all of these needs and wants. For us, consumers and our clients.

Its’ a place to create new immersive worlds on behalf of brands.

It’s being able to try new things, fail, and try again the next day.

Where freedom to fail is a mandatory for success.

It’s eclectic teams of people working collaboratively and without prejudice and politics, where all recognise the basic inter dependency of their individual roles like film crews. Showing up the closed, partisan rivalry of traditional agency structures and processes.

It’s about connecting real people.

It’s being global and instant.

It’s not knowing what’s next.

Being comfortable with ambiguity and not knowing all the answers.
It’s being able to personalise and empathise.

Digital is free form, eclectic, agnostic and independent. It thrives on new, takes a blank sheet at the start of any opportunity or threat, works with whoever, whenever, with an open and collaborative spirit.

Digital is very human like that.

It is thought that only a week's worth of The Times contains more information that a knowable in a lifetime in the 18th C. The amount of technical information is doubling every two years years. And yet information for its own sake is useless. Nor is quantity synonymous with quality. After all, it's not as if the Times produces something akin to Voltaire's 'Candide' or Gray's 'Elegy in a Country Church Yard' every week. Moreover, concepts only arise from how information is looked at. Perception is all. Counting the number of blades of grass does not give the concept of a football pitch. It takes a lateral jump to make it so.