A couple of us went along to the 4D Men presentation by Bauer yesterday. It focused on the evolution of man (caveman voice). As a man/boy at heart, I found myself sat there listening to the exact way i have evolved over the past 10 years in terms of my style, outlook, behaviour etc. It is quite scary to think that it was 16 years ago (1994) since the first Loaded was published. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 11 years old, maybe slightly too young for boobs and rock and roll but it beat reading match of the day magazine.

One of the points that I found particularly interesting was that it’s not alright to be a dumb, tribal, loutish FHM reader anymore. Todays man has to be a bit more intelligent, a bit more in touch with fashion, food, culture etc to get barely noticed by anyone. It also made me think, did you girls ever really fancy the ‘Lad’?

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something” was one of the ending quotes of the presentation. To start with I could not get my head around what this meant and why some English biologist from 1825 preached this. Now I get it, I think Bauer were trying to tell us that todays man needs to live by this quote to get the best job, the best style, the best personality and ultimately, the best girl. Thanks Thomas. H. Huxley, your quote, from now on will be the first thing I say to myself every day.

Elvis Presley- King Creole from BillCanoni on Vimeo.

Yesterday saw Twitter announce the launch of Twitter ‘earlybird’. This is a new account that will re-tweet offers from certain advertisers, which (in the words of Twitter) will offer “special time-bound deals, sneak-peeks and events”.
At the moment, this is something that is just available to users in the US, but if this works (as in makes Twitter some money) I am sure we will see this over in the UK.
So far, considering this launched yesterday, there are over 19,000 followers, who are eagerly awaiting offers from advertisers, so it will be interesting to see what is offered. I would expect retailers and FMCG especially will trial this first as it seems like a great way to entice new customers in, then once they have bought into the brand keep them interested by offering more tailored offers through their own Twitter feed/Facebook page.
This is another interesting move from Twitter, following the promoted tweets announcement that we saw a few months ago. They have waited a while to monetise their site and it seems as though they have finally worked out a business model so watch this space….

This July the battle commences between Dreamwork’s ‘Shrek Forever After’ and Disney & Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 3′,  as they scramble to attract audiences out of the sunshine and into the cinemas. Everyone has their preference, but I for one am backing Disney.

Shrek’s had a head start, it launched last Friday, and has done well so far. It grossed £8.9m in its opening weekend (including previews). This is the second best opening weekend for a release in 2010, putting it top of the cinema table this week.

But big things are predicted for Toy Story. The long awaited film (can you believe it’s been 15 years since the first one!) is set to do very well, and is expected to smash Shrek’s takings- to infinity & beyond!

Reviews from across the pond are looking good. The New York Times have described it as “The adventures of a bunch of silly plastic junk turns out also to be a long, melancholy meditation on loss, impermanence and that noble, stubborn, foolish thing called love.” So it seems there’s going to be some interesting and moving themes through out the film, extending beyond Pixar’s comical classics and loveable characters.

However, not everyone is happy. Feminists have been up in arms about the so called ‘damaging stereotyping of women’ in the film. I may agree that Barbie, the new girl, isn’t the most aspirational character. But then again, it’s only a film, a bit of fun, and what little girl doesn’t love Barbie?!

I personally can’t wait til the toys are back in town. They will be hitting screens across the country on 19th July… (11 days and counting)

So 6music has won a reprieve meaning it will no longer be closed, as originally proposed by the Beeb’s senior management team. This is good news for all those who campaigned for its survival- from high profile celebs through to listeners who, like me, filled in the loooong public consultation form (that took me back to my essay writing days!)

However, although plenty of people filled in the official consultation, the campaign for 6s survival was also an excellent example of using social networking to galvanise people’s support. Group after group sprung up on Facebook and every time it cheerily told me a friend had signed up to save 6music I felt that little bit guiltier that I hadn’t got around to tackling the long form yet. On Twitter, alongside becoming a trending topic, I found I could attach a readymade ‘twibbon’ to my picture telling others to ’save 6music.’

I was a little concerned that all this meant people were shouting publicly to save the station but that no-one would actually fill in the all important official consultation and therefore it would amount to nothing. In fact 78% of people submitting the form were arguing to save the station and on top of this, even if many people failed to go through official routes, it seems the sheer voracity of online campaigning may have swayed the officials’ opinions. At last I joined a Facebook group that had an effect rather than ‘if 500 people join this group, I’ll marry my hamster!’

Mistake-proofing is a natural consequence of our mistakes. We all make them, and usually we are able to rectify them, to some degree. However when the consequence of our mistake becomes too great we naturally install systems to prevent against such human error. For instance, between 1948 – 1975 Toyota developed a production system designed to reduce inconsistency, waste and overburden. Part of this system includes a mechanism known as poka-yoke – a Japanese term that refers to “mistake-proofing”. Its purpose; to eliminate human error.

Of course it’s not just businesses that have developed. Various professional sports now incorporate such systems to help manage important decisions like who wins a race, or who throws the furthest, or even who scores. In some form or other the each of the following have incorporated computer assistance; cricket, American football, tennis, athletics, horse racing, ice hockey, basketball, field hockey, rugby league, even rodeo. Why then does football not?

As far as I can tell, this debate had been going for some time and has something to do with the ‘purity’ of the game. In fact according to an article on the Daily Mail – Sepp Blatter “loves the controversy that arises from such calls”. Of course our recent world cup defeat has given fuel to the fire, but will we ever reach the point where a referees decision is not final? FIFA’s historic stubbornness has already seen Ireland not qualify at the ‘hands’ of France, not to mention Luis Fabiano’s double-hand-ball against Ivory Coast.

Considering the money involved, the millions of fans, and the integrity of the game itself – at what point does football need to evolve, or more pertinently, at what cost?