11/11/2024 02:24:32 PM
loft project

Restaurant experiences can be amazing, but you are often just one of quite a few "covers" being served that night, you have very little connection and feedback from the chef and you are distanced and not interacting with any of the other guests.

As people increasingly crave special and unique experiences, there are pioneers looking for new ways to deliver these experience and transcend the typical restaurant experience.

Nuno Mendes and Clairse Faira at The Loft Project in London are two such pioneers who invite leading up and coming chefs to cook in an intimate setting and have their guests seated at a single communal table.

Obviously, there are are tremendous number of ways in to providing new experiences for dinners, Outstanding in the Field, is another great example. Restaurants should think carefully about how they might twist the familiar into something unexpected and fresh, their audience is looking out for it. 

Via We Heart


Posted by Ed Cotton
Tags: restaurants (2) loftproject (1) dining (1) food (21) (3) london (11) eating (2)

12/21/2007 07:18:40 AM
As the advertising industry falls more and more in love with black boxes, terabytes of data and predictive models, it could be missing out on the one thing it needs to encourage, the random.

One of the non-fiction books of the year is Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan, which examines the significance of rare and unexpected events and the lack of human understanding about these areas.

As human beings we are always looking to explain things and develop theories to explain the unexplainable.

The more we develop plans and process to create outcomes, its less likely that these will generate something breakthrough.

Taleb believes that tinkering and doing is the way to create and make something interesting, this isn’t about following a predictable and prescribed pathway that’s based on past events.

“Let us go one step further. It is high time to recognize that we humans are far better at doing than understanding, and better at tinkering than inventing. But we don't know it. We truly live under the illusion of order believing that planning and forecasting are possible. We are scared of the random, yet we live from its fruits. We are so scared of the random that we create disciplines that try to make sense of the past--but we ultimately fail to understand it, just as we fail to see the future.”

Forbes- May 23rd- 2007

While it’s undeniable that tracking and accountability are essential elements of responsibility for the agency: client relationships, there’s significant danger in believing that past results can predict future success.

In the end, it’s all about allowing and encouraging accidents to happen.

Maybe Account Planners should change their title to Accident Makers.

Agencies should look at how they can create environments and situations that allow these accidents to happen.

This could involve a radical look at how creativity is developed and the environment its developed in- our office space, etc.

We need to be more comfortable about embracing chaos.

Most significant of all, is that in a world where breaking through is getting tougher by the minute, agencies must teach their clients how to embrace “the accident”, instead of falling back on tried and tested formulas.

For many, this will involve throwing away the rules, this will be hard to do, but it’s likely that those who don’t embrace and encourage unexpected accidents, won’t achieve the success both they and their brands desire.

Here’s an interview Charlie Rose did with Nicholas Taleb in August of this year.



Posted by Ed Cotton
Tags: unexpected (1) blackswans (1) creativity (19) agencies (4) blackswan (2) chaos (1) (3) taleb (1) tinkering (1) accidents (1)

06/19/2007 08:21:01 PM
The UK is covered with brick terraced houses; they are part of the nation's character.  It would be easy for architect to just knock down a row of these houses, put new ones up in their place, or even build a high rise.

At Chimney Pot Park in Salford, the architects tried something different. They created a new concept, "The Upside Down House"; reversing the original format of the 1910 homes, placing the bedroom downstairs and the living room upstairs.
Chimney Pot Park

Sometimes, with ideas, it's often easy to tear it down start again, but re-imagining what already exists, can often be a more powerful way to go.

Via dezeen



Posted by Ed Cotton
Tags: homes (7) salford (1) housing (5) (3) england (2)

Articles for tag (3 total).