Its All About Who You Know Not What You Know " Law Of The Few"

In Our group we discussed the relationship between " The Law Of the Few" and Interior design. This in depth discussion has really helped us understand our market place, and how to be successful in it. The area I found most interesting was the idea of the " Strength Of Weak Ties" . It is imperative to keep connections with lots of different people in our lives in order to be successful because it is these people who occupy another part of the world and we can use these people to spread the word of our designs and also to access other areas of work.

On my own I further related The " Strength Of Weak Ties" and the importance of being a Connector , Maven and Salesman in the industry of Interior Design. Its great to know mavens because they can pass on good words about you to others which builds you up a good reputation. This is why it is very important to impress a maven especially. It is even better to be a maven yourself, if you promote a fellow business they are likely to want to work with you in the future, opening up a whole new area of work. Its good to be a connector to have the ability to bring a group of people together from all different walks of life. This expands your market and helps get your name out there in to the big wide world. Considering the small world syndrome, if everyone is connected to anyone else on this planet with 6 steps it isn't impossible to get in contact with someone very high up in a certain field of practice. Salesmen are good at making ideas come to life. We all need to be salesmen, be passionate and exited about our work to get others attention and hook them in with our positive attitude to get them interested in our designs. 

To conclude from this exercise I have learned that we all have to be Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen to be completely successful in Interior Design. Its all about who you know not what you know!

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus

Yesterday I visited the DCA to see 'The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus'. As a great fan of Heath Ledger I have been looking foreword to the release of his last film for quite some time. Unfortunately he died half way through the filming and the director Terry Gilliam and co writer Charles McKeown had to rewrite the film to make the death of the lead character less obvious.

The plot is surprisingly set in present day. A traveling show consisting of Dr Parnassus, Anton, Percy and Valentina the doctors daughter give the joe public the chance to enter their stage and travel through a mirror into a land of their imagination. Dr Parnnassus had earlier made a deal with the devil for an eternal life and the ability to transport people into their imagination through his meditation. The show rescue a young man Tony (Heath Ledger) who has been hung beneath a bridge and he soon becomes part of the act, provoking more interest with his charm. The devil soon comes to collect his payment in the form of Valentina causing much arousal in the hearts of Tony and Antony who have both fallen for her.

A lot of the film doesn't make any sense. People seem to know things before they have been told about them and calling two of the five main characters basically the same name Anton and Tony without any irony or deliberate reason is just annoying.

Gilliam did however do a great job discussing the death of the main character. There was roomers that Gilliam had given up all hope in ever completing the film until his daughter convinced him. Heath works really well with the feel of the film, his body movements and egotistical personality bring the right sense of an alter reality. Having Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Farrel fill in for Heath worked well however I doubt the absence of Jude law would have been missed. His appearance seemed unnecessary. Farrell had been in Valentina's ideal world fantasies before hand which tied in nicely and Depp being almost identical to Heath made it hard to tell the difference between the two at some points.

Depp, Farrell and Law have now announced that all the money they had earned from the production of the film is being donated to Matilda, Heaths little girl. Having not been born when Heath had made his will all his fortune was given to her mother.

The films credits featured "A film from Heath Ledger and friends.".

This film is as the title suggests full of imagination and I highly recommend everyone go see it.

Bring Back The Buttons!

This touch screen generation should have stayed in films like Minority Report!.

I have become sick of a million and one gadgets on my phone that are badly designed and I have no idea how to use, not to mention costing me more money!

So I recently ditched my Samsung Tocco for a £14.99 Nokia 1661. It is the best phone I have ever had.

It seems that designers are putting too many gadgets into phones these days. I mean I don't really need to be able to send a picture to a friend who I will probably see in a few days. But I do, because I can!. This makes my phone bill go up and up. Its all part of a bigger plan though. Designers have done this deliberately. The more things they can make a phone do that costs money, the more money that phone is going to generate for that company which equals the more companies carrying the phone model, which means more money for the phone designers. Its a simple process. Dont get me wrong a phone that businessmen can check their emails on and organize their meeting with is great for them, just not me and probably you too. I don't know when the media infiltrated my mind and made me feel unable to have a phone which did not take better quality pictures than my camera and be doused in every form of technology able to get in there amongst the other sardines and sang and danced in every way I could desire. A mixture of clever advertising and peer pressure assumably.

With my Samsung Tocco I felt that so much energy had been focused on the touch screen function resulting with bad sound quality, awkward and badly designed display and slow running. The ear piece was tiny and even on the loudest setting sound quality was so bad I could only use it in a very quiet room, which defeats the entire purpose of a "mobile" phone. The texting function was impossible. the buttons were laid out too close together on the touch screen and I found myself changing the language by accident half way through my txt. The menu was slow and it took around 20 seconds to send a single page message in which time you couldn't do anything else.

My new phone the Nokia 1661 however sends messages in 1 second and isn't crammed full of applications. I never accidentally go on the internet and run up a bill of £3.00 because I cant. I don't send pictures to my friends because it doesn't have a camera. I now can use my phone whilst walking and talking to someone on it, and texting is simple because I now have buttons . It even has a flash light on it!. True I don't get those kodak moments but Im sure they guy behind me got it (Ill facebook him later).

I propose we all ditch our magicpicturenoisybrowertouchscreenbluetoothorganiservideomessagercallergadget

and go old school. Isn't vintage the thing these days?

PS. Until I can afford an iPhone.

The Tipping Point

"The Tipping Point" is a very interesting, thought provoking and inspiring book. The idea of a sudden epidemic erupting in every day life, from syphilis to fashion trends.

This book made me inspired to start my own epidemic. I now feel I know how to advertise myself as a designer and make sure I incur success in promotion of my ideas.

We were asked to complete a mind map, mapping our thoughts of the book in order to remember important points. I feel I may have mapped too much detail. My map seems to be a labyrinth of notes which I'm not sure many people would be able to read. however it has helped me immensely and I intend to use this way of studying in future.

I then made a second mind map even more in detail focusing on " 6 degrees of separation" and "connectors". This is the area of the book i found most interested in as I have researched it before and find it fascinating. I learned a lot about connectors and made my own list of connectors in my friend circle or "pyramid" rather. Interestingly I found that most of the people I know, I know because of me. Clubs I've been to classes I've taken etc. Some friends lead back to my friends Nora and Michael but I must come to the conclusion that I myself am a connector, although I never thought I would be.

All in all "The Tipping Point" has been an extremely enjoyable read in which I feel I have learned a lot from. I can now take these ideas with me on into the rest of my life.