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Watch Pete Karinen & Brian Sacca of the Fact Checking Unit as they track down Bill Murray in this Time Out NY "must see comedy short".
Found here in this tribute to our oft-overlooked information departments by Kevin Sugrue of Brand Zeal (blogging as Brand Tao).
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Gordon Torr: Managing Creative People: Lessons for Leadership in the Ideas Economy
I hope Gordon didn't choose that subtitle. It seems below him somehow. Grubby even. His book is, he insists, the first attempt to fully explore how to get the best out of creative people. I'm currently half way through and loving every bit of it. More soon. (****)
Randall Rothenberg: Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
Rothenberg is a long time NYT journalist who went on to be editor of Ad Age and is now president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Where the Suckers Moon is an implausibly detailed account of the pitch and subsequent development of an ad campaign for Subaru USA. The book ends with Wieden's Subaru ads being voted dead last by consumers on Superbowl Sunday in 1993. It's quite a ride. (*****)
Joshua Ferris: Then We Came to the End
The rythyms of life in a Chicago ad agency during a recession. The writing is a bit too staccato for my liking and the characters are all long gone before you can get to know them. Nonetheless, it is about as close to home as you can get. (***)
Joe Moran: Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime
More homespun ethnography in the vein of Kate Fox's 'Watching the English'. Makes you think and there is even some gold hidden between the platitides. (****)
Nick Davies: Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
Davies finds his colleagues in the media guilty of systematically recycling press releases and news agency output without checking the facts or seeking to find the truth. Shame he doesn't even attempt to seek a solution. (****)
Sam Delaney: Get Smashed!: The Story of the Men Who Made the Adverts That Changed Our Lives
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Mark Tungate: Adland: A Global History of Advertising
Tungate manages to make the history of advertising boring. Quite an achievement. (**)
Robert Johansen: Get There Early
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Joe Moran: Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime
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Oona Strathern: A Brief History of the Future; How Visionary Thinkers Changed the World and Tomorrow's Trends Are 'Made' and Marketed
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Jim Taylor & Steve Hatch: Rigorous Magic: Communication Ideas and Their Application
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Andrew Marr: My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism
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