Dave Kean

A year ago I seriously I seriously started to put finger to keyboard writing a book about my journey since Mum died and my divorce being final. I’ve learned a lot about the process of writing and telling a story, but that’s only been a small part of the journey. It really has been fun, and that’s been the biggest discovery for me.

1. Find a time that works for you.

Someone told me when I started this that I would need one of the following: insomnia, proper coffee maker or a case or two of Red Bull. I know that every conversation I have with Sharon the editor she keeps pausing to take continual sips of coffee, but I never developed a taste for the stuff. I’m not in a rally car sponsored by Red Bull any more, and that stuff is spendy when purchased by the case. Ignoring the amphetamines option just leaves insomnia. After everything that went on last summer I still struggle to keep my energy level up all day, it is often lowest in the evening after work. So I adapted and discovered that by getting up at four I get a couple of hours in with good energy before I’ve got to go to work.

2. Prioritizing my writing

You don’t get to be a proper storyteller by putting it so far down “the list” that it’s sitting between “Ride a Motorbike around Alaska” and “Climb El-Cap”. I have discovered I enjoy writing (editing less so), more than I expected and while I don’t spend two hours every day writing it is something I make sure to carve a little time out for. I am a writer because it’s not just what you do, but rather, it’s part of who I am. And something that important to me becomes a priority.

3. It’s not supposed to be easy

What’s more, for me it’s probably not going to get much easier. Dad once said that stuff really worth doing (I think he was trying to talk me into paint the front of his house at the time) requires a lot of work and skill. I’m starting this as someone who got “could try harder” in English Lit at school, so I’m less prepared than most. This writing thing is hard work, but that’s fine, it’s going to be worth it in the end.

4. Dealing with fear

One of the themes through my writing is how I deal with change and fear. That could be fear of the unknown, failure, what I will become if I don’t change or fear of what people will think. A little preparation, being pragmatic about it and fear is diminished. I have found that if I face my fear head on and it’s gone. I was told at a conference last year that people who fail at writing typically do so for one of two reasons. First they were lazy, or two because they were afraid. I’m not lazy, so if I failed it would be because of the second. What’s the worst that can happen?

Is writing a book is going to see me fed to the tigers in the coliseum?  Nope.

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It’s no secret the last three years has seen some quite astounding emotional churn and coming out the other side I’ve done so much to help myself. Some of what I did turned out to be a great idea, getting the courage to leave a bad relationship tops that list. While others… Let’s just say they were not so brilliant. I’ll be talking about both the highs and lows, and some of the people involved some time soon.

If we talk about the journey then it’s been remarkable. Rediscovering deep and meaningful friendships with some very important people in my life, understanding just who I really am and how I got to my low points.

I think it’s been a remarkable journey. I’m not going to be as twee as saying I found myself, I knew who I was and believe that experiences drive us to evolve as we move through this wonderful life. Part of that change has been doing more reading. I created a couple of comfortable places in my house that I can quietly sit, often with a cat hanging out with me.

If you spend time in bookshops you’ll know is that there shelves of books that claim to provide shortcuts to great knowledge, unlimited happiness and deep wisdom. I’m not a huge believer in self help books, and very skeptical of the giant claims, I discovered there was a lot of nonsense talked and finding great books really is something of a lottery.

One of the thing to note was that every book except one on this list was recommended to me, or given to me by someone I trust. Only “The case for Working With Your hands” was picked up off the shelf, and that was in the “Transport” shelf.

Some books have allowed me to understand my actions and why. Others have maybe inspired me. Certainly one or two have helped me reach my goals, while a couple have allowed me a little escape when I needed it.

My reading list has been eclectic and wide, on purpose, I did not know what (if anything) I was looking for and made some wonderful discoveries. The subject matter in some of these books are a little controversial and I understand not for everyone, but each one was difficult to put down.
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Continuing my favorite movie theme (see here, and here if you care) it’s time to think about war movies. Now war movies are almost exclusively a male thing, and I’m male so feel fully qualified to talk about this one.

Image via Wikipedia

Like sci-fi or period movies there are many sub-sets of the genre. There are big picture epics like The Longest Day, other films take a certain dramatic license with an event (The Great Escape), others tell the story of a single mission (Dambusters) and finally for now, those that use a conflict as background to great drama such as Apocalypse Now or the Pianist.

After reading through the list there is a definite British bias in my choices, but I think that may reflect the rich history of the country.  Again there is no order here, just great movies that I hope people will enjoy.

• The Longest Day – OK, maybe one stands out from the rest, and this may be the best of all. It’s an accurate, star studded, well-told version of what may be the greatest story of the 20^th century. Like most of the films on this list the reality makes a far better story than fiction ever could.
• A Bridge Too Far – Only the British would celebrate a defeat quite like this. It tells the story of the battle for the Arnhem Bridge and Operation Market Garden. Like the Longest Day, no writer could come up with a story like this. Again a great cast tells a very dramatic story.
• Apocalypse Now – Martin Sheen is brilliant as the guy sent to kill the insane Col. Kurtz. Spectacular, long (over 3 hours for the full directors cut), and full of great supporting characters like Robert Duvall as Bill Kilgore. Good lines abound, and all wrapped up by great story that asks a lot of questions of everyone.
• Zulu – Michael Caine is 100% stiff upper lip British Officer. Great action and like all great stories, the battle of Rorkes Drift really happened.  Read more…

The have been a lot of movies full of CGI creatures, aliens and monsters. Lots of directors want you to know they spent a lot of money on them, spend way too much time showing them off and leave little to the imagination.

I’m someone who can happily sit through badly dubbed dialogue of just about any Godzilla movie to get a glimpse of the big guy fighting clouds of smog or giant moths. It’s the journey that makes it so special, put the monster front and center and the suspense and magic is lost.

First up, this isn’t a rant against CGI. Computers have given us some monsters or aliens for the ages. Top of the list was the guy with the eyes on his hands from Pans Labyrinth, I caught it on TV recently and had forgotten how good it was. Also making my non-exhaustive list are the mindless bugs from Starship Troopers, the tentacle faced guy from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mummies, Megalodon and the Kraken from the otherwise horrible remake of Clash of the titans are all wonderful.

My problem comes from lack of imagination, in an industry that’s history is built on the stuff. Just because teen-vampires are cool right now, doesn’t mean we can’t have the occasional Bram Stoker type vampire to switch it up.

Lets look back to the classic monsters of pre-CGI. As cool as CGI can be, does anything really compare to Giger’s xenomorph from Alien? Has there ever been a monster that had made an impression on you like that? And I mean from the first movie, perhaps the ultimate thriller in outer space. I saw it when I was about 12, and it still scares me today.

Runner up on my old-school monster list is the Shark from Jaws. The limitations of the technology forced Spielberg to be creative in his camerawork and editing. And arguably made a better, more original movie as a result of working around the limitations, rather than with in them.

I love the low budget movie Darkstar, it’s great sci-fi. The captain preserved in a block of ice, intelligent nuclear bombs and a crew gone partially mad after decades in space. Of course there is the monster, and it’s a painted beach ball. Clearly director John Carpenters money had run out by this point, but everyone remembers it, and it’s impossible to argue its originality.

Which is most of what makes a monster cool.

I’ve been trying to work out the last movie monster that really left an impression on me. I think it’s the creature from Cloverfield. And that worked in part because we never really saw everything.

So much was left to the imagination, and that’s way scarier than anything Hollywood can throw at us.
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The title is taken from the Green Day song “Holiday”, it’s relevant, so go with it.

Last week I was talking to a friend of mine. Mike had had just come back from two weeks touring Northern Italy. He spent a delightful two weeks away from everything driving around Tuscany. He took a relaxing few days in Florence, a few more in Siena, a side trip to Pisa and so much good food, wine and so on, and so on…

Envious… Moi? Perhaps a little.

In England time off is called a “holiday”. Wikipedia says holiday comes from and Old English word that meant special religious days away from toil. In England today it means a day or days of rest or relaxation.

In the US it’s called a Vacation, which means something totally different. It comes from the Latin and means “empty time”. The root is “vacare”, which means “to be empty”. Hmmmm…

Seriously, I love Wikipedia. One thing, please note that Green Day , Weezer, Jet and Madonna (to mention a few) sang songs about Holidays, and not vacations.

It’s well documented that the US has fewer holidays than any other; a quick Google search will show all sorts of facts. Typically they show that France and Italy (35 to 40 days a year) come close to the top of the table, while a long way down is the US (12 or 13 days a year).

It gets even scarier, I work with people who don’t take the full amount every year and have actually lost holiday days because they never took them. I don’t get it.

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It makes me unreasonably happy to hear, but filming will start later this year on the next Bond film (number 23 in the Eon series, it’s complex), and Daniel Craig is signed on the play Bond once more.

I do like Craig’s version of Bond, I think it’s the closest to Ian Flemings Bond, slightly unsure, but outwardly cocky. It’s an interesting twist when compared to previous actors to play the role. Sean Connery may be the classic movie Bond (and I’d not argue that), but Craig may be the best Ian Fleming Bond.

The film will hit the theaters in November 2012, fifty years after the first Bond film, Dr No. This will be my 14^th Bond movie in the theaters, first was The Spy That Loved Me in 1977, and I’ve not missed one since. I really stoked at this.

This post is a little rambling, it kinda reflects how I feel today, but I hope worth it. Christmas this year was about spending time with my family, and I have a wonderful, supportive family. I’m doing something about living 4800 miles away.

Arrived at Heathrow on Christmas Eve. SeaTac was busy, the plane packed and after traveling in business class over the last month it was a big hello with reality to sit in the cheap seats. I know I sound like a spoilt brat, but I missed the bigger seats and almost passable food that comes with sitting up front. I can feel the sympathy out there, thank you all.

The flight came in over Scotland, Ayr to be precise, the skies were clear and the ground white with snow. From the window we could see across the Firth of Clyde, towards Greenock and Dunoon. Pick out Millport and the smudge of grey that’s Glasgow in the distance. A lot of family holidays were spent with my grandparents in that part of the world.

As we flew South to London the snow never stopped. The entire country was covered.

Christmas eve was a quiet evening spent at my brothers. My niece was in fine form and the dog did what most animals seem to do, sit with dad.

Obviously there is a lot of emotion around Christmas this year in my family. On the 25th we went out for dinner to a local hotel. Dad, my brother’s family and myself. The drive through Guildford on Christmas Day felt like being in one of those disaster movies where everyone has disappeared. The streets were snow covered and all but deserted.

The food was good and while the hotel served us with its usually mildly amusing incompetence, it was a good way to spend the afternoon. And best of all, no one had to do the washing up. The wine flowed my niece was full of life and the stories changing from deep and meaningful, to funny and entertaining.

It’s wonderful to just sit and listen to dad when he’s telling stories of Scotland, books that are important to him, us as kids and his time with my niece.

Granddad was the same; when the mood struck him, he would sit there and just tell stories of growing up in Canada, his family, driving a tractor at 12 and so on.

The comparisons don’t end there. Like dad, granddad was typically rather stoic, but at some point it all changed and granddad wanted the narrative of his life shared. We sat one evening for hours; he talked about me about growing up in Canada, signing up with his brother James to come to England in 1939, watching La Habs play at the forum and so much more.

30ish years ago dad gave me a Neville Shute book to read, “Trustee in the Tool Room”. It’s set in the 50’s among the boffins at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough; a place I’d start my career in aero 35 years after the book was first published. This year I got another Shute book, as an author he’s probably best known for “On the Beach”, a great book and wonderful movie. Dad knows he is a meaningful author to me, thanks for such a thoughtful present.

I’m not going to say that reading that original Shute book led to my career in aero, there are many other things that have caused this wonderful, entertaining journey through the world of aero and engineering. It’s certainly been a something I’ve thought about now and again.

Merry Christmas.

Over the weekend at BWE10 I was given a couple of books to look at and review. It was nice to be recognized and approached, but I’ve been back a couple of days and you will notice there are no book reviews on the site.

Friday lunchtime I found myself sitting across from a lawyer over lunch, we got onto discussion of libel and how it applies on the web. Actually the entire group got into the discussion, as it’s something that seems rather important to be aware of. Over the last couple of years it’s become one of the hot topics of law and has become rather well defined.

A number of scenarios were talked about and some of the outcomes were actually rather astounding. Lets look at my situation, lets say  I were to write a review that the books sucked and offered nothing new. Do I have any liability?

The answer turns out that I do, quite a lot, and more importantly there is clear precedence. A couple of years ago an American blogger and professor received notice that he was being sued over a negative review he game to an author on his blog. Nothing inflammatory or personally attacking, just a negative review. The case is still going through the courts.

But wait, there is more. A blog owner is responsible for the comments on their site. I don’t allow comments to post untill I approve them and don’t publish many I get. The level of liability is actually rather shocking. In 2008 70,000 (yes thousand) blogs were shut down over content liabilities.

Were these writers doing anything wrong in your opinion? I’m not a professional writer and the definition of libel is rather all encompassing.

In the US there is Federal protection – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”

It was pointed out to me tha there is a big difference between free speech and stupidity. There’s no legal protection against stupidity and there have been plenty of cases where damages have been awarded to someone when a writer said something stupid or made accusations that were anything other than 100% true.

There are cases where former friends ranted about one another on Facebook, the rant cost one of them $16,000 in costs and damages. It’s a scary world and I’m looking at liability insurance of some type.

Anyway, the one of the two books I’ve read so far was good, and I’m not going to say any more than that for now. But if you’ve got any books that you might like me to review, let me know.

BWE10 was a fascinating couple of days. Some great seminars, very interesting people that have carved themselves out a tiny niche that is their online brand. There were none of the “7 steps to unlimited riches on the Internet” type seminars that no one buys into, but more along the lines of “this worked for me, think about it”.

As I said before, it was a little bit of a stretch to get work funding for this conference, but I’m very glad I did. Very happy at the decision to stay another day when my flight got delayed up on Friday afternoon. Something to do with thunderstorms in Salt Lake City, after dealing with British Rails’ “wet leaves on the line” excuse for many years, travel disruption (especially with full flights) is something I’ve learned to deal with.

It was a lot of fun and a very, very good learning experience. And couple of days in 80+ degrees and a little pool time squeezed in, is never a bad idea.

As with most conferences the parties were excellent, a different place each night. First night was miX at Mandalay Bay with great views over the strip. Friday was at Haze in the new Aria Hotel and finally at the Palms hotel there was karaoke backed by a live band. Very cool venues, interesting cross section of individuals and some first class people watching. Lets be fair, when a distillery and the biggest nightclub group in Vegas are sponsoring the parties, the potential for a great time is very high.

Haze at Aria

While the parties, seminars and late nights sushi were great. I’m not going to fill the page with hyperbole describe the last three days as a life changing. It was not, but it was life affirming and the decision to stay another day was perfect. I met people who make a living in new-media and I talked with others who want to and have the determination to do so.

A blurry, but very interesting Scott Ginsberg

Personally, I don’t want to make a living as a blogger. I have a job I’m starting to really enjoy again. I see my group and I making a difference on what’s been a very difficult and challenging program to date. It’s fun being a proper ME again rather than a process manager.

Over the last few days I’ve spoken too and exchanged business cards with cooks, moms, lawyers, sponsors, entrepreneurs, dads, engineers, writers, therapists, techs, geeks, computer guys of every description and a porn star. Many were like me, we don’t want to put the work in to make a fortune on the Internet, but we have something to say. The Internet gives us a forum to say it on and in this conference we have a chance to come together and share what we’ve learned.

Truthfully, I came away from the weekend more convinced than ever that it’s very difficult, verging on the impossible for all bar the biggest sites make much money off the internet. It’s a place to say what you want, but the revenue streams are typically still “old media”, book sales (even if it’s an e-book), speaking engagements and so on.

I do say “typically”, there are sites emerging that are successfully using ad and sponsor branding as their revenue source. One thing I did learn was that hold grail of monetization for nearly all is moving to a subscription based income, today the market does not seem to quite be there.

Pearl at The Palms

Nothing has changed, content is still king, and the Internet, despite legions of people with something to say has not changed that basic “old media” truth.

The Internet can be used communicate thoughts, build a brand and to promote the individual or company. These are activities that in themselves do not generate any real money for the user.

There are a number of Internet marketing, positioning and consulting companies there this week looking for business. At times it seemed like maybe half of the people I spoke to were “consultants”, largely self-labelled. They talked of high-level concepts and rarely had any detail to back it up. There is certainly an element of the Wild West in some of the groups trying to make money from the Internet.

NSFW Closing Keynote featuring Penn Juliette and Adam Carolla

What else did I learn…

On the hardware side nearly everyone (a rough guess would be maybe 90%) there use Macs. I’ve never seen so many MacBooks in one place before. Of the PC’s I did see all bar a couple were a netbooks, something that Apple don’t make yet (but the new, smaller screen size MacBook Air is rumoured to be coming soon).

However Apple does not have the smartphone market cornered. Numbers did seem to be split fairly evenly between Blackberry and iPhone, with a few Droids making up the numbers.

Google really have the shit together when it comes to new media, they are driving the direction of the market way more than anyone else, and I believe will play a very large part in people making money. I think this is a good thing, they are willing in invest, have great tools that only got better with the acquisition of Blogger a couple of years ago.

The big guys like Adam Carolla, Jeff Hayzlett and Rob Barnett, along with the successful like Scott Ginsberg and Leo Babauta all seemed to have three things in common.

• They are taking a long term view of the market. It’s new and no one knows what it will look like in 2 or 3 years.
• They all have a plan to grow and scale their business as the market emerges.
• They understand they are their personal brand and the value intrinsic to that.

Lots to think about, lots of great conversations over whiskey, an awful lot of fun and many more thoughts yet to come.

The Sphinx, palm trees and the sun. Where else but Vegas? Yeah, it could be Egypt too.

With the questions I have about the man it was inevitable that I was going to get Blair’s memoirs. It does make me feel a little better that my money is going to the British Legion rather than his Tonyness.

Unlike most post career memoirs this one was written by the subject. Blair says that he wrote every word in longhand “on hundreds of notepads” and as the deadline approached he even had his blackberry taken away. I can believe that, he’s an OK writer, but the book would have benefited from fewer clichés and a few more reflective moments.

Unquestionably he is one of the best communicators as a speaker or interviewee. The moments he talked off the cuff and threw away the speeches was when he was at his best, and his best was brilliant (Labour conference in ’95 or ’96 where he talked about his belief and vision for the UK was astounding). In those moments he showed a passion and created a connection that is sorely missing from the book.

One of the most interesting things in the book were his thoughts on Gordon Brown, it’s clear that their relationship in later years was at best, poor. He admits to never really dealing with Brown and his allies when they started to undermine his position; this led to what some commentators called the “Blair-Brown civil war”. Perhaps his most important admission is that he knew Brown would be a disaster a premier (which he was) but did nothing to change the succession agreement between the two rivalries.

He writing does lead to a sort of honesty that’s missing from many of his contemporaries efforts. Unquestionably one of his biggest triumphs was the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. Yet in his discussions of that time he admits to stretching the truth to “breaking point” when trying to put together a settlement in Northern Ireland. Few, if any politicians are honest enough to admit that they were willing to deceive to make the right things happen.

This same emotional honest is missing from his justification for Iraq. He’s direct and clear that he still believes that it was the right thing to do.

He sees him self as a man who tried to bring out the positives in other, and there is significant evidence that this is the case. This is the man who got Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to work together for peace in Northern Ireland, no one else could have managed that.

He does admit his admiration for George Bush, he calls him a man of genuine integrity and an idealist. You rather get the impression that Blair felt rather bent over by Bush and the relationship does not always reflect well on Blair. Again there is an honesty that was somewhat unexpected, but at the same time the mistakes are not truly acknowledged.

The title comes from his transition over the course of his premiership.

He started his term as a populist leader that completed the Labour journey to government started by Neil Kinnock and John Smith. Ten years later he had matured into a statesman led by his beliefs, popular or not. Ultimately he had to compromise and reshape some of his beliefs to become Labours longest serving PM, he’s open about the compromises he made and accepts where the journey ended was not where he wanted it to.

It’s interesting, and as these books inevitably do, it’s promises more than it delivers. However My Journey comes far closer than many of his peers in delivering something substantial.