The pursuit of happyness

I originally thought I’d use the above image only really for the film's name, and the fact that it suits this post’s thought, namely defining happiness.

But the more I remembered about the film, the more I felt it was appropriate. See if you agree...

I was listening to Evan Davis interview Warren Buffett on the Today programme a few days ago, and peppered within the discussion of his immense wealth were several aphorisms regarding happiness. Not a massively new tack to take, that of money vs. happiness, but never mind just this once.

The quotation I remembered was from Buffett, citing Bertrand Russell: ‘Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get’.

Not a new thought either, but, I felt, succinctly captured.

So much of what we (or, at least I) do is for the thrill of the chase. The end in itself may be totally benign or understandable, but do we really want what lies post-challenge?

This could apply to the chasing of ladies (a splendidly noble pastime) or, equally, the chasing and nailing of a business deal (less noble, but kind of necessary from time to time).

This is probably a more personal reflection on the way I’ve lived my life to date, but it’s been occupying my mind a little too much for comfort this week.

Discussing the concept with local sage-esse Alison, she said that Buddhists would make the distinction between pleasure and happiness. Sometimes the latter doesn’t always involve the former as regularly as we’d perhaps like, but there’s something intrinsically more worthwhile in pursuing it anyway.

We wondered whether these could be plausibly split short-term / long term; tactical / strategic.

Maybe.

So all of this led me to the conclusion that I’m a bit too motivated by success and pleasure right now. Do I really know what I want that will ultimately make be happy? Does it exist, or should we just try to achieve as un-broken a series of pleasures as possible?

Does it always resolve itself in having kids and a settled life? To what extent should one compromise on the partner one chooses / chooses you? Dammit, should one even compromise, or is it necessary to achieve the kids / settled-ness bit?

Metaphorically buggered if I know, but the fact that the thought won’t leave is probably a hint in itself.

The art of travel

I was reminded of the tagline of this Eurostar ad while journeying arounf Switzerland over the last couple of days: You carry your journey with you.

The campaign ran about three years ago, from memory, and although TBWA's execution of the ad is up for debate (as, frankly, are all ads; sod it, as is anything), the tagline stayed in my mind.

At the time I thought it sounded a terribly whimsical idea; I mean, you don't do that literally, and, although I'd travelled quite a bit, I'd never really thought about how the 'moving' bit affected the rest of my day.

And maybe it's a sign of getting older, or having to get on a plane every other week, but the insight behind it has finally struck me as totally accurate. Journeys are tiring - not the moving, but certainly the queueing - and it does affect your frame of mind for the meeting you're about to have or the extent to which you can be scintillating company over dinner.

But I think that I finally cracked it on this trip: I managed not to let the travelling encumber me too much. And here's why:

1. Leave a few minutes earlier for each connection or meeting; for someone who considers himself relatively skilled in the Art of Brinkmanship, this was a real change of strategy, but it made me a lot less sweaty on arrival.

2. Collect pretty notes: I now have a collection of about 5 different currencies in my wallet, so don't have to worry about finding a cash point or someone not accepting cards.

3. Go native - even if only for a sentence: I've mastered a few throwaway lines in French and German (and they didn't have these in Baudelaire crit essays at university) so I can actually make a cabbie or hotel porter crack a smile in some local argot.

4. I keep laptop, novel and Economist with me at all times - so can flick between them according to mood. It's important to indulge yourself a bit, and just because it's work time doesn't mean you're always in the right mood for worky-work. You did get up extra early, after all...

5. Spotify: I salute you: new tunes, on the iPhone, no download needed, reflecting mood changes instantly.

6. Wheeled cases: zero backache, but make sure you're listening to music to avoid hearing the swearing as people trip over your extended rear footprint.

7. Near universal WiFi at airports. Perfect for updating blogs, as I'm doing in Geneva International right now, and slightly less Byzantine in the log-on process than was the case in days of yore.

8. Perfecting the belt / liquid / laptop / shoe / coin removal at security. It's about as enjoyable as a jab in your inner ear, but try to take some Schadenfreude in watching those who get all flustered / a good groping from the men in gloves. Whatever it takes to find some inner Zen.

9. Don't get up from your plane seat until most people have left the craft: you'll be standing with your neck crooked longer than you think as some inept staff member tries to line up the step mechanism with the door. This does not, however, apply to JFK airport where you need to forget all politeness and dash out as fast as possible to avoid losing vital years of your life at immigration.

10. Play Matt Hindley's Escalator Game: you've got until you reach the top of your escalator to decide which girl you'd most like to sleep with on the escalator going down. Leave it too late and you'll be saddled with the last one you see. Serious game, that.

Right, am off to the boarding gate...

Temporary utility

Above you'll see two iPhone apps:

- one from Carling, the famous 'iPint' that used the motion sensor and hi-res graphics of the iPhone to make a simple game that most people seemed to download as a way of showcasing the phone's capabilities

- and one from Spotify, the internet music service that allows you to listen to whatever you want for free (with ads) or for a tenner month with no ads at all. Now available as an iPhone app, it recognises your username and picks up where you left off listening to music on any other computer you were signed into.

Both very clever, both capturing the 'technische Zeitgeist', and both offering a degree of 'utility', as economists might say.

It's this U-word that I'd like to think about, albeit briefly. Thing is, Spotify is changing the way I listen to music. I don't have to clog up my laptop memory with songs any more, I don't have to pay a penny more than £9.99 a month for all the music I could ever want to listen to.

And the fact that it's an app on my iPhone means I'll probably use it way into the future. It's got massive utility - in every sense.

I also had the iPint as an app for a while. I don't any longer. it wasn't bad - in fact, I got a lot of laughs out of it and felt slightly more impressed with Carling as a result (although I didn't rush out and buy their lager, weak piss that it is). It's just had its day, that's all.

Its utility was short lived, and as brands experimenting with apps, maybe that's all we should aim for right now.

Do it well, but accept that very few brands have a right - or even the ability - to achieve long term utility as an application.

OR ... do we do as the Nikes of this world have done and invest in a long term utility platform?

Whatever the weather, to approach branded apps either takes commitment or the acceptance that, at best, your app will probably generate a short-term buzz and then be forgotten about as the choice widens and deepens.

The rougher the better

Unless you've been living in a cave without wifi for the last few months, you've probably seen and maybe even smirked at the proliferation of rough sketches, mostly rude, that succinctly send up aspects of our increasingly technological and politically correct society.

I suspect that these will, in the style of Family Guy, become more risque as time goes by and the appetites of their fans become whetted for ever more dangerous or obscure humour.

But it does strike me that this cartoon strip sketch genre, having featured in daily newspapers for so many years, has upped its game with the likes of Modern Toss and Cyanide and Happiness. They're, to my mind, a whole load funnier and more pointed than some of the strips you see in Metro or The Mirror, which seem drab even without comparison.

And the joy of the obscure, chillingly and scratchily explored by David Shrigley, is the perfect antidote to the annoyingly perfect corporate images we're used to seeing.

And websites such as www.b3ta.com continue to be brilliant in sending them all up.

And maybe that's just it: we like these quick, rough, insightful images precisely because it's not what we're used to seeing.

They hit on a truth, and with the minimum of effort succeed in conveying a thought.

In which case, we're really missing a trick in advertising. If the fundamental tactic we use is disruption, then we're not half as good as disrupting as we might like to think. We spend more time perfecting things so that they blend in with every other perfect image and feel far removed from stuff that really matters.

Why not be a bit rough? Why do they want to look all mendaciously sleek? Let's face it, most of them don't answer the phone or give good customer service, so in truth they're pretty damn flawed in any case.

When Joel Veitch was commissioned by Mastercard to produce the Switch/Maestro ads a few years back, I really hoped that they would usher in an era of less perfect ads. They were memorable precisely because they were a bit weird and unexpected.

Oh well.