When you eat a banana...

When you eat a banana (or a Big Mac, sushi roll etc) are you experiencing the same taste sensation that I am? Does a banana taste the same to me as it does to you? If we are experiencing the same taste, why do I like the taste of something, and you don’t?

My mum dislikes chocolate, however the rest of my family (and I would guess 98% of the people who have ever tasted chocolate) would eat it every day if it had anything close to a respectable nutritional value. Similarly, my Dad loves liquorice yet the rest of my family won’t go near it.

Perhaps part of the answer to my question is upbringing – if we are exposed to particular foods we are more likely to enjoy eating them. Yet my mum’s brothers and sisters haven’t inherited the same dislike for chocolate, and I've eaten my fair share of liquorice and it does nothing for me.

Which leads me to conclude (based on my highly scientific analysis) that different foods generate a different taste sensation for different people. Why else would my mum have such an aversion to chocolate? The interesting question then, is what taste sensation is she experiencing when she eats chocolate, and how is it different to yours or mine?

'There is no god'

A couple of weeks ago I attended the local multicultural festival and after consuming my first ever plate of Tanzanian food was walking through the crowd with a friend. As we walked past a stall we heard someone call out ‘there is no god’ and my friend responded ‘yes there is’! We promptly turned around and the debate began.

The common argument (at least in my experience) is that it is much easier to believe there is no god, than to believe there is. It is usually put on the person of faith, in this case the Christian, to prove that God does exist. The atheist isn’t required to prove that god doesn’t exist.

I’ve heard it contended that it takes just as much faith to believe there is no god, than to believe that there is. So why is the burden of proof placed on the Christian? What evidence can be provided to support the argument that there is no god?

Sign Language

Something that amuses/annoys me (it’s a fine line between the two and I'm working on it not being the latter!), are things that are poorly written and then displayed in public places. I’m talking about signs, menus, billboards, brochures etc. My feeling is, if you’re going to display it for all to see, make sure you get it right! It’s ok if spelling/writing isn’t your strong point, but at least get it checked before you put it out there. I’ve seen countless signs or messages that stimulate the cringe nerve and just recently I’ve started taking photos of them with my phone. This image is of a sign I found on the weekend on the window of the local Subway franchise.

I don’t visit Subway regularly, so perhaps F-POS is a type of bread roll they are no longer baking. However, I think it is more likely that no EFTPOS facilities are available. Just to be safe I ordered the standard wheat bread and paid in cash.

If you see any signs worthy of being added to my collection, please send them to me. I’ll put up some other photos I’ve collected in future posts. I also just realised that in being so pedantic I’ve put myself on the line! I’d better be extra careful what I say from now on and triple check what I've written before posting!

Attention: advertisers. Stand out.

I was just reading B&T – a weekly advertising and marketing magazine. The last few pages are an advertising space for graphic designers, copy writers, web developers etc to promote their business. I was interested by how uninteresting many of the advertisements were. It was also amazing to notice that many of the advertisers had made very little effort to actually sell themselves and demonstrate why they are any better than any other designer/copy writer/developer. Here are three examples:

1. Jack Vaughan Creative Services has an advertisement that simply includes the name of the business with the tagline ‘Joined up writing and ideas’. It’s a moderately interesting tag line but (if I were looking) what’s one reason why would I choose them?
2. The advertisement for Blue Dot Design was on a blue background (good start) with the name of the business and links to phone, e-mail and a web site. The web link gives me somewhere else to look for more information, but I may not bother to go that next step. Apart from a nice looking advertisement, Blue Dot Design did nothing to convince me to give them a call or check out their site.
3. Lastly (and these advertisements have all been sourced from the one page in the magazine!) is the advertisement for PLUM editing and proofreading – online and print. Yes it’s clear what this business does, but makes PLUM different, better, worth selecting out of the myriad of editing and proof reading suppliers?

Whilst I realise that in such a limited space there isn’t room to say a lot, it seems like a complete waste of money to say nothing at all. It’s a crowded advertising space. People are exposed to advertisements all the time and have more choices than they have ever had before. I walk down the supermarket aisle and I have at least four different brands of toothpaste to choose from, and that’s just toothpaste! So if you are going to bother to advertise, the very least you need to do is take the effort to stand out, to show me why I should choose you over everyone else. I can think of great ways to do this – perhaps that’s the topic of another post…

Define: beauty

Check out this 30 second clip:

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.co.uk/ (and click on 'play film')

This clip has been circling the internet as part of the Campaign for Real Beauty.

I think this clip is both unsettling, yet almost reassuring. Unsettling as we see the features of the model distorted so much that she ultimately bears little resemblance to what she originally looked like (and developed a neck twice its original height!) I think it’s also reassuring because we suspect these kinds of ‘readjustments’ happen and now we’ve seen some kind of proof.

A question sticks in my mind after watching this clip. When the graphic artist is manipulating the image of the model, what end point does she have in mind?

Quite obviously the designer didn’t consider the original ‘look’ suitable, so what is the ideal look that she was working towards? Is there some kind of generic ‘beautiful’ image? What was so unsuitable with the actual appearance of the model that her image needed to be so drastically altered?

Based purely on ‘face’ value (yes, the unintended pun didn’t go unnoticed!), most people would say that the final image is an improvement on the original. Yet I wonder how much our perception of beauty has been, and continues to be influenced by what other people (graphic designers, advertisers, etc) tell us it is. Everyday we are shown what is beautiful (or what we should consider to be beautiful), that perhaps we now subconsciously define beauty in the ways that others have convinced us it is.

Whilst it is impossible to move into a vacuum where we are unaffected by these images, my concluding question is this. If it were possible to remove all of the influences around us, what would we actually consider beauty to be?

Speak and be spoken to

I was at a marketing and advertising conference this week with a couple of other hundred people. I find people fascinating and I enjoy observing how they act and interact. I noticed two interesting things.

1. most people are unlikely to initiate conversation. Most people at the conference were strangers, yet they had a common interest in marketing and advertising. It seemed as though most people were more comfortable to sit or eat on their own, rather than strike up conversation with someone new. I wonder why that is...

2. when I made the effort to strike up conversation with a stranger they were usually responsive and happy to chat. It seemed as though the only thing preventing conversation was one of us taking the initiative to introduce ourself.

We experience multiple situations similar to this everyday. Waiting to catch the bus, lining up at the supermarket, sitting next to someone on a plane. So why do we prefer to sit/stand/eat/travel in silence rather than strike up conversation with people around us?

What are the potential risks? What are the potential benefits?

As a challenge to myself this week, I'm going to take every opportunity to chat to the strangers I come into contact with this week. In a weeks time I will post again on this topic, I'm sure after some interesting experiences with my fellow humans.