Welcome

02 July 2013

Hello and welcome to this first edition of the BJ&A blog written by me, Brian Jacobs. As this is the first ever a few words of introduction seem appropriate. My aim is to produce one edition a week – an aim that might appear modest to you but I can assure you seems from here to be suitably challenging.

Why do a blog at all? Because there are so many things going on in the advertising, media and research world that delight (not so many to be honest), irritate (a lot), and annoy (far too many) and on which (if only for my own benefit) I feel the need to comment. Certainly I could fume away in a corner somewhere, but in just the same way that everyone feels better after a good rant so you feel somehow better after sharing. I say ‘sharing’ – I am rather hoping that the simple act of writing stuff down will do the job. Having any readers at all would be a bonus.

There’s one other reason to do this. I’m easily flattered and so when I saw fit to comment recently on some industry absurdity on LinkedIn I was pleased to receive a note suggesting I start a blog and encouraging me to do so. So here we are.

You can comment on this blog, and if you follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter you’ll find out when the new instalment hits the streets, or to be correct the BJ&A website. You can also find old editions there.

I hope that sometimes this spot will feature guest bloggers – this all depends if I can convince anyone to do something that takes time and for which they will get precisely nothing except for a misleading sense of fame from seeing their name in print. So – best to assume that what you find on here is by me.

I’m a great believer in joining up the dots. This is an easy thing to believe in – it means others do great work and I get to pick the best bits to fit together with other smart people’s best bits. It’s why we feature a cog motif on the website, cogs are small wheels that make bigger wheels work better together, and anyway a cog is a more elegant motif than a picture of some dots joined up.

It also means I can call this the cog blog, a brilliant example of assonance I’m sure you agree. Or you might decide that this is a blog written by a cynical old git. Whichever – cog it is.

See you back here soon.