Hi there. Been a while hasn’t it. Doesn’t mean that I’ve not been up to stuff, just means that – I’ve been up to stuff.

Anyway.

Thought I’d let you know that I’ve launched the first “Ides of March” project. It’s called “Idea from Scratch” and you can find out all about it here. It’s right at the start. It’s right from scratch and I’d be very happy if you’d get involved.

Thank you.

All of a sudden people are talking about Innovation. What does that word mean, who is good at it and when does innovation happen? You can find them here at Get Shouty, HeeHaw Marketing, Future Visions, Chaos Scenario and Greg Verdino. I’m particularly fond of the debate going on between Robert, Katie and Paul (It all goes on in the comments). Even Jospeh Jaffe has started using the word.

It’s all well worth a look but I do have to ask this question of myself; considering most of these people either know me, or know of The Ides of March, why haven’t they simply asked me? I mean, it’s obviously a challenge and it would appear that they would all like an answer to their question. And the terms of The Ides of March general agreement aren’t too strict are they? They could even club together – that would be nice.

But they haven’t.

For this reason I have put the whole The Ides of March concept into a temporal state of open source rejection.

Ah, the ups and downs of business life.

Over the weekend I discovered a book (unfortunately it’s only available in German) about stuff we don’t know; that means to say; we know that they’re there, we either don’t know why or how these things works. The book is called “Lexikon des Unwissens. Worauf es bisher keine Antwort gibt”. It’s about stuff we don’t have answers for yet.

What I like about the book is that, whilst reading it, my head whirls and I try to find the answers only to stumble and fall. It’s really good fun. The authors compare finding things we don’t know about to discovering a distant star only when you look slightly past it. If you look straight at it the chances are you won’t see it at all.

For me, this is a magically little thing and one that gets me really excited. I’ve always like to think about gaps in between or missing links but I really like the idea of looking past something in order to see it – or to, at least, have a look at it in a slightly different way.

I talked briefly yesterday about Wieden & Kennedy’s objective number 9, but today I’ve spotted another post that I would like you to have a look at. They are vaguely related.

Richard Huntington has had a good look at the UK advertising industry and the sorry state it’s in. What’s interesting is that the comments quickly spiral down into the usual “network agencies are evil – planners can’t be creative” argument when faced with the question; what now? When will the next creative visionary come and who should it be? Will there be a planner or a creative on parading into London waving an olive branch and riding on the back of a clapped out donkey? It’s the kind of discussion you’ve seen a lot of over the last year or so and it’s disappointing that an industry that is supposed to solve problems creatively is so rubbish at sorting itself out.

The solution is a distant star, you can see it only if you look just past it. I can see it. Can you?

When Wieden & Kennedy put up their list of 10 objectives for 2007 at the start of the year, it was objective number 9 that caught my eye. Objective number 9 was the one that pleased me the most and the one I wanted them to succeed on. This is it:

“Create our own content and start to create new models for making money from our own content.”

Because of their success and growth in 2007 they’ve had to put it on the back burner, which is a shame. From the review of these objects you get the sense that they wanted to make a real go of it too and that it hurts a little that it’s been so hard to start.

It’s a shame because the stuff that lands in a Wieden & Kennedy bin is probably a thousand times more interesting than anything you would find on the television, on the radio, in a book, a magazine on the Internet today and I can think of at least four other agencies that I could say the same of. What comes out of objective number 9 could be anything and that’s what makes it so exciting.

For me, Objective number 9 could very well be the future for an industry which is, slowly but surely, starting to buckle under the weight of its own nonsense but still hasn’t found a way to deal with the day-to-day business of flogging communications, winning whopping accounts and doing what the really should be doing; which should be objective number 9.

Let’s hope W+K get there.

If you were wondering how The Ides of March makes sure rejected ideas are not used by the people who turned them down and what happens when we catch them, then here’s your answer.

Behind The Ides of March sits a non-executive organisation called The Senate. The members of The Senate, or Senators, are people that I trust, are located all over the world and as you will see are all masters in their own field. Let’s have a look who’s in it shall we (in no particular order)?

Victor Houghton, Jason V. Lonsdale , Grant McCracken, Christian Baujard, Todd Foutz, Angus Whines, Sean Howard, Tim Keil, Age Conte, Rob Campbell, Mark McGuinness, Rob Mortimer, Luc Debaisieux, Faris Yakob, Dan Germain, Nina Zimmermann, Paul H. Colman, Mark Earls, Fredrik Sarnblad, Andy Boucher, Richard Huntington, Henry Lambert, John Grant, Andrew Hovells, Gavin Heaton, Sebastian Oehme, Rory Sutherland, Russell Davies, David Brabbins, Charles Frith, Beeker Northam, William Humphrey, Mark Goren, Giles Rhys Jones, Gareth Kay, David Bausola, Philip Hubertus, John Dodds, Graeme Douglas, Amelia Torode, Drew McLellan, Dan Shute, Niku Banaie, Paul McEnany, George Parker, Jason Oke.

Pretty impressive group of people, I’m sure you’ll agree. If we spot something that falls outside of The Ides of March general agreement, The Senate convenes, a plan of action is agreed and then implemented. Globally.

I’m very proud to have each and everyone of them onboard.

If someone doesn’t like their Ides of March idea, if they don’t want to buy it then it get’s posted on this site for all the world to see. This is what I’m calling “Open Source Rejection”. Where most businesses tend to post what they think is “their best work” for “the best clients” the Ides of March will show you the ideas that have been rejected, although the identity of the client will remain “non-disclosed”.

A rejected idea may not be a bad idea – it’s just been rejected for some reason, so it’s put out into the open so that other people can have a look, discuss it and yes, let other people build on it for their own requirements.

Open Source Rejection ideas are free, you can use them as you see fit, but it would be great if you credited The Ides of March for any of the bits you may have used that came from this site.

If you’re new to The Ides of March why not read this story? It tells you how it all started.

If you’ve spotted a problem or the need for an idea in your company and you like what The Ides of March is trying to do, why not send this email to your boss, or colleagues? Pretty much explains what this is all about and saves you having to type it up:

Hello.

I think we have a problem, and I’m pretty sure you know which one I’m talking about. I don’t think we can solve the problem on our own, I would like to get some outside help on it and I think I have found a little company that can help us.

The company is called “The Ides of March” and it specialises in ideas and innovation. All we have to do is send through a brief description of our problem to marcus@the-ides-of-march.com and we’ll get an idea on how to solve it sent back to us. I’ve checked and getting a NDA signed isn’t a problem.

The interesting thing is that if we decide that the idea is good and we want to buy it, we determine the value of the idea and it belongs to us. If we don’t want to buy the idea then it is published on The Ides of March website as something called “open source rejection”.

This could be an interesting way to sort things out. What do you think? Have a look at the website, it’s a little odd but explains what it’s all about.

Believe me, they’ll know the problem you’re talking about.

Once upon a time there was a young man who was rather good at ideas; creative even, some would say. Some went further still and said he was a bit bloody good. Then one day he was asked by a company to come in and talk about his ideas and they said “oh, you’re clever – like really bloody good” but they decided not to work with him after all.

That made the young man very sad, so sad that he wanted to give up and never dream of doing that kind of stuff again. This made some people angry and they shouted at him and said that he should pull himself together.

So he sat down and thought about how he could build a little idea and innovation company, from scratch, without any money – a company that would be smarter, with better ideas than the company that had made him so sad.

So he decided that he would develop ideas for anybody that wanted them, and set up shop in his little corner of the internet. He would help people with their problems and give them his ideas. If they liked the idea they would pay for it – and that they would decide how much the idea was worth and if they didn’t want to buy the idea, well he would post it on his blog for all the world to see.

The idea was called “the Ides of March”. This is it. Welcome.