The general thrust is:
To look forwards we have to look back. London is about to enter into a period of extreme innovation, I think, because of how London bounced back from previous crashes.
The key difference today is that the spatial shift is inwards that is already showing the signs of a much more volatile innovation and ideas market.
It was presented to an audience of somewhere between 300-500 people at The Cumberland Hotel to welcome Fantasy Interactive to London. You can see the presentation on a live stream here, from around 50 minutes in. Its all about the history of London through the three financial crashes, 1870, 1930, 2007 and how resilient and brilliant London is at innovating itself out of the hole.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fantasy-interactive1
The talk starts at around the 50m mark, let me know if anyone has any feedback or thoughts!
n.b - I don't claim copyright on any of the imagery used in the talk, its there to illustrate points, but the owners of the imagery retain all rights yadda yadda yadda...
36. 36
1. a sense of purpose above creating
shareholder value
2. a shared understanding of their customers
3. a shared awareness of their own strengths
and weaknesses
4. willingness to let go of 鍖xed and self-
protective positions
5. willingness to collaborate outside the
organisation
#2: 10 mins\n\nSimon is... \nJames is... \nFigtree is...\nHow excited we are that Fantasy International are opening in the UK\nRef the HTC work they’ve done. \n\nWe’re going to set the context, talk a little about London and history and banking crises, and then talk about the good, bad and ugly clients \n\n
#3: These are troubled times, but London is a really resilient city with a rich heritage of thriving and coming through tough times, stronger. \n\nWe’re just going to skim over the last hundred and fifty years and cherry pick facts that back our belief that Fantasy International are going to have a brilliant time here! \n
#4: This was london in 1852. Just before the crash of 1870....\n\nIn the period between 1830 and 1865 London experienced an extraordinary period of expansion and growth as new railroads increasingly brought suburban communities into the urban fold. \n
#5: insolvent mortgages & complex financial instruments. Banking crises. \n\nIt infected to the whole economy. \n\nWidespread instability and prolonged unemployment. This was the crash of 1870. Sound familiar? \n\nPost crash enormous spike in patents. People had to be inventive to survive. They developed new technologies and industries, some we still use today, some not. \n
#6: 1885 \nThe Rover street safety cycle. \nBalanced seating, easy steering and crucially, freed people from needing to own horses. \nIt democratized travel. \n\nThe average travel speed of a human in 1850 was 4m/ph \n
#7: 1876 Alexander Bell (A scots man who moved to Canada then the US) invented the telephone. \n\nBusiness’ could communicate from / to different cities.\n\nChildren could spread their wings and moved from local villages and farms. \n
#8: 1902\nClockwork teasmade \nAlarm clock triggered a switch and a match was then struck against moving sandpaper, lighting the spirit stove under the kettle. Once the water boiled, the steam pressure lifted a hinged flap and the kettle would tilt, filling the teapot beneath. \nFinally a plate would swing over the stove, extinguishing its flames. \n
#9: 1920a\nHeath Robinson-esque route finder. \n\nWorn like a watch with directions written on a tiny clockwork scrolls. \n\nSadly few roads and fewer cars! \n
#10: By the 1900’s average travel speed 8mph. \n\nThe idea that we might work further away from our home embedded in culture. \n\nThis period is often regarded, including todays wonders, the most innovative period of our time on earth. \n\nThe 1920’s were prosperous, the roaring 20s, economy soared and emotions ran high. \n\nThe world was good and it was a time of relative equal prosperity for everyone. \n
#11: 1930s struck\n\nSocial progress of the 20’s wiped out\n\nBut London, again, being built on a diverse workforce, with leading industrialists innovated its way out of the hole. London bounced back.\n
#12: The American Dream - everyone will have a car, house, fridge, TV, radio... etc - \n\nKeeping up with the Joneses\n\nInfrastructure (electricity, gas, sewage, water, phone wires) \n\n\n
#13: Hubert Cecil Booth and his British Vacuum Cleaning Co laid the foundation for:\n
#14: The invention of the Hoover, meant to ‘liberate’ women. \n\nBut standards got more stringent. Suddenly the ‘carpets’ were put down all the time. \n\nWe see the same thing with washing machines (suddenly clothes are washed every week).\n\n
#15: Post the depression,mass migration out of cities into suburbia. \n\nSpatial shift encouraged by bombing suffered by major cities during the war (which remained an immanent threat for a long time)... \n\nPrompted the outward extension of the boundaries of most cities. \n
#16: Herbert Spencer drove from central london to the recently opened Heathrow airport and photographed each of the signs he came across along the way.\n\nHe then published the results in Typographica. \n\nJock Kinneir and his assistant Margerat Calbert. \n\nMotorways late 1950s \n\nAll other roads in the 1960s.\n
#17: As we moved further from work, we became ever more inventive about how to cross the distances need. \n\nOur infrastructure for trains, planes and cars developed very quickly, the average speed of travel is closer to 40mph.\n\n\n
#18: Then we get to 2007. \n\nLargest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom. \n\nLargest urban zone in the European Union by most measures\n\nWorld's most-visited city, largest airport system measured by passenger traffic, 43 universities forming largest concentration of higher education in Europe. \n\nIn next month we will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.\n\nDiverse range of peoples and cultures. \nMore than 300 languages spoken within its boundaries.\nFour world heritage sites, numerous galleries, libraries, sporting events and cultural institutions. \n\n\n\n
#19: We are moving out of the shadow of the 2008 crash and are in the third phase of the “spatial fix” cycle that we saw after the 1870 and 1930 crashes. \n\n5 distinct phases\n\n1. crises sets in, old institutions break down, business & consumers cut back spending\n\n2. new innovations emerge & begin to be introduced to market\n\n\n3. those innovations and tech are forced together by entrepreneurs into bigger & better technological systems, \nwhere we are now!\n\n4. New public & private investment in energy, transportation and communication infrastructure that will provide the broad skeleton of a new economic landscape and increase the speed and velocity of urban life.\n\n5. A new spatial fix emerges creating a new economic landscape that is more closely in sync with the improved productive campabilities of the underlying economy. \n \n
#20: What this means: \n\nPeople aren’t buying big ticket items. \n\nWe use car rentalschemes rather than owning. \n\nWe stay renting in the middle of cities rather than move to the ‘burbs’ to ‘own a home’. \n\nOur lives are almost frictionless. Our data, diary and family photos are stored on cloud services we can access anywhere. \n\nThe irony is that with all this freedom, we’re all attracted to the same few cities where we can live and work with people that inspire us. \n\n\n\n\n
#21: As Jane Jacobs wrote in the 1960s / 70s \nCities have the diverse economic and social structures that are the true engines of growth. \n\nBrick Lane, my story:\n\n6 years. \nAffordable nightlife, food, culture.\nLike minded people. \nWell connected.\nDiverse population....\n\n
#22: One of the oldest buildings in East London is the Jamme Masjid. \n\nFirst established 1743 as a Protestant chapel ("La Neuve Eglise") by London's French Huguenot community.[5] These Huguenots were refugees who had left France to escape persecution from the Catholics. The building survived as a Huguenot chapel for more than six decades. \n\nIn 1809 it became a Wesleyan chapel, bought by the "London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews" (an organisation now known as the Church's Ministry Among Jewish People), but this phase of its history lasted only 10 years. \n\nFrom 1819, the building became a Methodist Chapel.[6]\n\nIn the late 19th century, the building became the "Machzike Adass" or "Spitalfields Great Synagogue". During this time, the area was home to many Jewish refugees from Russia and Central Europe.[7] The population of Jews decreased over the years, with many moving to areas of North London. The synagogue, losing its worshippers, was eventually closed.\n\nDuring the 1970s, the area of Spitalfields and Brick Lane was populated by Bangladeshis who had come to Britain from the Sylhet region looking for better work. Many found work in factories and the textile trade. That growing community required a place of worship.\n\nIn 1976, it reopened as a mosque, known as the "London Jamme Masjid". Today, although it has been renamed, it still serves the Bangladeshi community as a mosque.[1]\n\nWe shouldn’t assume all cities are like this:\n
#23: Japan - less than 1% of the workforce from overseas. Limited experiences to draw from. \n
#24: Toronto - 46% of workers not canadian. \n\nHub of massive innovation, although suffering a bit in the last 3 years as outsiders have snapped up startups (45 last year) and are beginning to snuff out the ecosystem that supports innovation. \n\n\n\n
#25: However London, has it all. \n\nWe’ve got the right mix of education institutions, diverse population with a “spatial fix” that sees the working population getting closer together.\n\nThis creates the perfect storm for energetic innovation within an infrastructure that lets entrepreneurs launch, evolve and develop.\n\nWe’re really excited about London at the moment, and really pleased that Fantasy International are here for the ride!\n\n\n\n
#26: Our design director, Hector Pottie, talking through his 10 principles of good design, which includes the HTC work we worked on with FI.\n
#27: Sometimes we need to talk about the craft\n(video of hector talking about the 10 principles of design?)\n