Author: alexseward

Avicii: The dark side of ‘hard work’

Last week, it was announced that Tim Bergling (aka Avicii) had passed away, aged 28.

A 2017 documentary on his life ‘Avicii: True Stories’, shows his meteoric rise from bedroom producer through to international superstar, with the highs of this stardom, and the associated lows which led to Tim taking absence from performing live. This provides a thought provoking reminder on the value of your mental and physical health, and where respecting ‘hard work’ in the guise of no sleep, long hours and an unsustainable lifestyle is a cultural phenomenon we may need to change.

His recent death has put this film in another context, and makes scenes like the below with Tim’s manager quite a hard watch…

 

Soundcloud

For better or worse, we have a digital footprint of our online activity all over the place. However, one area I fortunately stumble upon every once in a while is my old Soundcloud account. Whilst I still listen to a lot of music, the distinct lack of time and resources (my personal laptop unfortunately met it’s end) has led to a real decrease in my ability to collect tunes and record mixes.

Feel free to check out a selection of these recordings below. Although my taste has definitely changed a lot over the last few years, I still really enjoy listening back to these and there’s definitely a couple of low key amazing songs which I’m sure most people aren’t familiar with.

Brb…

“Be right back” “Got to go” “What have you been up to?”… although shortened to their text versions, these were common phrases I used with my friends daily on MSN Messenger in the mid to late 2000’s. We had instant communication, but we were not always connected. Now with the integration of smartphones into our lives, and applications being available across all platforms, these conversations and updates on people’s life activities are almost constant. We went from instant messaging to always on, and with that, the concept of leaving… left.

I’m not going to argue whether this change is better or worse, but it was fascinating to me that the use of these phrases in online communication came and went so quickly. The pace of change in technology and the impact this has on our language and communication styles is undeniable.

Anyway gtg, speak soon!

The Asylum

Whilst moving to a new iPhone, the photos app decided to go a bit crazy with my iCloud albums and download random pictures from the last 7 years. One of them was this; taken in my friend Jon’s university bedroom, at 3:25am on 23rd October 2011.


Jon, our friend Sam, and I had a common love for electronic music and wanted to create a platform to share this with the world. We spent all night working on the concept for the brand, and the website that would be the hub of this. Over the next couple of years, we went onto create a semi-successful YouTube channel, with supporting Facebook and Twitter accounts. We connected with many similar people, built relationships with producers and record labels, and even had a short lived run on our University radio.

However, what I now realise is this process allowed me to develop some digital marketing and web design knowledge, improve my networking skills, as well as learning how to produce a radio show. These experiences have both intrinsically helped in developing these skills, but also in creating stories to tell at interviews and in my current role. It also taught me a very valuable lesson… you are not bigger than copyright law!

 

Real-Time Decision Making

I was engaged in a recent conversation about the true value of real-time data in enabling business decision making and enhancing the customer experience. To understand this, you must first look at yourself in your day to day to life.

One of the best examples I can see for myself is the use of maps and GPS. When my dad first got a Sat Nav for the car, it was amazing that you could type in the postcode of somewhere you’ve not been before, and barring any diversions down waterlogged roads or any new road layouts that have yet to be updated, you would make it to your destination. However, fast forward to today and the way I use this technology, and it has fundamentally changed. The internet connection alongside the GPS has enabled the experience to become a lot more intelligent, by providing real-time traffic data. I will now use maps software on the majority of journeys I do, including routes I know very well like my commute to the office. This is because the service will allow me to make better decisions and take diversions along the route to avoid unnecessary traffic.

This data-driven experience and instant real-time decision making will resonate with you in some way I’m sure, and so now we expect at least parity in our interactions with businesses. For me, the only way you can stay ahead, or even keep up with these customers is to play at their speed. Is it still ok for your Facebook site to state ‘Typically replies within a day’ when your competitors have helpful chatbots enabling their page to state ‘Typically replies instantly’?

Back again. Oxide, Neutrino, settin’ the trend…

Firstly, apologies for the title.. I’ve been listening to a lot of UK garage recently. For anyone interested, there are some great recent documentaries on the history of the genre here, here and here!

However, it is true, I am reviving this site… again. This post makes me laugh, because 1) I completely failed to do what I set out and 2) it’s still pretty spot on.

Over the last half year or so, I’ve moved to a new role at Microsoft, and now working as a Digital Advisor focused on the Retail sector. I have a passion for retailing, as both a consumer, and harking back to my days on the shopfloor at Gamestation, and so am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to discuss business strategy and cutting edge technology with some of the best in the industry.

Additionally, this new role lends well to sharing my thoughts through a medium such as this blog. With this, I plan to become more rigorous with my posting schedule, and share interesting content around retailing, technology, as well as my first love, music. I hope someone finds this useful and interesting, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you.

93 ’til Infinity

Towards the end of university, I felt a compelling need for a platform to share my thoughts and interests without clogging up everyone’s news feeds. I really wasn’t bothered whether anyone would read it, but I wanted a place to vent and express myself through creative thinking, writing and sharing content. I spent a few days putting together a website with a blog page and sporadically posted music I liked, interesting videos I had watched, alongside some posts I had written for my virtual business module at university and other topics of interest. However, as I started full time work, I forgot about this site completely.

I have decided to renew the hosting, redesign the site and want to get posting again. The writing process can be meditative, and keeping up my projects such as the ‘monthly mix’ allow me to remain structured and focused outside of work. My recent trip to the US taught me how important this is, by giving me some time to get away from the emails and the general mad rush of work. I hadn’t realised but for close to a year I’d dropped a lot of the activities that I love and lost clarity around what I do with my spare time. A big example of this being music. Forgetting that the passion I had for music has been a topic of discussion in every interview I’ve done, I’d somehow allowed myself to significantly lose interest in it because I was so consumed by work. In reality, being more focused in my time away from work on what makes me happy, will most likely make me more productive during the time that I am there.

I will make an effort to regularly update the site ongoing with a variety of content that I find interesting. This is how we chill from 93 ’til…

Burial Samples

Burial has been one of my favourite musicians, since hearing a few snippets from the self titled LP. These were given to me in year 10, on a CD a friend had named “Best of Dubstep” – fair to say it changed the way I viewed music as a 15 year old.

I have always been fascinated by Burial’s use of sampling and am a frequent lurker on the Reddit page dedicated to him. Recently, the users on there have been findings more and more samples that have previously not been identified. To some, this ruins the mystery, and I can understand that. However for me, it highlights just how amazing and obscure some of the sample work Burial has done over the years really is. Although some of it is still speculation, its still great to see how people have interpreted his potential use of the samples.

Some examples:

1) Street Halo

2) Stolen Dog

3) This found here

4) 0:06, 0:38, and 0:52 from here are found here

Ex Machina

I recently watched Ex Machina. I knew just from reading about the concept that I would love it, and the film didn’t let me down. Some very interesting discussion points raised – what is artificial intelligence? what defines being alive? what makes you human?

I found that Nathan’s house from the film is a hotel in Norway. Looks amazing – although I’m visiting Norway at the end of June, I don’t think I can afford to stay here 🙁

Field Recording of ‘The Last Summer’

As of September, I will be in full time employment and my amount of free time will be significantly reduced. I’ve been trying to think of a project to occupy my time, during what is likely to be one of the last long breaks I have! I have finally decided on purchasing a field recorder.

I am planning to record something every day between June and August/September. So far, I have trips to Malaysia and Norway booked as well as a few days out, such as Royal Ascot and an ‘Enterprise Day’ at the school my mum works at. Hopefully should get some varied stuff – some interesting, some very mundane. Maybe I will listen to it again, maybe I won’t. Maybe I will share it, or maybe I will keep it locked away in my hard drive. I am not sure of my intentions for this, but I like the idea of recording small parts of my ‘last summer’ and will decide afterwards what I do with the audio.

Update: Finished result The Last Summer by alexseward