Idea IS the format

A is for AFK – I seem to get some of my best work done when I’m not staring at a screen.  I guess I’m more of a pencil person.

B is for BREAKFAST – The most important meal of the day.  And a chance to get ahead on all the fruit and fibre of which my diet seems to be otherwise totally devoid.  Take my word for it, breakfast is going to be BIG in 2010.  And fibrous.  And, well, rather boring.

C is for CRUNK – My version of Lent, involving a break from all the crap drugs.  You know the ones;  booze; coke; sugar; television.  I’m not damning them outright, they just aren’t my cup of green tea.  Last year I managed 37 days.  As of right now I’m four down and counting.

D is for @danlight – Twitter’s become an outlet through which I waste time and energy trying to validate inconsequential aspects of my life in the eyes of people who likely couldn’t give a shit.  Which would be fine, except that that’s what my blog’s for. Going to try and mix it up a bit on Twitter.

E is for ELECTION – Some of my favourite blog posts (by me, that is) were written about the 2008 US presidential election campaign.  Hopefully I can find some time to conjure a bit of commentary on the ‘compassionate conservative’ clusterfuck we can look forward to in the run-up to May 6th.  Without having to break my leg in two places in the process.

F is for FAMILY – It’s the easiest thing in the world to cite work/writing/whatever-you-fancy as a reason for being an absent or inadequate husband/father/son.  Even worse, you might actually try to convince yourself that it’s more difficult, or more important. It’s not.

G is for graze.com – One of my oldest friends, Tommy P, is one of the founders of graze.com.  Honestly, I didn’t see them surviving the downturn, but they seem to be doing just that.  What’s more, I met a few of the guys behind the business, and they’re an impressive bunch.  Expect good things in 2010.

H is for HELIOPOLIS – James Scudamore, another very old friend  – try 30-odd years – published his second novel, Heliopolis, exactly one year ago.  It ha since received considerable critical acclaim, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize.  I still haven’t read it.  (In fairness, it’s not like I read any other novels in 2009.)  This is lame as fuck.  I will read Heliopolis in 2010.

I is for INSHRIACH – The hard-working highland estate owned and managed by our pal Walter.  Just back from spending a truly magnificent few days seeing in the new year, and set to get back up there for one family holiday, three stag weekends and one music festival over the next six months.  Oh, and I want to try and shoot a film there (see L).  Project Inshriach goes from strength to strength.

J is for JUICE – Just don’t drink enough of it.  Cranberry is best, for the kidney win.

K is for kickstarter.com – a clever little site, recognising the amplified power of Internet crowdsourcing as the basis for funding a range of worthwhile endeavours.  Hope to try it out with something, quite possibly…

L is for LOCH GHOON – …a film I’m going to make.  So far I’ve failed spectacularly in almost everything I’ve set out to do.  Fortunately, for as long as I’m only playing with my time or money, that doesn’t really matter.  Expect more spectacular failures in 2010.

M is for MAX – My cousin, who passed away in 2009.  I’m going to honour his memory in the year to come, in a number of ways.  (See L, N and V.)

N is for NORTH DORSET RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB – Max was their Club Captain.  Going to make sure I get a long to a game or two, starting with the home game against joint-leaders of the Southern Counties League, Frome, on January 30th.  Let me know if you fancy it.

O is for ORGANISED – Not very.  Just a bit.  I’m talking a to-do list on a Monday morning, is all.  Meaning that O is also for Optimistic.

P is for PSYCHOTHERAPY – The new vocation Ems has chosen for herself, following almost a decade in corporate public relations.  Her foundation year starts right here, and four years down the line…

Q is for QUALIFICATIONS – …enabling her to practice Psychotherapy in a professional capacity.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about what could come out in the wash along the way, but it feels great that she’s pursuing a vocation that has the potential to play to her real strengths.

R is for RESOLVE – Emma has it.  Once she commits herself to something, she gets the job done.  I’ve always been more of a butterfly, but I don’t beat myself up over it – it has its own advantages.  Between us we both seem to get stuff done.  I guess R is also for Rapport.

S is for SLINGERS SIZZLE – Very keen to see where this ends up, after generating such a huge buzz back in early December.  So I guess S is also for Sizemore and Sleepydog.

T is for TOMMY P – He’s getting married in May.  I figure that gets him his own entry, especially being that I’m best man.  Soon as I’m done with this list, I need to make a start on that speech.

U is for UNSUBSCRIBE – Meaning I don’t care how many of my friends took quizzes this week.  Or what kind of dried fruit you are.  Or what kind of dried fruit I am.

V is for #VHSMovieClub – and the 365 VHS videos I’m going to watch in 2010.  Follow @VHSMovieClub to keep pace, and for details of our occasional outings, the first of which is the Max Biles Memorial #VHSMovieClub taking place at The Scooterworks on January 25th

W is for WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR – The subject of the most grown-up thing I’ve ever attempted.  Watch this space.

X is for EXERCISE – kind of.  Because I’m going to start taking regular exercise. Kind of.  It starts with getting back on a climbing wall.  Reckon my leg is back where it needs to be, and I can probably squeeze a spare evening out of the week, especially during Crunk.  Probably Thursdays at The Castle in Green Lanes, if anybody fancies it.

Y is for WHY NOT? – It’s a much better question than ‘Why?’  For someone who’s supposed to be creative, I think my mind is sometimes far too closed to the more challenging ideas of the people around me.  Need to fix that.

Z is for ZZZ – Every aspect of my life seems to be improved off the back of a good night’s sleep.  It’s effortless, enjoyable, and a great way to experience the extraordinary imaginative energy and latent creativity of the human mind.   Speaking of which, I fancy a kip.  See you in 2011.

My first ever ‘unboxing’ video, and I’m already bending the rules. I’ve jumped through hoops to get this posted, but I’ve learnt a lot in the process.

For anybody interested in trying Graze out, Tommy gave me this promo code: 2N46BDN. It’s an ‘early bird discount’, and it gets the first thousand people who use it one free box, and a second at half price. You have to provide payment details as part of the sign-up process, but can cancel at any time. There’s no kickback for me, I just asked for something to offer bloggy friends, and I got this. As you can see Joe90 and BookPirate have both tried it out, and their first impressions appear to be equally positive.

A few months ago I posted about a start-up called Graze an old friend of mine is currently involved in.  I wasn’t completely clear on their business model at the time, but I’ve been catching up with Tommy as often as possible since then and he’s always taken a little time to bring me up to speed on how its coming along.

The essence of Graze is that they deliver a range of boxes of fresh fruit, nuts and other squirrel-friendly produce through the mail.  It may sound strange, but when you factor in that Tommy’s working with Graham Bosher, founder of DVD postal delivery service LOVEFiLM, it starts to make a bit more sense.

There’s plenty more about the how and why of the service itself on the website which, on the strength of a couple of visits, seems every bit as fresh and nutritious as I’d expect their product to be.  Its intuitively structured, and the first couple of user-journeys I’ve had have flowed perfectly.  Tommy knows better than anybody what a pedant I can be when it comes to usability (he would use a ruder word than ‘pedant’) so that should be music to his ears.

I was pleased to find that the sign-up process only asked me for essential information, broken up into manageable portions.  Unusually, the third most important piece of information they asked for, after email and password, was whether I have a nut allergy.  I don’t, but it was nice to know they’ve got my back.

They’re launching by sending promo codes out to everybody who signed up to the mailing list while the site was under development.  This doesn’t only reward early interest but also enables Graze to scale up their operation in a controlled way, by sending out codes in measured bursts, ensuring that they’re capable of fulfilling demand as their customer base gradually expands.

I was talking to Tommy about this the last time we caught up.  Each person who signs up will expect to receive fresh food on time every time.  When they do, they’ll give Graze no real credit for this, because it’s what they’re paying for.  But, postal strikes notwithstanding, each time a box doesn’t turn up, or turns up anything less than delectable and utterly digestible, customer relations will be quickly eroded.  One of the biggest challenges facing Graze will be to manage this process, and to ensure that people are compensated where appropriate, without being taken for a ride.

Speaking of which, I’ve been busting Tommy’s seedless grapes all afternoon to give me a good promo code to offer friends of Idea is the format, and he’s given me this – 2N46BDN.  It’s an early bird discount, and it gets the first thousand people who use it one free box, and a second at half price. You’ll have to provide payment details as part of the sign-up process, but you can cancel at any time.  Just to be clear, there’s no kickback for me here.  It’s not a referral thing. I just asked for something halfway decent to give away, and they gave me this.

For my part, I’ve waived the kind offer of a promo code for the chance to find out straight away whether I think I’m getting my money’s worth.  My first box is due to arrive on Thursday, so I guess I’ll make my first ‘unboxing’ video, eat some fruit and nuts, then post my thoughts on what I make of the product, the business, and their chances of success up against what’s starting to look like one of the most hostile economic climates for decades.

PLEASE NOTE: This post was heavily updated a couple of days after I first published it. With everything I’ve added, I’d like to think that it deserves re-reading.

After keeping his cards very close to his chest for the last few months Tommy P finally spilt a handful of beans on the new venture he’s going to be involved with in 2008 – www.graze.com.

The site currently consists of little more than a mailing list, some nice sweeping images of greenery and healthy goodness and the promise of ‘nature delivered’. Nice to see that it’s already showing some class – the data capture is carefully graded, allowing you to leave as much or as little useful info as you want, accompanied by the promise that ‘we hate spam’.

I haven’t been able to prise out of Tommy exactly how Graze will work, but it’s looking like some sort of online grocers. The venture is the brainchild of a former colleague of his from Lovefilm, which offers some clues as to the business model behind it. As with Lovefilm and the home entertainment industry, the internet undoubtedly has the potential to revolutionise the mechanics of grocery shopping, through the creation of more efficient mechanisms for ordering and fulfilment. Unlike Lovefilm (in its current incarnation at least) fruit and veg aren’t about to be rendered redundant by people downloading their nutrients on demand.

Several of the established supermarket chains are already well underway with the process of adapting their business models to begin realise this opportunity. As of 2007 the online grocery sector was still dominated by major supermarket chains including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA and Waitrose, of which Tesco is a comfortable front-runner. The closest thing to a successful internet-only brand is Ocado, a warehouse-based retailer partly owned by The John Lewis Partnership, which is steadily expanding its area of geographical coverage and has become another leading player in this sector.

Whatever headway has been made in fulfilling demand for online grocery shopping, the extent of the demand will always dictate the pace at which the opportunity can be brought to fruition. Consumer behaviour can be influenced by advertising, marketing and public relations, but any internet business forgets at its peril that the foremost casualties of the dotcom bubble were businesses failing to account for the extent to which we consumers are irrational, creatures of habit, not about to change our habits overnight for the sake of raw fiscal or logistical incentives.

A recent report found that 15.9% of respondents purchased groceries via the Internet at least once in a year, with 3.2% making online purchases at least once a week and 2.7% making them two or three times a month. The largest proportion, 4.5%, purchased groceries online one or two times a year. The UK Internet grocery market, considered to be one of the most developed in the world, is expected to increase its current value by 80% within the next 5 years. When one considers how uniquitous a requirement groceries represent, these must be regardeded as nascent levels of demand, leaving plenty of grocery shoppers whose allegiances to their local supermarket chain are there to be tested when they make the transition to ordering online.

Indeed one wonders how much of a hurry established chains are in to see their customers drifting online. An internet shopper is less likely to make impulse purchases outside the scope of a shopping list; less likely to buy weekly magazines, and certainly daily newspapers, as part of a fortnightly or monthly order; less likely to buy music and DVDs from an outlet who can’t compete with Amazon on price; less likely to buy clothes without being able to try them on; less likely to be seduced by point-of-sale leaflets advertising loans and other financial services; and far less likely to buy fuel for their car when they no longer need to make the trip. No, the chains will always prefer their customers in-store rather than online, for as long as their core business isn’t being threatened by upstart start-ups offering an improved, exclusively online alternative.

There’s no inherent reason why the chains shouldn’t be challenged in this way. Amazon itself has succeeded in establishing itself as an online retailer leading multiple markets ahead of existing businesses who’ve attempted to make the transition from high street to information super-highway. Seth Godin examines Amazon’s success in his latest book, Meatball Sundae, ascribing it to the very fact that Amazon was built from the ground up, conceived for the medium of the web and free from the baggage of an established bricks-and-mortar business.

Certainly anybody wanting to compete in this space faces some substantial barriers to entry. These include high start-up costs, efficient stock-picking and replenishment systems, comprehensive delivery networks and user-friendly website design, assuming the start-up adopts the same basic business model. Of course, every now and then some bright spark affects a paradigm shift, re-envisaging the way a service is offered and a need fulfilled, and managing to clean up off the back of it. I’d love to think that Graze is about to do just that, but until I hear otherwise I’m assuming that they’ll be competing with the big boys on roughly the same terms. If so, the key to their success will be the little differences, and how they communicate them to make one big one.

Indeed, I think there is an important opportunity here, growing from a grassroots disillusionment with the chains. There is a strengthening consensus that a steady decline in UK food standards – and the corresponding woes of British agriculture – can be ascribed to disproportionate influence exerted by supermarkets over customers and suppliers. I can’t help feeling that they’re well overdue a comeuppance in this respect – the kind of sudden, sweeping retribution that only this new industrial revolution can inflict – and I think that Graze will quickly engender some precious goodwill if it’s seen to be reasserting the primacy of the relationship between consumer and producer.

The tyranny of Tesco was one factor in Emma’s and my decision to start having a box of organic veg delivered by The Organic Delivery Company. This comes once a week, and contains a selection of stuff selected by the delivery company based on what’s in season. Putting our current raw beetroot surplus to one side, this is a great way to get your veg. It reminds of a comment Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy made in his presentation at The Media Summit a few weeks ago, to the effect that people have been found to be shopping for organic food because there’s a smaller selection to choose from, and in this context choice is sometimes perceived as burdensome. I think Graze would do well to consider how they can enable time-starved grocery shoppers to relinquish this burden, putting it in the hands of a responsible supplier using technology to better understand our needs and act on our behalves.

It will be interesting to see how Graze unfolds, but it certainly looks like a project Tommy will be proud to be a part of. We’ve worked together building websites and interactive applicati
ons since 1998, most notably developing Ploggle together from the ground up, and collaborating on all manner of ground-breaking projects for PPC. As developers go he’s a natural, and as hard-working as anybody I know, which is a potent combination. I hope this venture allows him to finally turn these talents into wealth beyond his wildest dreams, but, more importantly, that everyone involved has a blast making it happen. For my part, I’ll keep tapping him up for titbits, and I’ll keep you posted.