He’d told her he had a job with “a big tech company”. She was so proud. He’d spent three years in his room: in lectures, tutorials, ‘socialising’ or whatever students did. She had wondered if the fees had been worth it. But now he had a job. She’d heard how much people could earn. He said he was working on AI. He wasn’t going into an ‘office’. The company had long ago got rid of those. Anyway, she liked having him at home. He seemed to spend a lot of time in meetings. Always talking. He must be very important.
Dispatch from an advertising future #111
https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/24/21454872/amazon-ring-always-home-cam-flying-drone-ad-demo
The profiles were nearly complete. The different dimensions were in place. Shopping JDoe was catalogued. Consuming JDoe was captured. Emotional JDoe was measured. Moving JDoe was tracked. There was no need to worry about the JDoe office space as there had been in The Before. The JDoe home space was visualised. The various dimensions of JDoe were overlaid and interwoven. They were nearing the data singularity. “This is a golden age,” they were always told. “You don’t have big data or thick data, you have complete data.” She stared at her screens and tried to think of a funny idea.
Dispatches from an advertising future #110
https://www.engadget.com/oldest-computer-manual-zuse-z4-161214346.html
It had been a themepark for a long time. Students came on fieldtrips and marvelled at the rows of desktop computers, giggled at the printers and looked puzzled at the meeting rooms. The guide was programmed as a Don Draper-style CD, from The Before. He talked about pitches and client meetings, and told tales of days and nights in “the office”. She opened a door. There was a table with books… printed books. A big one with a giant pencil on it, one about ‘producing ideas’, and one called Essential English. She picked it up, opened and began to read.
for Sir Harry
Dispatches from an advertising future #109
He’d always been slightly envious of them, their corner of the office. It was just more… fun. They had paper, lots of it. Doodles and post-it notes with half-written jokes or quotes. Their screens always looked better too, their software exciting. And then there were the gadgets and games. They justified playing as work but seeing them the gear, battling across the office had made turning back to his dashboards hard. But now… he smiled as he put on his headset and the data swirled. He zoomed in and out deleting, connecting, collecting. He was the Wade Watts of programmatic.
Dispatches from an advertising future #108
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/09/22/amazon-launches-luxury-store-will-luxury-brands-buy-it
We’ve spent a long time being exclusive. We’re careful not to say anything about ‘The Public’, but they know and we know, we’re different. Well we all knew. Now? It was bad enough when management embraced ‘social media’ – the very name! I bit my tongue. Then they ignored the real shows and spent money on so-called ‘experiences’, open to anyone. I held back. But this is too far. I’m not a computer person, which is why I need you. This “shop”, can you shut it? Take it down or whatever you people say? I’ve read about something called a DDOS?
Dispatches from an advertising future #107
I imagine them opening it. You’ve seen feeds of them waiting by their new letterbox for my papergram to arrive: expectant, delighted. Sometimes they rip them open, sometimes they take endless time. I can almost feel it when I’m writing. Of course I’ve always had their profile to work with, but I think imagining has changed the writing – not just the words, the way the letters are formed, the way my hand moves the pen. They call it the ‘empathy chip’ but they don’t talk about it publically. I wonder if the people getting my letters have noticed my upgrade.