The Remarkable Business Show Episode 6 Special Guest Brendan Dawes **Please excuse the wonky time stamps - we did the transcript at different times on the audio files** Jon Moss: [00:00:01] This is The Remarkable Business Show on remarkable.f.m.. I'm Jon Moss and this is Episode Six. Jon Moss: [00:00:09] Welcome to the show. It's good to have you back. And if you are a first time listener a special welcome to you. Jon Moss: [00:00:15] Now you might know that I write a regular newsletter called The Bulletin. If you don't know about this you're going to find out now. The subscribers are growing and the open rate on the e-mails is just above 70 percent which I think's pretty good. So when you first sign up you get an e-book as well. And I cover productivity, diet, nutrition and some of my favourite apps and software. Jon Moss: [00:00:35] The actual email I send out around once a month and it's jam-packed with just good interesting reading which I found during the last few weeks. So please give it a go. Head on over to the apple of my eye dot com slash newsletter. You can unsubscribe with one click if you don't like what I write and I'm never going to pass on your details to anybody but give it a go. And if you're already a subscriber please tell someone. Jon Moss: [00:01:02] I'm recording this in the home studio at just after 10:00 in the morning and I've been out for a nice brisk walk for about half an hour, listening to some podcasts. So if you are listening to this while you're walking a special hello to you and I'm just absolutely staggered to be honest about some of the news that's come out today from Public Health England. Jon Moss: [00:01:23] And that's 41 percent of the fifteen point three million English adults who are age 40 to 60. So middle ages is they walk less than 10 minutes continuously each month. Jon Moss: [00:01:35] And you wonder why we have such a problem with health and obesity in this country. It's just incredible. So I'm interested actually to know what your morning routines are. I'm actually trying to get up and walk every morning. I also do a little bit of journaling. Jon Moss: [00:01:53] I write about this on the e-book in the Bulletin as well. And it's just something that I'm really trying to get into the consistency and the continuity of getting up and starting the day in a really good way. Jon Moss: [00:02:06] Now if you are interested there is a book called The Miracle Morning by a guy called Hal Elrod. And I'd really recommend to read that if this is something that sort of rings true to you. I'm a firm believer that if you start the day off, you know in a chaotic way in a stressed way you are rushed. That's kind of where the day's going to head. It's not a good way to start. Jon Moss: [00:02:26] Whereas if you get a little bit of margin, you've got a bit of breathing space you might get yourself a nice coffee. You go for a walk. Okay I realise this isn't, you know everybody can't do this but it's certainly something that you can try and do especially if you work for yourself or you work from home. Jon Moss: [00:02:42] It just makes such a massive difference. Jon Moss: [00:02:47] My guest in today's show is Brendan Dawes. Now brand is an incredible guy a remarkable guy even! Jon Moss: [00:02:53] And we go back to 2010 when Bren spoke at the HD Live conference I ran and we've always got on really well we've clicked. We've got a lot of common interests on the same page and whenever we chat on Skype or on the phone we are on there a long time. Jon Moss: [00:03:10] Now Brendan is an artist and a designer and he explores the interaction of objects people technology and arts using form and code and he's got a kind of eclectic mix of digital and analogue materials he uses for some of these projects. Jon Moss: [00:03:25] He's also the author of two books on Interaction Design. His work is featured in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art and has been honoured in awards including Fast Company innovation by design, Information is Beautiful and D&AD. Jon Moss: [00:03:40] Now his client list pretty impressive. It includes Air BNB, Google Twitter, Cancer Research UK and Mail Chimp and that's just a few of them. Jon Moss: [00:03:49] Now we got together a few months ago in Manchester and we had a wide ranging conversation about tech, travel, Japan, data, businesses, software. We covered a lot of stuff. I know you're going to enjoy it though. Jon Moss: [00:04:03] Bren is without a shadow of doubt, a person I really admire someone remarkable enjoying life and doing exceptional work. Sit back and enjoy our chat. ——————— Jon Moss: [00:00:04] We're finally here. Brendan Dawes: [00:00:06] We are. Jon Moss: [00:00:08] Setting up for a little while. This is the Jon Moss, learning how to use quite nice audio equipment. But we've had a little bit of fun. And I'm sitting here with my very good friend, Brendan Dawes who has the best - actually I noticed this this morning or yesterday I think has a fantastic URL shortener - [00:00:32] D'Awesome. [0.4] Brendan Dawes: [00:00:35] I do! Jon Moss: [00:00:36] Which is just fantastic. I've got jonm.me I think if I remember rightly but [00:00:39] D'Awesome's pretty cool. [4.5] Jon Moss: [00:00:45] Brendan and I are in Manchester today. It just started raining which is a shame but we were incredibly funky meeting pod in central Manchester at a place called [00:00:57] Neo. [0.6] And you know this place pretty well don't you Bren? Brendan Dawes: [00:01:02] I do. Jon Moss: [00:01:02] But before we get we going to [00:01:04] Neo, [0.4] we've got something quite special here. Do you want to just wanna tell...tell the listeners who you are and what you do. It's not just parties.. but lots of other good things. Brendan Dawes: [00:01:16] Discos generally. I'm a designer, an artist and I guess I'm known for working with data quite a bit. Jon Moss: [00:01:30] Yep. Brendan Dawes: [00:01:30] I wouldn't call myself a data visualiser but I use that as a material. Like other people might use clay or paper or something like that. And so I think a lot with data visualisation, I make installations, print pieces and also all sorts of different things - apps you know anything digital and analogue electronics. I do electronics stuff. And so yeah it's and I've been working for myself for five years. And before that I was creative director of a design agency here in Manchester doing a lot of large scale web stuff people on BBC and cool people like [00:02:15] Diesel [0.6] people like that. Jon Moss: [00:02:19] Goodness me. A very long and varied career. But five years on your own doing some pretty funky stuff. And that we came into reception a few minutes ago. And there is your latest installation down there called Fermata. Brendan Dawes: [00:02:33] It is. Yeah Jon Moss: [00:02:35] I didn't expect it to be so big. It's HUGE! Brendan Dawes: [00:02:39] Yes Jon Moss: [00:02:39] How many screens? Brendan Dawes: [00:02:41] There's thirty screens. Each one is a 50 inch HD screen and it sits in reception. It's a purpose built video wall that goes around the elevators. And it's a visualisation of the sort of ebb and flow with the building. So when Neo was built, office building was sort of revamped into this really beautiful creative space that we have now. I was asked to do the first art work on that space on the on those video screens. Jon Moss: [00:03:22] Fantastic Brendan Dawes: [00:03:22] It's on for three months and it takes data. So it takes like weather information and the energy of the building and creates a visual based on that. It also anyone passing sensors, they trigger the sensors and looks at what colours they're wearing and creates these particles then zip around the whole piece. And it's called Fermata because in musical notation a Fermata is a note that should be held beyond its normal duration. And so the idea of this art work is people come into a building and It's kind of a fleeting thing where we pass the reception. My piece sort of captures their movement and makes those moments last longer so they leave a sort of digital scars on this piece. And yeah so it's all those data feeds and Twitter as well. So Twitter has represented certain hashtags create these weird spherical spiky stories for years. Jon Moss: [00:04:21] Yeah. I wonder what they were. Brendan Dawes: [00:04:22] Yeah. So it's all very abstract. Yeah it's and we have a book launch with 300 people at the end of February, had a big party out here. And so were on the first floor veranda. It's an outdoor space and we're in one of two meeting pods where the people who work here. Yes. And something out of a Sci-fi movie. Jon Moss: [00:04:47] You've got heating, power, It has a sliding door... Brendan Dawes: [00:04:51] Which is quite difficult to open once you're in there. Neither of us are blessed with Herculean muscles. Jon Moss: [00:05:00] It's very cool. It's nice. Brendan Dawes: [00:05:00] So I thought it would be a nice spot to record this podcast. Jon Moss: [00:05:06] It's a perfect spot to recall the show as well. And it's just nice to catch up because we've known each other for how many years since 2010 maybe? Brendan Dawes: [00:05:18] Yeah. Jon Moss: [00:05:19] Brendan spoke at my conference HDLive which I ran in 2009, 2010 and 2012. And you did a fantastic session which is available on Vimeo still if I remember.. Brendan Dawes: [00:05:35] Yes. Yeah. Jon Moss: [00:05:36] ..under the HDLive tag. So I will put that link in the show notes. Jon Moss: [00:05:42] So you've done all manner of things. You used to speak quite a lot didn't you? You were in demand. Brendan Dawes: [00:05:49] I still I still do. I've done, I did a keynote in New York this year at the the big IxDA conference, so about 3000 people. Jon Moss: [00:06:01] Wow. How was that? Brendan Dawes: [00:06:01] It was amazing. It was really good. Fantastic. Jon Moss: [00:06:05] Nervous? Brendan Dawes: [00:06:05] No! When I'm on stage, I really like it. You know I kind of get nervous. You want it to go well and you want to do a good job because you know, the people there deserve that. So yeah I just a lot of very clever, brilliant people attend that thing. So that was great. And then I've got a few more in this country this year, possibly in Detroit at the end of July and then next year, I've got one called OFF which is a big arts festival. Three thousand plus people in Barcelona which has been going a long time. I've done it before but I'm returning next year. I know their stage is huge and is another three thousand one. It's really cool and you talk about your work. So I do. I try to put down on the speaking because it takes up a lot of time and you know the older you get the more you sort of miss home and... but I've been very lucky. I've been doing. I've been speaking for 25 years now. So yeah. Jon Moss: [00:07:06] So you started when you were five? Brendan Dawes: [00:07:10] I wish. No. No... I'm very lucky I've been able to see the world from like - Alaska and Japan and all of them through talking. Jon Moss: [00:07:23] Two places. They're on the old Moss bucket list. Brendan Dawes: [00:07:25] Tokyo is amazing. Alaska, I can take a leave. If you like the cold. Jon Moss: [00:07:35] I want the skiing. Brendan Dawes: [00:07:35] But if you want the skiing, I don't like anything like that. Jon Moss: [00:07:35] So Alaska is the place on the planet for heli-skiing out of Haines Alaska. Brendan Dawes: [00:07:40] Really. Jon Moss: [00:07:43] So if you see a big cool ski movie with kind of pumping music and someone going down what they call spines, like massive like mountains or peaks ,that's generally Alaska. Brendan Dawes: [00:07:56] Ah okay. I went to Fairbanks and Anchorage and it was minus 16 when I was there and apparently that was quite warm. So yeah. Yeah. It is a beautiful people a great experience but I'm not rushing to go back. Jon Moss: [00:08:13] What about Tokyo. Brendan Dawes: [00:08:14] Tokyo. I would live there. It's mind-blowing. Jon Moss: [00:08:18] Why is it so good? Brendan Dawes: [00:08:20] I think the culturally the people are so, I mean you hear this a lot but, even though it's an incredibly busy place, there's a sort of serenity to it which is hard to describe. Everyone is still very polite even though it's manic. You know should show up all these various places. I just culturally just connected with me. I thought it was amazing. The only thing was I wasn't there very long so I want to go back and spend more time there and I think you would you would absolutely love it. And obviously the technology there was a great. One of the big markets. And there's like a shop that just sells buttons.. buy like. And I'm talking like electronic buttons. So you could just buy like a quarter of it was just it was just like my heaven. So yeah that was really really cool. So highly highly recommend it though. I want to take my wife there and really explore more. Jon Moss: [00:09:20] I'm the same. I lived in Asia for quite A while a long time ago in Thailand and then Malaysia Singapore and Hong Kong briefly but never never got in Japan. I'm a massive fan of the Japanese brands. Their level of detail whether that's notebooks or pens or something like clothing. One of my favourite brands Loopwheeler Brendan Dawes: [00:09:47] I don't know that one. Jon Moss: [00:09:47] They make sweatshirts and other sort of garments but they do it our special process. They have one of the only machines in the world that makes a sweatshirt out of one piece. There's no seams around the body. It's an incredible weaving. If people, again I'll put it in the show notes if I can find the video, the actual machine that they have is just extraordinary. But yeah I want to go and explore Japan Brendan Dawes: [00:10:16] Yeah. I think it would be everything and then more that you would expect. Jon Moss: [00:10:22] So, as well as Fermata, what are the kind of projects have you been up to the last sort of few months, years? Brendan Dawes: [00:10:30] Well just this this month really. Everything this year has been about big video installations. Brendan Dawes: [00:10:37] So I did one that I haven't really put live yet. But it was for an oil. But it was for a company that looks at commodity prices in real time but to the level of on the oil tankers or the freight tankers and They asked me to having a big oil conference at the Mayfair Hotel in London, and they had this special system called an igloo they it's a 360 degree projection with five projectors. So it's eight thousand pixels wide technically thousand pixels high. And they asked me to do a sort of data visualisation that was a video. And they gave me data and I visualised three thousand shipping routes ,shipped tankers of all the world's shipping routes and did like typography. So I put this video together with all this data. It was all obviously in real time relative too. That was a lot of fun working out. I like doing stuff that I've not done before so I've never done an 8K video for a 360 degree projection you know so I don't think many people probably know it and do that in a way that is you know all generated by data. Brendan Dawes: [00:11:58] One thing doing it in After Effects or (Adobe) Premiere. But then how do you create that in software that I've written. So. That was a really really great. And a lot of work I was working on it while I was in New York till 5 AM. Most nights while I was there, the deadline was kind of insane but the end result, you know, the client loved it. So then there's Fermata. I did a jigsaw of a retail clothing company. I did a little piece for them for their press day about chaos and order. I built this electronic thing that the journalist could use to control the display where it went from chaos to order. And it was a mathematical thing. And also Airbnb was a big one for me last year at the Sundance Film Festival. Jon Moss: [00:12:51] I saw the installation. Brendan Dawes: [00:12:53] Yes that was the scene. I guess the point with this is you need to put the work out there that you're gonna make. I did this thing called The Happiness Machine for myself many years ago. You press a button and it prints out a little receipt of happiness from happiness things collected from blogs and it went around the Internet quite a bit and it was on a lot of blogs. But I'm ready for myself. And then eventually Airbnb got in touch and they have this thing at the Sundance Film Festival where they take over a whole house. The call it the Airbnb House, big brand exercise where people can go and hang out and have amazing coffee and with different installations. The main installation, they wanted originally they just wanted the happiness machine to be sign a corner. And I think when you're doing this kind of work you can push back a bit and go. You know, I think we can do something else. So I said I can definitely do that but why don't I do something a bit bigger - The Happiness Machine on steroids. So, we came up with this idea of twelve of these printers that were suspended from the ceiling, internet connected and people could SMS in a story. It was all about local neighbourhood. The particular theme this year and people would SMS in stories about people they've met or a great coffee shop or something that changed a life or it can be really trivial stuff or big stuff didn't really matter. And it was all done via SMS and then visitors would go and they would press a button on any of these 12 printers it would spit out these little receipts of printed things -very cute. There was there was the printers were coloured to specific colours and we ended up with 5000 stories in a week. It wasn't publicised outside of the house you couldn't. It wasn't an internet thing. Jon Moss: [00:14:55] So you have to be there. Brendan Dawes: [00:14:56] Yeah.You have to be there. You have to see the phone number there. It wasn't shared outside. So even though it was an it was an internal thing that five thousand stories and they were all pinned up on the ropes that were suspending the [00:15:09] printers [0.4] so you ended up with this jungle of stories. And the thing was, the stories were all really good. There were there were some amazing stuff that - they weren't just like "Hello World", they were really in depth some of them and I think it just shows you I think how you put a mechanism out there for people to be able to tell stories and do it in a way that is easy. Jon Moss: [00:15:37] Yeah. Jon Moss: [00:15:37] So you didn't have to log on to a website, you didn't enough to do any of that. It was SMS text message and everyone knows how to do it. And people will share stuff. And also it was fun. It was a lot of fun. So there are people who didn't submit a story, they just wanted to receive a story or it work both ways or one way. And it was at Sundance so I went to Sundance and it was snowing constantly. Because this is near Salt Lake City. It was a great experience and great brand to work with. Yeah, a lot of fun. Jon Moss: [00:16:11] Now that is really good. Really really good. I think a lot of conferences, I mean I've done conferences myself. I love attending conferences. I haven't been to actually that many recently. Sundance I'd love to be at Sundance and SXSW which I think you've said you've been to. Brendan Dawes: [00:16:27] Yeah. Yeah. I've been to a few. Jon Moss: [00:16:29] Would you recommend that? Brendan Dawes: [00:16:30] Yeah that one is kind of insane. The amount of people now. Jon Moss: [00:16:34] Its HUGE isn't it? Brendan Dawes: [00:16:34] Yeah I think the last time I went was a few years ago now but that was 13000 the Intro just the interactive which is now the biggest part of South by Southwest and I would recommend - You'll be alright because you don't drink but you don't basically get a liver replacement when you come back. It's a bit insane because you don't pay for a drink for a week because you can. There's that many free parties and brands giving you drinks all the time. So you need to be careful that you pace yourself. In all seriousness this is kind of nuts. Brendan Dawes: [00:17:13] Don't drink is my advice. This can be lethal. It's great. There's a lot of people there, some really interesting stuff. Yeah. Jon Moss: [00:17:29] Superb Jon Moss: [00:17:30] So, what's a normal day look like for you.So now I see you travelling a little bit. If you're at home in the office, we were chatting earlier how we work. So yeah I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. You told me about your your [00:17:46] restaurant chitty , that's chitty c h i t t y, system which [5.6] you have on your show. Brendan Dawes: [00:17:54] Yes. That's that's above my desk. So yeah you know chefs have these check-on-things. And I do like a list but I wanted. And you know I think making a list of what to do that day is is good.. it works for me and I was, cross out things once you've done them at the end of the day you work through that list. But I thought how could I make it more visible and more physical I guess. And of course chefs have these check-on-things these grab type things. And they're really cheap. Get them on Amazon or whatever like [00:18:34] 8 quid [0.7] and they're just really clever as well. They're actually marbles inside and they have pushed the paper in the marble. It's so simple. And you get the special [00:18:46] chitty [0.5] pieces of paper because it's a certain fit - quite thin. And then again dirt cheap. Yeah. Brendan Dawes: [00:18:55] At the beginning of the day or even the night before I write out on each one a task with very specific tasks. So you don't write on each one a massive list. Each one is a specific thing that you know you can do. I put those up and in the morning I've got this row of stuff at the side of me. I can visually see it without opening a book and anything or an app. And then I work through that list. And rather than take it off, I then cross them out. So at the end of the day I've got this. I can see the work I've done. Jon Moss: [00:19:30] The achievement of the day. Brendan Dawes: [00:19:30] Yeah yeah. It's just nice and it works. It does, that's my thing. There's lot off.. I know Seinfeld does that thing where he has a massive wall calendar of every day of the year and he has to mark across every day and the cross represents him having written something and it could be like a sentence. And that means he can mark across and he gets addicted to having no gaps. So it's habit and that's what I love about the [00:20:02] chitty [0.4] thing. As well you know. I mean, my day starts with. Jon Moss: [00:20:09] Coffee or tea? Brendan Dawes: [00:20:11] It's usually a coffee. Jon Moss: [00:20:13] Good man. Brendan Dawes: [00:20:13] I love tea though I'm a big tea fan. So. In the afternoon. well actually you know in the morning I have tea with my wife. But in the office I would have a coffee. I go to the gym. I go to spinning class four times a week. If someone had told me three years ago that I would do that I think they're crazy. But I got, Yeah. I started, you know like many, I joined the gym years ago. Really boring. And then I got invited to one of the classes. And then eventually someone said you should come to spinning and I loved it so much. It gets me - 1 it has made me fitter still need to lose more weight. Jon Moss: [00:20:57] Pretty lean. Brendan Dawes: [00:20:59] Just my muffin top needs to go BUT I think I need to cut out [00:21:03] bread [0.3] and stuff like that but it gets me away from the desk and it clears my mind and it sets me up for the rest of the day and it's.. I totally miss it if I don't go. So I do that and then it's I kind of work in bursts. I think. I try and take regular breaks. I think it's important even if it's just 15 minutes you know go outside, make a drink. You know so otherwise, I mean it's good when you get into the whole flow of things you can be like for four hours five hours. Brendan Dawes: [00:21:41] And that's fine too. But I do try and take regular breaks. A lot of people say to me I can work at home. I'll be off the telly on and well. You don't have the telly on for one. I also treat it I hate this thing where people say I love to work at home, I'll be in my dressing gown all the time or so I'm just think you lazy git, you're not a student! Jon Moss: [00:22:03] I tell you what. I saw someone in my dressing gown and slippers in the supermarket. Brendan Dawes: [00:22:08] Really yeah. Brendan Dawes: [00:22:13] It was a sad day for humanity. Brendan Dawes: [00:22:13] I mean people can work however we want. I don't care but I think you have to go into kind of a work mode it's kind of a discipline thing. Jon Moss: [00:22:21] It's your choice your choice to be what you do at home of course if you're working at home, you have to be productive. You got to deliver what trying to achieve over yourself or your clients. Brendan Dawes: [00:22:33] I mean, you know if you want to work, if you're best period for work is you know 10:00 at night or wee hours in the morning, GREAT! But also you know I don't overdo it as well. I, you know, finish at five or six and you know and that's that's how I choose to work. I take an hour for lunch. One other thing I will say is do not eat lunch in your desk ever. One, it' unhygienic because our keyboard can tell stories if you do that. It's horrific. But, That point away whether it even if you just if your office is upstairs, go downstairs and you know.. Brendan Dawes: [00:23:17] I'm currently watching Better Call Saul. You know so I watch that on a Tuesday or watch working thru Mr. Robot currently. I take an hour out and then often times, if I'm having a problem with some coding something that's when I'm trying to figure something out. That's when the idea will hit on. It will shoot off and your subconscious does some magic. Yeah you relax and you step away. It's important to step away. So yes that's kind of my day really. Jon Moss: [00:23:51] And tools of the trade? You're a Mac guy? Brendan Dawes: [00:23:53] Yeah. Brendan Dawes: [00:23:54] Have been a Mac guy... Brendan Dawes: [00:23:55] For ever. I've never I've never on the PC. Not that I have anything against PCs but just the Mac feels right for me. Jon Moss: [00:24:05] And what do you what sort of software you're using on a sort of daily basis and for the actual work. Tell us a little bit about. Brendan Dawes: [00:24:16] Okay so the work is usually made in a thing called Processing which is free. It was made many years ago by Casey Reas and Ben whose name escapes me that's terrible. I'll come back to that. But they were in M.I.T. Jon Moss: [00:24:36] Right. Jon Moss: [00:24:37] And they came off the back of [00:24:38] John Maders [0.6] his course at the Media Lab and they created this piece of software. It was all about helping artists create work with code. And it's an open source thing and it's gone on to become this thing where people have created commercial work and applications and it's kind of caught my how I work. Brendan Dawes: [00:25:04] Open Frameworks as another open source piece of software that I've used to make work. Equally great that C++ the other one is Java. And then I use notes I use Supplying Text as a text editor -I absolutely love that. And it's you know as you all know you you get used to having muscle memory of with these apps. I recently got into. So you know real hard core coders they won't use a text editor that we use Vim - a command line based text editor. Jon Moss: [00:25:39] I've never used Vim. Funnily enough... Brendan Dawes: [00:25:40] I force myself to do a course in it because you can use kind of Vim mode in sublime and it's it's crazy powerful because you're not. You don't lift your hands off the keyboard. It's all done. Often times you find you selecting things with the mouse otherwise. Once you understand some of the basics but you have to keep it up you have to keep learning. That has been great learning new stuff. Jon Moss: [00:26:07] Yeah me too. Brendan Dawes: [00:26:09] And yes. And then productivity wise, things like Default folder think got Fresh which I mentioned before which tells you, shows you recently changed files so you don't go and have to go searching over your computer is that's brilliant. Dropbox is like our core. It powers everything. I'm also a big backup geek. Jon Moss: [00:26:36] Yeah. Brendan Dawes: [00:26:36] I do. Jon Moss: [00:26:36] What are you using? Brendan Dawes: [00:26:38] I use [00:26:39] Backblaze. [1.2] Jon Moss: [00:26:40] Yeah me too. Brendan Dawes: [00:26:40] So as offsite backup and then have Time Machine as a backup in the office. I also then have there every night was a clone made of my machine on another disk. So if I could fire up the machine and you know broke the hard drive and it's not good, pluck over a hard drive in and carry on off as that's the yeah and Dropbox is you know kind of duplicates things where it's not a backup system. So those three things you know. Brendan Dawes: [00:27:12] At the end of the day it's your work. You know. Jon Moss: [00:27:15] You have to be productive. Brendan Dawes: [00:27:16] Yeah. Jon Moss: [00:27:16] And enjoy it Brendan Dawes: [00:27:17] And enjoy.So one of those things to do a job kind of get out the way and then I set my windows up a certain way. I have apps - There's [00:27:28] one called Size Up. [1.0] Jon Moss: [00:27:29] Yeah.I've seen it. Brendan Dawes: [00:27:30] Yeah. Which is really great. You press a few keyboard commands in it, positions windows a certain position. And so things like that I just kind of have a routine. And then it allows you to get on with the work and then in a kind of efficient way that allow you to play . You know notes so those things don't get in the way of setting things up. I think after time you know people just move files about for the fun of it. You know we've seen it happen in this you know not getting any work done yet. It's like that Slack is like that to me I hate Slack. It's like to me it's just noise. I was on a project where Slack was at the centre of it and I'm pretty convinced that people thought they were working when they were just posting stuff on the site. That was my personal thing. I think for some people it obviously works but I hated it. Jon Moss: [00:28:25] I think it can be very noisy if you don't sort of lock it down in terms of notifications or depending on what channels. I've used it before but less and less these days. Jon Moss: [00:28:35] You obviously love what you do and we've talked about before the importance of loving what you do and how that can be almost life changing the way we are. We are not infinite things like. I get words out here. Jon Moss: [00:28:54] I'm going to mispronounce this I might help you read my mind. But we're not here forever. So it's important to. Love what you do. Spend time doing what you love. Spend time with people that you like. Brendan Dawes: [00:29:12] Yeah. Jon Moss: [00:29:13] That's a big thing I think is't it and then it sort of becomes I often get asked you know what your advice whether it's business or life and I think that's one of my things I say the most often is you really enjoy everything we do every day and that's impossible in a lot of cases if people are going to work in a job they don't like. It is life changing to actually doing something you love isn't it? Brendan Dawes: [00:29:39] Oh yeah. No it is a privilege is what it is because majority of people can't do that you know. And I'm not one of these people who, I think the idea of you know you see on Instagram all the time, usually multicoloured messages that say 'do what you love'. You know have a lot for a lot of people. It is too simple message. And I think life is way more complex than that and it doesn't bear out, You know, I've got a mortgage to pay off. You know I don't know. You know I've, I've worked, I worked in a factory for eight years before or before. I only got into design when I was you know, 30 or just before I so professionally at least. So, you know, I've done horrible jobs. But when you get a job that is not quite working. And this is not. You don't get complacent about it. And guess which is right. Yes and that is absolute privilege. Brendan Dawes: [00:30:50] So but I you know it's often it's patronising for me to just do what you love.Get a good job. You know there's obviously other factors involved but it's a good goal to have absolutely. Yeah. So it's you know it's an absolute privilege so I'm very lucky and yeah we are here for a very short length of time. I was listening to in our time thing yesterday. It was all about neutrinos and you know and you realise how insignificant we are of this rock that's hurling thru space. And so yeah it is important to spend time yeah. Brendan Dawes: [00:31:30] Don't spend time with idiots. I mean it's just a waste of time. You know I know I have a massive filter of people that said you know. Brendan Dawes: [00:31:41] I've learned to not prejudge people too quickly. I think people you know what. Yeah. And I think. I find a lot of people - when they're may be acting like idiots, a lot of it comes from fear. And I think people are afraid to show their true selves or be honest. And if you break that down you can often find that that person is actually pretty descent. Brendan Dawes: [00:32:08] You know, that's I try and hold onto that. There are most people who are actually good. But Yeah. It's..you know I try and I'm lucky to work with clients who are amazing I'm about to work with a massive global conglomerate who you know you might think well surely that is faceless. But you know what? the people at the level I'm working out, they want to make great work. And you have to you know. Here's the thing: I don't care who it is. CEO or whoever - they have a heart and they have emotions and I don't care who you are. Art especially communicates with people and you to kind of, you know, remember that they're just. You know. Jon Moss: [00:33:03] We're not we're not robotic yet. Brendan Dawes: [00:33:05] No no. I mean obviously some people are more empathetic than others. but yeah it's so I try and you know I'm trying not to. The other thing I've learned as well as my wife has taught me is don't answer that snotty e-mail straight away. Jon Moss: [00:33:23] That's actually that's probably if you remember one thing from this show, this episode. That's a great one. Pause, breathe, shut down the email client. Brendan Dawes: [00:33:36] Because I've been there and done that. And then you know 10 minutes later you know I actually think they have a point. And or you rephrase your reply in a way that isn't horrible. Because it's so knee jerk after an email. So my wife was always like 'just give it half an hour'. And then you know, calm down I don't really get those kind of e-mails anymore. Jon Moss: [00:34:02] I'll make you a cup of tea Brendan Dawes: [00:34:10] So it's a good one to remember that you're basically let's just listen to Lisa my wife more wisely. She's nice. She's super wise. She always says she knows best and she’s right. Jon Moss: [00:34:23] That's what you say. Brendan Dawes: [00:34:24] Yes. Yes. Jon Moss: [00:34:27] So, what does the rest of the year hold anything on the horizon? You mentioned a big project with a big company. That's kind of ongoing. Travel, speaking gigs. Where do you like to go in the world? Brendan Dawes: [00:34:43] South of France. Absolutely love that part of the world. So yeah were there in September. It's just a place where we.. the same village we go to and it's just beautiful and tiny and quiet and yeah and so that's cool. This thing in Detroit is quite interesting but still, I think I'm gonna go. It depends on the project but it's an invitation only thing and it's about hardware. So they get a hundred people invite from people like companies like Apple and Amazon and IDEO and we have a kind of symposium or we all show our work can get together and geek out and I think then there's three days of making in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. It's whether he's going to fit in now with this project. I'm hopefully going to get the green light on so it might clash. But I do want to go back Brendan Dawes: [00:35:48] Hopefully we'll be able to do both. So yeah there's that and then there's Something Good Festival in Bristol in October it's a new conference and I'm speaking of that along [00:36:02] with Morag Myerscough and Anthony Burril and some [4.9] other great really the line up is fantastic. So it's an honour to and those people are my heroes so it's nice to. Yeah a lot of times I make some really great friends at these conferences. Jon Moss: [00:36:23] We can get in touch. Brendan Dawes: [00:36:25] Absolutely Yeah. Well it's our thing you know we filter out you know the people you don't want to and you know spend time anymore time wave and that's fine. So you made it through John. Jon Moss: [00:36:37] I'm thanking my lucky stars! Brendan Dawes: [00:36:44] So yeah various projects and cancer research one at the minute. I did a data visualisation for them last year and they came back to me this one. Another one for the same research annual that we do every year that goes out all the researchers so I'm currently working on that minute. Jon Moss: [00:37:05] So just wrapping up, one of the things we've been chatting about over lunch we tend to sort of go off on all sorts of tangents about just cool things that we've kind of seen, got our eyes on, use, bought, whether that's service or products, Anything that's grabbed your eye right now? Anything you see? Brendan Dawes: [00:37:27] Yeah well you know a big big sort of pen and pencil geek. And I'm started to get into, my writing was terrible because I just didn't write anymore. You know print you know because the rest is all you know with a keyboard and I thought this is this is rubbish. And so I started to teach myself to write again and I got I started to look up fountain pens. And the thing is that I've bought this [00:37:54] seen it [0.5] online . What's a cheap fountain pen that's like brilliant? And there's the three [00:37:59] quid, it [0.4] is made it's a platinum preppy pen is three pounds and this thing's amazing. The reviews are like I can't believe this is quick. And then you sort of you then we wash you into the world of ink and realise there's a wonderful company in Liverpool called [00:38:18] Diamine [0.8] I think they're called family run and they do all these amazing beautiful inks so started to, now got a box with different inks in. I bought a Japanese fountain pen. You know 15 quid that I carry around with me because it's sort of a miniature one it's made for possible so that's made by Ohto -O-H-T-O. Jon Moss: [00:38:41] So we'll put these in the links Brendan Dawes: [00:38:42] Yeah really really. And it's beautiful because I've showed it to my brother in law and he opened it, pulled it apart and he was like oh my God. And then the mechanism of push and pull in that thing open and close is really really sweet. It's got a little piece of rubber on it and it's just very nice to do. Brendan Dawes: [00:39:01] Those details is what I get. Yeah I really love. You know, Muji pens are amazing. The gel pens in particular I really love and for writing in, there's the Midori. this one is an A5, one is really lovely. And it falls flat on your desk which is really nice. I have a Smythson Panama Featherweight Notebook which has been going like 100 years. The paper is this is geek out on. The paper is made by a special paper mill that makes banknotes by the made by the Royal Mint and only they can make this featherweight paper so the beauty of a featherweight paper is at a hundred twenty eight pages in it but it's so thin that you can get pages in a very small space. Yeah it's made in such a way that you can use fountain pens and it doesn't bleed through. It's all watermarks it's all gilt-edged. So you know these these things you know are Panama Notebooks 45 quid. Which when you tell people, "Are you insane". As you know you know you're a fan of Smythson yourself and their products are beautiful so I love. I love those. Jon Moss: [00:40:25] And then anything that you use all the time. Yeah. It's worth having some. Absolutely love. So I guess that's all there is. Brendan Dawes: [00:40:39] Exactly and with a Smythson, it gets better with age because you fold them bend it, and it's made in such a way that it just takes on that [00:40:47] patina [0.4] of use which digital has never has never will have. Yeah and then you know the shoes I love Jon Moss: [00:40:56] These are pretty funky. Jon Moss: [00:40:57] Yeah I'd love them. Northampton's Sneaker Company, NFC1s they're are new start up, all made in England. Northampton is the shoe cups of the world. I own a pair of [00:41:12] Crockett and Jones, a [0.9] couple of pairs and so they're made in the same city as those and Churches of course. People are all made with it's handmade. It takes eight days to make one pair. They're beautiful and I love them so yeah I guess what we're talking about really is that attention to detail, the time to... It's not about making things on macerate speed well obviously Muji are made on mass but there's something. It's the utilitarian nature of them done in a beautiful way. Which is what Muji is about. They're very it's all very utilitarian but it's done in a way that is I think kind of beautiful. So the same with you know luxury goods as well but it can be. My friend said life's too short to on an ugly pencil. And I knew you apply that to everything in your life. Jon Moss: [00:42:13] Yeah. Brendan Dawes: [00:42:14] So. Yeah I think that it's not about luxury spending money. It's about taking time to look at the detail and enjoy the detail. So I was saying to my wife the other day, when we were in Paris early in the year we went to this amazing flea market. I bought a ruler for five euros that was a wooden ruler where it said [00:42:38] Café Maurice on - I don't know where that's from. [2.4] Brendan Dawes: [00:42:41] I use it every day and that now I'm not particularly artisan ruler or anything. But that has a memory associated with it. It means so much more than a ruler that I bought in [00:42:54] Rymans. [0.6] So I encourage anyone to just take a moment. These things that surround us. Just make sure they are as special as they can be to you whether that's a luxury thing or a well-made thing or means something more to you. Jon Moss: [00:43:11] Thank you. I couldn't agree more. That's massively important. Jon Moss: [00:43:17] Bren, thank you so much for today meeting up. Brendan Dawes: [00:43:21] It's been great to see you. Jon Moss: [00:43:23] It's been great catching up and I know we've got tons more we could be talking about We might actually be here all day at this rate. Brendan Dawes: [00:43:29] I think we're gonna get kicked of the pod eventually. Jon Moss: [00:43:31] Thank you so much for coming on the show. And I really look forward to seeing you soon. Brendan Dawes: [00:43:36] Thanks Jon. Been a pleasure thank you. You should try Basecamp! http://jonm.me/lovebasecamp Jon Moss: [00:00:00] This episode of The Remarkable Business show is brought to you by Basecamp, my very favourite project management software. Now just to make it clear. Base camp are not officially sponsoring the show. I think I'm a little bit too small for that right now. But you never know in the future. Jon Moss: [00:00:15] David, Jason if you're hearing this let me know I'm open to offers! Jon Moss: [00:00:19] Basecamp is a brilliant bit of software. I've been using it on and off the past 10 years and I've been using it a lot in the past six to 12 months. And to be honest I really couldn't do without it. Jon Moss: [00:00:31] Basecamp is a very simple bit of software - it manages your projects, and all growing businesses they tend to run into the same fundamental problems. There's just too much going on and there's too much email and stuff slips through the cracks. Jon Moss: [00:00:45] Basecamp solves a lot of the problems everything's in one organised place. Everybody can be on the same page. Projects get off the ground faster. You know exactly what's going on. You free up time to spend doing something more worthwhile so you don't have to do as many meetings and there's a lot of great stats from the Basecamp guys. Jon Moss: [00:01:06] 89 percent have a better handle on their businesses 84 percent of people using base count report more self-sufficient teams and 59 percent of people have fewer weekly meetings. Now that's a big win in itself. Jon Moss: [00:01:20] It's got some really nice features like notifications, focus mode. You can get a sort of overview of what's been going on every morning and it's just a joy to use. Jon Moss: [00:01:30] You've got an android app an OS app you can use online it's got a Mac app as well and is constantly open when I'm working throughout the day and it just kind of works. It's lovely. Jon Moss: [00:01:42] So I want you guys to give it a go. Now the good news is that base camp have a referral program. So if you use this link http://jonm.me/lovebasecamp. You get 50 dollars off and you also get 30 days free trial as well. Jon Moss: [00:01:57] So I really do recommend it. I'd love to hear how you get on. Jon Moss: [00:02:01] So the link to use is http://jonm.me/lovebasecamp and you get fifty dollars credits on your account and if you stick around for a couple of months I actually get some credit as well. So I would be very grateful of course if you give it a go and let me know what you think. Jon Moss: [00:02:18] Thank you so much. ————————— Jon Moss: [00:04:16] I hope you enjoyed our conversation. Bran is an interesting guy isn't he? And there's a few people in this world where you know you're going to spend some time with them and you have a great time and you talk and you listen and you come away inspired and you could happily do it again every single day. And Bren is one of those people. So thank you so much Bren for appearing on the show. Jon Moss: [00:04:36] If you want to connect with Bren, head on over to Twitter and look for @brendandawes and say hello and that you've listened to him on the show I'm sure he'll appreciate that. Jon Moss: [00:04:48] This episode's quote is from a guy called Kevin Rose and I'm sure some of you recognise the name - Kevin was the founder of Digg one of the most influential and successful websites a few years ago. Jon Moss: [00:05:02] Kevin is a technology investor now at True Ventures and a serial entrepreneur and he currently serves on the board of directors at a few companies including Hodinkee which is a superb website all about watches. Previously as I just said Kevin founded Digg, Revision3 and was also a general partner at Google Ventures so he kind of knows his stuff. Jon Moss: [00:05:23] He also happens to have a terrific podcast called the Kevin Rose Show which I highly recommend. Well worth looking up and subscribing to. Jon Moss: [00:05:31] So what's his quote? Jon Moss: [00:05:32] "Don't spend too much time planning release early and often. Some things will work. Others won't refine and move forward and above all forget the money. Just make sure you love what you are doing. Jon Moss: [00:05:45] Now you can faff about way too much. With some projects and if you are not careful you get six months down the line and guess what. Nothing's happened. Not good. I've had a little bit of a side project in my mind for just over a year now and it's just coming to fruition. I'm pretty excited about it :) Jon Moss: [00:06:03] If you want to have a sneak peak head on over to the website www.stelv.io and sign up and you'll be first to know when it launches. Jon Moss: [00:06:14] I'm pretty happy with that domain name. Jon Moss: [00:06:18] That just about wraps it up for Episode 6. Thank you very much for listening. I really appreciate your valuable time and if it's your first time here a special bonus thanks to you. Jon Moss: [00:06:28] You can send me an email jon@jonmoss.co.uk. That's Jon with no H. I'd love to hear what you think about the show how I can improve and also especially anybody you'd like me to try and get on the show. Jon Moss: [00:06:43] If you enjoyed this episode please let somebody know. Send them a message or an email or tweet about the show. I will be eternally grateful. You can share this episode easily by clicking a link in your podcast app and sharing and also on the web if you're listening to it, on line in a browser. There's a shared link at the top of every page. Thank you very much. Jon Moss: [00:07:04] Also please leave an honest review for the show on iTunes or Stitcher - ratings and reviews are super helpful and they make a real difference for the shows' visibility and hopefully getting some more listeners if you love this content. Jon Moss: [00:07:17] Anything you write down in a review I promise I will read until next time. Enjoy life and make every day count.