Issue 78: A Bulletin for Big Ideas and Better Business

OPINION/ BUSINESS

Recognise your moment of truth

💬 Sir John Hegarty

Every entrepreneur has one. It’s a moment in time when the fates align, the nerve stiffens, and you make a deliberate (and possibly disastrous) departure from safety, security, and predictability. Instead, you decide to hungrily pursue a bigger prize. You’re on the edge of a new frontier, wide-eyed and with great designs on the future. Yes, you will quit your job. And yes, you will start your own business. Right now.

A dishevelled busker was singing an acapella version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ – we exchanged glances

The time and place that this happens seems to stick with you. At least, it did with me. For BBH, our point of commitment happened in February 1982, at a setting called The Britannia. The venue in question is not a swept-up restaurant in Mayfair, or some secretive member’s club in Soho. It was a crap pub in a run-down train station. John Bartle, Nigel Bogle and I had been debating our departure from our jobs at TBWA for some months. The decision couldn’t wait any longer, and these were the choices.

a) Stay at TBWA

b) Start our own agency

The pub at London’s Euston Station was the best logistical choice, given it was roughly equidistant to where we’d all been that afternoon. Also, the tavern was not a regular haunt of industry folk or press, so our summit would go unnoticed. It turned into a quick conversation. All parties were in favour of option (b). As we went our separate ways, a dishevelled busker was singing an acapella version of Auld Lang Syne. We exchanged glances. It’s a song that always transports me back to that specific moment. I realised a few things that day. Big decisions provide lessons about who we are, and what we wish to become. And great journeys begin in unexpected places.

THE AGENDA

🗓️ Diarise this: your agenda for the coming week

1.
The line-up for the Venice International Film Festival will be announced. American filmmaker Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt, The Holdovers) has been appointed head of the jury.
22nd July

2.
This week is the last opportunity to see (or rather, hear) Go Find Miracles, a sound artwork by Turner prize-nominated artist Rory Pilgrim at Waterloo Underground station. Londoners should cock an ear before the weekend.
25th July

3.
Among the most gruelling sporting events ever conceived, the 2025 Tour de France will finish on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Time for celebrations, commiserations, and a nice lie down.
27th July

4.
The annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference will be held in Shanghai. The theme this year? “Global Solidarity in the AI Era”. An increase in international harmony isn’t top of everyone’s predictions when it comes to AI, but we applaud the spirit.
26th – 29th July

5.
The film Fantastic Four: First Steps is scheduled to be released. Of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s ever-expanding slate of movies, the latest barrage is known as Phase Six. Shame they couldn’t marry the numbers up.
25th July

GLOBAL / BUSINESS

Surging or straggling?: Some of the Mag 7 are faring better than others
Contributor: TBOC

The Mag 7: cracking up?

Investors will be on tenterhooks in the coming weeks as publicly listed companies offer up their figures for the second quarter of the year. All manner of brands are expected to show their hand, but the most keenly observed are referred to as ‘The Magnificent 7’. That is, tech giants Meta, Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple. In recent years, each has sprawled in size, and dominated its own fiefdom in the tech landscape. But there’s a new arena of competition for this cabal of mega-businesses: AI. A split in performance is emerging between those who are leading in developing the new tools, and those who are following. The Wall Street Journal reports that this year shares of Nvidia, Meta and Microsoft have climbed by around 20% or over. While Apple and Alphabet’s have gone down by 16% and 2% respectively. It’s a reminder that innovation is key to survival. If the split becomes too pronounced, the remaining over-achievers will need a new name. We think ‘The High-Five’ has a ring to it.

ON CREATIVITY /

Contributor: Sir John Hegarty

UK / LITERATURE

Love: is it all you need?
Source: Penguin

Choose life – then love

Trainspotting represented an explosive cultural force when the novel – written by Irvine Welsh – was published in 1993. Then the film adaptation directed by Danny Boyle etched the story and its flawed characters even more acutely into the national consciousness. Now the author is unveiling another text centring on the movements of Renton and his degenerate accomplices, set immediately after the ending of the first book. Men in Love is an attempt to look at the chapter in male lives when frivolous activities like hedonism, drinking, and drug-taking give rise to a sudden lurch in favour of romantic love, and all the settling down that comes with it. Trainspotting epitomised a moment in time Britain’s cultural capital was riding high. In the post-Brexit low growth doldrums, we’ll need more than nostalgia from our best writers.

MIDDLE EAST / ART

‘A Watchful Eye for Details’: current exhibition view at The Palestinian Museum
Source: The Palestinian Museum

Curating in a crisis

How do you run a cultural institution in the midst of a barbaric conflict? The Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, in the occupied West Bank, is re-defining its role as violence rages on just miles away in Gaza. “I don’t think this is something we studied at university – how to plan for a war and genocide,” Amer Shomali, the director general of the museum, told The Art Newspaper. “All the technical aspects of our work in the museum are changing, radically and rapidly.” This has involved shipping some works in the collection away from danger, and loaning them to galleries abroad. It has also inspired the creation of digital exhibitions – like Gaza Remains the Story – which can be viewed at any location. Meanwhile the institution is taking a leading role in recovering items from the war-zone. As the atrocities continue, the efforts of this museum are to be applauded.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

/Friedrich Nietzsche