Show Me Blog

We’ve got some exciting news…  Show Me is Expanding! (and this hopefully means that this blog will be a bit more active from now on!)

We are ridiculously excited to announce that Ting Zhang has joined us as a Research Executive…  Her bio will make its official debut on our website in a few days…

Is the George Clooney Movie, Up In The Air.  We’ve been pretty busy and it seems to resonate with us more than anything else these days.

Happy New Year to all!

Richard has been working with the guys at ProWorx on his photography website that just went live today!  It’s really exciting as the commercial section of the site showcases how we like to use photojournalism to help bring our consumers to life for our clients.  Also, it’s just pretty exciting to see all Richard’s photographs in one place.  I may be biased, but I think they are all very beautiful and often quite insightful.

I met up with my lovely friend Aneeta last night and she told me about the most brilliant website called the School of Everything.  This is such a fabulous idea that I just had to blog about it.  It is so on-trend for how people are working and living these days — I just hope the guys who set this up all become richer than the folks at Google.  It is such a simple and fabulous idea…

The premise is that if you want to learn something — or teach something — you sign up on this website which will match learners to teachers so they can attend classes, arrange lessons in a time and place that is convenient to both of them.  I love it.

Why do I love it so much?  My job as a qualitative researcher means that I’ve frequently had to skip taking classes or drop out of classes because my job is so unpredictable.  It is literally impossible for me to take an Anthropology class every Monday night for 6 weeks because undoubtedly a few of those Mondays I will have to work.  This idea is so great for me.  I can continue my education and hopefully find a bit of flexibility that is essential for my job.

Living and freelancing in East London, I see loads of other people who are just like me — no longer working normal 9 to 5 jobs in an office.  This kind of service will be ideal for us and can only inspire and make us better at our jobs.

Gotta go find myself a driving instructor so I can get to all these classes!

I was recently in Mauritius with Richard who is currently doing some work for the Ministry of Tourism and Board of Investment on the re-branding of their country (more on that in future posts).  We were watching some groups and I took along my knitting.  Very indulgent and mildly unprofessional, but it wasn’t my project, so I’m allowed.  The Franco-Mauritian simultaneous translator was absolutely amazed that “someone so young” (bless her) was into knitting.

It got me thinking about knitting in London and other major urban areas and the trend towards all things authentic.  This is nothing new or earth-shattering — people have been seeking out authenticity in many categories and areas for the past several years.  However, it seems that this trend is gaining momentum with the recession.  I heard on radio 4 the other day that “we should all start saving money by growing our own food and knitting our own jumpers.”  Ha!  The newsreader has clearly not checked out the price of wool at John Lewis lately!

I’ve been knitting for the past 5 years.  Above is one of my most recent creations — I’m very proud of it.  I’d heard of knitting groups who met in the bars and clubs of Manhattan and loved the idea of it so got a colleague to teach me the simple stitches.  I found it completely relaxing on the many long-haul flights I have to do for my job.  I even joined a knitting group back when I was still only capable of making scarves.  It was such a great way to relieve stress on a Monday night and also not a bad way to meet people — group knitting gives people license to come up and chat to you without feeling self-conscious.

I would never have become the kind of knitter I am today without the help of this lady in the picture above.  This is Aneeta Patel and she is a FABULOUS knitting teacher based in Stepney, East London.  She’s so good she’s even got her own book and was recently profiled in the Sunday Telegraph (telegraph-2nd-nov-08).  I am so proud of her and wish her all the success in the world (but not too much because I still want the excuse to go sit in her living room and chat under the guise of private lessons!)

When I come across something this good, I think it only fair to share.  My knitting teacher told me about Tayyabs about 5 months ago and since then, we have spent almost every Sunday lunch there enjoying their incredibly fresh and tasty Pakistani food.

Everything I’ve tried on the menu tastes like someone’s grandmother is in the kitchen preparing the delicious homemade food.  Everything always comes hot and steaming.  On top of the fabulous food, the service simply cannot be beat.  I get the feeling that most of the guys serving have been working there for years and years and take real pride in what they do.  It’s a real pleasure in a place like London where a service culture hasn’t really been developed in my (American) opinion.

Tayyabs is very, very busy so unless you go for lunch, expect to wait.  You can make reservations on Friday and Saturday night but at time of writing, you need to make them at least a week in advance.  And, Tayyabs doesn’t have a liquor license, so if you want to have a lovely Kingfisher to go with your curry, be sure to bring it yourself.

I recently helped out my friends at Greet and Wendy at WeJane and Ute at Colibri with a paper they presented at Esomar, about women and their handbags.  You can read all about it for yourself at Globalbagstories.com.

I was delighted and honoured to be included as the UK partner on this project and I had an absolute ball doing the fieldwork.  I got to talk to some amazing ladies about their handbags while Richard took some fantastic, often poignant, pictures of them in-situ.  We blogged about it so that the ladies writing the paper could get feedback on our interviews as we completed them.  This format also allowed for further probing on their parts should they have any additional questions.  For me, this is a great way to run an international project.  It’s quick, it’s insightful and it’s actually quite fun to do!

I saw this ad as I was flicking through this weeks edition of Ok! Magazine.  It got me thinking about what I’m going to call “responsible insight”…

I have lots of friends who have recently had babies.  Most of them are in the mid to late 30’s and have completely changed their lives since the birth of their little darlings.  It’s not all sweetness and light, either.  A lot of them feel isolated and alone, home all day with their little one, starved for adult conversation.  So, the first part of this ad struck a chord — I’d heard it a thousand times from friends of mine…

However, I find the rest of the ad completely offensive.  Why do SMA have to take this nasty turn and by referencing the sometimes fraught relationship between husband and wife after baby comes?  What you can’t see here is that it goes on to say, “And now you know something too — how to wipe that smug grin off ‘dada’s’ face.”  I think that’s horrible.  Insightful — I’ve heard friends guiltily whisper stories much like this — but horrible.

I think it’s irresponsible of SMA to speak to its consumers this way.  As if all women/mothers have a chip on their shoulders after they give birth.  There are so many great things to say about the relationship between mother and child and father, why do they have to highlight what so many women feel sad and guilty about — the fact that their relationships with their husband may never be the same?

I think SMA should have been a bit more responsible with this campaign…  I’m a bit turned off by this.  I, however, don’t have children.  I’d be interested to know how those of you with children feel about it.