The Staufenberger Repository

Your successful enterprise is our sincerest aim!

Not a lot of people know this, but we have an office in Lagos, Nigeria.

In fairness, that's probably because Staufenberger (Lagos) exists only in our age-befuddled minds.

We put the website together during a quiet patch before Christmas for no particular reason; we just thought it would be fun in a "hey, look what we did" kind of way. It's got various bits of nonsense on it: a scam email generator, some great Nigerian commercials from the 80s and a pile of animated GIFs.

We started publicising it with this letter which we sent to a handful of blogging friends. Then we got busy in the new year and forgot all about it.

But before we forget to pay the hosting fees and it disappears forever, you can find it here.

As they say in Lagos: "Your successful enterprise is our sincerest aim!"

The graphic novel presentation

We took a bit of a risk with a presentation recently.

Thankfully, we didn't get laughed out of the meeting. And we haven't been fired yet.

So I guess they liked it.

Perhaps we'll try Ben's Post-It approach next time.

The names of things

I bought a book last week.

Not much of an event in itself, but two things struck me as interesting.

The first is that the title alone - glimpsed throught the window as I rushed past a bookshop - was enough to send me back into the shop to investigate. What you call something is important. Really important.

The second was this quotation on the back:

When you think about these four words, they don't really tell you much, do they? It's Gladwell telling us what is presumably a fairly uncontentious piece of information.

Of course, what Gladwell is saying is not the point. The point is that it's Gladwell saying it. Which illustrates how powerful he's become as a signifier for the genre of books that we all love but haven't found a name for.

Book review to follow. Possibly.

The opposite of broadcasting

I think I've just experienced - consciously - what Chris Anderson has called the opposite of broadcasting.

To put these recent Tour de France posts together, I relied on flickr to source the pictures that my temporary cameralessness prevented me taking myself.

And trawling through more than 6000 photos tagged "tour prologue london" I realised I was getting a feeling for the events of the day that rivalled the coverage I saw in the press and on TV. Not necessarily better, because we're in comparing-apples-with-oranges territory here. But of equal value. To me, at least.

That's because I had a greater scope of coverage (because it hadn't been constructed to fit a time/size that suited the media owner) and I heard more points of view (because there were more "authors" and no editors).

And in a way, it added to being there on the day. Because as a spectator on the ground you could never see the entire course in the way that you could within a few minutes on flickr.

It might be that this sort of media experience - I would call it peercasting, but apparently that means something already - is better suited to big events: I recall having a similar experience when The Sultan's Elephant came to London last year. Photos on flickr enabled me to see the bits of the event I couldn't get to.

But then again, perhaps not. Here's something I missed entirely. Relatively small (sorry) compared to the arrival of the Tour, but still ample coverage on flickr.

Inevitable Tour posts

As you would have struggled to miss - if you live in the UK, that is - this year's Tour de France started in London this weekend. It was the third time the Tour has visited Britain and the first time the whole thing started here. That's a big deal.

As regular readers may have spotted, we're a bunch of bike-heads here at Staufenberger Towers. So, obviously, we weren't going to miss the atmosphere and spectacle of one of the biggest and maddest sporting events humans have invented. Here are a few observations from Saturday's opening Prologue stage.

(My camera is out of action and the shutter on my N73 is not the fastest to respond, as my attempt - above - to anticipate its delay demonstrates. So I've relied upon the efforts of others on Flickr. If anyone has any objections, please vent your anger here.)

La Caravane Publicitaire

One of the unexpected delights of having the biggest and bestest bike race in the world come to your home town is the way that it brought with it a bit of France - and The Continent, as people used to call Europe - in the form of a bunch of exotic and novel brand sponsors.

Now, this delight is not because I'm some sad, brand-industry wonk. It's because it made hanging out in Hyde Park feel like being in another country where the names of things - ice cream, banks, supermarkets - are different. It was like being on holiday.

This aspect was visible in the hoardings on the course - Nestle Aquarel? Not in my Asda - but most apparent in La Caravane Publicitaire.

As the name implies, La Caravane is a procession of vehicles, a convoy of gaudy brand-promoting floats that precede the race, entertaining the crowds on the route. It's noisy and brash and generally contributes to the carnival spirit of the day.

So we had Credit Lyonnais:

Aquarel, again:

A tyre outfit, called Eurotyre, naturally:

Furniture from Le Faillitaire:

Giant French recycling bins:

And my personal favourite, Cochonou salami. Very Gallic:

(Thanks to Nattsang and Andy Caddyshack for the photos. Disclaimer here.)

Mass-start cycle racing tends not to make for a brilliant spectator experience. Hills slow down and split up the pack, but otherwise it's often a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing, as this video from last year's Tour shows.

Conveniently, La Caravane extends the experience beyond the race itself and makes it more of an occasion.

Chouette, non?

Springfield Treats

We're currently enjoying the The Simpsons Movie site, especially the create your own Simpsons avatar section.

The Simpsons Movie are also collaborating with Vans, who in turn have brought in various artists to redraw the Simpons characters. These type of sneaker collaborations are becoming a bit old hat but we do like this creation from one of those artists, Mr Cartoon - El Homer de Springfield Gang.

via honeyee.com   

Staufenberger heart Polaroid

We've been getting back into Polaroid photography recently.

It had something to do with Russell's beautiful pinhole Polaroids.
It had something to do with Richard's lovely SX70.
It had something to do with Martin and Theo's excellent experiment, Postcard Polaroid.
And it had a lot to do with the fact that Polaroid combines the immediacy of digital photography with the tangible nature of film. And Polaroid's "lofi-ness" is really appealing, too.

Then we discovered unsaleable.com, which will sell you all manner of groovy Polaroid-related ephemera, from a reconditioned camera to branded film.

Which all adds up to yet more work-avoidance. Although, to look on the bright side, it means that procrastination at least has a tangible, positive-ish output.