Welcome to Optimism

meet Jenny

Jenny

This is Jenny Owen. She has joined Wieden + Kennedy London as a Planner with special expertise in, and  responsibility for, youth culture.

Here’s some insight into Jenny’s background:

She graduated with a fashion marketing degree in 2000, and
went on to become a producer. She taught at
University for a year whilst writing a book (which she still hasn’t had
time to finish…) before joining Nike UK as their Consumer Insight and
Ideation Manager, working with the brand globally on new products and
initiatives. After several years at Nike she joined PR
agency Edelman as Head of Brand Culture and Insights, whilst continuing
to consult for Nike Inc.  As well as working for us, Jenny now runs her own youth consultancy – Ruby Pseudo. For more info on this, see the Ruby Pseudo blog. As PSFK said, ‘If you want to know what the kids are up to, who do you ask? Miss Ruby Pseudo, of course.’

Through Ruby Pseudo, Jenny
has plans for a documentary series – shot and directed by young people –
as well as a series of talks with key figures in industry
(aimed at the youth who wouldn’t otherwise have chance for a Q&A
with people of this calibre) to help promote confidence in our
media-bludgeoned youth. As W+K’s Youth Culture Planner she’s now working
with clients like Nokia and – of course – Nike. She is
also the English Editor of French-based magazine Yummy, and writes for Clash magazine as well as various blogs. Jenny remains adamant she’ll finish her book…one day soon. But with all that on the go it’s hard to see when she’ll find the time.

 

new sensations

Jan

This is Jan Chipchase of Nokia Design, who came in today to talk to us about what he does. Fascinating stuff that involves looking at where people’s lives are going. It is possible that he has the world’s most interesting job. He talked to us about the future of urban spaces, how people do business in shanty towns, how illiterate people use mobiles and how all this observation of folks in places like (recently) Tehran, Seoul and Ghana informs Nokia’s "human-centred" approach to design. You can hear more direct from Jan at his blog Future Perfect.

To warm us up, he introduced us to the Japanese penis pump from Tenga. The ideal product for advertising wankers

According to their website:
Most men like TIGHT and a lot like REAL TIGHT, that’s why TENGA has come to the party.

Noe_and_david

Noe, above, is trying to figure out how to open the packaging so that David can try it out.

From the instructions:

Feel_good

We’ll see if we can persuade David to report back on his product test experience.

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