Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

- Ferris Bueller

Sentiments borne of teenage frustration and a need for escape, rebellion and self-expression from the master of the ‘80s genre, the late great John Hughes. A simpler time, one might argue: the days before the web, wi-fi, information aggregation and real-time status updates live-streamed from a virtual community of billions.

Nowadays, information overload is well-documented, but to put things into context, it’s worth reviewing a snippet of the review of web use in 2009 from the legends at Pingdom.

So, in 2009:

- 90 trillion emails were sent…of which 81% were classified as spam (that’s 200 billion mails a day)
- A total of 234 billion websites were catalogued…with a further 47 million added last year
- There were 1.73 billion internet users worldwide…an 18% increase on 2008
- 126 million blogs were tracked by BlogPulse…with 84% of social network sites with more women than men
- Microblogs weighed in with a hefty 27.3 million tweets per day…although 57% of Twitter’s user base is in the US
- Facebook reached 350m users…50% of whom logged on every day
- 4 billion images were hosted on Flickr…however, 2.5 billion per month were uploaded to Facebook
- 1 billion videos were viewed per day on You Tube…with the average user watching 182 videos per month

And breathe.

In an age where the relentless pace of technological change means that many of us feel like we’re running to stand still, how do we find the time to stand and stare? If only there was some kind of machine that could take you back, pre-tipping point, or at least let you remember what things once looked and felt like…

You’ll be needing the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Whether it’s for research, curiosity or simple nostalgia, this is a really fascinating resource. Type in whatever website you’re interested in and the site will offer you glimpses of archived pages from as far back as the mid ‘90s.

Just to get you started, how about:

Hotmail circa 1997

Google circa 1998

BBC.co.uk circa 2000

Sky Sport circa 2001

You Tube circa 2005

Granted, hardware, software and coding changes mean that not every page works perfectly or looks exactly as it used to. However, it’s a great way of frittering away a couple of minutes online, and even acts as a would-be stomach pump for the reclamation of forgotten morsels of data that Google, like a virtual sarlacc, has swallowed up but is now unable to regurgitate via organic search, such is the ceaseless growth of cyberspace.

Whether you find what you’re looking for or not, such online time travel confirms that LP Hartley knew what he was talking about…the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

By Jonathan Izzard on April 12th, 2010

Tags: Blogging, Content, Default, Facebook, Media, Online communities, YouTube, community

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Being a Londoner and a huge sports fan I can’t tell you how excited I am that we are hosting the 2012 Olympic Games.  However, 2012 can seem a long way off. I have no doubt Seb Coe and his team will deliver the ‘Greatest Games on Earth’ and leave a real legacy for the next generation but it can be hard to get truly excited about something that is still two and half years away. Well, that was what I thought until last night.

Yesterday as the milky autumn sun set on Docklands’ skyline a few of the Synergy team headed East, to Stratford. In fact none of us had ever been to Stratford before so that was a first in itself. We boarded the official Tour Bus and prepared for our hour long trip around the 2012 Olympic Village.

Our guide was the brilliant Des Blake from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA),  a very friendly chap with a unique grasp of the English language. His energy, enthusiasm and knowledge of the local area was fantastic. He’d evidently been briefed to cover what each area will look like during the Games and then emphasise that the Park will leave a real legacy for the local commmunity. But with Des you really believed he meant it, in fact you believed he wasn’t just reciting a brief but he genuinely knows that the Games will make a huge difference to the area.

When we arrived at the site entrance, the bus was given a full once over by the security team, each yellow jacket clad team including a Ghurka – Joanna Lumley would be very proud! We then proceeded into the Olympic Park. With the River Lea running through the centre of the site you really begin to feel what it will be like in August 2012  (with the help of the odd animation or two).

2012 Aquatics Centre - September 2009

The velodrome is currently just a big hole but the Olympic Stadium and Aquatics Centre are well under way,  infact ahead of schedule. The media centre and Olympic Village, that will house all the athletes, are huge and the scale of this project is really mind blowing.  From re-housing thousands of newts and toads, to deconstructing two electricity pylons and moving London’s premier salmon smoker 500 yards, the amount of planning that has made this project happen is just unbelievable.

I have to say I would highly recommend taking the tour. As a Londoner I’m going to feel pretty proud when the Olympics rolls into to town so why not feel part of it now… booking a tour is pretty easy just call 0300 2012 001. 

Finally, I have to say that the highlight of the whole tour was when Des Blake announced that the ODA has in fact been training up local residents to take the tour and we had been his first guests. He may not have spoken the Queen’s English but I have to thank Des Blake for really bringing London 2012 to life. Bravo Des!

By Caroline Ayling on September 22nd, 2009

Tags: London 2012, Olympic sponsorship consultants, Olympics, community

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Imagine the prospect of a rugby training session with a coach who is feared by players for his army style drills and envied by other coaches for the results he yields from his team. Guinness Club Together, a grassroots rugby initiative, gave one lucky club the chance to be put through their paces in a unique training session, tailored specifically for the club, by the Wales Defence Coach Shaun Edwards.

Shaun gave up his only day off this year, in his busy schedule training the Welsh National Squad and the Wasps Guinness Premiership team, to head to Nottingham Casuals RFC, currently 5^th in Midlands 4 (East – North), for a once in a lifetime training session.

Oli Mott, winner of the Guinness Club Together competition, claimed he’d never seen so many players turn up for mid-week training and with such excitement and enthusiasm – they were even all on time! Shaun lived up to his trade-mark terrifying approach and took no pity on the Nottingham Casuals Team, undertaking a series of training drills and practices, which would have put a professional player through their paces. Shaun showed his true passion for the development of rugby by spending time with the club coaches as well as with the players. Judging by all the exhausted faces at the end I think it’s safe to say they had never experienced anything like it.

Despite Shaun’s gruelling schedule, he found time to share a pint of ‘the black stuff’ with the team after the training session, along with sharing some amusing anecdotes of life off the pitch in the professional game. The hard work and sweat truly paid off as the Nottingham Casuals won their next match 81-0! Shaun Edwards obviously left a lasting impression and turned out to be not so intimidating as originally thought.

To round up the 2008-9 rugby season Guinness Club Together is offering one member club the chance to play on the hallowed turf at Twickenham on the day of the Guinness Premiership Final. To enter visit www.guinness-clubtogether.com.

By Georgina Taylor on March 25th, 2009

Tags: Alcohol, Event management service, Guinness, Guinness Premiership, Rugby, community, grass roots sport

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At the FT Sport Industry Summit on Tuesday a very interesting topic was raised but never fully explored.

Roger Draper, Chief Executive at the Lawn Tennis Association and famous for his hunger for change, said that when he left Sport England he had presented a document to Government which recommended that the UK should have just one sports body – instead of the proliferation of bodies which now exist.

A number of us in the industry have always been baffled as to why so many different bodies exist within sport in the UK but, with the realisation that turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, we have long accepted that the current scenario is unlikely to change.

However, and slightly ironically, it may be that a change is just over the horizon.  I say ironically because it is the very fact that Team GB was so successful in Beijing that sport really is now at the top of the Government agenda.  There is a genuine belief that sport is good for the country, for morale and health reasons and more, and ministers are keen to associate themselves with success.  Let’s face it, there’s pretty little else in the way of success to which they can nail their colours at the moment.

So, we might be witness in the next four to five years to a move to streamline the administration of sport in this country.  It’ll probably take that long for Government to address the issues and there will be a feeling that there is so much else to do prior to London 2012 that rocking the boat now would be detrimental.

But, picture the scene after 2012 and after (we hope) more medal success for Team GB.  We could find ourselves with one UK Sports Association (or other appropriate title) responsible for all things ‘sport’ across the UK – and that includes Scotland, Ireland and Wales.  Governing bodies through to local clubs would know where to apply for financial and all other assistance instead of the myriad of different institutions currently in existence.  The system would be straightforward, which it’s not now.

Roger Draper said his report had identified £80 million of administrative savings if the plan was embraced.  Imagine what sport could do with that sort of money – from medals at the top to community sport at the grassroots.

You never know, one of the political parties might put the notion in their manifesto for the next general election – it could make them very popular.

By Karen Earl on November 7th, 2008

Tags: DCMS, London 2012, Olympics, Team GB, community, grass roots sport

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“The coming together of diametrically differing types of people, all glued to the same pitch or television screen…How can one activity – sport – unite such different strands of humanity?”

- Ed Smith, What Sport Tells Us About Life

All those who have ever dismissed sport as ‘just a game’ would be wise to spend some time absorbing the writings of Ed Smith. In a truly brilliant work on the place of sport within our modern lives, Smith discusses and examines sport in the widest possible context – all in order to learn more about the ‘game’ of life.

But not even he could have imagined how the narrative would play out in New Orleans in 2005/6, when an American football team proved to be the salvation of an entire town from deluge, devastation and ultimate destruction. It was a rare example of when sport not only united disparate strands of humanity, but re-built a completely broken city in the process.

The aptly named New Orleans Saints – the NFL’s Louisiana franchise – hit the UK headlines last week when they brought America’s number one sport to our fair shores, giving up a crucial regular season home game to bring football fever to London. But behind the glitz and glamour of the gridiron show that entertained 82,000 at Wembley, lies an intensely human story.

When Hurricane Katrina violently tore through the soul of Louisiana on 29 August 2005, claiming nearly 2,000 lives and causing $81.2m in damage, one would expect the local football team to be low on the list of priorities. Instead, the New Orleans Saints became the focus of recovery for the city and Katrina’s many thousands of victims.

The giant structure that the Saints had previously called home, the Louisiana Superdome, had been all but destroyed. But because it provided such a central beacon for the community, Louisiana’s then Governor made its restoration a top priority for the city’s relief effort. Doug Thornton, the Superdome’s General Manager, has explained why:

“The dome was a poster child for misery and suffering. We knew if we could turn it around and make it a symbol of rebirth that would provide inspiration and hope for the city and send a message to the rest of the world that New Orleans is back.”

The players themselves became ambassadors for the cause. The Saints’ golden boy, running back Reggie Bush, spearheaded a campaign to rebuild a High School football stadium in City Park, following major damage suffered during the hurricane. The rookie’s significant financial backing to the project came shortly after being drafted by the team and before he had even set foot on a football field as a fully-fledged Saint.

The Times’ Martin Fletcher’s moving experience of his time with the team this summer provides an intense snapshot of the players’ phenomenal efforts to put their city back on the map:

“One player, Joe Horn, was so distressed by the plight of refugees shopping in a Houston Wal-Mart soon after Katrina that he went up to the cashiers, gave them his credit card and said: “Give these people whatever they need.” Another, Ernie Conwell, bought an engagement ring for a man whose distressed wife had lost hers in the storm.

A third, Steve Gleason, bought 2,000 backpacks and filled them with pens and paper for children returning to school. Yet another, Deuce McAllister, takes 100 children shopping each Christmas.

Some players have discreetly slipped cash to hard-up parents so that they can take their children out for a meal.”

Clearly much, much more than a mandatory PR exercise. The numerous gracious, thankful and emotional comments and dedications posted in response to Fletcher’s piece by those who lived through the horror of it all, speak volumes about how vividly he captured the immensity of the Saints’ efforts for their city. As quarterback Drew Brees told him during an interview, fans don’t run up to players and congratulate them on a great game – instead they thank them deeply for being part of the city.

In his book, Ed Smith describes the utter immersion in a sporting spectacle as akin to following a novel’s narrative, ‘sharing a journey, caring deeply about something we cannot change’ – that ultimately, can extend our human sympathy.

The Saints cared so deeply about their extended adopted family of New Orleans that they did all within their power to make sure the narrative of their city was changed. America’s number one sport beat on as the heart of a devastated city, and New Orleans’ very own Saints extended their own human sympathy beyond all expectation.

By Lucie Bartlett on November 3rd, 2008

Tags: American football, NFL, community

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