Not that I want to encourage you to spend too much time on another magazine's website, but I was interested to see that Maurice Lévy was the first guest on Campaign Live's new series of video interviews, Talking Inspiration. I'll leave you to find the interview, but it struck me that Maurice Lévy was unusually open about his past, referring almost in the first sentence to his grandfather - a rabbi who read Spinoza to find out why the enlightenment thinker had been cast out of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. Maurice Lévy was making the point that people are his greatest source of inspiration.
This led me to think about my own grandfather, a sheet metal worker with the face of a boxer, the clothes of a gentleman and the hands of an artist. When he wasn't painting, he was making wooden sleds and cars for me to play with. Definitely inspiring. Unfortunately I did not inherit his skills - and the ability to make things with our hands seems to be dying out in our digital culture. Or is it? There is a growing community of self-styled "makers" in the United States, who all get together to build gadgets and toys (see Makezine.com). In advertising, I've noticed a trend towards building and invention as the latest value-add. The staff of TBWA London were recently encouraged to "make stuff". Perhaps making is the new storytelling. Drop that smartphone and get out your toolbox.
