Pattern Recognition

An ex-adman tries to make sense of PR. By Jon Leach, Head of Planning, Bell Pottinger Group

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Why "Pattern Recognition"

You don't hear the phrase "cyber-punk" much these days.  In the late-eighties and on into the nineties it was the coolest genre in "sci-fi" books. And William Gibson was the leading light.  Within it he invented (or at least named) the concept of cyber space and seemed to predict much of what has since come to past.  He was the George Orwell of his time.

But maybe he - and his genre - has dropped off the radar because we are all now living in his world.  Why dream about it when you can live it?

One of Gibson's most recent books was Pattern Recognition and although continuing many of the themes he had used in his cyber punk books, it was also set in the present day with branding consultants, PR/advertising people, video fragments being spread on the web, giant rendering farms etc.  So in honour of the man who bestrides the time when all this stuff was a thrilling fantasy, and the time when you can live it for real, the start point of this blog is to praise the virtues of "Pattern Recognition" in all its forms.

Jon Leach

02/03/2006 in Books, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)