Gearóid (Ged) Carroll
📍London, UK | Freelance strategy director in advertising
📝 Editor’s Note | Rob Belk
Certain brand choices can tell you a lot about someone. As an iphone user, you should have seen my horror face when I realized I married into an Android family.
Crest or Colgate.
Frosted Flakes or Cheerios.
Owala or Stanley.
I made a big switch. I changed from a PC to a Mac.
Every time I open excel and powerpoint, I want to throw the computer out of a window. But getting my texts and calls straight to the computer, is pretty nice. My wife and I can use the same chargers.
A few weeks in, I feel the strong temptation to walk into a hipster coffee shop, open up my Macbook, and order a V60 pour-over with Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans, light roast, and oat milk. If I grow out a mustache, you’ll know why.
Without further ado…
Why Ged?
If Ged’s name seems familiar, it should be to long term readers. Ged completed a FABRIC guide for London. His recommendations were unique and interesting, which made it a no brainer to do a full profile. Enjoy!
Follow Ged on Substack & flickr
Self-Description
Irishman, English accent, late of Hong Kong, now in London - Mac user, doing my bit to prevent the enshitification of creative advertising - so long as my caffiene levels are sufficiently high.
Ged’s 6 Recommendations
Written in his own words…
1. @arthur_chance
I have known Omar Karim for a few years, his work sits at the pointy end of creativity and LLMs (what the general public calls AI). He creatively uses the ‘glitches’ in video generating models and has impeccable taste. You can see his work on Instagram under the handle @arthur_chance
2. Canary corrugated cardboard cutter
I picked up my first one in Hong Kong in a discount store, lost it. Got my next one from Amazon UK. Given that I often work and shop from home it has been invaluable in opening and breaking down boxes. Don’t let the cheap looking handle fool you, this is quality Japanese engineering.
3. Chip War by Chris Miller
Chris Miller’s Chip War is probably the most consequential book to understand the importance of Taiwan and the battle for technology pre-eminence over the past 50+ years. It was on the Financial Times (FT) short list for business book of the year 2022. For an academic book its surprisingly readable.
4. Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg
Something I picked up from the work of behavioural scientist B.J. Fogg - attach behaviour changes to existing behaviours. For example, my gym moved from digital locks on lockers to bringing your own padlock. I bought a small TSA padlock and put it on my keychain. My gym attendance went up. I always leave the house with my keys, bringing the lock on my key ring reduced the friction to going swimming (BJ Fogg outlines this in his book Tiny Habits).
5. Mystery Ranch 3 Day Assault Pack
I have been a huge fan of Mystery Ranch backpacks since I first bought one two decades ago on a trip to Japan. Several international trips later, It is still going strong as my work and weekend pack, the tri-zip design is convenient and the futura yoke is so comfortable. I picked up a second one recently to put away in case my original model dies on me. The original American made models like the 3-Day assault pack (3DAP) still hold their value on eBay. They were bought by YETI just over a year ago, so the quality may change over time, but it takes a lot to abuse them, so don’t be afraid to buy pre-owned.
6. Il Caso Mattei aka The Mattei Affair
If I told you that Paramount was sitting on the distribution rights of a Grand Prix winning Cannes Film Festival movie without distributing it. Or that the movie is one of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved. You might wonder what’s going on? The story of a business man who helped post-war Italy get oil and gas sounds boring, but there is more to Enrico Mattei’s life and this film that merits a deeper exploration. You can find it if you look hard enough on the internet ;-).
Plug | Strategic Expertise
I work remote with creative agency-side clients (the likes of ad agencies), currently contracting for an internal agency at Google focused on EMEA and JAPAC campaigns, but free in the new year. Work remote for US clients who want to leverage the time difference, or hybrid / in-office for London-based ones. Expertise across sectors and regions. Portfolio here.
Want to get in touch with Ged? Email: renaissancechambara@mac.com or Signal messaging app renaissancechambara.88
P.S. from Rambull — I want to share two follow-ups on my note about sleep. S/O to two members of the community.
It makes my week when people follow-up with related recommendations.
Dozing Dragon | S/O to Vince Roque
As someone who used to suffer random bouts of sleepless nights for years, I finally cured it this year thanks to the Dozing Dragon YouTube Channel. It’s a essentially a bedtime story channel geared towards fantasy and folks tales, but the reader’s soft, British voice knocks me out fast. The screen slowly fades into black as he reads, and the latter half of the long videos ends with hours of fireside ambient noise. I find having this channel on in the living room and changing spaces from the bed to the couch to be the perfect combination when I have trouble sleeping.
Become Your Child’s Sleep Coach: The Bedtime Doctor’s 5-Step Guide, Ages 3-10 | Dr. Lynelle Schneeberg
I very much enjoy working with parents to help them teach their kids to be great sleepers, and I wrote the book so that I could help more than one family at a time! (I also wrote it because sleep coaches can be expensive and, for the price of a softcover book, any family can have access to a structured, evidence-based, gentle plan.)
