PopCo by Scarlett Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

never had a TV growing up and, although I have one now, I only really use it to watch videos or play videogames. I assume that what is playing is some sort of TV theme tune, in that case. I look over to the DJ booth and the source of the music becomes clear. I nudge Dan, but he’s already watching.
    ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘It’s Georges. I might have known.’
    Georges Celéri is the Creative Director of PopCo. He is like the company whirlwind, or perhaps our poltergeist. He’s the PopCo prankster, the guy who really loves toys rather than business; the guy behind the ecology stuff. We know him as the sender of our weekly corporate e-mails, which often come with huge JPEG attachments or inappropriate jokes. He is also the director most likely to turn up on site just to ‘see what you guys are up to’, and then take the whole team out to dinner and a strip club. He is either French and grew up in Japan, or Japanese and grew up in France. I can’tremember. He looks vaguely Japanese, is between thirty and forty, and has a good haircut. Like Mac, he has an accent stranded somewhere in the Atlantic.
    ‘It’s school dinner time!’ Georges says into the microphone. I notice that Mac is standing next to him, holding a glass of wine, laughing. ‘So, everyone … I’d just like to welcome you to the PopCo Open World Event. Don’t drink too much over lunch, because there’s a lot in store for you all this afternoon. Oh yes – the CEO’s presentation, and after that, the games! Please meet at the sports field at four o’clock, dressed appropriately for running around. The theme of this conference – sorry – event is becoming more like children. Forget that this is work. We are PopCo! This is fun!’
    Mac takes the microphone from Georges. ‘Yes, welcome. Enjoy lunch,’ is all he says before the two of them join the other directors, PAs and senior non-creative staff on the raised tables. Some people clap. A minion wearing a headset takes over the DJing, and, after the weird bouncy music finishes, a recent pop album comes on, at a lower volume. I notice that a couple of bottles of wine have been placed on our table; one red, one white. Dan has already filled both our glasses with red and I immediately gulp most of mine down.
    ‘I needed that,’ I say. I hate this already. The guy wearing black glowers slightly at us, presumably since we have hijacked the red wine. He fills his own and his companion’s glass with white, wrinkling his nose slightly as he does so.
    Over the rest of lunch, and while Dan eats my sandwich crusts, I explain to him about my recent ‘ideation adventure’: that for the last two weeks I have been at home, barefoot, reading about survival for my new kit. I don’t go into too many details, it having been a calming, somehow private exercise. I also don’t tell him I met Mac this afternoon. He’d probably get all excited about it and I am just not in the mood for that.
    Ideation is an odd process. There are, of course, lots of ways of generating ideas. Ordinary people, stuck for ideas about normal things, like what colour to paint the sitting room, or what flowers to have at a wedding, may well decide to simply sit around and wait for inspiration, or use commonly available stimuli like magazines and shop displays in order to jog that inspiration into life.When you are in the ideas industry, however, there are a vast number of techniques for ideation that you will just know. You will use these techniques not just at work, but in normal-life situations as well. You will know what sorts of results to expect from brainstorming, matrices, mind-mapping and so on, and if you want stimulating material you are more likely to rely on a trend-spotter or a fact-seeking expedition to somewhere bizarre, because it’s just what you do. Last year at Battersea a couple of women ran these singles seminars after work in which, using flipcharts, matrices and mind-mapping, they came up with ideas as to how to