This. And This. And This ...

The streets outside may well be empty, but the dear old information superhighway is getting mighty congested.

Dormant WhatsApp groups are springing into life with the vigour of April tulips.

Long-lost relatives are emailing and Skyping and FaceTiming and StrangeTiming and StaySafeing.

The middle-aged have taken a crash-course in the media of the young, from Zoom to TikTok to Houseparty.

Streaming services have turned into less of a stream and more of a torrential, gushing river in danger of breaking its banks.

Museums, galleries, cinemas and educational establishments have flung open their virtual doors. I have even joined a virtual pub.

Along with all the memes on overdrive and "useful stuff to do if you're bored" (bored????) there's a unstoppable current of mis-information about COVID-19 and previous pandemics, from conspiracy theories to misleading medical advice to manipulated statistics to fake stories.

"Anywheres" are being forced to becomes "Somewheres" with all the inadvertent hilarity that Home Office brings.

And meanwhile, many of the "Somewheres" are out of the front line, or wondering whether there will be a Somewhere - a small business, a livelihood, a home - when all this is over.

Talking of "when all this is over", there is also a deluge of seminars, studies and articles speculating on what, exactly, will be the "new normal". No-one knows, of course.

I'm not convinced that the world will become obsessed with hygiene. Maybe in combination with more interest in immunity and how to be better prepared next time.

I'm also not sure about the "online as default" prediction that's flying around. There isn't really a substitute for reality and face-to-face meeting. People are social animals and social media will only take you so far. There's already a yearning to get back together, with "meeting friends"  as the Number 1 thing people will do after the crisis.

And will we be better people? Again, for every high-minded soul that's meditating in the morning, dashing off a novel or symphony in the afternoon and delivering essential groceries in the evening, there are plenty sitting around, guzzling down comfort food and too much booze, while bombarding the world with "hilarious" memes. Not to mention the spinners of conspiracy theories and bogus medical advice, the con-artists and the opportunists (thanks, whoever you were with your kind offer of a "free financial consultation" so that I don't lose all of my pension).

Times change, but human nature doesn't.

The Bauhaus of the 21st century?

Last week, I went to the exhibition Moderne am Main 1919 - 1933 at the Museum of Applied Art, here in Frankfurt. This is timed with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar, and showed the influence of Bauhaus design in the Frankfurt region.

The Bauhaus sought to unify art, craft and technology in all-embracing design for a new human being, a new way of living, "adapted to a world of machines, radios and fast cars." (Walter Gropius)

The exhibition was fascinating, and what became abundantly clear as I made my way around was that, in the words of the Museum "... if the Bauhaus was modernism's academy, Neues Frankfurt was its workshop."

If the photos above remind you just a little of IKEA, then you are not alone. There's currently another exhibition running, this time at London's Design Museum entitled Home Futures: Living in Yesterday's Tomorrow which takes again, the theme beloved of the Bauhaus - the merging of architecture, technology and everyday life - over the last 100 years. And the collaboration partner in this case is none other than IKEA.

I haven't been to this one, and probably won't get a chance, but would love to see the installations which examine the concept of home, for example, Uninvited Guests "... a series of connected smart devices tracking diet, health and sleep and intrusively offering advice on self-improvement." Yikes.

The Bauhaus movement arose in a time of change as electricity was becoming commonplace in everyday homes as well as cities, an industrial age, but also an age of increased connection via radio and telephone. IKEA conquered the world as the information age was born, with its democratisation of design.

With the digital age and its promise (or threat) of artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual reality, 3-D printing, cybercurrency, autonomous vehicles and all the rest upon us, I wonder who or what will be illuminating us on how to live? Who will be the real architects of the Smart Cities? Bauhaus was a design movement, IKEA is a retail brand. It's likely that the new Bauhaus will be a platform of some sort - social media, mobility, healthcare, retail, technology - who knows?

But will there be human beings behind (or in front of) the platform?

Brands at the Museum

Back in the last century, working at Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the highlights of a visit to my clients at Harvey's of Bristol was a visit to the Harvey's Wine Museum. Located in dockyard cellars, the museum had a slightly raffish air, a teeny bit disreputable car boot sale of a place with its dusty decanters and blowsy barrels. The highlight was a drawing of the historic occasion in the 19th century during which a lady sherry-tasting proclaimed 'if that be the milk, then this is the cream.'

I'm not sure if the museum still exists, but brand museums are now all the rage. Not just museums of packaging and print ads and other ephemera, but museums or even theme parks dedicated to one particular brand.

There's the McDonalds No. 1 Store Museum (housed in a replica of the first restaurant opened by Ray Kroc in Des Plaines), the Willy Wonka-esque Cadbury World, the nostalgic Colman's Mustard Museum and Shop in Norwich, the Levis Strauss Museum in the home of his birth in Buttenheim. And almost every brand has a virtual museum of sorts on their website these days.

Whether it's food, drink, fashion or cars, all these brands have a story or two to tell, and enough belief in their meaning to the general public out there. Maybe the idea of a museum ties in well with the increasing fashionability of Brand Curators.

One brand museum due to open in 2016 will be the IKEA Museum, in the first IKEA store which is being restored to its 1950s glory. And there's a chance to participate here, with your own stories of BILLY and KLIPPAN.

Maybe this is the ultimate test for Marketing Directors - or Brand Curators - does my brand have enough magic, meaning and affection to warrant a museum?