““It’s not about ideas; It’s about making ideas happen.” - Michael Bierut, 5 Secrets from 86 Notebooks.

Goodye Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Live Messenger and AIM. Now who’s for some fresh air and a Cup of Joe?

It’s been a helluva week for celebrity sightings! On the way back from Midtown, Mira and I ended up as extras in a new Matt Damon film, as he films a scene playing prospective Senator David Norris in ‘The Adjustment Bureau’. He’s a great looking guy (I can say that, right?!)

A year ago today, I landed at JFK with two cases and a new country to call home. A big thanks to everyone who made it happen.

Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell filming ‘The Other Guys’ on the corner of our block. It’s all go in Gramercy this week!

Having a couple of weeks off from the Web, my iPhone, social networks, RSS feeds and everything else digital made me realize how much noise we contend with every day. I’m not talking literal soundwaves here - but static, buzz, a constant stream of data that bombards us every minute of every single day.

For me, it started when I woke up. Sometimes, even before I woke up - an email may arrive in the middle of the night, and the noise from my iPhone would be enough to raise my weary head. Oh joy, a promotion from National Rail, “Free Passes for over 60’s” - just what I always wanted. Of course, once I’m awake, I can’t get back to sleep! It may be 4:30 here in New York - but that makes it 10:30 in England. I wonder what the buzz is on Twitter from the UK? What’s happening on BBC News? Oh look, someone posted something on my Facebook wall. 300 unread RSS items? There goes my sleep.

I’d get ready for work and before I walk out the door, I’m already unwinding my earphones to listen to music, a podcast, a videocast, an audiobook - something, anything so I don’t have to pay attention to those around me.

Of course, I also work on the Web all day - albeit having the joy of building, rather than reading. I get tremendous satisfaction from what I do, but the Web is a noisy place to work; One minute you have your head deep in a problem, and the next you’re reading about Jon ‘frickin’ Gosselin taking $200,000 from him and Kate’s joint account before they separated. I can’t even make this shit up.

I got home, eating dinner with the TV on, laptop firmly in my lap, iPhone in my pocket - I might play Xbox, I could play Wii, perhaps a DVD? Ahhhh!

Make it stop. Please.

This isn’t because I live in the ‘City that never sleeps’. It’s because we’re in 2009 - we’re living in a world deluged in information - we sleep it, we eat it, drink it, walk it and talk it. Is it making us smarter? I saw an IBM advert that said it is. With all due respect, I disagree.

Smart isn’t about knowing that Jon Gosselin is a dick. It’s not about knowing 50 ways to achieve the ‘cinematic’ effect in Photoshop, or that Joe Bloggs had a pork-pie for breakfast. Smart - to me - is knowing what information to digest, and what to let sail in one ear and straight out the other. Don’t even try to digest it all.

Since I returned from England, I’m trying to be smarter about this noise. Firstly, ‘Airplane mode’ on my iPhone before I sleep at night - the only noise that thing’s going to make is to wake me up when I tell it to. Before I leave the house, no emails, RSS feeds, tweets, Facebook messages, you name it. I’m lucky enough to be working at the client offices in Manhattan for the past few months, and I enjoy listening to music as I walk to work. When I’m at work, my head’s down and I’m focused on the task at hand - no Twitter apps, no Facebook apps, personal email is closed and no RSS.

Am I harming my career prospects by not hearing the industry noise? No, is the short answer. The long answer is ‘Do I really need to be the one to filter this crap?’. When something cool comes along, I work with enough talented people to hear about it before most people, and I’ll be the first to have a play and if it’s good, incorporate it into the projects I’m involved in. Otherwise, it’s just a big distraction.

After I finish this post, I’m going to put the laptop away and read a book. You know, those things made from paper that Google are attempting to wipe out with their ‘digital library’. It’s quiet in the apartment. I can hear the voice in my head, and that’s about it. And I love it.

More signal, please. Let’s reclaim our lives - even just a little. The world is an incredible place, if only we looked up once in awhile.

I came home yesterday to a selection of wonderful miniature cupcakes from ‘Baked By Melissa’, as a welcome back gift courtesy of Mira. Thanks sweetheart!