A Hot Cup of Jack Squat

Quitting In Style

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:03:00 +0000

So busy that I haven’t had a chance to post all of the wonderful interweb gems (that you’ve already seen) floating around…

When I saw the potential of this posting a few weeks ago, I cringed inwardly. Quitting publicly in a hailstorm of flames is one of those ideas that sounds great when you’re drunk…but usually backfires in your face down the road. But this lady – I’ve got no doubts she’ll get another job to go along with her vindication.

via The Chive

Busy…busy… busy

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:53:29 +0000

But because I love you…I had to take a moment to share.

Aptly titled: Don’t ask a designer for a favor.

Update: Aw…come on. It’s down already? Must be the tens of people I drove there.

HAH. Still had a tab open with the post. Here you go:

Anyone Can Be Featured At The Guggenheim

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:55:12 +0000

I like this collaborative idea between the Guggenheim and YouTube. The Guggenheim believes that digital one of the most important, influential, and accessible mediums of art and they’ve teamed up with YouTube to invite anyone and everyone to submit a video to their…well it’s really an open audition of your artwork. Submit your video to youtube.com/play and a jury of experts will select a winner to be featured at the Guggenheim.

They Built A Better Mousetrap

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:53:26 +0000

The old design/solution adage has been broken – they have built a better mousetrap.

One of the gold award winners at this year’s International Design Excellence Awards was a mousetrap called OneDown. It essentially looks like a lovely vase that the mouse crawls into (there wasn’t an explanation of why a mouse would be attracted to crawling in there), and the receptacle swings upright from the weight of the mouse.

There’s no snapping parts, the mouse doesn’t die, it’s not ugly, and it doesn’t smell.

I guess there’s always a better way.

via PSFK

Archive Spring Cleaning

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:23:02 +0000

Taken at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin…pretty amazing….

The Interactive Dead

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:51:55 +0000

Very soon graveyards will become tours of interactive life stories.

And it starts with this company: Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone is offering stone tablets with RFID chips to be placed in people’s headstones. Instead of trying to glean a lifetime from a pithy 10 word epithet, you can now use your NFC-RFIS enabled mobile to access someone’s personal goodbye, their favorite recipes, family tree, favorite songs, etc. It seems right now this is only text…but you know that in the very near future this will also include home movies, audio files, etc.

I can seriously envision people walking through cemeteries on a beautiful Sunday, using their phones to access this new Facebook of Dead People. It would completely change the dynamics of what a cemetery means.

Pretty Cool.

via PSFK

Smartest Band In The World

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:53:53 +0000

OK Go should win Marketer Of The Year.

Through the last few years, the band has created a brand through content other than music. So much so that their latest video – over 14 million hits in two weeks – is sponsored by State Farm Insurance.

State Farm Insurance. There is no natural brand synergy there. But OK Go’s videos are now a communications channel. Content as channel. We see it happening with iAd in iPhone apps.

OK Go understands the inherent nature of new communication strategy. Stand for something – and deliver for the audience. Old school is thinking that advertising is – on a generous day – 70% about the brand and 30% about the audience. New reality is determining what the brand stands for – and the fusion of message and behavior into a delivery of what they want, and not just what I want to say.

Sure we’ve been saying for a long time that we’re trying to attract audiences and loyalists with our message, but 99% of car ads – one of the larger brand and utility purchases consumers make – is really a one-sided conversation of companies talking at you in their own way.

Look at OK Go’s videos – the goal is not about broadcasting a band image. It’s creating an experience with a set of (brand) principles at its core. It’s behavior over image. They treat themselves as a vehicle for the audience’s experience. And this necessitates creating an experience with the idea: what does the audience get out of it? Audience first. This is the essence of a brand putting guest engagement at the core of its messaging.

In the digital realm this is more essential than any other medium. It truly is an exercise in: if a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound? Because digital is self-curated, and unless you make something that audiences inherently want – you didn’t happen. “Build it and they will come” might fly in an Iowa cornfield, but it doesn’t happen online.

But this doesn’t mean that this kind of communication strategy should be limited to the domain of digital. Did OK Go hire a director and production company to create their latest videowunder? No. They hired Syyn Labs – a company of creative engineers that create interactive experiences and digital gizmos. People who inherently understand the nature of experiential.

Anyway – soapbox aside – here’s the video. And special kudos to how they were able to elegantly synchronize so much of the motion and environmental sounds to the music itself. Exceptional work.

And here’s Stephen Colbert’s version for his show…again created by the always impressive Syyn Labs.

The Colbert Report

Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Intro – Rube Goldberg Machine

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Fox News

Archive Spring Cleaning

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:08:41 +0000

“Dali Atomicus” – taken by photographer Phillipe Halsman in 1948. You know what that means…all of this happened in-camera. It took Halsman over 5 hours with 3 assistants throwing cats and another throwing water…

This one is a keeper, no question.

Archive Spring Cleaning

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:54:34 +0000

Weeding through my “Random Stuff” files….

is it a keeper?

Right Drummer, Wrong Gig

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 03:31:38 +0000

What do I like best…his windmilling? Or how the guys on the guitars throw down with their own bit of spice?

via The Wimp