Humans tell stories. We are really good at it. Both the telling part and the receiving. A good story says so much more than the volume of words or visuals used.
While stories fills much of my day the greatest storytellers I respect are those on the front lines of combat. People enduring real physical risk to tell stories that need to be told. Rather than the stories somebody wants to tell.
The Imperial War museum currenlty has a powerful exhibit by iconic war photojournalist Don McCullen - Shaped by War.
On Saturday fresh off the plan from six months in Afghanistan British Army photographer Sergeant Steve Blake along with the head of photography at the museum talked about covering 21st Centruy Conflicts.
His story of covering modern conflict is one of the most compelling stories I've heard in recent years.
Firstly, with extreme forensic distance the head of photography chronicled the shift int he past 20 years from film to digital photography and its moral and operational implications.
Followed by Steve pragmatically detailing the team structure and how despite being a photographer he is a soldier first. A soldier who must engage a population with a thing most have never seen - his camera.
Most interesting to me is their team structure. Steve works in a group of three. Himself on stills, another on film and their leader, a superior, who serves as the official media voice and is responsible for all radio content.
These three, with their individual equipment adding 50 points to each's back and a shared satellite uplink operate as a self contained mobile news room that delivers against every single possible medium.
Some stuff they shoot goes on TV, some on Facebook, some in newleters and some in magazines. They don't worry about the medium, just getting the story.
I loved the brutal simplicity of three people getting all possible required content for any medium.
When lives are at stake, no time for messing around.
Recently I read a book by Patricia Wells (go ahead and snicker) who covered restaurants for the NY Times and other publications in the 80's during the rise of Nouvelle Cuisine in France, and ultimately the world. A manifesto espousing fresh ingredients and simple preparations was published as the chefs behind the movement practiced the commandments in their kitchens.
However, she noted that the first few years of this new "movement" started to get silly. Once the backlash of 40$ for two steamed asparagus stalks peaked, the fluff was culled and the real innovation started. The creativity in cooking returned to what was on the plate not the idea of eating something called Nouvelle Cuisine.
It feels, I hope, we have passed the silly phases of digital (wave 1: 1997 to 2000, Wave 2: 2003 to 2006) and social (2007 to 2010) and we are getting down to ideas that inherently are good and interesting that use technology but the ideas remain the master. Rather than ideas to the master of technology.
With this though, here are a bunch of things I like at the moment:
Jay-Z Decoded
Yes, it has been covered a lot and won loads of trophies, but it amazes me more don't talk about how remarkably they blended a book about urban culture with urban culture so seamlessly and credibly.
While sex sells everywhere few places allow advertising to be as sexy as France. While a bit of a gimmick to get you to watch more and share it hits the point, refreshes a long running campaign idea and makes me maybe want to see what happens. Love it's not just a "extended" edit of a TVC or lazy "you choose the ending" bollocks.
First and foremost a musician's first field of creativity is music itself. While the promotion is important bands are superbly great for letting others be creative with the other stuff. As album covers, music videos and concerts are well mined fields it is cool to see the very economic model be open for creativity. WK gets big ups for the totality of the endeavor - a transmedia initiative that is so much more than and meaningful than just take a bunch of characters from a TV ad and give them profiles online (aka 'Lost' Syndrome)
A simple idea that does what many have tried - to use iTunes as a medium itself. Again, an ad agency (mine in fact at DDB Paris) is behind this one.
Pepsi, Pepsi 10
I like that Pepsi is getting closer to innovation. Causing it not talking about it. However, it feels like their object is to be closer to innovation and be able to say the world trans-formative a lot. Being on the cutting edge isn't an end, but a means to an end whatever it might be. While small $10,000 grants is a start that some may scoff at - kudos for Pepsi doing what many brands just talk about.
While the genre of "take something from the oline/mobile world and do it in the real world, film it, post a video online" genre does seem overly pervasive/tired few have the right and credibility as T-Mobile to keep rocking it. Fewer, rock it this well.
The world has been going fast and faster and fastest for a while now.
Accross time and geography.
The internet for the past 40 years has exacerbated this. Tangible and especially heightening our impression of everything accelerating.
We have now acheived real time essentially. Get information instantly. Transmit and complete tasks instantly. Manufacture new products faster than trends can support them.
The next leap will be some form of reshaping time and space. Till then we have essentially acheived 'peak now.'
Till the our scientists get cracking and figure it out, we should celebrate the acheivement of nowness, and move past the acheivement of instanst life.
It is a good time to think about long term implications of instnantaneous everything. I love this Google film emotively highlighting a life of instantaneousness. Figure out how it can do things better, not just differently.
Just as globalization economically is delivering diminishing returns and returning to tighter geographical and cultural roots is paying greater returns (eg. McDonalds localizing menus in no-markets) how will we deal with peak now when it comes to consumer content and interacting with people we know and entities like brands, governments and associations.
This is bigger than a regectionist group like Slow movements (though they are certainly symptomatic) but a slow reframing of how we deal with information. As news cycles are essentially hours if not minutes down from days or weeks not too long ago how will we seek meaning over information. Meaningful comprehension of complex situations. Rich storytelling that compels when you already 'know.'
Right, well time to head to a terrace and figure it out.
In the middle of hundreds of thousands of socialists, communists, lenninist, unionists and others this guy stompted on the hood of his Triumph and rocked.
There is something visceral and I love about the energy of manifestations in France. People giving a damn and taking to the streets. It also feels in some ways like a time past. People now have other options to inspire and instill change. This guy did feel like a time before I was born when rock and roll was the voice of disent.
The crowd tends to be older at these manifestions, 50 something. I was in Prague in 2000 during the IMF protests/riots- I was 23 and many others seemed about my age. Maybe it feels old on the street because the youth are at home doing change rather than walking down the street yelling about change. More likely, as with most things in our frangmenting world the new and the old are equally important to moving forward.
Date of creation of important "new" digital things changing today's game:
2007 - iPhone
2006 - Twitter
2004 - Facebook
2001 - X-Box
1995 - Amazon.com
1993 - Mosaic browser and mainstream launch of World Wide Web and brand websites
1982 - Bloomberg Terminal
1970's - TCP/IP (protocol that connects computers allowing them to "talk" to each other)
1962 - ARPANET, precursor to "internet" first existed conceptually in an academic paper
It is often amazing to step back and look at how old many of the "new" things in marketing and communications are now. Yet, there is an attitude we still are figuring them out. That they are "new media" and just give it a fling and see what happens. Failures are okay.
It is a bit of a lazy attitude.
By reverse logic it is like saying we are still figuring out TV given the fact failures still make it to air.
Failures under the guise of newness are not okay. Risk taking on account of what is possible, certainly is okay.
We are at a new point of maturity where we are familiar, generally, with all the new tools and channels. However, we are just as susseptible to the amazing. Maybe increasingly more so as "average", "hackney" and "mediocre" invade more and more parts of our lives. Attack us from more and more angles.
Interestingly, 1962 the year the first inclings of the internet was being formed was also the year Think Small, first hit magazines. The ad that many link to the initiation of the Creative Revolution. A war still being faught every day on every front in every medium.
Just interesting to think that the first steps of the creative revolution took place the first days of a global telecommunications network. They really are brothers in arms.
Well, kind of introducing SHOUTtr. Intenet, we need your help.
Here is what Shouttr is all about, as explained to a few people I directly asked to maybe help make it happen:
I am a pretty positive person, but sometimes I can get frustrated, discouraged or disapointed. It is the nature of what we do, and if you care about what you do it probably happens to you too.
I loved the anonymity of early days of social networks. Amongst many things you could say anything, cause nobody was there but a few like minded folks, but now stuff easily gets taken out of context because one's audience is too diverse.
Plus nobody swears like they do in real life, except the odd person just for effect. It can be cathartic, I am sure science proves this somewhere, or should. But the back channels are no longer appropriate. My mother might find out, amongst other people.
I want to create Shouttr.com, a place you can vent. Say whatever you want. Anonymously.
Just an input field to enter important things like F**K F**K F******G D**N S**T F**K. UX primatively consisting of a SHOUT button to submit and a stream of past SHOUTS. Maybe just noting time and date. Geo tag would be nice but not necessary for launch. No profiles, no following.
One could even use it for something positive, maybe you are someone too humble to boast, but really want to shout about something great you did, to someone, anyone and but noone in particular who might catch you. (FYI, swearing is not mandatory.)
Of course, no hate speak. Just good clean venting, out into the voide. Using the power of anonymity to make oneself feel better. SHOUTTING feels like Rocky @ 3"57 .
Drop me a note or comment below if you can help. Feel free to nominate other people. The domain with a trying too hard cleaver typo is registered. Just need to make it.
My mom sends me links. Okay, not not by email or some internet tool like Delicious, but articles cut out of her analog newspaper and mailed to me in France.
It is not a new behavior, growing up she would hand me the paper and tell me to read it. When I wnt off to university the good folks at US Postal Service passed the articles on to me. Then, back it he same city but my own residence she would build them up and every time we met a small package of clippings was always passed on.
Tools of delivery changed but behavior has never wavered.
Now, despite my never ended steam of news and articles there are few I love and devour more eagerly than my inter-family diplomatic pouch that arrives every fortnight thanks to France Poste.
I don't want her to stop. I love the effort and things that my mom sends only because she think I might like it. So pure. Not because she wants to be a influencer or show people how cool she is by what she likes. Just a sincere sharing of what she thought I might appreciate. So motherly. So sincere.
Articles these days tend to be about:
- Recommendation of places in Paris or London (place I spend a lot of time)
- Articles on the advertising world of Canada
-Things about friends of mine or people I grew up with
- An interesting bit about the business of sport (side interest of mine)
- Tips on raising plants (we are a family of people who seemingly growing things)
So, I thought it would be nice for me to share these pure, un-tampered links with the world. It is a neat idea. I might get around to making it. Till then the articles are safely kep in a small envelope.
You have probably Noticed a lot of articles of late looking at different stages of "digital" things and how people jumped on board expecting a panacea. Currently the "participation" model is under heavy review. The baby is mid toss out with the bath water.
An article today from Tim Malbon is particularily well argued. Arturate. True, and something to hold up in the mirror.
But, and this is a big but, are we not missing the bigger point? Not because they are wrong. The smart folks writting these articles, no, they are very right. They need to be read.
But, are we not debating ultimately, regardless of the medium, what is great versus crap? Are we not finding that the "participation" world, like every other world, is based on being insightful, interesting and truely in touch with the consumer? Just doing it doesn't really do it.
It is cool now to talk about Old Spice and the 48 hour thing they did. But, it is rarely discussed why they did what many other brands could have done, but didn't. Like when the first mile was run under 4 minutes, quickly many others could too in subsequent weeks, despite so many for so long being so close for many years with the potential but never pushing into the perceived dangerous terrain.
I am, embarred to say, on extended vacation in the alps, but just read this amazing speach by a lead researcer at Bell Labs presented in 1986. Found it from the blog of Jelly Helm.
The speach is powerful and direct, it ultimatley looks into what makes great first class, versus good or prolific researchers.
Read it, put the word advertiser instead of researcher throughout and it will hopefully inspire you to think harder about how to make what we do better, more compelling and effective. Regardless what medium.
We must ask ourselves if we are at peak medium range of selection - are we at the point now where deciding what medium we choose is increasingly less important than what we do with any one medium we do chose?
Is the medium is no longer the message, what you do with a medium is your greatness?
Lift sounds interesting. Sure some great speaks and likely many neat tech ideas and insights into why they work or why we need them.
But what really excites is this line in description of its purpose:
"to explore the social implications of new technologies."
To explore the social implications of X is a good way of looking at what we do and how we could do it better. It implies an unknown, some discovery and removes the limitations of things like "media" or "channels."
Rather than burrowing down a mine shaft and asking "does this TV ad work" or is this an effective mobile application" ultimately we need to simply explore the social implications of an idea.
- Did you share it?
- Did it make me laugh?
- Did it remind me of someone who I will now call, visit, email or Friend
- Did it give me something to talk about in the car share tomorrow so Tom the blabbermouth doesn't take all the attention and I can be respected as a entertaining compatriate."
- Did it change the way I see the world, better or worse?
- Did it change the way I see myself, better or worse? Stronger or weaker? Inspired or detered?
I like how Lift is focused on the social implications of technology. When you dig into it, implications of one things have cascading implications on other things. Social implication of a new application will themselves have social implications on another "thing" it replaces or improves.
Technology often looks at itself within its own buble or technolgoy or at the expense of all things non-technological. Nice to open itself up, and allow us to be arm chair socialogists.
Like any curious eight year old, when something gets popular I like to play with it, poke holes in it and see how it works.
Foursquare launched in Vancouver a few weeks ago. So I wanted to be king of Vancouver for a week, not by a little bit mind you, but by a mile. See what happens a long the way and get to know this area that's really intriguing.
Foursquare bills itself as a social game. There are some rules or at least some inconsistent social codes depending on what circles you travel in. Like any good hacker (which I'm not but pretended to be) I wanted to see what happens if I dominated Vancouver for a week.
I checked in every single place I was in, walked by or drove past. Easy enough.
Outcome:
1. Victory - My score of 2088 was 5 times greater than runner up Hayley Z. at 405. Take that Vancouver.
2. Indifference - For a game, Foursquare isn't very competitive. Only the last day, maybe at that, some anyone noticeably attempt to aggressively move up the leaderboard.
3. Reward - No recognition or even designation of "Mayor" for the week. Seems odd not to reward with some sort of badge as other achievements are.
4. Redundancy - As Vancouver didn't have a pre-loaded database the only venues were those uploaded by players in Vancouver. A great crowdsource initiative but seemed everyone who added places all hangs out at the same type of place. Quite the eco-chamber.
5. Irony - Business tended to be great independent restaurants/businesses or mass market brands. Not a bad thing, just a curious observation.
6. Couponing - This big news last week was business could offer coupons, such as free beer for being mayor. I'm all for driving traffic but beyond a bit of awareness Foursquare needs more to build brands.
At this stage it seems as those playing Foursquare are doing so to say they are playing Foursquare. The competitive framework needs to be beefed up with rewards and consequences. Obviously it's early days for the tool, will be interesting to see how they evolve. For the owners, undoubtedly there is a viable business model in there. There are lots of small businesses keen to find better ways to market that the backs of fume squelching buses. For business owners whether this will be an other addition to their marketing mix or a dramatic model shift is to be determined.
But in terms of a broader social movement it will be interesting to see what functionality or partnerships emerge. Branded scavenger hunts of sorts or GPS enabled fictional (or non-fiction) narratives are easy to envision and demand a premium price. If someone like Zagat or Micheline Guides looked at their business as more than books and stickers on restaurant doors it would have been a brilliant extension of their business models.
As smart phones and next generation cars with smart navigation systems replace our current rolling stock over the next decade will be great to see what new applications and products come to market. For marketing departments and ad agencies (traditional, digital, social, whatever...) it means either stepping up their game and being able to build a rigorous case for R&D budgets, not just marketing budgets, or slide a little further down the chain of innovation.
Nike's chalkbot by Wieden and Kennedy with Deep Local. Copywriter of this execution, yours truly. Though copy was a broader philisophical and motivational statement about sport and endeavors in life, it proved telling of Mr. Armstrong's finish and plans for next year.
Photographers and journalists know there very presence affects the situation and therefor the nature of the store. When traveling part of the experience is capturing the experience. And so to capture the true experience of the moment one actually needs someone else to capture the moment.
Above shots taken on the Truck Train North West of Kyoto last month. First one by my good friend Mottoaki Niwa of me taking the subsequent photo. As the photographic habit empowered by infinite storage and ease of sorting with increasing meta data such as GPS location grows will we people aim to capture a different sort of image that doesn't just capture what they saw but an overall sense of the moment? Such as the photo of the photo.
As we all increasingly become our own mini-media property how will it shape what we record and what we share? Party pictures are getting better and teen lockers are plastered with American Apparel, Sartorialist or Last Night's Party inspired imagery. Even if they don't know what those are.
It's neat to think the average photographic skill of the general population is moving higher, even if they don't actually know the math and science of what they are doing. There is negligible barrier and cost to trial and error. When in doubt, shoot. Practice makes perfect(er.) This means we are able to see consumers at a broader level achieve a more sophisticated imagery language. Like how everyone gets a back and forth edit between faces in film is a conversation. Will increasing artistic appreciation of imagery expand the language of imagery. Will tolerance for bad, overposed and over photoshopped imagery decline? Will simultaneous foreground and background narratives increase?
And as the masses get better and raise the bar so too will the pros. The talented and industrious are always stay two steps ahead. Can't wait to see where they go next.
For camera manufacturers are they looking to bake in the distribution mechanisms people are growing accustomed to with camera phones? How about real time web capabilities, not just to instantly upload GPS tagged images, but receive content, relative to location? If Flickr is the ultimate passive recommendation system, how can they encourage increased public content and aid more inspired content? The photographic technolgoy is most cameras is pretty good, how can the user experience help the camera operator to use the inheret technology even better? I'm sure they are, just hope the innovation get through mission statements and focus groups...
For those of you keeping score, it would appear as though the blogging hiatus itself is on a hiatus. I don't disagree, but have no idea what's ahead. Should be fun. Buckle up your chinstraps.
My amigo James Sherrett of Adhack kindly asked me to be his guinea pig for an online discussion series he's starting called Adhack Live.
Basically, 9AM PST this Tuesday we will be live streaming a discussion on the current state of the creative process. You can send in questions and the folks at Killed Ideas have some give aways lined up.
Full details and an overly earnest image of yours truly here.
Seeing as creative process inherently is equal parts an oxymoron and vital necessity it should be an interesting discussion.
Expo 86, along with a few other cornerstone events made Vancouver, and began our insecure obsession with being "world class." I was 10 the summer of '86 and went to the Expo nearly every day and can probably disturbingly piece together the nightly fireworks/laser show with immense detail.
Noticed the above on some hoarding over the weekend in between posters for movies and Axe's latest product. Wonder if Expo 86 artifacts will increasingly appear in the year coming up to the Olympics. Will this new event that marks out city compel us to unearth past events and moments that define us.
I must say though that the lack of progress in the field of robots is deeply disturbing, in 23 years, have we really only gone from Expo Ernie to Asimo? (Note: if Expo Ernie was actually a small human inside a mascot shell and in fact not robotic as I beleived as a maluable child, please disregard this slanderous quip towards the bipedal awesomeness of Asimo.)
This simply was a great ad for Apple. Without getting into the big Microsoft versus Apple debate, do all the MSFT spots suck or not and yada yada, even if it is a little mean spirited, this simply was one of the best uses of display advertising I've seen. A type of ad format far and few between good examples.
Rather it just uses the native design of the page well within the greater context of how the ad will be consumed. It doesn't try to be a video print ad. Doesn't try to be a :15 commercial on your computer. It just tries to be a good display ad consumed within the NY Times site. Best thing was it doesn't even require a mouse takeover. Bravo!
One of the more phenomenal retail experiences of late was the Uniqlo store in SOHO the other week. The delight of shopping in another world and retail theater is taken to a whole new level. The the designs of the products themselves are stunning.
What is stunning about such retail experiences is how great they are doing in terms of sales.
They haven't just spent huge on environment but have delivered with good design and good service. Apple stores are another example. The products aren't always flawless but one's tolerance for a bit of imperfection is much higher when the entire experience is fun.
And the fun doesn't stop in store. The online experience though different carries the same light hearted sensibility. Was delighted to see it take best of show last night at the One Show Interactive awards for their website. Great example of global thinking both in terms of markets/consumers and in terms of extensions - see the little localize widgety doodad below for my own Vancouver version of the site.
On one hand looking at the work it doesn't drip with over thought meaning but when you read the brief it still had a strategy (aka plan.) It tips the questions, when it comes to fashion does it have to have meaning? Can it not just have a sensibility and style that can evolve with it's target and culture.
As a counter comparison, look at the Gap. There was a time when they could do no wrong and were the best designed and most delightful shopping environment in the local dreary mall. But they had deep meaning, more than just clothes they were a new way of looking at life. They were the beacon of corporate casual, having a little bit of personal style. To the point of conformity and they never had a chance to evolve out of their angle and stores while better today still aren't much different than in 1993.
Even though I didn't buy anything, I hope one comes to my town soon. H&M is dull as bricks by comparision.
A nice comedic depiction of how Facebook isn't a reflection of the real world but is a world of it's own with it's own code of interaction, albeit not the most gentile.
Technology amazes and inspires me for both how it affects they way we interact and engage with people and with the spaces around us. Lately the later, how technology is altering the way we interact with spaces around us is really fascinating me. One of the fellows in our agency has a company called Tangible Interaction and they have taken objects within spaces and added interactive elements to them. It's beautifully intriguing and the truest definition of interactivity beyond a flat lcd.
Ready or not I proclaimed and Air Canada proved to be not more than ready with their new mobile check in. Everything about was fantastic until you arrive at the airport, security looks at you like a con man and you end up going back to the desk to get the same old ticket printed that you always do.
According to the host in the lounge who was the only to talk a bit about it, it seems that all the wiz bang technology has been scuttled by bad execution on the ground level. security workers aren't equipped with scanners to read and verify the codes and ticket agent unions need to incorporate into their contracts. Total lack of execution.
This linked to a recent conversation with a senior executive about their now former media agency who talked loudly and proudly about new media, emerging technology and all the other hype published in every business periodical out there, but when it came time to recommend their actual plan their "innovative" idea was shifting more of the TV buy to :15's from :30's. That's it. And now they are no longer doing business with the company as they, much like Air Canada, had lots of talk up front but no follow through on the back end.
It is ever more clear that talking about new media and how everything is changing is a commodity discussion. Business and management 101 is kicking in and we need to be talking about relevant implications and corresponding executable actions/solutions.
That episode aside the trip to PDX was brilliant. More to come...
Well, while over the past couple weeks while Microsoft was going Yahoo! and quietly doing this, two states down south from Washington State Google quietly made a bit of news themselves by launching their Social Graph API.
What's a Social Graph API? Basically it's an aggregator for one's social networks that allows you to find undisovered friends in other networks. Below is a little video that explains it better.
This is a great application for two reasons:
1. It makes the addition and proliferation of specialized social networks sites easier.
2. I can find my friends on the sites I really use like Titter and Dopplr rather than on Facebook which has essentially just become a giant address book.
Most importantly though, this API further demonstrates a social network isn't Facebook. Facebook is part of the suite of tools that comprises one's social network that may also include, MySpace, Twitter, Dopplr, IM, YouTube and other web based applications/tools that let you communicate with and share with others.
It will also be interesting to see how content itself starts to line up and get aggregated or measured in some form. Presumably this API is an opportunity for Google to start aggregating ad sales, but that's not what excites me. Here's what does. For some of my clients we include in our media plan earned media, a term taken from the PR world naturally. Which to us means PR coverages gained by having highly creative advertising. In otherwords, the creative itself is so engaging, insightful or interesting it earns media coverage that talks about the ads and as such distributes the ads. We can start to look at social networks the same way. If a piece of brand content is interesting, engaging or insightful enough people will talk about it, spread it and disseminate it for you. A form of earned media. Imaging if Dove evolution launched today and you could see the waves as it spreads through social networks. Or watch OldSpice's Will Farrell Semi Pro spots, which are fantastic, get talked about and shared.
Now, the actual to measure this measurement is a bit off yet, but we're heading there. Maybe it will be a more sophisticated or tagged version of Twitter's measures they released for Super Bowl or Super Tuesday:
But while it's still crude the idea of earned media derived from social networks is really powerful. Far more than slapping up another banner ad or a slapping logos all over a mediocre widget.
While Yahoo was busy rejecting Microsoft, quietly around the back the folks in Redmond were acquiring a company called Danger. Notable for making the popular, though not widespread, and very user friendly SideKick.
As a marketing person, while the former is fascinating, especially due to the big numbers. It's really a traditional business move rather than a revolutionary move. The modern version of newspaper companies and conglomerates trading hands. With all the usual investment banks, PR powerhouses, pending proxy fights and law firms amongst others.
As a marketer, what gets ever more interesting is the mobile space. Obviously iPhone made mobile telephony human friendly, Google and Android want to take that to another level and will have advertising revenue streams of some form built in. What Microsoft plans are are simply speculation, but insert the phone device their consumer products group already containing Xbox, Zune (which some really really love) along with existing long standing mobile software development makes for an interesting mix.
As a marketer, having a new form of media "thing" (i.e. newspaper, TV networks, computer screen, billboards, etc) that people take with them everywhere while allowing real time data to sync with some form of input about what they are doing, where they are going or what they want to do or where they want to go creates a powerful opportunity to create contextual communications, however they may manifest themselves. This is where it gets exciting. If we think beyond the inane texting campaigns, logos on mobile specific web pages and carrier uploaded unsolicited video content and start imaginging how these new mobile devices can convey different kinds of communications/stories that use the merits and abilities of the technology, we start entering an new creative playground.
The one thing we can be assured of is that content will be king, but just what that content looks like will be fun to figure out.
Nintendo is taking their game platform out of the living room and into the stadium. According to this article this season baseball fans at Safeco Field in Seattle will be able to access content through their DS' during games.
As my significant other works part time for the Mariners and we catch numerous games each year I'll be even more excited this year to drag the old DS to the ball game. While I understand the need for "event" or experiential marketing, and even started my agency life doing it on behalf of GM, I've often felt that branded tents, logoed trinkets and exuberantly smiled brand evangelists to be a bit of a nuisance to people trying to enjoy something else. But, like any form of advertising when it's done well, it's fantastic for both the advertiser and the person "experiencing" it. But that is the exception not the norm.
That said, this Nintendo initiative is a fantastic form of advertising/marketing or whatever you want to call it. This is experiential marketing at it's best. It enhances the experience of what the person is there for. You can imagine the talk value amongst the little pod of people sitting around someone noodling about on their DS. Brilliant. It creates real value not perceived value. I just hope they don't ruin it by selling pre-roll ads before viewing the promised highlight clips.
This is sick. This is so so so sick. One of the biggest challenges of film in consumer applications is the lack of depth. Having spent a life time outdoors in ski racing and watching/shooting what has probably amounted to months of video, the lack of translation of real world contour has always been a bit of a nuisance.
3-d has always been an neat idea and elusive beast. I'd rather not wear ill fitting glasses with different colour lens. But lately some neat minds have started to take different approaches to adding multiple dimensions to a mono-dimensional surface - screens.
This hack of Wii which has been floating about is very interesting. But this film below really really blew me away. Let is start playing they click and move with mouse. It's not 3-d it is a spherical 360 degree.
I found this on Ourboros. More details here. Pardon my grade school excitement but man that's sooooo cool.
Now imagine mashing up the DoDeca cam with Wii head tracking and you've got a true virtual reality experience.
API's, apps, widgets and the like are big news these days. According to some the future of marketing. Want to make your own? Just give this a little tutorial a looksey. It will totally make everything clear, I promise.
Did you watch it? Okay, I lied. Lets focus on solid strategy and great ideas and leave the production to the experts... if there are any out there yet...
Yesterday Bill Gates made his final speech as head of Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show in San Fransisco. And he hammed it up with a little video about his last day at work come June when he officially retires.
Corny, but it reminded me to throw up a few photos from a visit I made to the Microsoft campus in Redmond in December. I've always been fascinated by technology and how it changes the way we live. It is safe to say that nothing in human history has had such a profound affect in such a short period of time as the personal computer. In less than 30 years computers have invaded every aspect of our lives. And since the opening up of the web in '94 the way we acquire and consume information and entertainment has revolutionized our expectations for corporations, governments, celebrities and information itself by giving us greater and more timely control and choice. All of which is manifesting itself in profound ways for brands in how they exist and what the mean and do.
While easy to dislike them as a company, it's also easy underestimate the huge role Microsoft has had in this evolution and the huge role Bill Gates himself had. The thing about the computer revolution is that you can link so many macro changes to a few individuals/groups such as Bill, PARC, Gordon Moore and Steve Wozniak among the more famous. Or even the folks behind the TCP/IP protocol that allowed all computers, regardless of manufacturer to talk to one another.
So I really enjoyed the opportunity to go and explore the Microsoft campus. While out of discretion I won't share much of what the offices and campus is like (though I will note the ironic observation of a lot of Apple like design on murals and internal communications) the part I will share are some photos from the visitor center. It was neat to see the history of where technology has come but also some of the "future" products. As an advertising/marketing professional it was like crack.
There were portable loos everywhere. But that's a reflection of construction. It's everywhere as they build more offices. A physical testament to the modern information company. To grow you don't build more factories, you hire more people.
Security is naturally tight. Badges and escorts required at all times when in the actual office parts themselves. However, despite all the computers, human error is rampant. Not even close to correctly spelling my name.
Entering the visitor center.
An original copy of Bill's 1976 open letter to hobbyist computer users on how paying for software will make better software.
There were numerous examples of facial recognition software that worked really well. Here I am thinking what I normally am... nothing.
A bunch of guys that probably felt some serious payback at their 30th high school reunion when they arrived on their personal helicopters, flown from their yachts dockets on their personal island/countries. Well done folks! Lets all just be greateful they used their powers for good, not evil.
Lots of XBox action. The lounged featured most recent games. Some people in there looked like they hadn't left in weeks.
Just thought this title was funny Time Manager for Management Consultants. Have picture in my head before the book was published of well paid men in nice suits confused as to what they should be doing at that moment running from meeting room to meeting room, running into each other.
Tablet PC's with surprisingly accurate handwriting analysis. Apparently I am sharp and impatient. Learn quickly, skipping parts that seem useless. However make decisions carefully weighing pros and cons. The word impatient came up a number of times. So I left before finishing...
Computer lounge with all the latest goodies. Sadly, even on the Microsoft campus with all the latest Microsoft browsers and products run really slow. I really wanted them to be faster, but now know it's not just my computer sadly.
A wall of Pocket PCs. Remember those? Looked cool but seemed really, really out of date. But I'm sure the Apple museum has a Newton.
I go out of my way to avoid plugging my company, campaigns or client brands. But, one of my favorite and most inspiring clients offers what could be the most valuable and meaningful gift you give this holiday season. Former 15 year old Apple wonder kid Tom Williams founded GiveMeaning which allows you to give the gift of real change. 100% of proceeds go directly to specific projects, not blind charitable mega corporations. And with the GiveMeaning card , available in an electronic and physical form, you can allow the recipient to give to a project and part of the world they personally are passionate about. It's very cool and a great application of what web technologies are great at - connecting people and efficient transactions - to put the long tail in action for positive social change.
Here's a little segment on CBC for a couple months ago and yesterday he did a holiday themed segment on CBC CanadaAM which you can find here - http://www.ctv.ca/canadaam - but as this site amazing doesn't have direct links you have to go down the list under the player and click "Pointing people in a charitable direction."
After my last post I was really intrigued by learning of ScoutLab through one of my favorite blogs - TechCrunch.
Basically, this company which has been in private beta for months aims to track online dialog around brands. But not just by instances but also by whether dialog is positive, negative or neutral.
I like the way this is heading.
You might be curious as to my interesting in measurement. Well, I believe that the best friend of great creative is smart measurement. Smart measurement helps justify those brilliant and captivating pieces of work. They help justify why you don't want to do a laundry list, talking heady or product montage piece of work. But, like any weapon measurement is must be wielded with caution and responsibly. Scoutlabs is potentially a good allie of the creatively inclined along with the the linear ROI inclined.
As brands become more and more about real value and service, not just perceived value and promises of service, it will be interesting to see if little conferences like this one called Widgety Goodness become major components of big conferences like ad week.
My amigo Rob is the first ever Twitter Quitter. That I'm aware of at least.
He's quitting smoking and he means it this time. And Twitter is his helper. Good on ya!
But it's more than just making a public statement and shaming himself into quitting, but Twitter is going to help him think about it and make him more aware of his smoking habit. Sometimes at those moments of weakness, twitter can be the outlet. "Damn that bugger, I need a smoke!" And other times at a moment of celebration Twitter can be the affirmation. "Boy I'm glad I'm not the stinky guy in this packed elevator with Gweneth Paltrow and Michael Stipe."
Kind of a non-athletic take on the Non Entity Fat Club, of using social media to make you a better, or healthier person. Which I can relate to as having made a not on aiming to run next year's New York marathon, the emails, comments (digital and face to face) and historical record of the statement make it really hard to pull out on the commitment.
Think I'll start writting the book - The Social Media Guidebook to Quiting, Slimming, Improving, and Achieving Pretty Much Almost Anything.
A fun part of blogging is all the finding and building of the little applications, widgets and tools into your site. After a flurry of new add ons 1-2 years ago, not much fresh has popped up. Or at least so it seems. Whether this is for a lack of development is up for depart. It may just be that there is too much out there now to find something relevant to you is burdonsome. Or, after a while a form of group think emerges. The blogs you read and the tools you use all become a kind of a closed
social norm and so you don't wander to other parts of the web where people are using totally different things.
Me, I'm kicking it old school and focusing applications on my blog. I'm up for a binge of applications this weekend and will run through the list posted on ouroboros of 5000+ tools for doing stuff online to see what pops out. I can't imag
There are two things, that despite my familiarity with technology that still blow me away. One is when I watch a major sporting event live from my couch. Like Wimbledon or the Olympics. Just soo cool that travels all around the world, and often through space to my little boob tube.
The second thing that blows me away is this, seeing what someone else is doing at any hour of the day on the other side of the continent from my little laptop. Justin.tv has come a long way since launched last April.
This is a very funny little video that does a great job bringing to life the totality of how we act on the web. So often we analyze the web in a very linear fashion talking about Facebook, IMing or watching content of some form on YouTube one at a time in singular isolation. But really they are all part of an inter connect ring of activity. And for us as marketers you can't "own," "leverage," or try to dominate one arm of these, but create something you can throw in the mix of the web and allow to be churned around and consumed in all the various arms of popular digital activities.
It would be interested to see whether there is an incremental network effect with each digital arm one ads. YouTube + blog + brand twitter + microsite + Facebook group + Firefox skin = n6
Givemeaning.com is rethinking charitable giving for a web 2.0 generation. I just made my first donated to a project promoting literacy in Mpigi, Uganda through establishing a library in the town. It's really nice to understand what you're making a diff
I believe that most people want to give, want to make a difference but either never find causes they truly care about or feel their contribution doesn't make a tangible difference. This about sums me up. While Greenpeace and United way are very noble causes, I just never know if my contribution is really making a dent or is it just allowing someone to employ themselves in a way working for one of these organizations. That's not a totally fair comment, but something you hear often when people talk about blind giving to such organizations.
No matter, it's good to see us little people can make a real difference too.
We are actually meeting with these folks today to help further their endeavor. Send me a note or comment as to why you don't give more to worthy causes?
Spring is the time for cleaning and a bit of digital cleaning was necessary around my personal web-o-shpere. As the web grows and I get older there is an ever growing list on things I subscribe to, belong to or upload to. And more and more of them involve various networks of friends or different aspects of me that get fragmented. And so I acquired a new bit of property, digital property that is, that should have been taken long ago. All in an effort to bring everything together. Yes, in all its egotistical glory I now own brettmacfarlane.com. It is a bit troubling as inherently the fact I have my own url, with my own name, is arrogant. But that's okay isn't it. If you resent me, aren't you just jelous? Nonetheless, brettmacfarlane.com will soon be come the integrated digital hub, not just for me, but all the unlucky folks, things and places that travel through the sphere of my life. (However, not my banking details mind you.)This blog will remain as my work focused forum for expression. Still with an account planning/advertising focus. And one day steps towards something more possibly...
Amidst the hysteria of the "third screen" is the less discussed weakness of the cellular network infrastructure of North America. While the rest of the world can and does watch broadcast quality video on their cell phones, not to mention Jetson quality video phones, we have to suffer through empty promises and 1.5 fps video. Not a surprise to see ESPN Mobile sink.
Whether cell phones are viable content channels will not be known until carriers have technology that allows quality to match the production values necessary to tell a great story.
After my last post I was really intrigued by learning of 
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