wallwood - made from paper

Need to see this wallpaper in person!
http://www.sloophoutbehang.nl/

"useful is the new cool"

harness kids' energy

this wonderful technology harnesses the energy of people walking!  this would be a great platform for a green kids brand.  bring your kids, let them run around, light up their world, literally.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/13/tech/innovation/pavegen-kinetic-pavements/index.html

de Kooning and I share mutual appreciation for the Merritt Parkway!

Willem de Kooning
Merrit Parkway
1959

Ithaka - C.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
 
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
 
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
 
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. 

illuminating juxtaposition

marko savic

perspective tilt changes perspective

nice

Podium.Megaphone.SaySomethingNice.

Very much something that a brand would be terrified to do, but a nice showcase for people being nice!

http://improveverywhere.com/2011/08/22/say-something-nice/

white space for a white board

Inspiring to think about how information from brainstorms can be smartly captured and communicated on long term projects to keep the thinking moving forward.  Good on Bell Labs.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664776/an-interactive-whiteboard-for-bell-labs-maps-a-century-of-innovation

game.changer.

This caption on Yankovich's photo is pathetic.

your brand is my trophy wife!

An unlikely theory on emotional branding...

I bought into Lovemarks and the approach of using creative to foster emotional connections with consumers. I believe this thinking has merit, but why has it not evolved in a decade? When so much is happening in the marketing landscape, I am shocked to still read articles that tout Lovemarks with the same vigor.

Are we really trying to foster relationships with brands today? Does my "like" really mean I am friends with your brand?  If we are talking relationships then may I propose that your brand is your consumers' trophy wife - and you should be darn proud of it!

The success of sharing online is rooted in the fact that people love talking about themselves. People love to let others know who and what they care about. 

Every choice a consumer makes and every post or tweet they write is a direct reflection on them. So isn't there an opportunity for brands to shift their focus and start to consider what they can do to become a brand consumers choose to associate themselves with - to transition from emotion to affiliation?  

Lovemarks spoke of wanting to create a long term, enduring relationship between consumers and brands.  Are we really buying into the musings of Jerry Maf*ckinguire?  People and relationships don't complete you...but brands do. The brands a consumer surrounds themselves with are a direct reflection of who they are and their personality.  You choose brands because they are in line with your values, interests or what you perceive those values and interest to be.  The underpinnings of why brands want to speak to consumer emotions could become a little less about pulling at heartstrings if you will and a bit more about appealing to consumer projections of what they stand for in this world.

project get rid of talbots

Why is there not a way to craft the demographic bucket my searches put me into?

Consumers would get advertising that appeals to them and brands would have even more information at their disposal about consumers - beyond a few demo details and search patterns.  Consumers have no motivation to lie about their details - it's a win all.

July 7th - cleared my cache and cookies, still getting this ad after having to do one piece of research for work.

I AM NOT YOUR TARGET!

July 13th - posted to hotmail to tell them I don't want to get this ad anymore and that they are targeting me by mistake. I wish every site offered this!

UPDATE - early August.  No more Talbots.  I feel I have done my part, regardless of their flight dates! Although I am sure at some point I will have to test this hypothesis and go to their site again just to see if they track me again.

"facebook is a company driven by instinct and human relationships"

- sheryl sandberg

those geniuses

I constantly wonder how the apple geniuses are so smart.  I get the passion for the product and the company they work for, but I don't think apple is credited enough with how well they train their geniuses.  To my earlier post about customer service being the next experiential / social media, the geniuses are a great example.

"According to several employees and training manuals, sales associates are taught an unusual sales philosophy: not to sell, but rather to help customers solve problems." WSJ, June 15, 2011

something borrowed...from scientology...

Have to give them credit, this is a solid approach to conflict management.

The ARC Triangle - affinity, reality, communication
affinity = the emotional response that partners have for each other
reality = the area of common agreement
A+R contribute to the flow of communication
A+R+C = understanding

"If you're having a disagreement with someone, your affinity drops quickly. Your mutual reality is shattered. Your communication becomes more halted. You begin to talk over each other. There's less and less understanding. But all you need to do is to raise one part of the triangle and you increase the others as well."

"passion is nothing without skill"

almost makes snowboarding cooler than skiing

Brilliant partnership between Nokia and Burton to track and report what is happening physically and mentally to snowboarders as they say it: "making visible what until now has been invisible".

my wedding on some random person's blog!

my engaged friend just sent me this link to my very own wedding featured on someone else's blog. how flattering!

http://lapetitecoquin.blogspot.com/2011/05/polka-dots-and-platinum.html

so simply funny

http://isitfridayyet.org/

"organic modern"

I love the seemingly disparate nature of this decor descriptor.

brand smashing versus brand building

3.28.2011 from The New Yorker - this kid is onto something! This cartoon is a great reminder to brands to make sure what they are doing online builds the brand.

"Brand smashing" is when brands try to extend into every vertical and new thing out there. Fingers crossed that it will make the brand "relevant and modern" when in reality, not being choosy could really end up hurting your brand or at least leave it lost among a sea of brands that are a step ahead of you. You can't naturally get ahead if you are in the wrong place. Being in the right place will allow a brand grow to the potential it deserves. "You don't need to be everywhere, just everywhere that matters." - Hyper Island 2011

"if you're an expert in social media, you're doing old sh*t"

"brandjacking"

Kind of a funny, amazing term. Unlike hijacking though this usually happens when a brand isn't doing the right thing; in a lot of instances they kind of deserve it or at least they should be happy that someone cares enough about their brand enough to hijack it!

"you don't need to like it, but you need to understand it"

facebook, foursquare, angrybirds, wordswithfriends, twitter, stereomood, grooveshark, kickstarter, groupme, group everything into one category - things a marketer should try everyday to know more about and bring into their own life.

This part of work is personal; if you don't make it pesonal and don't make new technologies part of your life, then you aren't going to understand consumer motivations for making technology part of their life. Even if you don't like sharing your photos or your favorite bands with your friends online, it is important to at least understand the technology. I guess if you aren't going to use the technology for your own personal gain you should at least be asking everyone else why they are using it.

surprisingly great customer service

I want a trick pony...

...but will my favorite brand give me one?

I am all for devoted, passionate, meaningful customer service. The recent reaction of KLM to create a flight to answer the call from a Dutch DJ who wanted to make it to the Ultra Music Festival in Miami this March is amazing.

An impressive example of reacting quickly and with meaning to consumer desires. But when will all this immediate reaction to customers slow down? I don't think brands will be able to keep up. It would be great if they can, but I cannot imagine they have the bandwidth to do so. How much is too much? Or maybe to support these initiatives there will ultimately be significant shifts from marketing spend - is customer service the new experiential?

"stealth luxury"

Thank you Valerie Steele, director of the museum at FIT, for using the term "stealth luxury" in the January 3, 2011 issue of The New Yorker in regards to Bottega Veneta. I also love Tomas Maier taking the "h" out of his given name Thomas to correct the asymmetry of his written name. Brilliant!