April 2009
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NAB refuses to pass on rate cut →
January 2009
2 posts
Rives controls the Internet | Video on TED.com →
I saw this guy at Google Zeitgeist and he was brilliant. But this performance is even better. Enjoy.
December 2008
5 posts
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2008 Young Guns Award Winners and Finalists →
I had the honour of Chairing YoungGuns award judging this year. Three days in dark rooms was worth it when you look at the work that bubbled to the top of the show. Click here to view.
Enough to make an Art Director weep. →
Every now and then there’s an example of creative craft that makes your eyes water. These 44 images are exquisite, visual storytelling in print at its best.
Meet Pete, the meat puppet. →
These three web films for Diesel come from the collaboration between Farfar and Legs as the full story explains. I think they’re brilliant and a great example of making things that people seek out, explore and share. They’re all wonderful and each one is wonderfully different from the others - I can’t wait to see ep 2 of the Dance Party. Click here to read and view.
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Water neutrality and Coke. Tricky combo.
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In this piece from today’s Guardian, Fred Pearce talks about the much publicised “water neutral” ambitions of Coke. Whether or not you believe the initiative is sincere it’s got to be a good thing that large corporations are now actively pursuing programs that have an environmental conscience. It must be progress when we don’t only get to read about companies...
November 2008
37 posts
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Don't panic, but do. Financial crisis? That's... →
This story is a few days old. It’s based on a presentation by the head of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer. Like so many others he’s telling us that the road we’re on, in terms of energy, takes us off a cliff. It’s one thing when you hear these views expressed by NGOs, governments and regulators, it’s quite another when it comes from big business. As he says, “we...
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The best green treehouse designs →
how’dya like these onions? the power of design.
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If Content is King, Community is Queen. Okay, then...
I was sent an email recently that included, among many other quotes, the notion that, “if content is King, Community is Queen”. I like these kind of clever metaphors most of the time because they work like grabhandles on a bus helping your brain hang on and get to the next stop. But this one troubled me.
I’ve just spent a large part of the past week as Chairman of the Young...
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Istanbul - after this you'll want to visit →
This was sent to me by a Facebook friend recently. There are moments in this film, even on a pokey laptop window, that are spellbinding. For all the time and money that gets lavished on country and city tourism campaigns, this film is a reminder that it’s often enough just to capture the beauty and emotion of the destination without any other tricks. The film was viewed 327,000 times by...
Paint That Shit Gold | Tag The Web →
I saw this entered in Young Guns. A lovely gift from hip hop band Atmosphere that let’s you pimp your web page of choice while you artisitc endeavours are soundtracked by the band’s latest album. Add your piece to the gallery.
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Advertising Standards - funny already, right?
Reading the paper on the plane, which let’s face it, is what newspapers are now - the media of choice for people underground or up in the air away from a mobile or wi-fi signal - anyway, there was an ad for the Advertising Standards Association. I noticed it because, ironically, it wasn’t very good, but it did explain rather earnestly that the ASA is all about “keeping standards...
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My hot water bill is rising.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few months about the big, “what next?” You know, the next challenge, the thing you’ve always wanted to have a crack at but were usually too busy or too afraid to try. So I’ve had to create the time and the mental space to actually do it. It’s pioneering, it’s innovation, it’s doing the new. Or to borrow from...
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Hulu.com rivals You tube for revenue →
Two worlds collide. You Tube, long the darling of online video hosting about 50% of all videos on the web has new competition from the world of commercial broadcasting re-invented with a digital delivery platform - Hulu.com. And Hulu is only available in the US for now. Recent goss suggests that Hulu.com now has revenue on a par with YTube. Could it be that “content is King” is...
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Real bullets or firing blanks? YoungGuns... →
I’m looking forward to getting to Sydney for the Young Guns judging and I’m expecting to see some brilliant work - real bullets not blanks.
I’ll keep you posted from Sydney next week. Meanwhile check out the Young Guns home page on this link.
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You can't keep a good idea down. →
My post a few days back, “Speed is the new killer app”, seems to have been on the money. The new Sprint widget I was writing about is getting plenty of press, here in the WSJ. Who better to make the point about speed than Sprint?
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Is there such a thing as pure genius? →
Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink, has just written another book which offers an account of extraordinary over-achievers and how it is that they become extraordinary.
He argues that there’s no such thing as born genius and that the super-freaks throughout history have all had time and opportunity on their side.
10,000 hours is the time required to get right up there...
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Innovation made simple - Interview with Tim Brown... →
This interview is brilliant if you are interested in creating things and getting them into the world. All kinds of things like “things” (physical objects), and experiences, services, technologies, you name it.
For all kinds of reasons I like this quote particularly, “One of the things I’ve noticed is that if we spend too much time focusing on doing our projects on time and on...
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Green is good, really? →
Green, like it’s rhyming twin, clean is becoming one of the most misused and misleading words in the english language. At least a far as it is bandied around in marketing. It seem that everything can be “green” now.
What’s troubling is that too many companies are treating important environmental themes and growing consumer concerns with cynicism and as a marketing...
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Nick Knight shoots fashion while you watch →
Legendary photographer Nick Knight has fastened onto the notion that if people love looking at fashion images, they’ll love looking at how they’re created. Not in the tradition of a highly polished “behind the scenes” documentary, but as real time, in the moment, feel like it’s happening right now, kinda way.
As the previous post pointed out, everything’s...
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Speed is the new killer app.
This is not one of those, “I thought of that idea first” complaints. The truth is, I didn’t think of this idea at all. But someone I know did.
And this is not one of those, “someone stole that idea from someone I know” complaints either. Because that’s definitely not the case.
What happened here was the real killer app of the 21st C - speed.
Serial...
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Social Storytelling - when, where and how. →
A great piece from Lars Bastholm of AKQA on the art of conversation between consumers and marketers around brands.
My view is that the rules of good conversation haven’t actually changed much, but we have a host of new ways in which to stimulate and maintain them.
My mum always taught me the value of good manners - say hello and use people’s names, talk to them personally, listen...
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The pioneering mentality. Video Report from Jeff... →
Sometimes this is how startups get started. Lo-fi social networking with coffee and bagels on the beach and a big blue sky full of enthusiasm. Way to go Jeff. And if you’re wondering who Yossi Vardi is, he’s the guy who invented ICQ.
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Banned TVC for ExxonMobil. No room left for... →
It’s a good thing that advertising is being held to higher standards of accountability by regulators when it comes to important issues around energy and the environment. There’s no longer blind faith in science and engineering to solve these challenges within the dynamics of the marketplace, nor are ordinary folks prepared to turn a blind eye to the suave rhetoric of advertising that...
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Partizan - Music Videos - Nagi Noda →
Hardly news now, but tragic nevertheless. Nagi Noda was an extraordinary and gifted director who died September 7. Have a look at her work via this link.
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The Great Schlep →
If you’re working for the Democrats, you have a voting problem in Florida. How do you get a state with a large number of old Jewish folk to vote for Obama? Well you don’t, you get their grandchildren to do the talking for you? This is clever stuff!
Flickr breaks the three billion photo barrier... →
A paltry two billion a year ago, three billion now. it’s one web property that’s here to stay….
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Facebook more popular than BBC websites ... →
Facebook tops 100 million users and 18 million uniques in UK. Right up there with Google, MSFT, ebay..
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The internet fridge and other breakthroughs in... →
Check out these audio interviews with the winners of the recent Interactive Marketing and Advertising Awards courtesy of New Media Age.
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Tarzan of the social media jungle. See sassholes →
Jeff Pulver was at Stream 2008 where he hosted a discussion called “Fear, Greed and Disruption”. He’s planning an event in NY called “Social Media Jungle”. If your in NY and can get there, I suggest you do.
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Economy Hurts Organic Sales →
It’s hard to know just how sticky people’s values are until they come under real pressure. I heard Rory Sutherland talk about this recently and referencing Bob Dylan in Brownsville Girl, “people don’t do what they say they believe, they do what’s convenient and then they repent”.
Now that the economy is tanking just how quickly will people run away from...
October 2008
6 posts
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Are car salesmen going the way of the Dodo? →
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Cramping up kinda funny. →
This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. Follow ups to ad campaigns usually make me cringe, this one had me doubled up.
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TASCHEN Books: Guidelines for Online Success →
I’ve heard a great many people from the technology and media industries talk about experimentation being central to online success. Eric Schmit, for one, suggests that experimentation is a central part of sound commercial strategy. Closer to the advertising business we’re now getting into the rhythm of developing multiple expressions of an idea, sending them out live and seeing which...
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The guru of technologists: why losing control... →
I met this guy a few weeks ago at an event called Stream in Athens. While everyone one else was running around talking up the next big thing which were, in truth, often quite small things Tim ran a session about harnessing the collective power of innovators and technologists to solve some of the really big issues facing humanity - energy, business ethics, the environment…. What I...