Random Culture

Vacation Time!

I'll be on vacation for the next week, but will be back blogging a week from Monday. I'm headed to Seattle and Portland for some rest and relaxation... in the spirit of my trip, enjoy this clip!

Sir Elton John: Shut Down the Internet

Sir Elton John has a mission... he wants to close down the Internet. According to The Sun Online, he says:

"The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records."

The solution? He proposes shutting down the Internet for a while to see what happens. Elton's fear of technology extends beyond the Internet. He apparently doesn't have a mobile phone, either.

It might just be me, but I don't trust the opinion of anyone who played themselves in The Country Bears.

Link via Hi-ReS! blog.

Creating Flash Advertising

A co-worker of mine, Jason Fincanon, has just published a book that I feel is worth recommending. It's entitled "Creating Flash Advertising", and definitely stands out among existing Flash books. Why? Because it's targeted at advertising folks, and specifically addresses the types of things we're interested in, like Flash ad units, microsites, using video and more. Sure, I'm biased because I work with Jason, but he's filled a niche that wasn't being addressed, which is why you should totally buy it.

Mumblecore

Ever heard of Mumblecore? It's been around for a little while, but some notable news sources, such as the NY Times and Village Voice are just now picking up on it. The Wikipedia entry for Mumblecore defines it as:

An independent filmmaking movement characterized by ultra-low budget production, focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors.

Need some examples? Andrew Bujalski's "Funny Ha Ha" kicked off the movement. So what's the big deal? And why the heck are you writing about a film movement on this blog?

The NY Times points out a fundamental connection between the Mumblecore movement and technology:

Mumblecore bespeaks a true 21st-century sensibility, reflective of MySpace-like social networks and the voyeurism and intimacy of YouTube. It also signals a paradigm shift in how movies are made and how they find an audience. “This is the first time, mostly because of technology, that someone like me can go out and make a film with no money and no connections,” said Aaron Katz

Technology has clearly changed not only the way movies are being made, but their distribution as well. The Mumblecore movement is a great example of filmmakers taking more of a DIY approach. This is just the beginning.

Link via Fimoculous.

Friday Fun: Clark and Michael

Riding the wave of press for the upcoming movie "Superbad", Michael Cera, of Arrested Development fame, is starting to get some recognition for a CBS online series called "Clark and Michael." You can watch all 10 episodes online at ClarkandMichael.com.

The videos have also been uploaded by CBS to Youtube. Check out one below:

Didja Hear NBC is Taking on YouTube?

You've heard about the mysterious video venture that NBC and News Corp are launching as a frontal assault on YouTube, but it appears now that it's a multi-pronged effort. According to a Variety article published today, NBC is launching Didja.com, an "all-advertising" site.

Didja stutter? No, I said an "all-advertising" site.

I'm not sure if I even need to keep writing this post, because you don't have to be a crystal-ball gazer to figure out how this is going to turn out. According to Variety, the site:

Will offer a vast archive of current and classic TV spots, movie trailers and other "brand-related content." USA-Sci Fi Channel prexy Bonnie Hammer said the goal is to "become the go-to destination for on-demand advertising content."

The intent behind the site? Variety continues:

"Didja.com is the logical next step in the changing dynamic between consumers and advertisers," Hammer said. "There's no doubt that commercials are major drivers of pop culture -- all you have to do is check out traffic on any video-sharing site. We want to own that watercooler conversation."

Actually, go to YouTube right now and see how many commercials or movie trailers are in the top viewed videos... there aren't many. In fact, when I took a cursory glance at the top 50 viewed videos of all time on YouTube, there was one movie trailer and I didn't see any ads. Most of the content, in fact, was music videos, clips from TV shows, and some user generated content.

NBC also isn't the first company to start a site around this idea. Variety points out that TBS launched VeryFunnyAds.com, and another site called adTV offers similar content. The fact that anyone could call this a YouTube competitor is laughable, and if Didja is a sign of the type of competition that YouTube will be facing from the joint NBC/News Corp venture, I think YouTube is going to have a very bright future for quite a while.

Link via MIT Convergence Culture Consortium.

Research Tool: Newsletter Archive

Keeping tabs on competitive emails is a tricky business. We just completed a competitive email audit, and had to subscribe to many email programs, and then monitor them over 60 days. Well, the Three Minds @ Organic blog posted about an interesting new resource that could help make the process easier... The Newsletter Archive.

It's not the most comprehensive resource, but for a quick dig into a particular industry or company, it looks like it could shape up to be a good tool.

Creating Possibilities: AAAA Planning Conference

It's been more than 24 hours since I got back from the 2007 AAAA Planning Conference in San Diego, and I've had time to digest everything. Rather than give a play-by-play, I thought it would be appropriate to focus on the things that stuck with me.

Opening Keynote: Sir Ken Robinson
If you watched the videos from the TED conference, you may have seen Sir Ken Robinson speak. Sir Ken is definitely an inspiring guy, and he used those inspirational skills to address a topic he specializes in, creativity. He talked about the dangerous division we've created between creativity and intelligence, and challenged us to be "farmers" of creativity... setting up the ideal situations for others to find their creative medium.

Seven Deadly Sins
This first breakout session I attended featured Gareth Kay of Modernista! and Mark Lewis from DDB. As stated in the description, this session was a "provocation about new ways to think." Each "deadly sin" made sense, such as operating under unchallenged assumptions, self-importance and thinking only big things matter, but one that stuck with me was to learn, and then do. Too many brands hang their hat on one campaign, with little testing about what will actually work. As Gareth and Mark point out, none of us knows 100% if our idea will be effective. Why not let 1 dollar out of 20 be used to test several ideas? The Internet has created the perfect test bed. They Office Max as an example, who created almost 20 viral sites last holiday season, one of which, Elf Yourself, which according to AdAge, received 36 million hits in just a few weeks, and resulted in a 20% increase in holiday traffic to OfficeMax.com. You can view the complete slides for the presentation here on SlideShare.

Eric Ryan, Method
Before launching the company, Eric Ryan was a planner. He saw an opportunity in the cleaning product category that wasn't being filled, and launched Method, which became a competitor by breaking convention. More than that, Method embodies all the ideals of innovation and creativity that the conference was all about. Eric encourages creativity in his employees, expects his agency to truly be a partner, and is willing to experiment with the product to actually LIVE the brand promise, instead of talk about it. I highly recommend watching the webcast of his speech here on the AAAA website.

The Third Eye - Seeing Opportunity
According to Adam Morgan of Eatbigfish, our jobs shouldn't be about finding innovation, they should be about finding opportunity.

Know who invented the Cheeseburger? It wasn't McDonald's... it was JWT. They had Kraft as a client, who wanted to sell more cheese. JWT saw an opportunity to pair the product with the most popular food of the day.

Truly, seeing opportunities is a "mindset", being open to information, how you think not just about communication, but about the business, the category, assets, distribution and more. Sadly, we often only think about these things in the new business phase, but Adam challenges us to really be a partner, and be catalysts for opportunity.

Massive Change, Bruce Mau
The perfect rallying cry for the end of the conference came from Bruce Mau and the Institute Without Boundaries. Massive Change is all about a revolution of possibilities... It's not about crisis, but about optimism.

We design everything around us. Energy economies are designed, information economies, market economies and more. Bruce asserts that we should intentionally use design and technology to solve the problems in our world.

He may have convinced more than one planner to take a different career path.

Stuck in the middle
Overall, the general sessions were hit and miss, and the breakout sessions were good. I didn't attend the conference for the digital content, which is a blessing. Apart from a breakout session from Brandon Geary, the director of planning for Avenue A | Razorfish, interactive was represented by sales executives from Yahoo, Google and Facebook, who offered little insight into how digital is being integrated into the planning process and the agency world at large. I would have liked to see interactive planners from agencies like Goodby or R/GA, rather than "vendors." The planning world, like the agency world at large, still doesn't know what to make of interactive. It's an exciting time, and I feel that excitement, as I'm building an interactive planning group at my agency.

There seemed to be some uncertainty about the future of planning, and certainly a "call to arms" for planners to be more innovative, to examine our roles and re-evaluate our practices. I'll be interested to see the fruits of those labors over the next year.

Sprint Waitless

Sprint has launched a new website at Waitless.org, which offers time saving ideas in the form of "Sprintcuts" videos. There's also a time calculator that lets you figure out how much time over your lifetime you're wasting on any task. Overall, the site is promoting unlimited calling on Sprint that starts at 7pm instead of 9pm. It's a simple idea executed well. The bigger question is... are they doing anything to promote these "Sprintcuts" videos outside of the site? Yes, they are! The videos have been distributed on YouTube as well.

Link via Three Minds @ Organic.

AAAA Conference

I'm in San Diego this week, attending the AAAA planning conference. There looks to be some good sessions on the docket, including some interesting breakaway sessions on integration, and a talk by Ed Cotton from Influx Insights, one of my regular blog reads that you'll find as a familiar reference here.

I'll be posting here about my thoughts on the conference, so stay tuned. And if you happen to be attending, give me a shout!