The most interesting things come from the most unlikely combinations. Combine a Bakery with a Bar
Excellent! isn't it? Quite practical, too, I thought You'd truly have a 24/7 business!
When was the last time you looked at the stars?
When I was a little kid, I would quite often look up at and get lost in the stars. It was, and still is - quite a surreal and reality shattering pattern of thought to get caught up in. Because looking at the stars, really looking and getting lost in those specks of hovering gas - you really get the sense of how insignificant you are. In fact insignificant doesn't even begin to describe the sense of nothingness that you get when you really get yourself stuck in the sky. As a kid you're always thinking how big the world is, how old adults are, how impossible everything seems. How far you've got to go to get anywhere, to grow old. It makes you recognise that no matter how painful the hurt, how powerful the attachment, how beautiful things are - in the whole scheme of things it's nothing and in the grand scale of the sky, and the stars, and the cosmos whatever it is doesn't really matter. And you can look at that in two ways. You can give up right now. Or you can really use that as an empowering thought. Because here's the paradox. The more insignificant and lacking in consequence your life actually is - the more you recognise how special you are, and what it is to actually mean, feel, think or do anything. And that somehow makes every moment of your life that much more significant.
How Real Time Digital Show and Tell Won Burberry London Fashion Week
Surely there's a connection to be made between the fast pace of the Fashion Industry, it's tradition of working collaboratively and the rapid uptake of new media marketing strategies. There have been numerous examples which have captured my attention in the past few years. Fashion - with it's seething with a precious sort of creativity and uncurbed desire for the new, the edge, that hidden factor - is exactly makes it such a fertile ground for pushing ahead in new media, and new ways of promoting itself via real time, social and mobile media. This is a fact should be encouraging for all of us working in the creative industries at large - as well as those of us practising and playing around with new marketing strategies. I think there's a lot we can learn creatively, and commercially as marketers - which we all are to some extent these days - from the new strategies that come about.
What has drawn my attention to this recently is the strategy that unleashed Burberry's S/S 12 Collection at London Fashion week - a strategy that clearly stole everyone's thunder thanks to a killer game of digital show and tell.
Trampoline Party
I was thinking yesterday how rad it would be to host a Trampoline Party. Maybe even a popup gig. All we'd need is a big loft or warehouse space. Early 90's Ball Dresses. Boyish looking Tom Hanks lookalikes. Good remix artists. And lots of champagne. One for the scrapbook.
More Seats
WFantastic article in Forbes from Leslie Bradshaw addressing the dearth of women in positions of leadership across the board - "at the highest levels of business, politics, technology, the media, the clergy and even controlling the world’s wealth" she says, "the gender distribution is horribly off-balance" therefore even though she agrees with Sheryl Sandberg's plea for more women at the table - she says it simply isn't enough.
Complete with infographic by Jess3
Shakespeare and shareable media
Reading this Fast Company article I discovered the video "Shakespeare in Celebrity Voices" which now has over 560, 000 views on youtube.
Watching it, I reflected on my own knowledge and experience with Shakespeare - reading, performing and watching it performed. And I made a connection between sharable media ("Viral" if you will ) works, Social Media in general, and what Shakespeare has to do with it all for brands today trying to connect / engage and move their audience into the act of sharing their content on - especially online.
Lets step back a bit. Growing up I was quite the avid reader, advanced for my age by a few years and It wasn't long before I was captivated by Shakespeare. The more I learned and read and discovered, the more intrigued I was. At 12 I saw Baz Lhurman's Romeo and Juliet (And no, I still can't get enough of the trailer so that's why I've included it here) and the rest of my teenage years was hooked (A young Leo Dicapro may helped somewhat) It was the first time I saw how powerful a story could be told even with the most difficult language. Shakespeare still holds quite a special place in my heart.
Yeah, I was one of the few who looked forward to studying Shakespeare in English where others my age groaned at the prospect. I think the whole process - of reading, learning the meaning and the emotion of the prose was incredibly enriching. Some of my most memorable experiences as a young actress studying and performing Shakespearean characters, and using the most advanced language in such a way that it really connected with my audience. See, emotion here is the message and the medium is the thing that carries it so well. The more emotionally in tune the more social it is. And that's what makes ayour message powerful.
The ongoing move toward virtualisation and 3d, the convergence of storytelling with real life, is just another realisation of that connection that is intrinsic to how we go about extending that connection via technology and media.
I think Shakespeare knew this. Not about technology, but about the necessity of that connection - about what motivates people. What connects with an audience - and essentially, with people's hearts. What's going to make people remember me, my name and my content above what the rest of the muppets out there are trying to write? The brilliance of Shakespeare in how he understood the way to engage a spectator via emotion.
Watch a good performance of Richard the 3rd, Othello, Hamlet or Macbeth - and that relevance is still there. It's because the genius is in the humanness of the message, and the ability of Shakespeare to engage each and every person in the room on a level, to move them an make them respond and feel a certain way often many ways all at once.
And at the end of the day through just one emotion. Love.
What brands do you think could do that today? There's only a few out there. Apple, yes definitely. Will these brands be talked about for centuries more because of it? Maybe. Because they know the power of emotion as something that moves people to action.
Funnily enough - and another thing that's probably influenced this post - I've just started reading Lovemarks and that's something Kevin Roberts preaches all about. Emotion has, is and always will be the thing that makes or breaks a social object - campaign, story, picture...movie...whatever. Because it makes and breaks relationships. The relationship with your reader. Your audience. Your consumer. Your lover. Your mother. Your dog. This is what Shakespeare mastered.
And I think if you're looking to connect it has to be something that appreciates that very basic level. It separates a really, really good thing from something actually quite bad. Thing is, to this day, businesses and brands struggle to grasp emotion. And not just emotion - but negotiating the social dynamics that evolve around it.]
Shakespeare was the KING of shareable media. In his own medium - live performance - he understood first hand what it was all about.
Anyway, Maybe I'm just stating the obvious. Am I? Here's the video that's "gone viral"
why it's gone viral is probably a combination of things - the talent, passion, content and whatever, But the fact remains it's content is Shakespeare and I want to make a point of that. Something old - made recognisable and engaging via something new - contemporary actors, presidents and personalities. That's why a Shakespeare "viral" (read: shareable object) is still pretty rad IMO. So here it is, from actor, comedian and impersonator Jim Meskimen who really has struck gold. And what a fantastic performance it is in it's own right.
This is nothing short of brilliant.
3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food.
I discovered this fantastic, inspiring work from Rick Mereki, an Independent filmmaker based in Melbourne via facebook this morning. MOVE. LEARN. EAT is a trio of beautifully shot, produced, edited short films but really has to be seen to be appreciated. Not bad eye candy, either.
Fan mail, marriage proposals or otherwise can be sent to him if you check out Rick's vimeo profile here.
Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover
Music Recorded and mixed by Jake Phillips Colour Grade : Edel Rafferty and Roslyn Di sisto
Online Edit : Peter Mirecki
What she came for
You know how sometimes a song will absolutely get stuck in your head because for some reason it resonates with you even though you don't know why? Yeah that's this song for me at the moment.
What a wonderful world - The Painting
Shot Frame by Frame by Dan Berglund on Vimeo.
29 Ways to Stay Creative.
For all us creative souls sitting around in office jobs. A useful video infographic from to-fu.tv.
