Photography Gallery to Check Out

Good evening lonely readers. As many of you presumably know ( being as though you most likely know me if you're following the blog), I spend my days in an office filled with busy marketers, but spend the occasional evening with a family portrait photographer who gives me the privilege of shooting candids of his family subjects in between frames. I have a passion for photography in both the capture-the-moment-and-tell-a-story sort of way and the take-a-moment-and-create-art-from-it. I recently learned of Irene L and quickly became a follower. It seems she has combined the precise amount of realism and romanticism to make each shot a masterpiece. It makes me feel like I could step right into this beautiful world she has created and leave the world as I know it behind. Keeping with the spirit of the curious and random nature of my blog, I thought I'd share. Enjoy ;)


http://www.fubiz.net/galleries/set/irene-l/

Flight crew overshoots Minneapolis landing

On Wednesday evening, two airline pilots flew 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination before reconnecting with flight controllers and eventually landing in MSP. The pilots claimed a heated conversation about airline policy had been the distraction. Of course, officials are now looking into fatigue as a culprit. The full article can be read here.

According to the reports, no one aboard the plane was hurt. No one knew they had bypassed their destination either. WHAT? No one checked their ticket after being in the air for over 3:30 hours? No one noticed the glow from the city below as they passed over? Come on folks, the midwest is dark at night. After Denver, what city en route would give off any kind of light, Sioux Falls? Fargo? It makes me want to grab a video camera and plane ticket and observe what's going on 35K miles above the ground. Something tells me that passengers noticed something seemed off, but didn't say anything. Why? Or did they, and I simply didn't find that article? Until I can process more, my prediction is simple. No one departing San Diego really wants to arrive in Minneapolis in late October anyway.

top 10 holiday trends

With the help of BIGresearch, NRF shares their prediction for the top 10 holiday shopping trends in a recent blog entry. I'll trust you will review the full list if you'd like rather than repeating it here. As you'd expect, the weak economy is having a huge impact on what people plan to buy, where they plan to buy, and how they plan to save some extra dough when they buy. I found it interesting that 11% of people surveyed said they planned to purchase something from a thrift store or resale shop. This is the first year the thrift category was included so its not clear how this compares to 2008. I think this simply goes to show just how impactful the giving spirit/ consumerism is in the holiday season. People would rather give something used than give nothing at all.

And what do people want most? The only category that saw an increase this year was the gift cards, which is often seen as too impersonal. Maybe people need to buy necessities or would just like to treat themselves to something they really want after being frugal all year.

Here's a 3 minute video of what shoppers told EXPO about their holiday shopping plans. One women mentions that she's interested in online stores that offer layaway programs, and goes on to say that some of the "store stores" offer layaway as well. What? Have online retailers now become the stores we think of first and all others with actual people inside get the double noun?




Based on this video, it appears we to have shifted into a community of strong savers when it comes to the holidays. I'd like to check back in with these folks in December once the holiday season marketing has arrived.

a movie of unhidden truths

I saw the film The Invention of Lying over the snowy weekend and found myself utterly enthralled by the honest insights pouring out of the lie-less world. From the woman who orders a caesar salad because she doesn't want to gain weight but feels she deserves something that tastes good, to the waiter who becomes more embarrassed of his profession when the customer is beautiful, and the man who returns the bottle of wine not because he doesn't like it but because he wants to appear revered, these characters simply tell it how it is. Although the writers poke fun at advertising ( but I have to say I smiled when I read "Pepsi- for when they don't have Coke"), our evolutionary instincts and religion, its a very funny movie and just a trip for insight-hunters.

You're Never Too Old...

What does TV looks in 2009? I'm thinking it looks a lot like this. Evian's Live Young campaign includes this clever (and only slightly creepy) dancing babies commercial which I found, where else, but on YouTube. Once there, a number of "Making Of" videos and spoofs of the spot itself are easily found on the related videos sidebar. Viewer dialog is open and seemingly managed well by its participants. Furthermore, all Evian videos include the brand website in its description. The easy-to-navigate site then allows baby lovers to find even more of the creepy content, including music, casting, teasers, a facebook link, and more. This high level of baby subject matter is a bit much for me and my baby avoidance behavior; nonetheless I can't help but think it's a great use of interactive media to engage with those who want it.

Want to enhance your creativity? Remember your childhood.

Psychology research out of North Dakota State University suggests remembering what life was like as a child can enhance adults' creativity. Graduate student, Darya Zabelina and colleagues asked 76 students to write either about their typical day as a 7-year-old or as an adult. After a few minutes, students then took the Torrance test, which scores the originality of pictures people make out of shapes and scribbles. Those students who imagined life as a 7-year-old scored significantly higher than those who thought about their current lives. I'm excited to try this simple technique with my creative team or maybe I'll just do it today and impress everyone with my out of the box thinking.

Its summer. I wake up to a combination of a hot Iowa sun coming through the window, toasting me like the poptart that I'll most likely grab on the way out the door and a welsh corgi who's canine smeller must have caught wind of a waking playmate and has come pounding up the steps. If I didn't know better, I'd think I lived 3 stories up based on the prolonged thunder of the short-legged pooch. I walk past my sister's room to see if she is up yet, but she's still under her covers because her room is on west side. Everyone knows the west side bedroom sleepers sleep in later. I make my way to the bathroom. Nothing to report here, as I've surely disappointed you now. What can I say, I'm eager to get outside. When the door opens, the corgi takes off, and nearly takes flight with its oversized ears. My playground is 8 green acres filled with trees to climb on, horses to ride, an old silo with the absolute best acoustics to sing in, and a barn filled with talking pigeons. In addition to the corn crib being part of my at-home softball team, I've also made a small concession stand near one of the ends. And that's where I'm headed- The horses must be hungry, of course. I serve old corn cobs. That's it. Remember, I'm on a farm in Iowa. What did you expect, sushi? If you're feeling frisky, I'll add a little mud on the top to give the cob something even more special. I sit here, hoping, like I do most days, that one of the nearby horses will come order one. They're too busy eating the morning dew off the grass. But wait, who's this? A make believe person who is hungry for a muddy corn cob at 8am? Yep. And so it goes, another morning as a 7-year-old.

Okay, now let's go be creative!

We are talking about people. People.

I was thinking about our brand's audience this afternoon, because that's what I do. I think about our audience at work. And sometimes after work. And sometimes before work. And sometimes when I drink. I'm kidding. Not really, I work on a beer account. Anyway, you get the point. Today, I got the feeling that when we call people "consumers" or "shoppers" or "customers" or fill in the blank, we tend to think of them as something else, as though because people are shopping or consuming (the actual product or our messaging) they've suddenly undergone a confusion causing transformation. And these all illusive "shoppers" are a big code to crack. What is it they really want? What need do they have that has gone unmet? What insights do we have into their decision motivations that can help us strategically place our brand into their lives? As any brief says, the list of questions goes on. And it's not that I don't love these questions, I do. I just want to take a moment to think about who it is we are talking about. People. People who are not all that different from you and I. They are not overly involved with every decision they make. Are you? Do you make some decisions very quickly and take days, weeks, or even months to make others? I'm not trying to say that people are not complex, WE ARE. And we all have underlying motivations behind our behaviors and an understanding of this is crucial to any good advertising strategy. I'm just reminding myself and any of you lonely readers (insert echo) to occasionally remove the marketing and "shopper" lens and take a different look through the people lens. After all, I believe a good product can connect with a real person who has a real life.

Shoppers don't necessarily inspire me, but people do.

Supply Chain Transparency

Want to see how green or ungreen the products you buy are?

Sourcemap.com is an online social networking site that maps business supply chains ( currently in beta testing). Check out this map of a can of Coca-Cola that illustrates how Hong Kong, Iowa, Columbia and Canada are connected to the Atlanta, Georgia plant. Those companies that have incorporated sustainability into their business models will quickly begin to reap the benefits of this online conversation. The dismal companies who continue to ignore sustainable opportunities in exchange for the status quo run the risk of having the conversation started for them. If the site itself is not incentive enough for these companies the fact that anyone can join in on the discussion should be.

Getting Started with Open Supply Chains from Matthew Hockenberry on Vimeo.

Monday Morning Music...

" I fall on the floor and I'm laughing."
Cecilia by the Local Natives

My favorite member of this group stands farthest back, playing the branches of a tree.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Riding solo?

Carticipate is a social transportation experiment available via an iphone app and, hold on, you won't believe it, wait for it.... facebook. Carticipants enter where and when they plan to travel and the location-aware mobile software matches you up to others who are going the same way. I admire the effort to not only reduce emissions but also rush hour road rage. Eventually, I see the potential for retailers that are on someone's path to jump in on the game. Stay tuned over the next few months to see where this goes and how many carpooling carticipants sign up!

What is a Moment?

a little library love

I'm reading Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller and wanted to give a quick shout out to public libraries across the world. Although I wish I could afford to have a room full of the words of the greats, the inspirational, the provocative, the rule breakers, and the story tellers of today. But alas, I work in advertising and can't afford much more than this computer and have given up on this dream for the time being. Instead, I'm in a committed relationship with my public library.

Im helplessly devoted to the pages of Spent and am intrigued by the study of how people are driven to acquire more and more even though research has clearly shown that stuff won't make us happy. Like many of the books I've borrowed over the last few years, I've already reserved the next read and I'm only about 90 pages into this one.

My curiosity drove me to look for some statistics about library cards: how many have one, who is most likely to, how often they are used, etc. I found a site that was helpful in answering these questions ( apologies for not looking longer for more recent). If you don't have one, go get one. I guarantee you'll find something you like ;)

A little bit is better than nada...

This weekend, I saw what could very well have been the smallest product display on earth located above 10,000' in Leadville, Colorado. I could have been tempted had the product itself been a bit more enticing.

What Would You Do?-- With 6 seconds

This Retail Merchandiser article says the average section in a store gets only 5 or 6 seconds of exposure from the shopper. Five seconds! What can possibly be going on in our mind in these few fleeting seconds? We could and oftentimes do hours and hours of research to see what messages and visuals resonate best, in an attempt to feel secure OUR message will be of the few that is heard within this short window. We can also brush up on our understanding of cognitive biases-- which are basically adaptive- or maladaptive- mental shortcuts we all use to make decisions quickly.

This video shows how supermarkets use research to fight back and keep people in stores longer.

It's You, Or Y!ou, Or Ylou?

Next week, Yahoo! will launch its new $100 million dollar global marketing campaign, "Its Y!ou" right here in the U.S. of A. The campaign's focus will be on the personification of the homepage and its products. WIth Google's shares rising 50% in the last 6 months despite the country's recession, I give the company the best of luck with the new adventure. But... With all this effort to reinvent the brand, it begs the question, "why is the CEO seemingly bringing about bad PR?"

virtual barbershop

http://ccgi.bluerabbit.plus.com/virtualbarbershop/

You just have to do this. With headphones.

don't forget to be awesome

YouTube has tapped into its philanthropic users to ask them to put their video skills to good use. YTVideoVolunteers recognizes the need for those who make a difference by actually going out into this "hyper physical medium called real life", but are extending opportunities for creative video heads to bring attention to the organizations they support.
What a great way to use this enormous space that has universal usage ( every minute, 10 hours of video are uploaded- YouTubeFacts) to bring some attention to those who need it.

puma to the rescue

Tough economy dragging you down? Puma is taking some of the weight off... or should I say clothes? In support the recent launch of the company's athletic undergarment line, Puma "bodywear", Puma has stepped beyond traditional advertising to develop an iphone app that links the rise and fall of the stock market to models putting on or taking off their clothes. The app is called the Puma Index, as the stock market goes down, the index goes up. 

I wish I could get my hands on this project's brief.

Advice to those who still have jobs...

Take Recess.

Although the research in this NYT health blog leaves a little to be desired from a scientific validity standpoint, the results support the fact that the human brain can see great benefits from aerobic exercise. I wont surprise anyone by saying exercise is beneficial to our mind's health, but this article explains that activities like swimming, brisk walking, running, and cycling ( I'm sure some of you can think of other things to do to keep your heart rate up) may actually allow the brain to recall more information than anaerobic activities like walking, pleasure jogging, or weightlifting. So, if you want to keep your brain in shape, find something that works for you to make you pant and puff each day. Oh, and don't forget to read.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/what-sort-of-exercise-can-make-you-smarter/

Art helping science tell the story of our earth's future

Using a team of time-lapsed cameras, James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey are addressing the tragedy of our world's rapidly disappearing ice in a very impactful way. The project is a great example of how powerful a story can be when both science and art are allowed to write. I'm hopeful efforts like this will not only keep our eyes open to the world around us but also to challenge us all to consider both the emotional and rational side of our tales.

New Webster Words Illustrate Where We Are

I sporadically visit the Webster website in a weak attempt to keep my language colorful and recently noticed this page that highlighted a few of the new words incorporated into Webster for 2009. Its interesting how even in this abbreviated list, the language we use is a good indication of what our world finds important enough to create words to express. ( and how mother Mac's tenacity to add that red dotted line will never cease to amaze me)

Sharing Via the Web:
fan fiction, vlog, webisodes

Environmentalism:
carbon footprint, locavore, green collar

Physical Medicine:
cardioprotective, naproxen, pharmacogenetics...

advice to myself

A recent commute had me listening to callers expressing advice to their younger selves. To my surprise, most of the advice centered around a missed opportunity rather than encouragement. After some thought, I decided to give myself some of my own advice now before I wake up in 20 years calling into a morning talk show to share my life's regrets.  I gave myself 2 minutes to write down my thoughts ( note the "slow down" advice) and made it into a word cloud. Although I should spend more than 2 minutes on something with this much importance,  its still a very clear representation of my life's call to arms. I challenge you to match my thoughtful 2 minutes by going here and creating your own  http://www.wordle.net/

Inspiration in the everyday

When Brazillian designer Jarbas Agnelli saw a photo in the local newspaper of birds perched on 5 electrical wires, he saw something special-- he saw music. He mentions that he was "just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating."  Another fantastic reminder that organic creativity and inspiration are all around you and all you have to do is read the news (Ha!)-- Simply keep your eyes open and your mind free. Its out there. 

Doodle But Don't Daydream

( at least when you need to be listening...)

According to a study in Applied Cognitive Psychology doodling while listening can actually help you remember details as it may keep you from daydreaming and losing focus.  http://www.physorg.com/news154937903.html