Like most in or near the ballpark of our discipline, we hate spec work. I think it tickles a nerve near to this dirty business, excerpted:

Do the intellectual property rights to student work produced in the normal activities of a regular course belong to the student or to the University in which the student is enrolled?

Continue reading "Ooooh, that's lovely! I'll take it!" »

bigwidesky is beaming to introduce propeller, our high altitude interactive development team. Specializing in web, CD, and DVD communications, propeller "pulls message, design and technology into harmony to create interactive media that elevates your message, your image, and your essence."

Now, before someone leaps up in the middle of a small town PTA meeting and shouts "Just a second there, bub! bigwidesky and propeller are the same thing: DEVIL MUSIC!" -- allow us to clarify the delineation: bigwidesky is an innovation company exploring the corporate/community relationships of the new marketing paradigm; propeller is an interactive development team executing brand experiences within a digital medium.

Put another way, { bigwidesky : mankind's lust for the stars :: propeller : Saturn V moon rocket }

In the graceful, brutal arc of a doomed relationship (romantic, professional, abstract, etc.), there may not be a staccato thunderclap signaling that Things Just Went 'Round The Bend. Most often, evidence of the downward spiral comes in the aggregate, the result of a slow leak from pressurized discontents. What starts with an uncompromised disagreement evolves into militant passive-aggression and thereafter degrades to bitter nothingness. This has been well chronicled in the Cure's old stuff.

Continue reading ""just"" »

[belated entry; busy is good]

IDEO is listening.

With no more nudging than our recent bloggy squawk, the revered designistas rocketed to bigwidesky some replacement method cards, a deftly penned note, personal contact card, and a paperclip we’ve dubbed "le sex bomba". An impressive response, for sure, from an organizational monstrosity that understands the inescapable gravity of personal, human customer service [as Eliot noted earlier with uncharacteristic brevity, customer service is marketing]. And given that we really ain’t nobody to them, well, their attention feels nice.

[We're still deliberating whether or not IDEO is just playing along with our earlier conspiratorial suspicions, or if they've inadvertently included some proprietary scrap: check out this curious sketch on one sheet of their packing paper.]

During our recent San Francisco travels, Skye and I were disrupted by the last of the Universal Soldiers. His name's Justin, so hints his URL, and he's revolutionizing something or another with an idea that was bound to come about sooner or later: 24/7 real-time first-person, erm, programming. Though I reckon his is a case study in content-second webcrap, don't take my word for it. Check out for yourself the exciting highlights of his first week of broadcast, including "sleeping" and "cleaning up after a party" -- just like your own life, except in lousy resolution.

[Still, props for follow-through.]

I was wrong. My initial distaste for Windows Live Messenger's Whatchoo Listenintoo? gimmick was unfounded. This is actually an ingenious feature. Provided they aren't merely shuffling through a random playlist, my conversee's current choice of music reveals a level of communicative nuance and emotional subtlety beyond even the most winkety of emoticons. And when Gregtober77 writes that "painting, sculpture, opera, ballet, poetry and theater shouldn't bother considering ordinary people" while listening to Cinderella's "Heartbreak Station", there's something to be said for subtext indeed.

In an effort to further the intimacy (and perhaps irony) of Messenger convos, perhaps the next version should also indicate when a partner "is deleting a message", as it does when they're writing one.

I've been mercilessly threatened by thugs at the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. They're the ones in the swank flowery shirts. They insist that if I don't consider the broadest possible multiplicity of potential outcomes, I may overlook the one I actually want to pursue. And while I couldn't really hear over the howl of ukuleles, I think they said that if I don't respect the almighty S in futures, they'll rub a pineapple against my neck. Not lovingly, either, like Don Ho does to tourists in the front row.

Now, maybe I've got a bit of a Honolulu Syndrome thing going on, but I think all that talk of possibilities and pineapples has gone to my head. In a recent client-attended ideation session, all I could feel was the pull of the far-fetched and improbable.

Continue reading "as far as possible, and then some" »

Taking a HEEEEEYYYYAAAAARGH from Howard Dean, the Barak Obamaniacs have woven themselves a tapestry of MyBarakObama microsites to motivate, connect, and empower a formidable cluster of web-savvy politiquitos. While every viable candidate in the slim pickin pile is using blogs, Flickr, and YouTube to some degree, Obama's advisors force the question: can they harness enough online energy to offset the disadvantage of a political underdog (whoever that may be)? Will online word-of-mouth supplant the legacy of ever-mounting political contributions?

Regardless of political leanings, it's worth investigating the emergence of online social networking as the new political networking.

It's too early yet to get my vote, but they've definitely earned a link.

Hearing aids are mismarketed. Right now, I should be trying to figure out how to pay $3000 for some espionage-ready X-man hearing skills. I'm talking targeted, telescopic microamps that add 100 zeros to the Whisper 2000. Seriously, these things should make the Bionic Man noise when I jut out my neck and crank heavy reverb when I suck in sound, hands on hips.

"Honey, the neighbors have termites."

My comrade, sharp tack extraordinaire at a respected academic-centered consultancy, posted the following at his organization's official blog:

Why isn't there a FAQ on this site?

Good question. We'll put one up soon.

I can only assume his post is in response to 1) redundant queries or 2) the suggestion of a FAQ, specifically, to field them. His site receives respectable traffic from all sorts, folks who no doubt inundate his whipsmart cohorts with fairly tedious questions. Indeed, FAQs (in their traditional use) are useful for pre-qualifying clients & associates, redirecting lost interlopers, and translating industry jargon. But here's why I must dissuade said tack from a FAQ: they're designed to end a conversation before it begins.

Continue reading "Frequently Avoided Questions" »

VO5: "Hair treatment so revolutionary, even China gets it!"

China: "Saaaay, this V05 hot oil is PERFECT for frying every American man, woman, and child into yankee pigdog rangoon! 21st Dynasty can ya feel me!?"

If you squint a bit, you may be able to make out the details of this shabby snap from my Treo:



Once you've gathered that it's (a small corner of) a bulletin board of some description, you may wonder who spilled their Easter egg paints all over it. You may think these pastels help categorize the content of the individual bulletins, allowing onlookers to sort at a glance. And the (in this photo illegible) headlines must be some important, standardized bit of content (event name or date) to distinguish items within those categories. And these notes, all of which come from the same source, are designed to match a standard template and information structure ...

But I'd have to tell you, they don't and they ain't.

Well, it's just a bulletin board, you may say -- it's not like the primary audience is folks with compromised, diminishing physical and mental facilities, right?

Alas, I'd reveal more disheartening news: this bulletin board -- the visual equivalent of a shouting match -- is the events calendar at my grandma's senior home, where sucka fool bulletin boards be shoutin' at my grandma.

No deep insight here, I've just gotta give this artist a link: Sarah Roper -- illustrator / director of Mastercard's "A Home for the Holidays" everywhere'd sweepstakes -- has some yummy work. Shag meets 101 Dalmations, maybe?

As if the impending global thermonuclear wasn't reason enough to stock up on soup ...

"The Andy Warhol Foundation is staging a marketing blitz for its founder this year, opening the archives to the likes of everyone from Hysteric Glamour, to Levis, to Barney’s. The most interesting—not to mention obvious—of these collaborations is their tie-in with the Campbell’s Soup company to produce a—yes, we’re going to say it—limited-edition line of cans in Warhol’s distinct color treatments. Don’t even front like you don’t want em. Keep your eyes peeled at the Piggly Wiggly, true believers…" (via Supertouch)

The Missouri Department of Transportation is floating a reminder of the consequences of wreckless driving in highway work zones. The timing of the PSA's release is brutally appropriate, of course, as the masses prepare to schlep to and from grandma's holiday soiree in wine-and-tryptophan-induced lethargy. The sobering MODOT spot, which for a low-budget, locally produced number does a solid job of evoking care and sympathy for our orange-vested comrades, concludes with the following plea:



... but given the untapped branding power of the highway construction aesthetic, I couldn't help but think they would made have made a more powerful impression with something along these lines:

Typos, malapropisms, and spilled drinks notwithstanding, creatives are – each in our own way – perfectionists. This just makes us ordinarily human, I reckon. After all, the pursuit of quality is a common human endeavor – an airtight moon base, a better relationship with Dad, a more comfortable sitting position – and perfection is just the ever-elusive end of that journey. But we perhaps wrestle more rounds than most with the unattainability of perfection because it's actually in our job descriptions, after the part about turtlenecks.

Continue reading "rounding corners" »

A little bit Digg, a little bit Gong Show, Advert Lover encourages the square-eyed masses to feast upon the briney meat of the capitalist barnacle. So, how long until agencies themselves overwhelm the site with self-adoration? Or use it to popularize their own leaky virals? 11 minutes.

Vonage's newish tag, "one smart decision among many, many stupid ones," has grown on me. Do they bite their thumb at me? Perhaps, but I'm convinced they're catering honestly. And despite the takes of blogs like these I like to think that the copywriter has deliberately crafted a sniping secondary read: Vonage is the one smart decision among many, many stupid mobile comm companies.

Looks like they were announced moons back, but I just caught my first advert for Livestrong Investment Portfolios. A fine example of how a brand can get appreciably sharper as a plethora of branded products actually better define it in the aggregate. Uncommon. (Anybody know who's responsible for keeping Livestrong from dilution? Is it Wieden+Kennedy? I'm being lazy.)

It was 1:30am: With the sound turned off, commercials for Bush's Baked Beans are virtually indistinguishable from those for canned dog food.

You may recall at least the first few lines of Eliot's spirited essay on Neil Boorman's brand-burning rebirth. Mr. Boorman, loosely described, felt saddled with an unhealthy brand attachment. This brand attachment had, in his personal assessment, tossed his priorities askew, isolated him from authentic human connections, and befouled what should have been a generally fulfilling life of unicorns and pillow fights.

Sure, Mr. Boorman's melodramatic, fiery response may be best performed by moody, avant-garde artists named terrancE. And in some circles, his reputation may even suffer because of it. But for the nefarious cable providers, an earnest effort to confront and purge their faults and transgressions may be the only thing that can save their reputation from the unretractable rectal skewer of public opinion.

Continue reading "To err si human." »

I don't exactly know how it all spun out of control, but I'm fairly certain I have a Blogger and Friendster and MySpace and GameSpot and YouTube and Flickr and Technorati and del.icio.us account. In all likelihood, my username clogs the registry of another handful of community apps gathering dust. Pat Robertson, forgive me if you're reading this, but in an effort to establish human connections online I've been intimate with dozens of web 2.0 communities, and the names of most I cannot even remember.

Please don't judge me, because I cherished every one of those applications, if only for a few minutes in the parking lot behind the wi-fi cafe.

Continue reading "ASpaceCalledMine" »

I appreciate reinvention as much as I do invention, so when I caught a glimpse of the newish Excedrin "Go" campaign (specifically the spot where wharfy roustabout Neptune battles a sea-churning headache), I cheered the departure from commercials past. Long gone are real folks hunched over real kitchen tables, gettin' real 'bout heads achin' -- Boss Saatchi hoisted the headache experience into the realm of ferocious headache pain as sufferers know it: unreal.

Yeah, the commercial was a real humdinger.

I was hoping to share this Excedrin spot with you. I figured that, after viewing it, we might engage in some discourse about the evolution of brand messaging, the potency of traditional advertising in a world of 800 lb. viral guerillas, or the evidence that artistic, well produced commercials will, for another generation at least, stand on their own merit.

Yep, I was hoping to share this Excedrin spot with you, but I can't.

Continue reading "Out Out, Damned Excedrin Spot!" »