This week's grab bag of good, intelligent blogs:
-Follow Me Here... Common sense and crazy wisdom. Exciting artistic and cultural news. Human pathos, whimsy, folly, darkness and depravity.
-Scrubbles.net... Visuals, Words, Sounds and Other Ephemeral Gleanings
-Screaming Midget... A randomly updated publication distributed by the Handsome Dimension Bureau of Tourism. The Handsome Dimension...where you look the same, but standards are lower. Visit us today!
Music and politics. Bono and Africa. The CBC's Peter Mansbridge interviews Bono about the G-8 conference.
"This is written for the purpose, necessity and desire to be original at all times." So says Matthew Herbert in his Personal Contract for the Composition of Music [incorporating the Manifesto of Mistakes], available in full (along with sound clips) at his website Magic and Accident. Herbert (one of his several personas) is an original electronic musician with strong forays into both the DJ and jazz worlds. Well-known for taking normal, mundane objects - such as chip bags and kitchen appliances - and sampling them into refined and coherent music, Herbert's PCCOM offers twelve interesting points - such as:
2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist's own previously unused archive are available for sampling. The use of, ordering and manipulation of noise-sound is to be held as the highest priority in composition.
and
5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
Comic blogs, as presented in Reveries last week:
The Norm by Michael Jantze is using that hottest of online concepts -- the Weblog, or 'blog -- to communicate directly with his fans and "reach beyond print readers. "Norm" appears daily in about 65 North American newspapers," and the 'blog is published on Jantze's Web site, The Norm.
Dan Perkins, aka Tom Tomorrow, "created a 'blog both to express his opinions textually and to fend off the 50 to 60 e-mail messages he was receiving daily." At This Modern World, Perkins provides "footnotes" to help those who may not be sufficiently current on news events to understand the jokes.
Bill Amend, who writes Foxtrot, a strip syndicated to 1,000 papers, created Bill Amend "out of a fondness" for his readers.
Then there's Chris Baldwin, who has no newspaper distribution but is using his site, Bruno Strip, to sell collections of his comics. He says he gets 900 visitors a day, has sold 2,000 copies of his collections and collected more than $3,000 in donations.
Well, this post really doesn't fit as inspiring but the issue is nonetheless important for creative business. There are some pretty ugly politics taking place recently that threaten the future of internet radio, a medium that has been effective at exposing people all over the world to new and diverse music and recording artists. Unfortunately, the U.S. Library of Congress (supported by the RIAA lobby) has imposed rules and royalty rates that are unrealistic for many webcasters, especially the smaller independents. Some online stations - such as SomaFM.com and NetRockRadio - have already gone silent from this and conditions are favourably set for only a few large players, like Yahoo!, to survive. Radio and Internet Newsletter (an exceptional source for news on this topic) editor Kurt Hanson cleverly explains the decision this way:
Yahoo! [was], in my opinion, acting entirely legitimately, as savvy businesspeople in a free-market system. In trying to improve their business prospects, they were acting no differently than, say, Starbucks negotiating favorable pricing on coffee beans by committing to buy them in thousand-ton quantities, in an effort to give them an advantage over neighborhood coffeehouses. There is nothing wrong with that!
Here's what's wrong: Imagine if an agency of the federal government stepped in and enacted regulations requiring that, from now on, all coffee bean purchases for all coffeehouses must be in thousand-ton quantities. That regulation would drive neighborhood coffee houses out of business!
And that is almost exactly what the Librarian of Congress has done!
The International Advertising Festival wrapped up this weekend in Cannes France and, as reported in AdAge and Adweek, the Grand Prix was awarded to a brilliant TV commercial from Nike called "Tag". All of the winners - including great spots for Microsoft's Xbox, Levi's jeans and a PSA for New Zealand road safety - can be viewed online via the Cannes Lions website. This is the good stuff; the kind of stuff we don't see enough of on TV.
National Geographic has an excellent website packed with lots interesting stories, guides, maps and of course photos. Over the years their photographers have captured an astounding cross-section of life from all over the world in stills. Some of these are presented quite beautifully in the site's Photo of the Day section, which makes available these shots as downloadable hi-res wallpaper.
Here's a blog that seems to be having a bit of fun with the resurgence of crooked job postings - generally in the IT and freelance creative services - Fuck That Job.
You've probably seen some of his work gracing the cover of some of the CDs in your collection. Anton Corbijn is an amazing Dutch photographer based out of London. You can check out some of his shots at his site.
The world's best jazz festival - next week: Montreal Jazz Festival
The beloved Pets.com sock puppet mascot has been recycled. Apparently 1-800-Bar None, a Pleasanton company that provides car financing, is giving it a second chance - much like it says it does for its insurance customers. Pretty smart idea. Who ever heard of these folks before now?
Five fascinating articles about five fascinating people, each presented with a Discover Magazine 13th Annual Innovation Award. The categories are Aerospace, Communications, Computing, Energy, and Medicine and the recipients include innovators that have designed the first human-powered aircraft, pioneered GPS navigation, invented email, championed an alternative to internal combustion engines, and helped map DNA.
Thoughts From Within, a powerful poem and flash movie from Woody Harrelson (yes, the actor). Woody wrote the poem for his Simple Organic Living Tour. The movie was made for the tour's website.
Starbucks: what were ya thinking?
Walk Unafraid
as the sun comes up, as the moon
goes down
these heavy notions creep around
it makes me think
long ago I was brought into
this life a little lamb
a little lamb
courageous, stumbling
fearless was my middle name.
but somewhere there I
lost my way
everyone walks the same
expecting me to step
the narrow path they've laid
they claim to
walk unafraid
I'll be clumsy instead
hold my love me or leave me
high.
say "keep within the boundaries if you want
to play."
say "contradiction only makes it harder."
how can I be
what I want to be?
when all I want to do is strip away
these stilled constraints
and crush this charade
shred this sad masquerade
I don't need no persuading
I'll trip, fall, pick myself up and
walk unafraid
I'll be clumsy instead
hold my love me or leave me
high.
if I have a bag of rocks to carry as I go
I just want to hold my head up high
I don't care what I have to step over
I'm prepared to look you in the eye
look me in the eye
and if you see familiarity
then celebrate the contradiction
help me when I fall to
walk unafraid
I'll be clumsy instead
hold my love me or leave me
high.
walk unafraid
I'll be clumsy instead
hold my love me or leave me
high.
Lyrics by R.E.M. (via RetroWeb).
As far as mind-expanding pursuits go, travel is right up there with learning a new language. And while relaxing on the beach can make a pleasant vacation the real fun is in exploring new worlds and learning about foreign cultures. That is the goal of cultural tourism (a burgeoning global industry): to take you off the beaten path to discover the real inner workings of a different society and culture.
Established in 2543 (no kidding!), Smiling Albino is a small group of Cultural Travel Enthusiasts inhabiting Thailand. They are known for bringing people out of their comfort zone and engaging them in experiential, life-changing adventures. (It's true, I'm biased. I did the "Full Albino" with these guys last August and it was a fascinating, unforgettable experience.) Thailand is truly a land of juxtaposition - with majestic temples next to crazy night clubs, urban chaos and peaceful countryside, traditional Eastern values mingling with modern Western commercialism. And the food!...
An article in the June 10 issue of Canada's Marketing Magazine - What Makes Cirque Soar. Producing what many say is the true greatest show on earth, the creative minds behind Cirque du Soleil draw inspiration from an eclectic mix of sources.
The Smother of Invention. Another clever headline pun for Forbes magazine but an excellent article nonetheless about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The point this article makes is that the four key strengths of the USPTO - efficiency, pendency (speed), quality (of review) and protection - are now proving to be outdated and ineffective by (among other things) overwhelming volume, international scope, patent law, technology turnaround time and bureaucratic resource allocation.
A Forbes ASAP artcle,Case Study: Reinventing The Heel, discusses the conditions, pressures and inspirations that Nike and its global creative director of footwear design John Hoke III (an architect by training) experience when consistently designing athletic footwear that not only sells outrageously well but that changes footwear designing altogether.
For all the state-of-the-art, computer-aided design to be found in modern manufacturing companies, Nike's design department seems determinedly low tech. The pencil and sketch pad rule, followed by hands-on sample making. Some of the work, like the origami project, has the look of a grade school art class filled with gifted students. In a conference room adjoining the Nike design library, three young designers sit around a table piled with books about origami. They are appraising objects they've made, including a fairly complex ship that's been folded from a single sheet of paper. As if to justify this pleasurable way of spending a workday, one of them points out that if they can learn how to fold products into useful shapes, they won't have to punch out and assemble as many separate pieces. "Plus," he says, "this project can provide a really rich source of aesthetic directions."
Gary Giddins of The Village Voice presents a personal road map to post-war jazz, introducing 57 of his most cherished tracks from 1945 to 2001. Post-War Jazz: An Arbitrary Road Map
"Look at more stuff. Think about it harder." That is the mantra guiding Richmond Virginia based company Play. Play consults Fortune 500 companies with ways to infuse creativity into business brands and strategies - an increasingly important service as more and more companies compete on innovation. They've been very successful with this and have expanded offices to New York and Seattle as well. Play has an excellent explanatory video on their site and it's worth checking out their randomly updated weblog of miscellany, Pure Content.
The Globe and Mail today has a story (The Merry Pranksters of Design) today about the extensive Archigram archive is on display at the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Arts in Winnipeg until Aug. 24. Plug In has doubled its usual 450-square-metre space to accommodate more than 400 drawings and 15 models, which have transformed the gallery into something of a 1960s carnival. It is being billed as a "circus of ideas" -- and it is a filled bill.
From the beginning, Archigram was enamoured of hybridity. The name was itself an amalgam, combining architecture and telegram. The group was interested in rapid communication and, to circulate its ideas, decided in 1961 to design a magazine that was published irregularly for the next 10 years. In the pages of this important publication, and in project proposals, Archigram appropriated the imagery of advertising, robotics, spaceships and popular culture to fashion a kaleidoscope of evolving environments and objects. Where mainstream architecture favoured ideas and buildings that were static and monumental, Archigram was committed to a flexible architecture of the moment.
A kid from an acknowledged "artsy" family (he and his father were regular onstage extras when the opera came to town), Carver (BA 1961 UC) is professor emeritus of medical genetics and microbiology. He first became a renowned biochemistry researcher at U of T and then the renowned CEO of GLYCODesign Inc., a publicly traded biotech company in downtown Toronto with a working capital of $47 million. GLYCODesigns' prize creation to date is a molecule named GD0039, which has a good chance one day of stopping cancer cells from metastasizing – and being one of the keys to understanding cancer. A staunch campaigner against what he regards as the destructive modern overspecialization of science and the inability of researchers from various disciplines to speak meaningfully to each other, Carver sees the divide between the artistic and scientific methods as equally artificial and frustrating – particularly because his work can't be done without that certain liberal arts "thing."
"I've said it a hundred times, in recruiting for our company the problem hasn't been finding people with technical skills, but finding those with people skills," says Carver. "This isn't a dreamy New Age mantra, it's a precise talent. Because we don't know everything in science, the ability to admit to other people that you don't know something is a priceless asset, in many ways more important than knowing mere content. The key ingredient in any kind of creative investigation is to be able to think about things synthetically, pull them together and find common threads."
An article published last year in University of Toronto Magazine about modern liberal arts degrees: Something Rotten in the State of the Arts?
An excerpt (No More Excuses!) of the new Harvard Business School Press book " The Venture Imperative: A New Model for Corporate Innovation" appears this month in Context Magazine. The book examines the innovation imperative for modern companies and how "venturing" - arms-length, experimental, start-up initiatives - fits that need. The authours look at several of the arguments against venturing - namely that it is irrelevant to many businesses; that it is too expensive; and that it is too risky - and counters each excuse with solid arguments of their own.
Mason and Rohner offer dozens of examples of successful venturing programs but say many companies still are missing out on opportunities. The reason, they say, is that companies can’t get over “their mistaken assumptions about corporate venturing, especially those based on the inappropriate excesses of the last few years. Much of the conventional wisdom...arises from experiments with venturing that had no process, no clear goals, and no structure that linked it with the firm’s larger strategic purposes.
Cross-promotion has been a fairly common thing when it comes to product marketing. Think Intel with PCs or McDonald's with Coke. However, it has taken a while for advertisers to take advantage of synergies with other brands. Slowly it's happening though and quite effectively in some cases. One example is a recent Chevrolet Impala TV commercial featuring the Maytag repairmen. Maytag bestowed reliability on the Impala and the Impala furthered the repairmen's diversions from boredom at work. Excellent idea (it is currently Automotive News' 3rd highest ranked auto ad).
A summary of the spot can be found here but unfortunately the clip itself is not available because of "intellectual property rights". Restricted viewing of an ad?! And just when you think an automaker might be thinking...
A shoe design for a market that has outgrown its skate sneaks. Comments from the designer of the new Phose shoe for Airwalk.
If you are considering schooling and/or a career in creative business, the UK's Design Council has published a handy introductory look at creative professions ranging from fashion to advertising to architecture. Called Your Creative Future it features descriptions, samples and interviews and can be downloaded (in three parts) from their website.
Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities back in 1961. It was an important, provocative book at the time and remains a classic, celebrated read today. Jacobs continues to champion cities and a sensible human approach to urban design. In a March 2000 interview (Jane Jacobs, Urban Agitator) in Architecture Magazine she expressed surprise that architects took such interest in her writing. An excerpt:
I'm not against architects. I think many do beautiful and sensible things, and they often do it against great odds. But their training - well, there are two kinds of training. One comes down the line of architecture as a fine art - the cathedral-makers. And the other one is architecture as mundane engineering. I don't think either is an adequate expression of what architecture should be. I don't think architects come out of school aware enough of context, that everything they do is in a context - even when it stands out from the context... I would add that an architect must become aware of what is "essential context" and what is "contrived context," unessential and just a burden. I don't think this is taught in architecture schools - that there is a context, and the context is not staying still any more than the things in it.
Ranging from the ludicrous to the profound, the Global Ideas Bank has them all. This site collects ideas from submissions, articles and interviews to form a sort of online encylopedia of suggestions for social innovation. GIB's editors define social innovation or social invention as "a new and imaginative way of tackling a social problem or improving the quality of life. Unlike a technological invention, it tends to be a new service, rather than a product or patentable process, and there tends to be no money in it."
Short films of all varieties at what is billed as Canada's first online film festival. It's at a site called 120seconds.com, an initiative supported in part by CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio 3, and it features digital video projects in categories for narrative, animation, music, experimental and documentary. There are some excellent clips. The 120seconds Digital Film Festival can be found here.
In 1995 a New York producer and recording engineer named Billy Straus, noting the success of Victoria's Secret, set up an office in his East Village apartment and began calling buyers at Crate & Barrel and Gap (GPS). "I asked potential distributors -- we call them clients now -- about doing branded CDs," Straus says. "Typically they'd say, 'We sell sofas. Why should we sell music?' And I'd say, 'That's exactly why you should sell music!' Usually the phone went dead."
New ideas are usually derivative of two or more existing variables that have simply never been matched together before. If they work well together an "aha!" moment is born. And after that moment it just seems natural that those two variables would go hand-in-hand. They're never seen as separate again.
Like CDs and furniture. Business 2.0 has a good article (Why Retail Rocks) this month about compilation music CDs for lifestyle-type retailers. These are CDs compiled and produced specifically to work in tandem with the brands of companies like Pottery Barn and Starbucks among others. Doing this takes branding beyond the logo and connects consumers with audio selections presumably in line with their other shopping tastes. A new idea is born simply by mixing two old mainstays.