The Real Game Changers are the Gamers Themselves

I was lucky enough to have been involved in a project called The New America--a partnership between the US Census Bureau, Adweek, and Draftfcb. Because of my work with Electronic Arts, I was asked to write a piece on how the changing American consumer has impacted the gaming industry. With the ubiquity of gaming devices, and the fact that gamer behavior is impacting the way games are made more now than ever (hello, new Mass Effect 3 ending!) I decided to explore how gamer behavior changes across platforms as a means to provide a framework for how to innovate within the industry.

Americans are playing games more than ever on a growing list of technological devices. According to the Entertainment Software Association, at least one individual in 72 percent of American households plays computer or video games. Add that to the gaming capabilities of smartphones that about 50 percent of Americans carry in their pockets and you’ve got a form of entertainment nearly as ubiquitous as television.

But not all gaming experiences are created equal in the eyes of today’s gamers. From mobile and social to console and PC, consumer behaviors change drastically with the platform. Even different mobile operating systems report differences in use. Last year, iPhone users averaged 14.7 hours of play per month compared to Android’s 9.3 hours, according to Nielsen. Maintaining a foothold in this rapidly growing industry requires an understanding of how today’s Americans are choosing to play.

Read the full article here.

With Sincere Thanks

To everyone who came out for Planning-ness in 2011, thank you. This was the most inspiring, the most fun, and the most excited group we've had yet, and for anyone who joined us in SF, Denver, or Brooklyn know, that's really saying something!

My Twitter account has been exploding with thanks from many of you, but really, these thanks should have gone to a whole lot of other folks, so in an effort to give credit where it's due, my sincere thanks to the below:

To our dedicated volunteer staff, who helped make this event run smoothly from the ground up:

Jules Ameel, Jill Arentson, Kenneth Kebaara, Kristen Findley, Jessica Meyer, Chris Cloud, Eric Johnson, and Melanie Linehan.

To Carmichael Lynch and more specifically, Ryan Houts (@mnplanner), for not only providing sound equipment, but taking the time to set up and test in advance and be on call throughout the event for the inevitable adjustments on the fly.

To Fallon for not only providing projectors and screens to bring the presentations to life, but for throwing a great welcome party on Wednesday night. Thank you Deborah Zavitka, Brad Zenner, Michael Fanuele, and the rest of the Fallon planning department for a great kick-off event.

To John and Rich and the folks from Carbonview for their generous sponsorship and fantastic party after day one.

To Tom and Amy and the crew at W5 for their continued support of Planning-ness as a founding sponsor.

To Zeus Jones for welcoming us into their space for a (delicious!) wrap party on Friday.

To each and everyone one of our speakers, who generously devote their time and energy to teach and inspire us. We know it takes a lot to prepare these kinds of sessions and take the time away from work to share with us!

To Dylan Thomas (@dylanhthomas) for being perhaps the ultimate unsung hero of Planning-ness. The creator of our web and mobile sites, fabricator of the QR code, the always-available coordinator of the details that inevitably fall to the wayside, and the ever-present support for whatever is needed both in preparation for and during the event.

And finally, to Mark Lewis, the one who makes this happen and the mastermind behind it all. Thank you for creating something unlike anything we've had in the industry, continuing to push Planning-ness forward, and making it accessible to all. As I've said a few times the past few days, the rest of us are just barnacles on your ship, coming along for the ride as you steer us into new and exciting territory. I couldn't be more pleased to have the chance to help you along the way.

Thank you everyone for all that you do to make Planning-ness a reality. Can't wait to see you all again next time!

Did you buy your copy of Age of Conversation 3?

If you've been reading my blog, you know about Age of Conversation 3. But just because you know about it doesn't mean you know about what we elected to do with the sales. No, this wasn't just about educating and sharing within our community--it was about empowering another.

The group of contributors came together before we hit retailers to determine a charity we'd like to support. The charity that benefits from each and every sale of each and every book, is charity: water. charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects.

Amazingly, just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years. An average water project costs $5,000 and can serve 250 people with clean, safe water – so purchasing a copy of the Age of Conversation 3 really can make a difference to someone’s life.

It's time--to help others, to educate yourself, to participate in your community. Buy your copy to help charity : water and share in the benefits.

Purchase your copy (or copies!) here, and if you order in bulk, please order them separately, as Amazon counts each transaction as one donation, rather than each item.

• Kindle Version
• Paperback Version
• Hardcover Version

Support in part from: blogactionday.change.org

Age of Conversation 3-- COMING SOON!

Last fall, I wrote a short piece for the upcoming book, Age of Conversation 3. I'm joined by a plethora of industry folks that I greatly admire, and I'm so very much looking forward to seeing the full book! While the print date isn't 100% nailed down, it looks to be slated for mid-April and I highly suggest you consider picking up a copy. It will also be available as an e-book for you savvy cats out there.

In the meantime, take a peek at some of the fantastic individuals who contributed to the book. I'm honored, and maybe a little embarrassed, to be in their company.

Adam Joseph	Priyanka Sachar	Mark Earls
Cory Coley-Christakos	Stefan Erschwendner	Paul Hebert
Jeff De Cagna	Thomas Clifford	Phil Gerbyshak
Jon Burg	Toby Bloomberg	Shambhu Neil Vineberg
Joseph Jaffe	Uwe Hook	Steve Roesler
Michael E. Rubin	anibal casso	Steve Woodruff
Steve Sponder	Becky Carroll	Tim Tyler
Chris Wilson	Beth Harte	Tinu Abayomi-Paul
Dan Schawbel	Carol Bodensteiner	Trey Pennington
David Weinfeld	Dan Sitter	Vanessa DiMauro
Ed Brenegar	David Zinger	Brett T. T. Macfarlane
Efrain Mendicuti	Deb Brown	Brian Reich
Gaurav Mishra	Dennis Deery	C.B. Whittemore
Gordon Whitehead	Heather Rast	Cam Beck
Hajj E. Flemings	Joan Endicott	Cathryn Hrudicka
Jeroen Verkroost	Karen D. Swim	Christopher Morris
Joe Pulizzi	Leah Otto	Corentin Monot
Karalee Evans	Leigh Durst	David Berkowitz
Kevin Jessop	Lesley Lambert	Duane Brown
Peter Korchnak	Mark Price	Dustin Jacobsen
Piet Wulleman	Mike Maddaloni	Ernie Mosteller
Scott Townsend	Nick Burcher	Frank Stiefler
Steve Olenski	Rich Nadworny	John Rosen
Tim Jackson	Suzanne Hull	Len Kendall
Amber Naslund	Wayne Buckhanan	Mark McGuinness
Caroline Melberg	Andy Drish	Oleksandr Skorokhod
Claire Grinton	Angela Maiers	Paul Williams
Gary Cohen	Armando Alves	Sam Ismail
Gautam Ramdurai	B.J. Smith	Tamera Kremer
Eaon Pritchard	Brendan Tripp	Adelino de Almeida
Jacob Morgan	Casey Hibbard	Andy Hunter
Julian Cole	Debra Helwig	Anjali Ramachandran
Jye Smith	Drew McLellan	Craig Wilson
Karin Hermans	Emily Reed	David Petherick
Katie Harris	Gavin Heaton	Dennis Price
Mark Levy	George Jenkins	Doug Mitchell
Mark W. Schaefer	Helge Tenno	Douglas Hanna
Marshall Sponder	James Stevens	Ian Lurie
Ryan Hanser	Jenny Meade	Jeff Larche
Sacha Tueni and Katherine Maher	David Svet	Jessica Hagy
Simon Payn	Joanne Austin-Olsen	Mark Avnet
Stanley Johnson	Marilyn Pratt	Mark Hancock
Steve Kellogg	Michelle Beckham-Corbin	Michelle Chmielewski
Amy Mengel	Veronique Rabuteau	Peter Komendowski
Andrea Vascellari	Timothy L Johnson	Phil Osborne
Beth Wampler	Amy Jussel	Rick Liebling
Eric Brody	Arun Rajagopal	Dr Letitia Wright
Hugh de Winton	David Koopmans	Aki Spicer
Jeff Wallace	Don Frederiksen	Charles Sipe
Katie McIntyre	James G Lindberg & Sandra Renshaw	David Reich
Lynae Johnson	Jasmin Tragas	Deborah Chaddock Brown
Mike O'Toole	Jeanne Dininni	Iqbal Mohammed
Morriss M. Partee	Katie Chatfield	Jeff Cutler
Pete Jones	Riku Vassinen	Jeff Garrison
Kevin Dugan	Tiphereth Gloria	Mike Sansone
Lori Magno	Valerie Simon	Nettie Hartsock
Mark Goren		Peter Salvitti

The Soda Wars: Pepsi's Refresh Everything vs. Coke's Live Positively

I was thrilled to see my work highlighted on the Huffington Post Impact page in February and only just remembered to share it with you all as well. Many thanks to HuffPo Impact and the good folks over at Agency Spy, who also picked up the story. I've made a habit lately of posting some of my work that I write for other groups here on Conversation A, and though I'm sorry that I often have to link you away to another site, I hope you understand I have to do my due diligence to my wonderful, talented editors at Causecast, Huffington Post, and Social Media Marketing. Anyhow, without further ado...

For years, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been at odds in the beverage category, pushing each other forward in the race for market share, innovation, and advertising impressions. Though amicable, there has never been any doubt that they were competing for the preference and consumption of the same audience. As a result, their actions have often been compared, and their recent mirrored campaigns of social responsibility have introduced another opportunity to draw comparisons.

These campaigns mark what may be a seismic shift in corporate responsibility. While grassroots initiatives have fought tooth and nail to enact change, Pepsi and Coca-Cola's new campaigns exhibit the bold leadership that is necessary to change the way companies look at their role within the greater global community. However, it is hard to believe that these initiatives would be totally selfless, and many are wondering what these companies stand to gain from their efforts. Are these efforts integral to the brands, or a tactic for press? A sign of the modern corporation, or just two companies capitalizing on a trend? Let's take a closer look.

Please do go read the rest on Huffington Post.

Selling the Medium to Sell the Idea: How to Pitch an Idea in an Age of Rapid Tech Growth (for beginners)

The advertising and marketing industries run at a very fast pace, but even they can have a hard time keeping up technology. It’s rare that an ad agency gets the chance to present a tech-based idea to a client when it’s still in it’s early adoption phase and has a chance to blow up with the platform, and it’s even rarer that they are able to sell the idea. The truth is, simplicity is a rare commodity in the technological age, but it is crucial to save your idea from being killed in the boardroom.

As technology evolves and the opportunities grow, the job of selling your tech-based ideas will grow even more difficult; if something sounds complicated, it doesn’t sound good. Even if the idea is great, it is hard to sell the idea when you also have to sell the technology or the medium, so take a look at a few tips to help you bring your social media and technology-based ideas to life.

Y'all know the drill...read the tips on the Social Media Marketing blog.

Social Media is Not a Strategy

One of the first things I ever learned in marketing was that “cool” in and of itself is not a strategy. Sure, it might turn a few heads. But will they remember what it said about your brand? Will they remember your brand at all? Unfortunately, “cool” rarely works when it comes to translating advertising into sales. Neither does “technology;” I remember the first augmented reality demonstration I saw, but I can’t tell you what the product category was, much less the brand. Similarly, “social media” is not a strategy.

Don’t misunderstand me. Social media integration is something many businesses ought to be considering as a potentially prominent part of their larger marketing plan, but it is so easy to think that being on social networks is the strategy itself. Unfortunately, it’s a much bigger picture. Social media is the means to the end, the channel for your message, so it’s important to consider what you want to say before taking the leap.

As always, my full article can be found on the Social Media Marketing blog. I promise I'll spend some time writing something just for YOU, my loyal readers, soon.

Betting on Chat Roulette

At any given time, you can expect to find over 20,000 people on Chat Roulette, the new one-on-one video, audio, and text chat service. After a slow launch with only 200-300 users at any given time as recently as late December, Chat Roulette has exploded as the newest way to explore and connect. Based off the same principle as text-only Amiga, Chat Roulette pairs strangers in real time from across the world to chat via web cam. The motivations are varied—to practice English, find musicians to jam with, to meet girls, to live out a persona—but the service is still in the free-for-all early stage. Garnering massive attention through blogs of screen shots and the occasional story of running into the Jonas Brothers, Chat Roulette is still forming as a new social medium.

Still in its infancy, Chat Roulette certainly doesn’t have much structure, but as with most new technologies and services, key community players can help guide the service into what it will become. Luckily, marketers have a chance to carry this torch, much as Twitter has been defined in part by accounts like ComcastCares and Zappos. By building a valuable presence and helping demonstrate the opportunities and faculties of Twitter, these marketers actually helped blaze the trail and create some of the mores of the community. Chat Roulette, though chaotic at the best of times, listless (or naked) at the worst, offers a new platform for advertisers to help create a community aligned to their offerings.

Read the rest of my article at the Social Media Marketing blog.

How Social Media is Changing Television

We have always gathered around the storytellers of our day: our elders, a radio, the television. When JFK was shot, families and neighbors came together across the country to watch the coverage, consider the implications of JFK’s death, and support each other. Each winter, epic parties take place in homes across America to watch the Super Bowl. My own college roommates even had weekly parties to watch The OC and American Idol. With the knowledge that we seem to be built with the desire to share these storytelling experiences, social media takes on a whole new meaning for both its creators and its participants.

Hulu introduced live-streaming to its offerings during the 2008 Presidential election debates, joining a handful of other sites with similar viewing options. Though live-blogging has been regular feature of many sites in recent years, the widespread introduction of television online and live-streaming have been a game-changer for these online conversations, and that is only the beginning.

Click here to read the rest of the article. (Got to give my editor some love!)

Facebook Ups the Ante with new Comment-by email functionality

As I've mentioned before, I've been writing for a blog called Social Media Marketing. The following is the first bit from a piece I wrote last week. To read the full article, check it out here.

Many of us have come to depend on Facebook for daily entertainment, connecting with old friends, or communication to pass the time. Since it’s launch in early 2004, the site has evolved greatly from the small, relatively exclusive site with an emphasis placed on what individuals put out there for others to see. As time went on and poking (thankfully) fell out of fashion, the way we communicated with each other on Facebook changed drastically. We started with messages, sent directly and privately from sender to recipient. When the wall was launched, most folks took their conversations public, but those conversations always ran the risk of being deleted by others who wanted to claim more space on the page. Anyone else remember those early day free-for-alls? Oh, how things have changed.

OMG, SM is totes sweet! Avoiding a Communication Breakdown

In the days of Facebook status updates and 140-character tweets, the language we use has been getting more and more concise, though not necessarily simpler (as those of us not familiar with “1337 $p34k” and the TXTing language the youth population can attest.) For businesses utilizing social media platforms, this has been both a blessing and a curse: it has forced us to quite literally consider the language of our consumers and learn how to interact with them, but it has also forces our hand a bit. The brevity of our social media interactions means we have little time to make an impression. Therefore, there is more importance placed on the crafting of those messages. Social media is often viewed as being more casual, but that doesn’t mean that all convention can go to the wayside;spelling, grammar, and clarity are still crucial to successful communication.

Want to read more? Check it out on my page at the Social Media Marketing blog.

Oh how embarrassing, my laziness is showing...

If you haven't already read enough new year resolution-based promise posts, for all practical purposes, you can add this one to the list. I have no set goal, and it wasn't brought on by the coming of 2010, but I'm coming back. Time to recommit to spending time doing the stuff I love.

Though I'll be making a conscious effort to post here more regularly, if you'd like a little variety, you can come check me out on Causecast, read my weekly post for Social Media Marketing, or follow me on Twitter (but no promises that'll be anything worthwhile.)

Looking forward to getting this conversation going again.

Lessons from Les Paul

Story has it that when Les Paul was in a severe car accident in 1948, he asked his doctor to set his arm permanently in the guitar-playing position. He did this out of admirable dedication and passion for his craft, and it served him well as he continued to play guitar into his 90's.

(It's striking how little has changed)

Is your brand prepared to make a permanent stance in the market? Is your product ready to be synonymous with its unique purpose? If not, it might be time to re-evaluate what you stand for.

Come Together: Community Musings

"It is not enough to create a flag. You must have a nation willing to follow it."- Patrick Hanlon, Primal Branding

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Good Ideas Salon on community management. There we heard from Matt Stinchcomb of Etsy, Jen Burton of Digg, and Heather Champ of Flickr, moderated by Mia Quagliarello of YouTube.

Much of the conversation reminded me of Hanlon's quote. Matt said that your community may very well be your brand, so you must make it magnetic. Jen of Digg also spoke to this point, noting that the people are the product. As a result, you have to look at all of the different behaviors of your community. For example, visitors to Etsy may be there to shop, browse, sell, or communicate. Visitors to Flickr may be there for inspiration, to learn, or to get help.

There are many online communities (and brands) that could do well to think of reaching out to the folks who participate on their site in some of these different ways. For example, while you can go to a certain artist's page on Etsy, as a browser or purchaser, you can't promote your favorite artists, share your "wishlist," or create a gallery of your purchases. For all practical purposes, these users are outside of the community. Some of your passionate consumers will then try to create the conversation without the brand; Lauren Puglia of Undercurrent recently posted about her purchases from new favorite artists on her blog, but was not able to share that instantly with the Etsy community. While Lauren still helped promote those artists, she wasn't given the platform to have a voice in that community. Matt had mentioned that you must give your community the tools they need to self-organize, and speaking to him after the panel, he did say that personal space on the site, or profiles, are on the list of innovations to come.

So what can your site or brand do to expand the community and grow as a product? Definitely an interesting exercise in self-inventory.

Other great takeaways from the panel:

_ the first 48 hours after a change likely won't be the ultimate feeling of the community, nor their ultimate attitude toward the change, and there will always be people who don't like change (Heather)

_ early adopters are fickle and you have to let them go--it's their nature (Jen)

_ treat your members as ambassadors and invite them to bring their existing communities to your site (Heather)

_ when trying to pave the way for involvement, think about how you can make your community more like a book club than a bar...no one can get anywhere if they try to shout to an entire bar, but they'll want to share and will be more likely to have meaningful conversation at a book club (Jen)

Brands as Discography

I was thinking last week about guilty pleasure music. Not necessarily the artists you wish you had hidden in an alternative iTunes library when someone's looking through your music, but the songs by the bands you love that just aren't the typical. Maybe it's when they come out with a record that just isn't quite as powerful as previous ones. Maybe it's when they try a concept album, against their better judgement. Whatever it is, we often stand by our favorite artists even when they go for something simple, pop-y, or just fun for the sake of being fun.

Really, this makes a lot of sense. We often appreciate music by an artist based on the emotional connection we have with them. As a result, we appreciate the journey, the deviation from the usual. These pieces might not always stand alone, or even fairly represent the overall discography, but we appreciate them all the same. (Um, "Honey Pie"? We love it because we feel like we’re seeing new sides of the people we already love, cherish, and admire.)

The same goes for brands, and this is a big discovery for me personally. I always like the cleanliness, the centric nature of brands that stick to their pillars of truth. I have a hard time accepting ad campaigns built purely on “joy” or “goodwill” for the company. To me, strategy has always been essential, and every piece has to be on the same dart board as your brand truth. But like our favorite diversions from the typical in our music, I’m suddenly floored by the idea that that’s what I might love about individual campaigns, and our consumers have some of these same reactions.

I know I'm probably late to the game on this one, but I've always heard the arguments without understanding. Hopefully this helps a few of you out there as well.

What do my contextual ads say about me?

You'd think with all the information one could get on me through my internet usage, it would have been clear that I'm a gal. The placement with this story is just too perfect to ignore.

The Kids Are Alright

Before I delve too much into all that I've learned these last few days at TWTRCon09 and the Ypulse Mash-up, I need to start with highlighting just one piece of the puzzle when we look at our communication with youth:

A whole lot of people just don't understand or respect them.

Now before I get a whole bunch of marketing and advertising folks jumping up to prove how much they've done to authentically reach youth, know that I'm not necessarily talking about you. I'm talking about the general public: anchors, teachers, authority figures, the check-out lady and the mailman. 

I was deeply disappointed to read an article today about a Manvel, TX high school teacher named Cesar Flores who appeared to be teaching while intoxicated, and attempted to kiss a female student in class. The students in the classroom were 10th and 11th graders, who contacted district police to address their concerns. The spokesperson for the Alvin Independent School District, Shirley Brothers, then spoke to the media about the accusations:

"The good thing is the kiddos noticed something was wrong and reported it. We're proud of the youngsters for reporting something was wrong."

Kiddos? Youngsters? Noticed something was wrong and reported it? Pardon my language, but NO SHIT they noticed something was wrong. These are not children; these are young adults learning about how to live in an adult world, and they were faced with a very serious, very adult threat. And while Brothers is right--they did respond correctly to the situation--she could not have come off more condescending or more surprised at their success.

The truth of the matter is that youth are thrown into adult situations earlier and earlier (and admittedly, some of that is by their own doing, but that's neither here nor there.) But when they respond admirably and with maturity in a difficult situation, let's remember that we should reward them in the same way: with admiration and as peer adults.

Full article can be found here.

OMG, digi=IRL, rite?

"If you're a newspaper publisher and you think the solution is a digital facsimile of the analog version, you need to re-think." - Ed Cotton, from his post about the News Corporation starting to charge for online content

This is a fantastic quote, and not just because it succinctly calls out newspapers' digital stumbles, but it speaks to the larger issues facing the media and advertising/marketing industries with the growing role of interactive. Digital is a whole new ball game, and we need to recognize that we can't just simply take what worked in other mediums and assume it will have the same success digitally. If I may build upon the idea Ed brings up in this quote, I'd like to share a few additional guidelines: 

• Static web ads shouldn't just be print ads put online. Work with the medium, take advantage of the placement, the shape, the size.
• Similarly, rich media shouldn't just be your commercial on a digital platform. No one likes to open a web page and be bombarded by a 30-second commercial. We are social beings--we want to interact! Engage us. 
• If you ARE putting up a commercial say before a video clip online, know the appropriate length. When we watch a 60 minute TV show, only 14 minutes of it is allowed to be commercials. If you're attaching your :30 commercial to a 1:30 video, you're pushing your luck.
• When folks come to watch a television program online, its much more of a conscious activity. There's no channel flipping, no waiting around for your program to begin. Recognize this different level of engagement and leverage it. And please please please, don't show us the same ad over and over at every commercial break. On a TV we can just change channels...online we're stuck with it, and I believe the potential benefits of repetition will be outweighed by the feelings of ill will.

There's gotta be other applicable scenarios. Any others weighing on your minds??

Yooouuutuuube and Other Oddities

I remember when I first learned about YouTube, I didn't think it would catch on. I didn't think people would take the time to CREATE videos and I certainly didn't understand WHY they'd even have the desire. Sure, I had seen videos online. But All Your Base Are Belong To Us wasn't on a video-sharing platform, so why would we ever need one?

Well, clearly I was wrong.

We love the creation, the attention, and the relative fame. In an era of Idol, reality TV shows, and YouTube, we've learned to recognize the "easy way" to fame and appreciation. With YouTube in particular, we were introduced to a whole new area of social currency, and everyone who was anyone seemed to jump on board.

Fast-forward to April 28th, 2009. An independent programmer/designer out of NY named David quietly released Yooouuutuuube, a kind of kaleidoscopic visual remix of any and all youtube videos based on each sequential frame. (For a great post about the details that make up Yooouuutuuube and an interesting discussion about compelling data mining on this platform, check out Misentropy's blog.) I got a chance to ask David a few questions via email and learned a few interesting bits about Yooouuutuuube and it's success.

I saw that you link to the original YouTube video. Are you affiliated with YouTube?

No, I am not affiliated in any way whatsoever with YouTube.

In your own words, what is the purpose of YooouuuTuuube?

Yooouuutuuube doesn't really have a purpose.

What kind of traction have you been getting? I found out about the site on Twitter (thanks, @nguyenduong!) and a friend of mine found out on Digg. Do you track hits? Unique visitors? Time spent?

The site has received 376,670 unique visitors since it launched. The average time spent on the site is 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This means I have wasted roughly 1.8 years of humanity's time.

I couldn't help but laugh. This was pretty much the kind of answers I'd expect from the creator of a program like Yooouuutuuube. But this overwhelming success of a small, independent project definitely points out a few lessons for us:

• As consumers, the mash-up/remix phenomenon remains, with more opportunities out there to be realized. Now if only David could find a way to monetize...
• We're drawn towards platforms that facilitate our own creations. Since Yooouuutuuube allows you to choose how many rows and columns and what kind of effects you see when it plays your video, we get the feeling that WE'VE created this incredible eyegasm, though in truth we owe it all to YouTubex3's infrastructure and programming. 
• Programs that don't require extra experience, knowledge, or equipment will grow far more quickly than those with more barriers to entry. David made it incredibly simple--what can your programs do to remove some of these barriers?
• Misentropy reminds us that we can use YouTubex3 for data as well as entertainment. This means that our innovations may have secondary benefits. I'm reminded of the box of Baking Soda sitting in my cupboard right now. How many boxes do you think they've sold based on its alternate benefit? And having discovered the alternate benefit, what did they do? They advertised it.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite iterations of YouTubex3--the Alice Remix Remix. Warning: Contact high is imminent upon viewing. It's about 2 minutes long but will play on repeat.

Try your own at www. yooouuutuuube.com and let me know what you think. What else can we learn from YouTubex3?

Make it Relevant

I was walking down Sutter Street here in the Bay Area on Earth Day and came upon this:

I couldn't help but stop and re-read it. The more I thought about what it said, the more I really started to see "the bigger picture." For a time, the environment was where it was at. Everyone was doing their part to live green, buy organic, change their energy habits, etc. But as the recession smothers us more and more, we've shifted all of our focus to the financial sector. In both cases, it required a crisis to make us act. The problem is, we've stopped looking at the environment in our sorrow for the sorry state we're in financially. And unfortunately, living environmentally-responsible doesn't always suit a tight budget.

Every day I walk downtown and every day, I see more stores closing. And it's easy to get caught up in the crisis--I've got ads telling me left and right how "In this economy..." or "Because of the recession..." and the news telling me about all the lost jobs and unemployed workers. But this sign took me back. "Nature doesn't do bailouts." Even throughout this crazy recession, there's always been movement--towards a bailout, towards consolidation, towards cost-cutting. And we've relied on anyone but ourselves to provide this movement. 

But that's not the case with the environment. We're the ones who have to make the change. By likening the environmental crisis to the financial one, it inspired me, the viewer, to be an advocate. By making the crisis relevant, it showed me the necessary path that I, and others, must take. 

I've since found that there have been more postings in SF and NY:

I love it when I find ads that help me better understand how to be a great advertiser. It's even better when it helps me better understand how to be a good person.

I've since signed up at teamearth.com and I highly suggest you do the same. If we don't, who will? Nature has no government to get us outta this one.

Very cool work by BBDO West.