Author archive
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Our Ten Top Reads from Last 7 Days, 26 July 2010
26th July 10
Posted in BBH Labs
Every week Mel Exon (@melex) & I pull together 10 stories or links that we think are in some way inspiring, relevant, challenging, or just plain interesting, & we send them to BBH-ers in our six offices around the world.
It’s of course heavily based on the BBH Labs (@BBHLabs) Twitter feed & blog, but recognizes the reality that not everyone is hooked up to Twitter 23.5 hours per day.
Anyway, we thought we’d share it. So here it is. Feel free to pass on. As usual, ideas on making it more useful always welcome.
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Summary of the how agencies are pushing to evolve & become more digitally literate, & how ‘digital shops’ are losing lead – ‘Closing the Tech Divide’ (AdWeek) – http://bit.ly/9dI94r
‘Google is not making us stupid, & the Internet is not really changing our brains’ (a riposte to Clay Shirky, in the LA Times) – http://j.mp/c1RBYU (via @chrisgrayson)
Will Zynga Become the Google of Games? On the rise & rise of Zynga (of Farmville fame), in the NYT – http://nyti.ms/dzJhFQ
‘Digital agencies are the new dinosaurs. If they don’t evolve quickly they will lose their 10yr headstart’ (written by Daniele Fiandaca, chair of Creative Social) – http://j.mp/9L2ICM
‘Digital Tools for Making Brilliant Mistakes’ – on Hipstamatic, Vintage Video Maker & why they appeal (explain to your kids why all your photos of them look crap) – http://j.mp/b5T2pg
‘Facebook is beginning to look & act like a sovereign state’ – from The Economist – http://j.mp/dggyN2
Refreshing to see augmented reality work where there’s genuine reason for the AR; new work for Olympus, by Mullen – http://j.mp/deytQl
‘What Makes A Good Creative Director?’ – a fairly solid list of attributes here + a good discussion – http://j.mp/cN46me (via @ckburgess)
‘We Need To Rethink How We View Creativity’ – great post by @neilperkin – http://j.mp/bRPoyX
Thought-provoking stuff from @brucenussbaum – Is Humanitarian Design the new Imperialism? – http://j.mp/dkq6H8
plus a bonus 11th . . .
New @BBHLabs post by BBH New York’s Seth Weisfeld – ‘The Best Camera is the One You Have With You’ . . . introducing the iOScars’ – http://j.mp/iOScars
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‘The Best Camera is the One You Have With You’ . . . introducing the iOScars
21st July 10
Posted in creativity, mobile, online video, storytelling
Author: Seth Weisfeld, Digital Creative Director, BBH New York (@seth_weisfeld)
“The best camera is the one you have with you.” (Chase Jarvis, see: http://j.mp/ad29YM)
Powerful technologies and tools for creativity and filmmaking used to be exclusively in the hands of professionals. The cost of entry was high and the learning curve steep. With the recent launch of Apple’s 4th generation iPhone, consumers can now carry in their pockets a device fully capable of capturing, editing and publishing HD videos. This is an exciting prospect – no more grainy, pixelated, thumbnail-sized videos of our funniest or most beloved moments or the latest breaking news story.
Imagine what Gordon Gekko could achieve with this.
Only a few short days after iPhone 4 hit the marketplace, an exceptionally impressive example of the film-making potential of the device surfaced. This film, “Apple of My Eye” directed by Michael Koerbel, was shot and edited entirely on an iPhone 4 in under 48 hours.
“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film – UPDATE: Behind the scenes footage included from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.
The gap between professional and consumer production quality is narrowing and we’re excited to see what people will create with these new tools. Even just a week after the new iPhone4 launched we’d started to notice a new strand of film-making emerging using the new technology. Following a quick Twitter exchange between Craig Elimeliah at Freedom & Partners, Ben Malbon and myself, F&P were able to quickly design and develop a platform to showcase our appreciation for the power and creativity that the iPhone4 offers in the area of movie-making.
We’re calling it The iOScars.
In the spirit of leading by example, here’s one I shot during a weekend trip.
So do you have an iPhone 4 and a story to tell? Let’s see what you can do.
CREDITS
Craig Elimeliah (@craigelimeliah)
Seth Weisfeld (@seth_weisfeld)
Ben Malbon (@malbonnington)
Rina Miele (@honeydesign)
Brian Kadar (@briankadar)
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“BIG BANG BIG BOOM: an unscientific point of view on the beginning & evolution of life … & how it could probably end.”
7th July 10
Posted in animation, awesomeness, online video
Everything about this is excellent. And it just gets bigger & better . . .
BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
direction and animation by BLU
blublu.org
production and distribution by ARTSH.it
artsh.it
sountrack by ANDREA MARTIGNONI -
‘Summer Hours’, a short film about warm sun, cool water & a few mosquitoes, by Jeff Scher
6th July 10
Posted in animation, awesomeness, online video
“Do what we can, summer will have its flies:
if we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitoes:
if we go a-fishing, we must expect a wet coat.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was lucky enough to meet Jeff Scher this weekend, a ridiculously talented & leftfield painter, animator and experimental film maker from DUMBO, in Brooklyn. Jeff’s works are in MoMA, and have been screened at film festivals around the world. He also teaches at the School of Visual Arts and at N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts. I knew we were going to get on when – within 10 seconds of meeting, literally – he was walking me through his top 10 photography apps for the iPhone. I had no idea my collection of apps was so conservative. (One ‘app’ consisted entirely of wobbling the iPhone violently during the shot, creating a weird kind of trippy effect as the camera’s software corrects for the distortion – try it; it’s cool how the iPhone tries to make sense of it).
A selection of his films, “The Best of Times,” was just published as an iPhone and iPad app.
Anyway, take a look at this, below. It’s beautiful, emotive and perfectly captures the magic of my favourite time of year: summer. More details about the film, in Jeff’s own words (as originally published in the NYT) are below the film on the NYT site. (click to play). Music is by Shay Lynch.
Take a look at all Jeff’s work – http://fezfilms.net/
This is one of my favourites of his previous films, ‘L’eau Life’.
And if you’re into it and want to find out more about Jeff, here’s a 5 minute documentary piece on YouTube.
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AdMob Mobile Metrics Report – April 2010
21st June 10
AdMob Mobile Metrics Report – April 2010View more presentations from AdMob Inc. -
Just Effin’ Do It: A Digital Planning Presentation Given at VCU Brandcenter
11th June 10
View more presentations from hackemer.
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Are You Ready to Form Voltron? On The Value of ‘T-shaped’ People
9th June 10
Posted in process, transformational change
This week is Internet Week in New York.
On Tuesday, Boulder Digital Works (I’m lucky enough to be on the Advisory Board there) hosted an evening at the Art Director’s Club called ‘Evolve!’ at which they launched their neat new website (created by Modernista!) – take a look at: http://bdw.colorado.edu/, it’s very cool. There were a number of short presentations from some BDW board members, including Scott Witt (just recently moved to a new role as Creative Director at Apple), Shane Steele (just recently moved to be be VP Global B2B Marketing at Yahoo!) & Scott Prindle, Technical Director at CPB in Boulder. I tagged along and got my ten minute slot.
I thought I’d use it to highlight why we need places like Boulder Digital Works in the first place. In short, to produce a new breed of hybrid creative; what we call ‘T-shaped people’ – awesome in (at least) one area, plus highly collaborative and at least literate in many other things. So blending both the right skills and the right attitude. Far too often the latter – an appetite for all things open and collaborative, a readiness to leave ego at the door - is sacrificed at the expense (frequently, the *great* expense) of simply importing people with new skills.
In addition to sketching out why these hybrid people are so important in creating new forms of creative product, I briefly touch upon the importance of the agency implementing the right kind of ’operating system’ (the processes, values and culture within a company) if the fancy new ’software’ is going to run smoothly. If the operating system is outdated, even the most impressive software is redundant. I show, in one slide, an overview of how BBH in New York is approaching the re-engineering of it’s OS.
Would love to know what you think, and what your experiences are of finding, working with, managing and retaining T-shaped people. The future surely belongs to them.
For best viewing view on slideshare (this link takes you right there), where you can see embedded film & speaker notes; I have added the latter into the first comment there.
Are You Ready to Form Voltron? (June 2010)View more presentations from Ben Malbon.Footnote: Coincidentally, Mattel announced this week that Voltron is going to be relaunched, with a new TV series and toy line planned. Here’s the opening of Voltron, which gives newbies a little background.
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Internet Trends 2010, by Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker
9th June 10
Posted in data, interactive, mobile
The thing we like most about Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends presentation is it’s just packed with data. The charts are sometimes *too* intense, in fact, carrying too much data. But it’s always revealing, and usually inspiring. Because it’s fact, not fiction.
Slide 7 is especially impactful. I was born on the left hand side of the chart, probably around when there were 5 million computing-capable units globally. On the right, just ten years from today, the forecast is for 10 billion+ units. Extraordinary.
View more presentations from CM Summit: Marketing in Real Time. -
Lessons We’ve Learned About Engaging Crowds – The Betacup Project
9th June 10
Posted in Sustainability, crowdsourcing
Author: Saneel Radia (@saneel), Director of Media Innovation, BBH New York
As many of you know, I’m involved with a mass collaboration effort (more on collaboration vs. crowd sourcing here) to rethink the portable / disposable coffee drinking experience. You see, the vast majority of to-go coffee cups aren’t recyclable, and it turns out we really like our coffee. Tens of billions of energy-inefficient cups end up in landfills every year. This post isn’t about the issue, but if you’re interested, please visit thebetacup.com (there’s still time to vote, rate, and improve upon on the ideas submitted, which is critical to identifying a solution).
This post is about 3 key lessons I’ve learned regarding the engagement of crowds over the course of this process.
1. Money is … well, money.
Money is a wonderful incentive. We heard from a number of people solely motivated by cash. It broadened the audience beyond the group that would have turned up only for the purpose of environmental altruism. However, when money’s at stake, the group is broader, but less collaborative. Some people would accuse others of stealing their ideas; others would respond within minutes to a new idea posted claiming it was too similar to something they’d submitted. I’ve been a part of a number of efforts like this now and money has always been a core incentive. But tying it to a cause illustrated how it can actually work against collaboration on occasion. Specifically, it undermined the bucket brigade reward system we hoped would occur through our community management.
I’m not saying money always has a negative impact, but understanding its limitations is critical in retrospect. It was great for the first part of the process (number of ideas, effort put into submissions, pass-along), but it was potentially detrimental to the second half (refining unpopular but high potential ideas, collaboration across related ideas, gaming of the system).
2. Employ a boring governing body.
Our friend @faris has regularly made the comment that crowds aren’t inherently wise regardless of book titles that have infiltrated innovations culture, which I couldn’t agree with more. In fact, as someone who has tried to wrangle a crowd on multiple occasions, I’ve always assumed there was a dangerous herd mentality I had to police against. In the case of Betacup, I was determined to not let the crowd’s opinion keep me from reading every single submission as a jury member. However, the crowd actually did an incredible job bubbling up the best / freshest / most effective ideas. Startlingly so, in fact. However, the few times I deviated in opinion from the crowd’s most influential members were on ideas that were, well, boring.
Crowds tend to collectively take a “wow me” approach (explains the current state of news media, no?). That works really well at encouraging new types of thought on an ongoing issue like this one, but it actually does some ideas a disservice. Some simple, boring ideas were actually very effective at solving parts of this complex issue (for example, a collection bin shaped like a tube to reduce the probability that other junk or recyclables would be placed in it). Yet these boring ideas were ignored, generating few views, comments, or ratings. My lesson here was of the importance of bringing in a governing group that has a bias of their own, in the other direction. People who value simplicity and boring effectiveness. That combination can yield powerful results to solve problems.
3. Don’t prescribe formats.
We made a bold choice when deciding what form Betacup submissions should take: any. It was why the highly flexible and open Jovoto platform worked beautifully for the type of problem-solving we needed. The coffee cup issue sounds like a design one on the surface: invent a design that’s recyclable but still fits in a cup holder, is cheap, can handle heat, and feels natural on the lips. But it’s actually quite layered. This problem is as much about human behavior and access to manufacturing and disposal resources as it is about engineering. By opening up the submission format, Betacup became accessible to people of all disciplines. When the problem is as ubiquitous yet unknown as disposable cups, it’s critical we have experts from diverse fields weigh in. Without it, we wouldn’t have had any intersectional innovation, and this problem demands it.
What’s impressive about crowds when they’re given opportunities like this is that individuals don’t introduce themselves as engineers, or designers, or marketers. They just solve a problem. And when you look at what they accomplished, you know different disciplines had to be involved, but the lines are too blurry to see where or how.
As I look back on the submission and collaboration process, I think we got a lot of things right, and certainly some things wrong. The lessons above were the most valuable for me as someone interested in such things. They may apply to a very specific collaboration environment: problem solving & innovation (not necessarily design or creative services), but they’ve changed the way I think about crowds. Now I just hope the 300+ ideas change the way we collectively think about our coffee habits.
thebetacup: 60 Seconds To Save The World from the betacup on Vimeo.
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To see, rate and comment on the submissions, visit the contest page. To follow our journey toward a solution, follow @thebetacup.
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How the CIA define problems & plan solutions: The Phoenix Checklist
1st June 10
Posted in awesomeness, process
In a recent BBH Labs post (Wind Tunnel Marketing, The Sequel: On the Need for Divergent Insight) that talked about the need for divergent thinking and stimulus in approaching problem solving (& creative ideation), Chaz Wigley, the Chairman of BBH in Asia Pacific, mentioned how the CIA‘s (I’ve always wanted to link to the CIA) Problem Definition Checklist provoked precisely this kind of approach; rounded, many-faceted, flexible.
These questions are known as “context-free questions” and are designed “to encourage agents to look at a challenge from many different angles. Using Phoenix is like holding your challenge in your hand. You can turn it, look at it from underneath, see it from one view, hold it up to another position, imagine solutions, and really be in control of it” (see the excellent, if chewy, paper on Exploring Exploratory Testing, for more here).
We now have from Chaz not only the list of questions the CIA use to define problems, but also (thanks to Iqbal Mohammed) the follow-up list they use to develop the plan. Which seems kind of important too.
My personal favourite question in the problem definition list is the somewhat open-ended: ‘what isn’t the problem?’.
Enjoy.
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THE PROBLEM
Why is it necessary to solve the problem?
What benefits will you receive by solving the problem?
What is the unknown?
What is it you don’t yet understand?
What is the information you have?
What isn’t the problem?
Is the information sufficient? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory?
Should you draw a diagram of the problem? A figure?
Where are the boundaries of the problem?
Can you separate the various parts of the problem? Can you write them down? What are the relationships of the parts of the problem? What are the constants of the problem?
Have you seen this problem before?
Have you seen this problem in a slightly different form? Do you know a related problem?
Try to think of a familiar problem having the same or a similar unknown
Suppose you find a problem related to yours that has already been solved. Can you use it? Can you use its method?
Can you restate your problem? How many different ways can you restate it? More general? More specific? Can the rules be changed?
What are the best, worst and most probable cases you can imagine?THE PLAN
Can you solve the whole problem? Part of the problem?
What would you like the resolution to be? Can you picture it?
How much of the unknown can you determine?
Can you derive something useful from the information you have?
Have you used all the information?
Have you taken into account all essential notions in the problem?
Can you separate the steps in the problem-solving process? Can you determine the correctness of each step?
What creative thinking techniques can you use to generate ideas? How many different techniques?
Can you see the result? How many different kinds of results can you see?
How many different ways have you tried to solve the problem?
What have others done?
Can you intuit the solution? Can you check the result?
What should be done? How should it be done?
Where should it be done?
When should it be done?
Who should do it?
What do you need to do at this time?
Who will be responsible for what?
Can you use this problem to solve some other problem?
What is the unique set of qualities that makes this problem what it is and none other?
What milestones can best mark your progress?
How will you know when you are successful?
Ben Malbon
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