A Wider Net

Thanks to Sue Pelletier tagging me, I am obligated to share 8 things you may not know about me. When did this meme all start? It’s the blogging equivalent of a chain email but without the promise of ultimate riches or karma. It’s supposed to be a random list, and that rubs my marketing & communications sensibility the wrong way.

Anyhow, here goes:

1. I own a (musical) keyboard, an electric guitar, and a tin whistle. I am as fast-fingered as I am musically untalented, making for a consistently awful listening experience.
2. I seem to be two notches above half-bad at the video game Rock Band. Who needs real instruments, anyway? (My gamertag is “Fool Throttle”)
3. My first record album, that wasn’t a hand-me-down, was “Boston”, my first 8-track was Kiss: “Alive!”, my first cassette was “Blizzard of Ozz” and my first CD was the BSO playing Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” on Telarc. I have no idea what my first MP3 was. I’m now a neo-classical progressive metal junkie. Go figure.
4. I was once asked, by one of the biggest event impresarios in the world, to make a laser effect that was so huge that it made the Japanese audience think of Hiroshima. Years later, I was asked to create the illusion of the Firebird hovering over the walls of Jerusalem. Sometimes people take a twisted view of entertainment.
5. I have written several plays, one-acts, and a musical libretto. Half were performed. I miss doing that.
6. I have a t-shirt and a tennis ball autographed by Ivan Lendl, whom I admired when I used to play a ton of tennis. I have, in fact, more autographed Lendl merchandise than I do friends who know who he is.
7. My favorite book is “The Sword of Shannara” by Terry Brooks. It was written and published almost simultaneously with the original theatrical release of Star Wars, and is almost the same story (except with elves and wizards). I am convinced Terry Brooks and George Lucas are the same person. If I ever get to meet George Lucas again, I intend to ask him.
8. I was once part of a team that had to build a house, or at least all the pieces of a house, while riding on the back of a huge flatbed truck in a parade, using only colonial-era hand tools. I was 9. I made shingles out of cedar using a drawknife. I still remember the smell and the odd taste of lemonade in a pewter cup dispensed from an oak barrel.

I tag: Andrew Vande Moere, Rob Larsen, Scott Kiekbusch, Ilya Vedrashko, Steve Paine, Margaret Desjardins, and Bill DeRouchey. Close enough.

It’s a gloomy, icy Monday and I thought you might need a pick-me-up. First, coworker Jill bravely points us to The Directors Bureau and their random three-word idea generator. I got “do-it-yourself inflatable company”…

Next, Sue Pelletier points us to Cubicle Freakout:

Enjoy!

or not.

moar funny pictures

Thanks for sticking with us through the first 221. It continues to be a blast.

With a big tip of the hat to Agency Fusion, and credit for the link to coworker/Front End Developer/Artist Rob Larsen, I direct your attention to www.makemylogobiggercream.com - one of the funniest marketing design parodies ever.

Marketing guru Seth Godin created Squidoo, now he has created one of the best lenses found there - a list of the most overused business cliches. A good list to remind us all to find better ways to communicate.

The Encyclopedia of Business Cliches on Squidoo

My favorite visualization blog has found another gem: Information Aesthetics points us to this wonderful diagram illustrating uses of the phrase “is the new” as a marketing term over the past few years. Some of my favorites:

Cheese is the new morphine (I need to find that cheese!)

Television is the new reality

Yellow is the new red is the new green is the new pink is the new black is the new blue

Getting pregnant is the new Yoga (what?)

4 kids is the new 2 (oh god, please no….)

Bono is the new Pope

The award for most thought-provoking goes to “oil is the new slavery”

At some point I would think you would damage a brand that appeals to “big kids” if you allow product manufacturers to license the brand and apply it to products designed for “little kids”. This clearly isn’t my thing, because these two examples mystify me:

First they roasted us with Darth Tater, the spud spawn of what used to be a dark evil villain. Now he doesn’t look powerful enough to fry a potato chip on the dark side.

And now they have unearthed Optimash Prime… The Transformer elite warrior who seems to have been suffered a brutal brand baking.

In our not-too-distant future, I fear the following brand pollution:

Harry Potater (pronounced po-tah-ter, of course)
Dakota Famine
Skin City
Pot-A-Rod (potayrod)
Idaho Jones
Fries-a Minelli
Don Imash

I’m in the process of putting my house on the market. When you do this, you have a unique opportunity requirement to purge - to get rid of all sorts of clutter that has been weighing you down like a waistline full of sin-a-buns. I imagine that frequent movers could get addicted to this process - the clutter purge. It may even have it’s own “condition” and support groups. It may even have a confusing name like “Movelemia” or “Annexia Disposa” or something. Anyway…

While digging and tossing, I found this brochure - a vintage manual with a steep sticker price of $1.25 that contained everything you need to know to make more effective meetings - with overhead projectors. I’m willing to bet that no one ever paid cover price for this pulp.

If you think PowerPoint is a pain in the neck - take a look at how we USED to have to make slides.

Classic.

Thanks to one of our Creative Directors for sending me this breaking news:

Apple Unveils New Product-Unveiling Product

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple claims the iLaunch can garner the same amount of press attention as a major scientific discovery, high court ruling, celebrity meltdown, or natural disaster at 200 times the speed of a traditional media-fostered launch.

Awesome.

This poor guy was boosting Airborne supplements. I suppose he’s an infection with footwear confusion.