One of my biggest agendas is to make sure that inner city kids become more acclimated with technology. I think that that's gonna be the real issue: the real issue is, can we as a species keep up with the technology? The technology is getting better - not by the year, but by the moment! [...] I think that that is the new struggle, is for us to keep up with the technology that exists.
In case you missed it, @adlawguy's advice from last week's AdVerve e-newsy was "Don't Put It In Writing." It cites the one time in your creative career you should think twice before leaving a paper trail behind. The situation isn't as rare as you'd think, and it's good to keep in mind, especially in these creatively derivative times. :P (Former guest Joe La Pompe can talk to you all about that subject.)
A snippety-snip:
While most lawyers will rightly tell you to put everything in writing, there is one area in which you definitely want to think twice about leaving a paper trail.
When I get an email that says “We want to do a take-off on Star Wars, can we do it?”
I'll warn you in advance by admitting I'm not a developer (a fact that makes me very sad). So if at any point in this article you find I'm talking out of my ass, please correct me, and harshly.
Last month Nick Jones of Narrow Design (@narrowd) and McKinney (@mckinney) published screenshots of how the sites of major ad agencies - you know, the ones that claim to "get" digital - render on an iPhone. Most of them don't at all, or do with limited information, because most of them are heavily reliant on Flash. The list spread like anthrax in the agency social media sphere.
I like Flash and I get that Steve Jobs has a beef with Adobe or whatever. But in an environment where technology evolves faster than you can spin and say "hey presto," your digital front lines should be as lean and agnostic as possible: you don't know where that next client is coming from, or who's going to suddenly want to hit up your site in the middle of a conference from their handy-dandy first-gen iPad.
Animalcolm's Malcolm Sutherland directed "Umbra" (above), a hand-drawn animated piece neatly described thus:
An explorer adventures into an unknown world, yet it seems that he has been there before.
I like it because it is beautiful, slightly existential and infused with wonderful music that massages your brain. (That part's brought to you by Ben Grossman and Alison Melville.)
Moleskine celebrates Pac-Man's 30th anniversary with a special Pac-Man notebook and this cute little promotional video (which conveniently also plugs the hidden pocket's secret wares).
It's stuff like this that keeps a notebook company (of all things!) relevant to the heartbeats of twenty- and thirty-somethings, particularly the self-referential geeks who grew up with that first suite of joystick games (noble precursors of Xbox and Wii!), feed on retro throwbacks like dogs on catsteak, and pride themselves on maintaining vestiges of a simpler time. (At least in show. If the notebook is among our favourite manifestations of this tendency, it's due in part to Moleskine's simple product, clever spinoff decisions, gentle encouragement of budding fan communities, and consistent message.)*
What is it about Pac-Man that makes other companies - Google, Moleskine - want to take a piece of it and call it their own?
I'm not complaining, I love this stuff. It's just funny, that's all.
--- *Actually, I have no idea whether thirty-somethings swallow Moleskines the way twenty-somethings do. I can really only speak with confidence for my generation - not just because I'm part of it, but also because for my uni thesis I conducted a complex and lengthy study on brand loyalty among Echo Boomers of all income classes. Basically I discovered girls are more brand-promiscuous than boys, everything we think makes us profoundly unique is what defines us as a group (including our supposedly eclectic interest in both underground hip-hop and our parents' 8-tracks), and everyone buys Nike.
Everyone has access to any story – or do they? People want it right now more than they want it right — maybe.
Photojournalist Debbi Morello adds a different perspective on those questions in what can be only called stream-of-consciousness media rant meets technology with a journalism chaser. Not since Esquire labeled The View’s Hot Topics “a mesmerizing ballet of passion and ignorance” has a show description been more apt.
CAUTION: JOURNOS WILL CRINGE. We also check off life during wartime via Deb’s compelling lens.
I'll warn you in advance by admitting I'm not a developer (a fact that makes me very sad). So if at any point in this article you find I'm talking out of my ass, please correct me, and harshly.
