Voices of the Summer Games

July 09, 2008 by Paul McEnany in Social Media

Kaitlyn Wilkins along with Rohit Bhargava and the rest of the 360 Digital Influence group have brought to launch the new web 2.0-ification of the summer games site by Lenovo, featuring blogging athletes from around the world being pulled together at Voices of the Olympic Games. They'll be traveling to Beijing to live-blog and live-tweet (@lenovo2008) the experience while the rest of us salivate with jealousy.

The "low-down":

"Over the past few months we identified 100 athletes from all different countries and sports who had an interest in either maintaining an existing blog, or starting a blog for the first time, leading up to the Games. Each athlete was given a new Lenovo IdeaPad and FlipCam and any training/support they needed, all we asked in return is that they display a badge identifying themselves as a participant and post to their blog at least once a week. (They were in no way required to review the product, or even mention Lenovo on their blog.) Feeds from all athlete blogs are now being pulled into the main Voices of the Olympic Games site where you can sort by athlete, language or country. With this being the first "Web 2.0" Olympics, with athlete blogging sanctioned by the IOC, Lenovo saw this as a great opportunity to give athletes the power and technology they needed to share their experiences directly with fans."

Again, cool as shit. Social media done right. But Kaitlyn, do they have Montell Jordan in Beijing? Somehow I doubt it. Score one for McEnany.

Viking Smackdown

July 09, 2008 by Paul McEnany in Uncategorized

Tim Brunelle, after a full year since the opening of his ownMinneapolis shop Hello Viking, celebrated by releasing a new iPhone game using the accelerometer in the phone to make a cartoon viking throw the axe as far as possible. Yesterday, the game was picked up by uber-blog Techcrunch. Here's a video of Arrington playing the game, also.

I don't get it, though. An agency actually doing something cool that can market for itself? That doesn't make any sense. We're supposed to be bad at heeding our own advice..

Anyway, my new iPhone will be here soon enough, and then I can join in on the fun. And by that, I mean kick all of your asses and win the trip to Minneapolis and viking gear. In your face, world.

Tune In Saturdays: Marching Band

July 05, 2008 by Paul McEnany in Music

Image via Wikipedia

Not far from a Sub Pop sound, Sweden's Marching Band is a little bit Rogue Wave, a little Matt Pond PA and a little Deathcab back when they were still cool (meaning less popular). At just five songs, their newest EP, Spark Large, goes by much too fast, but it's got all the harmonies, poppy guitars and synth eccentricities of the aforementioned. Definitely a good summer pickup for anybody that actually pays any attention to the tune ins.

From Pitchfork:

This duo of Erik Sunbring and Jacob Lind play low-key, folk-touched indie pop on "Feel Good About It", from their forthcoming album produced by Adam Lasus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Yo La Tengo, Lilys). Sunbring and Lind trade high, close harmonies and reassuring words over a warm, slightly ramshackle backing of acoustic guitar, piano, drums, and light electronic effects, like the Shins sliding down better-fitting chutes. Is Linköping more than Marching Band's town? Dear Ryan Schreiber, I would love to go find out.

Marching Band - Feel Good About It (mp3)
Marching Band - Don't Go (mp3)

Buy from Other Music

Cool Stuff I Be Seein'

July 04, 2008 by Paul McEnany in stuff

Practice What You Preach
Faris Yakob's presentation on transmedia planning, using a transmedia execution. It's official. I have a man crush on Faris.

In Control of Polls
This is older, but pretty interesting. Komar and Melamid focus grouped their way into art, polling various global artistic preferences to have a painting truly "by the people." Of course, the end result wasn't necessarily so populist.

"It has often been suggested that in contemporary society, polls have replaced politics, and even though the pollsters and statistics professors openly acknowledge that theirs is a limited science, it has been made to function as the true representation of the people's choice. Seemingly the most democratic tool, statistical analysis is frequently used as the most authoritarian one. Rather than articulating desire it constructs it. Komar and Melamid take the polls at face value - literally. This literal-mindedness, coupled with a rather fantastic technology, is characteristic for much of American media culture. The artists reveal the latter's absurdity: The most wanted thing calculated with the help of the polls is precisely what nobody wants - except those who order the poll."

Nike PHOTOID
Nike built an absolutely fantastic mobile application that allows Nike fans to take a photo of whatever they'd like, then uses the colors in the photo to create their next pair of kicks. Feet reflecting the world around them. Cool stuff.

Ambient Lighting
Pretty cool way to use rope lights and not look like a cheap bastard or college student.

Facebook Apps
A rundown of the 50 most active applications on Facebook.

Good Work Finally Makes a Comeback.
All the other stuff is still important, but the bottom line is that doing the nuts and bolts well just isn't enough to stay on top. Be great and the rest seems to fall into place as it should.

"Moreover, the client community maybe starting to remember that better work delivers better results. Creativity has always been an important element in powerful communications but never before has the quality of the work had such a direct effect on the effectiveness of the budget, and the success of the brand. Because never before has the primary determinant of consumer reach been consumer engagement rather than simply ratings. Only a few weeks into the launch of the Gorilla ad, the number of people that had seen the film was almost double the number that Cadbury’s had actually paid to see it."

The Coolest Hotel Room Ever. (via BfB)

And on to Sudan

June 28, 2008 by Paul McEnany in Interesting

From the folks that brought you the absolutely fascinating documentary on North Korea, they're back behind the scenes in a place Americans just don't go, Sudan. Very interesting stuff.

Tune In Saturdays: David Karsten Daniels

June 20, 2008 by Paul McEnany in Music

Image via Wikipedia

Seattle by way of North Carolina by way of Dallas singer-composer-doug martsch-look-alike David Karsten Daniels is out with a new record I just stumbled across this morning. Back in the day, my somewhat shitty high school band shared a guitarist with David's much more popular jazz outfit also from the same high school. It's a pleasure to see what he's made of himself. It's a winding, infectious record that seems to be getting some great press all around. As is his style, the record is full of unexpected surprises, never in a jarring way, but just not something you'd hear almost anywhere else.

From Drowned in Sound:

From its first note, David Karsten Daniels' latest full-length oozes poise and beauty. Such general terms seem hackneyed but, with Fear Of Flying, the right adjectives are immensely difficult to pluck and place. Indeed, that maxim can be applied to the man's entire career. Apparently he is a studied composer, a learned musician and everything that the spontaneous and emotional pop writer shouldn't like that much. Where's the spontaneity? Why doesn't he throw his guitar at rivals' faces? What's he doing trying to 'folk up' on this record? Interesting questions. But, as those in the know can attest, pop composers (one of the most loaded terms in music today) with the right balance of theory and horrific experience can become the most scintillating performers we have today – Daniels undoubtedly embodies this.

David Karsten Daniels - Martha Ann (mp3)

David Karsten Daniels - Falling Down (video)

Zemanta

June 16, 2008 by Paul McEnany in blogs

By the way, if you didn't notice, I've started using Zemanta. I highly recommend giving it a shot. It'll integrate with Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, whatever, and even comes in this nifty firefox plug-in. It does some cool stuff like makes it easier to link and tag, add photos and find related articles. Very cool stuff.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/636119 w=400&h=267]
Zemanta TypePad Integration Teaser from zemanta on Vimeo.

Zementa Brings a Semantic Layer to Your Blog [via Zemanta]
Zemanta - Content Suggestion for Bloggers [via Zemanta]
A content suggestion engine for blogging? That could work... [via Zemanta]

I am a Bucket and So are You.

June 16, 2008 by Paul McEnany in advertising

From all the Tim Russert eulogizing that's happened over the past few days, my favorite anecdote was told by Mike Barnicle today. Russert went to work for Pat Moynihan's senate campaign back in 1976. A product of Ohio colleges surrounded by a sea ivy league hot shots, Russert must have felt understandably intimidated. Sensing this, Moynihan told him, "Tim, what they know, you can learn. What you know, they can never learn."

A beautifully familiar sounding quote, and one with lessons for the rest of us. After all the research, after all the time spent observing, after all the focus groups and conjecture, many of the biggest ad blunders come from misunderstanding this simple truth. There are things we just don't know and can't understand about other people. We are different for so many reasons, very few of which can be defined within any segmented target definitions. We are far too irrational to fit into nice little marketing buckets.

A few tips for people trying to sell me shit:

1. What I do tomorrow won't be defined by what I did yesterday.

2. What I say out loud is only sometimes what I'm actually thinking.

3. My 27 year-old white neighbor in about the same income bracket as me doesn't like, nor buy the same stuff. That guy's a douchebag.

4. I don't always do what I plan to do.

5. I don't really give a shit if what you have does everything that an iPhone does for less money. I want an iPhone.

6. Sometimes I eat breakfast at dinner for no apparent reason.

7. I would be offended if you talked like some of my friends do.

8. I might get bored by you if you don't.

9. I might forgive you for lying to me if you do it in a clever way. But I'll thrash you endlessly if you don't.

Well, you get the point, I think. We're not created to fit snuggly and easily into a pre-defined bucket. And the second we stop trying to make it so will be the second we can have a more meaningful conversation. Brands don't choose me, I choose them.

Tim Russert's son shares memories of dad [via Zemanta]
The Loss Of A True Gentleman [via Zemanta]

Tune In Saturdays: The Lodger

June 15, 2008 by Paul McEnany in Music

Image via Wikipedia

It's summer, which means we all should be on the hunt for a good ol', poppy as shit summer theme song. The Lodger would like to throw their hat into the mix, picking up where the strokes left off, minus the pretentiousness and glitz, but with all of the jumpiness and driving beats.

From noizemakesenemies:

From the moment that I put the CD into my player it’s been the sound track to my evening, it brings to mind the musical stylings of The Smiths, with infusions of REM and memories of late nineties Bluetones. It moves away from being just an album filled with songs and becomes much more, a musically emotional journey that carries you from upbeat happiness through to a slow sense of sombreness.

The Lodger - The Conversaton (mp3)
The Lodger - The Good Old Days (video)

New Fleet Foxes - "He Doesn't Know Why" [via Zemanta]
Name That Theme Song [via Zemanta]

The Cycle of iPhone

June 10, 2008 by Paul McEnany in advertising

Image by Daniel Voyager from TSL via Flickr

And the iPhone cycle of advertising continues down the same masturbatory path.

Step 1: Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god, Mankind will never be the same. This won't only be a cool phone that let's you do some cool stuff, but it will change your life forever! It'll probably save lives, too! If you thought you were cool before, you weren't! Because you didn't have an iPhone!

Step 2: Back to being good ol' Apple. Not self congratulatory. Not over the top. Just, "hey, we've got some cool stuff you'll probably like."

Step 3G: Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god, you thought the original iPhone turned men into gods and gods into something even cooler, something that never existed before and you can't even talk about. The only thing almost as cool as the iPhone 3G was the iPhone, and that thing is an obsolete piece of shit you sucker! You won't even believe how amazing we are. In fact, praise us. If you don't get down on your loser knees and kiss my sweet, flush headphone jack then you can't even have one, loser!

Jeez, I'm ready to just get on with the good advertising. Let's all keep in mind that the coolest guy in the room probably isn't the one shouting about how cool he is. But I have faith, they'll be back to the good stuff by July.