Making SXSW Awesomer - 2 Panels at a Time

Well, I've already found 2 panels I won't be missing at this year's SXSW Interactive, assuming you get off your lazy ass and make sure it happens. Okay, well you could also stay on your lazy ass and just go here and here, give SXSW a "yes, please" by submitting a couple five star votes, and that would be just fine, too.

First up, Alan Wolk's (better known as the Tangerine Toad) panel, dubbed Your Brand is Not My Friend, the namesake of this blog post that earned Alan a ton of notoriety.

People generally don’t want to hear from brands on Facebook and MySpace. The whole appeal of social media sites is their independence from corporate advertisers. People like the fact that they can say whatever they want to other people without any interference from anyone or anything that seems "official."

Joining Alan on the panel will be Click Here Experience Planner and Chaos Scenario's Cam Beck, Head of Strategy at the Barbarian Group Noah Brier, and the woman the entire blogosphere knows, marketing specialist Christina Kerley. The panel will be moderated by Adweek's Brian Morrissey.

Next up is panel member from 2008 SXSW's The Future of Corporate Blogging Mack Collier, and his proposed panel for 2009, Co-Created Marketing: Embracing Your Customer Evangelists Online.

What if you found your most passionate customers online, and let them market for you? Would the world implode? Or could embracing your customer evangelists online be the best business decision you make? Together, we'll unmask who customer evangelists are, and show how you can embrace them via social media and other online tools.

Proposed moderator Mack has teamed up with panelist Mario Sundar, Community Evangelist for Linked In (and fellow political junkie), Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer blog and author of the brilliant book Creating Customer Evangelists and finally Virginia Miracle, SVP of Digital Strategy at Ogilvy PR's 360 Digital Influence group and one of the minds behind one of the most successful community building programs, the Fiskateers.

I'd be shocked if either one of these panels didn't make the final cut, but it's your turn to make doubly sure that this is the case.

Vote for Your Brand is Not My Friend

Vote for Co-Created Marketing: Embracing Your Customer Evangelists Online

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• Social media statistics

Tune In Saturdays: David Vandervelde

Image via Wikipedia

Not sure how someone so new to the south can sound so southern, but Nashville's (by way of Michigan) David Vandervelde has the southern, 70's roots feel down pat. Generally slow building, but usually big when he needs to be, the new record Waiting for Sunrise will make fans of Conor Oberst, Fleetwood Mac or even Midlake, get a little crazy.

From Obscure Sound:

After all, the songs themselves on Waiting for the Sunrise display some of Vandervelde’s best songwriting to date. Considering that he has not taken any dramatically dissimilar approaches to his vocal delivery or any other aspects of instrumentation, fans of The Moonstation House Band should still continue to enjoy Vandervelde’s craft. The consistent style itself is more centered on guitar-led tracks that are uplifted by lively acoustics and shimmering keys, led by production that is significantly sharper than its predecessor. The Moonstation House Band featured tracks that were often led by reverbed vocals and revolving arrangements with an emphasis on glam-rock and spacey ballads. The production on Waiting for the Sunrise remains in the vibe of ‘70s pop, but the songs are more subdued when compared to the vigorous string arrangements of “Wisdom From a Tree” and the distorted energy of ”Nothin’ No”. That is not to say that Vandervelde has gone soft though, as some electric tracks like “Lyin’ in Bed” and “Old Turns” serve as a few of the finest moments on the album.

Label.MySpace.Wikipedia
David Vandervelde - I Will be Fine (mp3)
David Vandervelde - Jacket (video - from The Moonstation House Band)

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This Week in Interestingly Interesting

Reason in Irrationality?
After the last greatness from the New Yorker, another fantastic, marketing-applicable piece is pushing me kill to off a few trees and actually subscribe to the thing. This time, in Predictably Irrational, Elizabeth Kolbert takes us through how we literally go crazy for Free, many times to our detriment. Whether it's spending an extra 20 bucks to save 5 in free shipping from Amazon or the countless studies that show the volatility of price perception, clearly price is a function of more than just supply and demand, but a combination of our emotions, our dogma and our surroundings. Our industry is consistently selling rational benefits to an irrational decision maker. Great read.

Pantyhose for Men
I believe you may call them Mantyhose.

JWT goes video
JWT has created a channel on Vimeo with a bunch of videos from some of its best thinkers. Some good stuff to chew on, for sure.

From zero to social strategy in five days
Lorie Laurent Smith over at Organic creates a social strategy in five days. This will get its ass kicked by my upcoming post, "How to build a social media strategy in 4 days." Eat that, Lori!

Hulu continues to surpass YouTube
Frankly, I'll continue to sink my head lower from the prediction of a Hulu failure. Clearly they've gotten their heads on straight for now. At what point does quality and experience surpass community? Looks like YT/Google's stagnation may let us find out.

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AcTWKQA]

The Future from the Eyes of IBM (in 1975)

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Eureka! Insights & The Brain

Jonah Leher brings us this absolutely brilliant article and a must read for those of us in the business of insights. I realize this looks long, but put your bloggy ADHD brain aside for a moment and read it. You'll thank me afterwards. He begins with the following anecdote (which, believe me, I will be stealing):

The summer of 1949 was long and dry in Montana. On the afternoon of August 5th, the hottest day ever recorded in the state, a lightning fire was spotted in a remote area of pine forest. A parachute brigade of fifteen firefighters
known as smoke jumpers was dispatched to put out the blaze; the man in charge was named Wag Dodge. When the jumpers left Missoula, in a C-47 cargo plane, they were told that the fire was small, just a few burning acres in the Mann Gulch.

Mann Gulch, nearly three miles long, is a site of geological transition, where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains, pine trees give way to tall grasses, and steep cliffs loom over the steppes of the Midwest. The fire began in the trees on one side of the gulch. By the time the firefighters arrived, the blaze was already out of control. Dodge moved his men along the other side of the gulch and
told them to head downhill, toward the water.

When the smoke jumpers started down the gulch, a breeze was blowing the flames away from them. Suddenly, the wind reversed, and Dodge watched the fire leap across the gulch and spark the grass on his side. He and his men were only a quarter mile uphill. An updraft began, and fierce winds howled through
the canyon as the fire sucked in the surrounding air. Dodge was suddenly staring at a wall of flame fifty feet tall and three hundred feet deep. In a matter of seconds, the fire began to devour the grass, hurtling toward the smoke jumpers at seven hundred feet a minute.

Dodge screamed at his men to retreat. They dropped their gear and started running up the steep canyon walls, trying to reach the top of the ridge. After a few minutes, Dodge glanced over his shoulder and saw that the fire was less than fifty yards away. He realized that the blaze couldn’t be outrun; the gulch was too
steep, the flames too fast.

So Dodge stopped running. The decision wasn’t as suicidal as it appeared: in a moment of desperate insight, he had devised an escape plan. He lit a match and ignited the ground in front of him, the flames quickly moving up the grassy slope. Then Dodge stepped into the shadow of his fire, so that he was surrounded by a buffer of burned land. He wet his handkerchief with water from his canteen,
clutched the cloth to his mouth, and lay down on the smoldering embers. He closed his eyes and tried to inhale the thin layer of oxygen clinging to the ground. Then he waited for the fire to pass over him.

Thirteen smoke jumpers died in the Mann Gulch fire. White crosses below the ridge still mark the spots where the men died. But after several terrifying minutes Dodge emerged from the ashes, virtually unscathed.

There is something inherently mysterious about moments of insight. Wag Dodge, for instance, could never explain where his idea for the escape fire came from. ("It just seemed the logical thing to do" was all he could muster.) His improbable survival has become one of those legendary stories of insight, like Archimedes shouting "Eureka!" when he saw his bathwater rise, or Isaac Newton watching an apple fall from a tree and then formulating his theory of gravity. Such tales all share a few essential features, which psychologists and neuroscientists use to define "the insight experience."

Frankly, I don't think I need to suck up much of your digital air with my analysis, you'll do well to give it your own read. Perhaps you'll have an insight about how you have insights along the way. And for those of us who live for the satisfaction of those eureka moments, an extra one of those or two of those can never be a bad thing.

One problem, the New Yorker, in their infinite wisdom, only left an abstract online. Luckily Deric PDF'd the thing, which you'll find here. Mike Aruz also had a few words about it here.

Build Me One of them Dinosaurs!

I absolutely love this video taken at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. It so easily shows a reason why advertising budgets are crumbling or shifting, or whatever you'd like to call it. Setting aside what budget was earmarked for what part, just compare this animatronic dinosaur to running a spot about something closer to what you'd expect a natural history museum to be. Clearly the longer term affect to your bottom line business is provided by the dinosaur. And after you see the tons of videos being shared across the web, do you go to your ad agency and scream "Buy me some space on YouTube!" or do you go back to the animatronics company and say "Build me some more of them dinosaurs!"?

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1316102 w=400&h=267]
Extinct, my ASS! from The Original Joe Fisher on Vimeo.

And yes, I understand that those are two very different functions, but obviously dollars will continue to shift from messaging to things that tend to increase the intrinsic marketing value of the product or product experience. Tough for ad agencies to keep making money the way we do today, but sure sounds more fun to build a dinasour than to make an ad about a built dinasour, and for the customer, the reverse is true as well.

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Tune In Saturdays: Pomplamoose

One of my favorite recent finds is the fantastically interesting duo called Pomplamoose. A collaboration of a couple YouTubers, Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, Pomplamoose doesn't really just make songs or just make videos, and it's not even really music videos either. They are videosongs, which are videos created within two rules, what you see is what you hear and if you hear it, at some point you see it. Anyway, check these out. Absolutely incredible stuff.

YouTube.MySpace.

I'd also check out some of Jack's personal stuff as well. He's made a couple swings through the YouTube front page, particularly with the very cool Radiohead/Chopin mashup below as well as with the more traditional (but still badass) video for the original song Yeah, Yeah, Yeah below that.

YouTube.Jack's MySpace. Nataly's MySpace.

Microsoft Engaging in Bullshit Marketing. Few Surprised.

I got back to the office today to find a message from a concerned Chris of the organization "Americans for Technology Leadership." Chris thought that I might be alarmed to note how the impending Google/Yahoo search deal will negatively affect us by creating, as Chris said, a monopoly that will essentially allow them to set their own pricing.

That's all I needed to hear to get me plenty pissed and quickly call back. And that's before I knew just how full of shit the organization was.

From SourceWatch:

In August 2001 the Los Angeles Times reported that a ATL was behind a "carefully orchestrated nationwide campaign to create the impression of a surging grass-roots movement" behind Microsoft. "The campaign, orchestrated by a group partly funded by Microsoft, goes to great lengths so that the letters appear to be spontaneous expressions from ordinary citizens. Letters sent in the last month are printed on personalized stationery using different wording, color and typefaces--details that distinguish those efforts from common lobbying tactics that go on in politics every day. Experts said there's little precedent for such an effort supported by a company defending itself against government accusations of illegal behavior."

Not that it was difficult to figure out that the bucks behind the phone calls were coming from Microsoft's pocketbook. A quick trip to the website lists them as one of the 9 founding members, along with the failing CompUSA and Staples, among other companies that will no longer enjoy my patronage.

Don't get me wrong. I understand some of those fears. But there are serious holes in their argument.

First, pricing isn't set by Google or Yahoo. How much I spend is determined by the open marketplace whether that is on Google, Yahoo or whoever's platform. To imply otherwise is to assume the people they call to be ignorant.

Secondly, I have serious issues with calling Google's search program to be a monopolistic endeavor. Google didn't become Google, and hasn't stayed Google, because of a lack of choice. There are hundreds of search engines from which to choose, whether along certain verticals or in general. Google won by building a better product, and for them to be punished for that is ridiculous. Ask.com spent how many millions to increase their share? And by how much did Google increase their own during the same time period?

As I explained to Chris, Google holds massive share because people chose their service, and continue to choose their service over the likes of MSN. I didn't use MSN and don't use Live because I don't really like the product. Plain and simple.

Now, as for Microsoft, is this really a company that can credibly whine about this? Can this possibly be anything other than idle bitching from the same folks that have shipped millions of computers with Windows and IE and countless other Microsoft products pre-installed?

Frankly, I find these astro-turfing campaigns to be the worst in deplorable. It's deceptive, misleading and ultimately makes those spending the dollars look like assholes. And Microsoft, you look like an asshole.

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The Internet is Full of Interesting Things

Another new Pomplamoose Tune
Generally speaking, I'm just about always on the lookout for my next musical obsession. Usually that comes in the form of an album bought an iTunes. Not today. Seriously, these YouTube celebs are absolute genius. We see big things in their future. Here's their latest.

Interestingness (and other 21st century skills to teach your kids)
The genius that is a color that is a man called Chartreuse gives a rundown of some interesting folks to follow on twitter in a way that only he can.

The Worst 5 Sky Mall Products
From Brian over at Ask a Copywriter. My favorite, the Pet's Observation Porthole. Yeah, literally.

Growing Good Creatives
Gavin and Kris let us in on the secret of their own genius. Creativity is juice to be harvested. A little creative juice would be a welcome addition to one of these late-night work sessions.

Sleeveface
Like LoLcats, but with more sleeveface.

Moda di Magno
Lovely Lori makes another appearance as an Etsy showcase, and for good reason. She supplied a couple happy gift giving experiences for me already!

The End of the Scientific Method
Does the deluge of information render the scientific method basically obsolete? Does it just make more sense to get better at reacting and classifying information rather than trying to predict it? Interesting argument...

The Design of Everyday Things
"Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault lies in product design that ignore the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. A bestseller in the United States, this bible on the cognitive aspects of design contains examples of both good and bad design and simple rules that designers can use to improve the usability of objects as diverse as cars, computers, doors, and telephones."

Plaid hits the Road. Will the Road hit back?

Once again proving that a mastering of social media and avoiding day to day work aren't mutually exclusive activities (or not activities, I guess), blogger round table cohort and super nice guy Darryl Orht, the man behind the Connecticut content and branding firm Plaid, is hitting the road once again. Taking a tip from the indie music industry, they'll be canvassing the west coast in the plaid Plaid van, complete with at least 3 van cams, a tour twitter feed, the 11:40 show on PlaidNationTV, and a number of other 2.0-y goodies.

Check out the goodies and follow the tour here. Get you one of these sweet, sweet new Tee's here. And become a fan on facebook here. Otherwise, come play with the guys over at PlaidNation.com starting tomorrow. Have a safe trip, guys!

Tim/Eric and Zach G - An Absolute Breakup

Today brings the release of the third "spot" for Absolut vodka created by the wigged Zach Galifianakis and the now wigless Tim and Eric. Unfortunately, this time friends getting together means trouble for all three. Genius.

http://static.ning.com/aspecialthing/widgets/video/flvplayer/flvplayer.swf?v=3.4.1%3A6145 

Find more videos like this on aspecialthing

More shits and giggles in the first and second of the series...