Dear New Yorkers,

I want to go to Yakitori Taisho soon. Who is with me?

hahaha

And THESE are the types of miscommunications people have today.

my temporary space

my temporary space
Originally uploaded by johanna on video.

I can't get over how amazing flickr is. When I signed up in the early summer of 2005, I just used it for storage while my web server was misbehaving. I just now started playing around with everything (viewing different sizes, tagging, adding all those cool square label things (click on the photo to see my labeled space)), the Hockneyizer, etc. lovelovelove. AND the "blog this" button is awesome - I am updating my blog with this image via flickr right.this.second. Yes, I am very behind on the vast amount of things that flickr can actually do for you. Post a comment with your favorite flickr toy /option. I would love to learn more.

published!

My article in MediaPost was published today. It's on a popular topic, especially here if you're reading this. Here is a snapshot of the article, so that anybody who read it (online, on paper, or here) can leave thoughts.

likemind

This is ridiculously late, and inexcusable for a blogger! I apologize. Last Friday morning was the third likemind. It was at 'sNice - a wonderfully cute coffee shop. I met so many awesome people, but regret not being able to stay longer. I finally met Noah and Piers, along with my blogfriend Jack. I also met Michael Surtees, who is in part responsible for Jack and I e-meeting. Harris Falk, yet another one of the Renegade Marketing guys there, gave me the LIVESTRONG bracelet right off his arm when he heard me lamenting the death of my previous one. Really great group of people, and we talked about a ton of interesting things, from past jobs to theworldisflat to apartments in NY. Here is the public collection of likemind-tagged flickr photos.

ALSO - I attended the Virgin Festival in Baltimore this Saturday. I got VIP passes through Naked, and brought my roommate Subodh with me. We had a great time, and saw some awesome music (I caught Gnarls Barkley, The Killers, Scissor Sisters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Thievery Corporation and Flaming Lips). The food was pretty good, too. I'll upload photos tonight on my flickr page and will probably tag them virginfest.

a blogging rampage today, apparently

from the Thailand coup d'etat:



what a juxtaposition. geez.

Radar

I actually clicked on a web-based ad. It was at the bottom of the Vice Magazine email that I get every so often.

The link took me to Radar, a way to instantly share camera phone photos with loved ones, electronically. What a brilliant idea. "What else is a camera phone for?," they reason. Visit the site - it's short and really well designed.

From their (parent?) site, Tiny Pictures: Mobile phones are the real personal computers: always-on always-with-you connections to the people in your life, and now they have cameras. And the cameraphone is not just more-convenient photography, it's a way to share and stay in touch. It's an evolution of the tools but a revolution in how we use them.

What's missing is the software that enables it all, and that's what we've built.

It seems fascinating. I want to sign, up, but wonder if it will cost anything. I can see Verizon getting a lot of money out of me via transferring these to the Internet all the time. Does anybody know more? I am really fascinated.

HAPPY

Happy is what I am right now. It's only 9.50am and I'm on 4.5 hours of sleep (I need at least 8 to fell normal), but I'm in that kind of optimistic mood where a million things are swimming around in my head and I feel like Kurt Vonnegut because I hop around from topic to topic. For instance, I feel compelled to say that I have a problem with liquids + my technology. It's weird that I'm not more careful because I think of my technology as my own children. But... last September, there was a coffee disaster with Stella, my 14" iBook. I performed all the emergency procedures, and she is fine now. Incidence two - last week I accidentally dunked an earbud into my tea. Incidence three - just now, the USB portion of my digital camera connector fell into my cereal bowl. But I could only laugh at the absurdity of it all, because I'm so happy.

sources of joy -

1. I live in NY doing what I love more than anything.
2. I'm working at my dream job, which was written up in the Washington Post today - on the front page of the Business section. I will copy and paste the relevant paragraphs below, for those of you who don't have a (free) password.
3. I went to likemind this morning (where I met many blogfriends for the first time), and there will probably be photos up on blogs from that. I am also going to write a separate entry about this later.
4. Chuck's fiancée is today's NY Daily Candy (I work with Chuck; he came from working for Russell Simmons at Def Jam)!
5. I met someone at likemind this morning who overheard me lamenting about my snapped LIVESTRONG bracelet, and he took his own bracelet off of his arm and gave it to me!

I like multiples of five. hi. good morning.

The article exerpt -

"NEW YORK To see the future of the advertising industry, climb the stairs of the three-story walk-up on Greene Street in SoHo to the U.S. headquarters of London's Naked Communications. There, you'll find 15 or so young people -- a Scot, a South African, a Brit and some Americans -- sitting around a long, wooden table, working on laptops or talking quietly on cellphones as rock music plays in the background.

They have all worked at some of the world's top ad agencies. But at Naked, none of them is working on advertising.

They are researching business problems presented to them by Sony, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Nokia and Comcast and coming up with innovative solutions. The fixes might involve TV spots or print ads, but those are likely to be handled by one of the more traditional ad agencies. Just as likely, the repair strategies will involve changes in store design, employee training or product packaging; the creation of a computer game built around a product; or the launch of a buzz-marketing campaign using MySpace or YouTube.

Naked's premise is simple: If you go to a coal company looking for an energy supply, you'll get coal as the recommended solution. It's the same with most advertising agencies, which rarely meet a marketing problem that cannot be solved or a sales goal that cannot be met by a TV and radio campaign supported by direct marketing, some pop-up ads on Web sites and a bit of public relations. It's what they do, the way they are organized and how they make their money.

Because Naked has nothing invested in any particular solution and nothing to gain by telling its clients to spend more rather than less, its pitch is that it can offer the least-biased, most-cost-effective solutions. The message resonates with companies dissatisfied by the payoff from traditional advertising."

The rest goes on to talk about R/GA (my 2nd choice agency when I was job hunting)

media maven

MT, one of the cofounders of Naked NY, was named by AdAge as this year's media maven. As Neal Davies informed us, "For those unfamiliar with the title - it is bestowed upon the 'ad industry's media stars' every year by Advertising Age magazine." Congratulations, MT!

(This is a good thing to read with those unfamiliar with what we do, also.)

ALSO

I would like to congratulate my friend Mike Karnjanaprakorn, who just accepted a nice little spot at Naked London! We spent the past 2 years at the Adcenter together. Congratulations Mike! Welcome to the family :)

joys.

A huge box arrived at Naked yesterday. It was FULL OF SHOES. free shoes! In a rainbow of colors from the fastest-growing apparel brand in the world! I chose a pair that were my size and quite cute. Paul (my boss) looked like Santa Claus as he was reaching into the box and pulling out different pairs and handing them to people with a huge smile on his face. I knew true joy at that moment.

web 2.0

I found this visual example of Web2.0 on Wikipedia just now. I know this graphic isn't supposed to be humorous, but the way it lumps all of the very-true design elements of Web2.0 into one image amuses me. It seems almost like a parody, like the cartoon strip in my previous entry.

EDIT - Clay Parker Jones of exitcreative just sent me the link to a Web 2.0 logo generator. It's hilarious.

HAHAHAHA

iPodiPod

I am revolting against iPod's constant reinvention by sticking with my cute 15GB that has the little circles under the (non-color) screen.

However, it's still an iPod. I guess they win either way.

Here is an interesting article on the iPod losing its coolness. some very good points, as I see every Tom Dick & Harry (haha I can't believe I just used that phrase) on the subway with one, even if they're panhandling for loose change. But... what could possibly replace that iconic sight of the white cables going into your pocket?

the eighth

Twenty-four years ago today, I was born. It's been a wonderful day so far.

01. phone calls from parents and loved ones
02. a cute Myspace message (+ several comments)
03. a touching e-mail
04. new shoes from parents (white hightop Chucks)
05. happy flowers sent to Naked from parents


06. beautiful weather in SoHo
07. a delicious salad from Aroma
08. a published article in Mediapost (to hit on the 25th)
09. very cute gifts from my best friend from the Adcenter
10. a dinner from Jamie tonight
11. having this job in general (and being able to come here)
12. a steady stream of interesting things to do
13. reading Seth Godin's top ten ways to defend the status quo list and knowing that we will never run into any of these here
14. bread with tea (that Leila keeps making for me!), which reminds me of a favorite line from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ("...before the taking of toast and tea")


15. A ticket to Wired's NextFest
16. Nakeders singing to me with a flourless cake from Balthazar and sparkling wine

Thank you to everyone that was even remotely responsible!

Big Brother

We were tossing this article around at Naked this week and talking about how utterly creepy it is. In short, Google is working on software that can "watch" you through your computer's built-in microphone, picking up what you're listening to, what you're watching, what you're talking about, when your phone rings, etc. The software "identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject."

So this might happen - In a few months, Google will hear that I'm listening to Blonde Redhead while the Food Network is playing in the background and my roommate and I are talking about a party we're going to together. All of a sudden I might get a promotional e-mail from Music Today or Pitchfork Media, a popup coupon for Sur La Table, and drink tickets to Don Hills in a Myspace message. Will this sort of customized messaging replace any other types of strategies? Will the emotional card be irrelevant? Will Epic 2014 become scarily accurate?

(Not to mention that I'm typing this from an account with a brand that Google owns. while checking my Gmail.)

side blog project

I have started a side blog called Bikes in New York. It's a photo blog, documenting the bikes I see around Manhattan and Brooklyn, since there are so many different /interesting ones. Feel free to put it on your RSS!

We are the hollow men

I now present you all with a guest entry. The fellow who wrote this wishes to be known as Dylan Trees.

Inspired a bit by PSFK’s ace ‘carnival of modern man’ thread, recently I’ve been mulling over current depictions of masculinity on the silver screen.

Four characters in particular paint a very specific portrait of modern man in all his failed glory – hollow men in a quest to fill the void. They happen to appear in my four favourite films of the past four years:

Bob Harris (Bill Murray - Lost in Translation)
Miles (Paul Giamatti - Sideways)
Joel Barish (Jim Carrey - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson)

These ‘hollow men’ represent different ages (20s, 30s, 40s, 50s), different locations, different professions. But in other ways they are very alike:

1) The characters have a general sense of hopelessness, vacuity, dissatisfaction
2) Their sexual relationships are incompetent or unfulfilled
3) They are almost comically non-physical and non-confrontational
4) Each man is struggling against himself more than external factors. (In ESOTSM Joel is literally fighting with his own psyche).
5) The end of each film goes only part way to resolving the conflict. Not so much riding off into the sunset as a watery winter’s dawn. What does Bob say to Charlotte? Does Miles get the girl? Will Joel’s failed relationship inevitably repeat itself? Does Dan kick the habit? Are we meant to guess? Are we meant to care?

The overall sense of ambiguity and half-success serves as a powerful representation of the state that 21st Century Man has got himself into. It is a new era for Man, distinct from New Man of the 1990s. That was cosmetic and cynical – an easy feminising of the male archetype. Hollow Man is more complex and troubled. And much harder for marketers to reach or exploit. Hollow Man has no idea what he stands for. He is beyond the help of brands.

Hollow Man is fragile and fallible, and as a result completely fascinating. Give me a Bob, Miles, Joel or Dan over a Rocky or McClane any day.

I was very relieved to read that last paragraph, because I was starting to question myself in being attracted to this type of character. I agree with Dylan Trees, 100%. This very well could be a new and emerging archetype in this century - a thirteenth one that should be added amongst the magicians, mavericks and everymen of the world (on this note, I recommend the book The Hero and the Outlaw, which is a fascinating look at archetypes and how they can be applied to brands today). Along with this, visit Mr. Trees at his blog.

butterflies

This is still my favorite ad for New York City. I feel fluttery every time I see it peeking out of someone's pocket.

optimism

I saw this on an ad exec's Starbucks cup this morning during a meeting... couldn't exactly take a photo at that point.

"I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stumped by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, “hi.” They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word." Augusten Burroughs